3rd Sunday of Lent, Year C, 24.03.2019

Exodus 3:1-8, 13-15 / 1 Cor 10:1-6, 10-12 / Luke 13:1-9
One of the reasons for accepting and embracing a religion is this age-old need for protection and security in a world where violence and hostility seem so common.

And the violence and hostility have often resulted in the shedding of innocent blood. So the violence and hostility are directed at innocent and defenseless people who have no means to avert it or to stop it.

That makes people realise that they need God to watch over them (despite whatever human security measures there might be) and protection from unforeseen dangers and snares.

But in recent times, even places of prayer and worship don’t seem to be safe any longer. Churches have been bombed and attacked and worshippers were killed.

Last week, in New Zealand, two mosques were attacked by gunmen and a number were killed and wounded.

So where once it was unthinkable, now the evil of hostility and violence has attacked the sacred spaces of prayer and worship and also shed innocent blood.

Putting it plainly and starkly, evil has attacked the House of God and shed blood on holy ground. Where once it was unthinkable, now that is the reality and it is causing anxiety and fear and the faith is shaken. Just yesterday, a priest was stabbed during Mass at a Canadian church and it was live-streamed on TV. It was shocking, but thanks be to God, the priest only suffered minor upper body injuries.

So can we feel safe anymore as we come to church to pray and worship. Will God protect us from the evil of hostility, violence and terrorism? Does God know? And if He knows, why is He not doing anything to stop this evil and those who are doing it? 

In the gospel, we hear of something very disturbing and disgusting. Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with that of their sacrifices.

There were not many details about it but it can be certain that it was an occult ritual. 

But Jesus didn’t seem to address this aspect of evil. Rather, He addressed the aspect of sin. He said that those Galileans who were killed were not more sinful than the rest of the other Galileans, nor were those 18 who were killed when the tower of Siloam collapsed on them.

The Galileans and those 18 were killed not because they were more sinful than the rest. Nor were those who died from terrorism attacks. They were certainly not more sinful than the rest.

And then Jesus gets to the point as He says: But unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.

And we should be bewildered. So here we are telling Jesus about this rampant evil of hostility, violence and terrorism, and He tells us that we should repent.

Of course we will protest. Jesus should make those evil people repent, and maybe tell us to forgive them. But why is He telling us to repent?

And here is where we have to turn back to the 1st and 2nd readings to understand why Jesus is telling us to repent.

The 1st reading tells us that God saw the miserable state of His people in Egypt. He heard their appeal to be free of their slave-drivers. He was aware of their sufferings and He intended to do something.

So He called out to Moses and gave him the mission to deliver His people out of the hands of the Egyptians and bring them to the Promised Land.

So God sees, God hears, God knows and God will act. And He told Moses that the people just had to invoke the name of the Lord God and He would come to their help and deliver them and be their Protector.

So all was well and good until the 2nd reading tells us that though God led His people through the desert and provided food and drink for them as they went, most of them failed to please God and their corpses littered the desert.

The 2nd reading continues: These things all happened as warnings for us, not to have the wicked lusts for forbidden things that they had. You must never complain as some of them did, and they were killed by the Destroyer.

It ends off by giving us this warning: The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall.

So what God wants of us is our obedience and faithfulness. But when we sin, we create openings for evil to enter into our lives and in doing so, we become like those who complained and then perished in the desert.
Our sins will also weaken the faith of the Church and the threats of the evil of hostility, violence and terrorism becomes greater. It can be observed that as the faith of the Church grows weaker, the threat of the evil of terrorism becomes stronger.

Our safety is not just in tight security measures or having heavily-armed security personnel. Our safety and security lies in our obedience and faithfulness to God who is our Protector and Saviour.

It is said that evil can only thrive when the good do nothing about it. And evil will thrive as long as the faith of the Church is weak.

So let us heed the call of Jesus to repent. Let us renounce our sins, go for Confession, be faithful and obedient and call upon the name of the Lord to protect us and God will protect us and save us. That is His promise to us. 

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year C, 17.03.2019

Genesis 15:5-12, 17-18 / Philippians 3:17 – 4:1 / Luke 9:28-36
The season of Lent is indeed a spiritual season. It puts before us the three spiritual disciplines that will help us to respond to the call of repentance and prepare us for the renewal of faith.

The three spiritual disciplines are prayer, penance and almsgiving. Practically speaking, all the three spiritual disciplines are “do-able”, i.e. they can be done. The question is the level of difficulty in each of them.

Let us look at “almsgiving”. This weekend, the “Charities Week” envelopes are distributed to us to help us respond to the call of almsgiving.

There are a couple of things that we can do with these envelopes. We can leave it at the pews. Or we can put in some money and drop it immediately into one of the donation boxes and then forget about it.

Or we can bring it home and leave it lying around and slowly let it disappear from our sight and from our conscience.

Or we can look at it and think about it and count our blessings, in the sense that we have to honestly ask ourselves how much God has blessed us with, either materially or financially.

Will we consider the Old Testament practice of offering back to God one-tenth of what we have received from Him?

So the “Charities Week” envelope is not a piece of paper for us to put in some money. It is for us to do some thinking and to do some generous giving.

When it comes to penance, what comes to mind especially in the season of Lent is fasting and abstinence from certain kinds of foods.

While fasting and abstinence have health benefits for the body, what do they do for the soul? Certainly, food and drink are the basic necessities of life.

But when we fast and abstain, we will come to see that as much as we want to eat till our hearts content, we only need that little to get through the day.

So it is a want versus a need. And as we fast and abstain, we will come to see that God has blessed us with enough for everyone’s need, but there will never be enough for everyone’s greed.   

So fasting and abstinence are forms of prayer through which God tells us that as much as food and drink can satisfy a hungry stomach, only He can fill an empty and thirsty heart.

In the gospel, we heard that Jesus brought Peter, James and John up the mountain not for any other purpose but to pray.

And for Peter, James and John, praying on that mountain was no ecstasy. In fact, they were sleepy.

And that too is our experience. And we even beat the 3 apostles in some areas of prayer. Besides being sleepy during prayer, we get distracted with our gadgets, we speed up our prayer so that we say what we need to say quickly, we skip our prayers although we won’t skip our meals. 

Yet, in the presence of those three sleepy-heads, something wonderful happened. As Jesus prayed, the aspect of His face was changed and His clothes became brilliant as lightning.

This event is called the Transfiguration, and it is important enough that the three gospels have recorded it and in Singapore there is also a church named after it.

Essentially, the Transfiguration is a revelation. The Transfiguration reveals Jesus in His glory, His glory that is hidden in the ordinary.

The Transfiguration also reveals the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, the Chosen One, the one who we must listen to.

So as we listen to the account of the Transfiguration, what does God wants to reveal to us?

One thing for sure is that God reveals to us in the ordinary things and events of our lives. So with the Lenten spiritual disciplines of prayer, penance and almsgiving, they reveal to us who we are and also who God is in our lives.

Besides those three spiritual disciplines, the ordinary things of life can also reveal to us who God is in the ordinary people around us.

A man was late for Mass and he hurried to church and got to his pew just in time for the opening prayer. But as he bowed his head, he noticed the shoe of the old man next to him touching his own shoe. He sighed to himself, “So much room. WHY must he let his dirty shoe touch mine?”

This bothered the man greatly but it didn’t seem to bother the old man at all.

He tried to pay attention to the Mass but his thoughts kept going to the old man’s dirty shoes that were touching his nice looking shoes. 

The old man sang the hymns loudly, but the man with the nice shoes was irritated. He grumbled to himself, “Wear dirty shoes still want to sing so loud.”

After Mass, the man wanted to have a word with the old man about entering the church in his dirty shoes. He tried to be polite so he began with, “Hi, how are you?”

The old man’s face brightened up and he said, “You know, I have been coming here for a few months already and you are the first to say “Hi” to me. The old man continued, “I know that my appearance is not like all the rest of you, but I really do try to always look my best. I try to look my best and clean my shoes before I come to church, but my long walk to church made my clothes wet with sweat and my shoes become dirty and dusty.”

When the man heard this, he could only bow his head and look at the old man’s dirty shoes. And the old man continued, “I am sorry if my dirty shoes touched your nice shoes. I am sorry.”

The man managed to say, “Oh please don’t say sorry. Your shoes are not that dirty.” And he said silently to himself, “My heart is dirtier …”

Well, ordinary shoes, maybe a bit dirty, but through it God makes a revelation and a heart receives a transfiguration.

So as we continue climbing the mountain of Lent, let us look for the signs of revelation from God. It is in those revelations that our hearts will receive a transfiguration.

1st Sunday of Lent, Year C, 10.03.2019

Deuteronomy 26:4-10 / Romans 10:8-13 / Luke 4:1-13
The Catholic Church has a Ritual Book of Blessings and in it are the prayers of blessings for people and for things.

So the prayers of blessings for people include birthday blessings, wedding anniversary blessings, blessing of expectant parents, blessing of children and adults in the various situations of life.

And then there are blessings for things from the holy to the ordinary. So there are blessings for chalice and paten, ciborium, vestments, cross, statues, bells, right down to water, oil, salt and candles.

And then come those extra-ordinary blessings which may happen only once a year, like blessing of palm branches which happens on Palm Sunday.

Last Wednesday, which was Ash Wed, we had one of those extra-ordinary blessing, which is the blessing of ashes, and the ashes are obtained by burning the palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday. That is why we requested for the return of the palm branches.

Now the prayer for blessing of the ashes goes like this:
O God, who desire not the death of sinners, but their conversion. Mercifully hear our prayers and in your kindness be pleased to bless + these ashes, which we intend to receive upon our heads, that we, who acknowledge we are but ashes and shall return to dust, may through a steadfast observance of Lent, gain pardon for sins and newness of life after the likeness of your Risen Son.

So as we are marked with the blessed ashes, we are reminded that we are dust, we ask for forgiveness of our sins, we ask for the grace to be faithful, for God does not want us to perish but to have life in the Risen Christ.

And with the ashes marked on our foreheads on Ash Wed, we begin the season of Lent, the 40 days of Lent, which is focused on repentance and conversion.

But it is only on Ash Wed that we are marked with ashes and not for 40 days. And even for those of us who are marked with ashes on Ash Wed, as we leave after Mass, some would want to wipe off the ashes on their foreheads as quickly as possible.

Although it would be a good sign of witnessing to our faith, we are not too sure about what others might think of it. Especially after the evening Mass of Ash Wed, when we walk around with those ashes in the form of a cross on our foreheads, others might not want to take the lift with us, or that they might just want to avoid us.

And those ashes can be quite messy, they are rough, they can cause an irritation for those who have sensitive skin. In short, there is nothing really nice about those ashes.

But it was just for one day, and even then not for the whole day, nor for 40 days.

But in the Old Testament, as a sign of repentance, those rough, messy ashes are put on the head and face, besides also wearing sack-cloth.

So, yes, ashes are only for Ash Wed. But it is also a start to the 40 days of Lent. There is no need to put on ashes for 40 days, but those ashes should also make us reflect and meditate about those 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert. So it is like from ashes to Jesus.

And on this 1st Sunday of Lent, we hear once again the account of Jesus in His 40 days in the desert, and being tempted by the devil.

The devil tempted Jesus with only three temptations. If He were the Son of God, then He could turn the stones into bread to feed His hunger. He would be safe, even if He were to jump off the parapet of the Temple. And He could have all the earthly power and glory if He just bowed down to the devil.

These three temptations could be just simply put like this – The devil tempted Jesus with what He would want. And yet in overcoming the temptations, Jesus showed us what we really need. So essentially, it is a want versus a need.

The devil’s temptation is to confuse us between a want and a need. Well, “want” has four letters, and so is “need”.

And it is in those areas of our life that we must see the similarities as well as the differences.

“Love” has four letters, and so has “hate”. We want to love those who love us and hate those who are against us. Yet Jesus tells us that it is in loving our enemies that we will know the greatness of the capacity of love that God has created in our hearts.

And talking about “enemies”, that word has seven letters, and so has “friends”. We want friends and we don’t need enemies. But often it is our so-called friends who will hurt us and betray us.

We want God to give us success and we blame God when we fail. “Success” and “failure” has the same number of words. Success can get into our heads and make us proud, but failure will always keep us humble and dependent on God.

So in many areas of our life, there seem to be similarities as well as differences. A want may seem like a need. But a want is only for ourselves, and a need is essentially for us to turn back to God and trust in Him.

So let us remember those ashes on Ash Wed, and let us follow Jesus into the 40 days of Lent. May we see that we will always be tempted on what we want, but Jesus will help us to know what we truly need.

May we rise from ashes, and rise to trust in Jesus. 

8th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 02.03.2019

Ecclesiasticus 27:4-7 / 1 Cor 15:54-58 / Luke 6:39-45
Let us begin with a riddle: what has words but does not speak?  - A book.

What has words but no one reads? – the Terms and Conditions, usually in small print (maybe they don’t want us to read it)

It is also said that actions speak louder than words. Of course we presume that those are edifying actions. Yet for those of us who are drivers, we also know that on the road, some hand gestures done with a finger can mean very impolite words.

What has words but no one wants to hear – an angry person. The tongue has no bones but it can break the heart. And the tongue of an angry person can cause a heart attack, to the one who is listening and maybe even to the one using it.

The tendency is that we use bad words to express our angry and bitter feelings. And there are some days the supply of available swear words are inefficient to meet our demands. Oh yes, we have those kind of days. 

But bad moods and volatile emotions are never reasons to curse and use cruel words. And even if we regret it later, we can’t simply brush it off with “I didn’t mean what I said”. No. We meant what we said. Just that at that moment, we couldn’t control it and we let it fly off our mouth before tasting those words.

The problem is that we will never know how long our words will stay in someone’s heart, even long after we have forgotten that we said them, whether for better or for worse.

Already from this, we are reminded of the lessons of life. One of which is that we must control our tongue when our heart is bitter. Certainly, silence is better than angry words.

And also angry words are spoken with a raised voice. But instead of raising our voice, let us raise our words. It is the rain that grows flowers, not the thunder.

But words, whether kind or otherwise, are just expressions from a source. The source of our words is none other than our heart.

And that’s why Jesus said in today’s gospel passage that a man’s words flow out from what fills his heart.

And that’s why words can heal or hurt. It is from one heart to another. Only a heart can heal another heart, and a heart can break another heart, with words that flow from the heart.

As Jesus said, a good man draws what is good from the goodness of his heart; a bad man draws what is bad from the store of badness from his heart.

There is this story of two altar servers.
Two altar servers lived in two different cities, serving in different churches, but both of them wanted to become priests. Both of them had the exact same experience.

One altar server was late for Mass. Because he was in a hurry to do everything he needed to do, he accidentally knocked the chalice that contained the wine. After the Mass, the priest called the boy and shouted, “Get out of here! You’ll never serve as an altar server again!”

At another church, the altar server was also late for Mass. And he too, knocked the chalice that contained the wine, spilling it onto the floor. After the Mass, the priest, called the altar server and said, “It's all right. You'll do better next time. You'll be a fine priest for God someday.”

Thirty years later, the second altar server became Archbishop Fulton Sheen, one of the most loved religious leaders in America. 
And the other altar server? He became Joseph Tito, an atheist and the ruthless dictator of Yugoslavia.

Words are powerful. They can heal or hurt. They can encourage or destroy.

Every day, we hear polite and kind words, as well as impolite and hurtful words. And then what happens? Our heart is like a sink-trap. All the polite and kind words get drained away quickly and what is left in the sink-trap are the remnants, and in this case, the impolite and hurtful words.

Much as those remnants in the sink-trap are to be gotten rid of, somehow we let them stay there, right in our hearts. And of course those things don’t do any good to our hearts.

And today, Jesus talks about what is stored in our hearts. He reminds us that our hearts are created to be good, because our hearts are created by God.

Jesus wants to clean our hearts of all that rubbish that is caught in the sink-trap of our hearts.

Jesus wants to clean and heal our hearts and make it a store of goodness. Jesus wants to make our hearts like His.

There are many ways that we can let Him clean our hearts. One way is through prayer. Another can be through the Devotion to the Sacred Heart.

We have just launched a new revised edition of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and it is now available.

Just as a heart can break another heart, so too a heart can also heal another heart.

Jesus wants to clean and heal our hearts with His blood and cleansing water that flows from His heart.

Let us prepare our hearts to be cleansed and healed through the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and through atonement and reparation.

May we let Jesus fill our hearts with His love, so that from what fills our hearts, our mouths will give thanks and praise, and proclaim the Good News of God’s love to others.

7th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 24.02.2019

1 Sam 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 / 1 Cor 15:45-49 / Luke 6:27-38
It is said that all men are equal. But in reality that may just be a notion.

Because in the reality of this world, there is always some kind of disparity.

Just like there is light and darkness, so there is the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the proud and the humble, the quick and the slow.

In this kind of disparity, inevitably there will emerge a bully. A bully is someone who seeks to harm or intimidate those whom he thinks are vulnerable and cannot stand up against him or cannot fight against him.

It is acknowledged that bullying happens in school, at the workplace, and wherever we can think of.

And because of social media, bullying is not just confined to a physical locality. Because there is now cyber bullying, and the bully can torment his victim almost round-the-clock, 24/7.

But what makes a person become a bully and why does he not stop being one?
As it is, the disparity in society will tempt the stronger to flaunt his strength on the weaker, maybe just to boast to others, or just to show off.

Another reason can be like what happened to king Saul in the 1st reading. As the king, he was jealous of David for being more popular than he was, and we also remember David’s bravery and victory in the battle between David and Goliath.

So jealousy turned Saul into a bully, and even into a killer, as he took 3000 handpicked men to hunt down David and his companions.

It was a massive manhunt and David would not stand a chance, if not for his trust in the Lord.

David trusted in the Lord and took refuge in the Lord as his protector and his rescuer. 

And this is where we can learn from David, who was not just bullied by Saul, but his life was in danger.

In the face of bullying and persecution, the Lord is our only help and refuge and our protector. There is no point in trying to stand up to a bully or fight a hostile persecutor. We can’t win and we might get badly hurt.

And as the 1st reading tells us, David, with the protection of God, eluded Saul’s attempts to capture him. But then one night the tables were turned. 

David found himself standing over the sleeping Saul and a spear was at hand. Saul was a sitting duck (and a sleeping duck). Just one thrust of the spear into the heart of Saul and that would be the sweetest revenge for David.

But sweet revenge is just a notion. Can revenge ever be sweet? It is said that if you want to take revenge, then first you need to dig two graves – one for your enemy, and one for yourself.

In every act of revenge, at least two lives will be lost, whether literally or figuratively. So revenge can never be sweet. In fact, revenge is always sour and bitter.

So in the 1st reading, David wants to tell us all this. Taking the life of Saul might be easy but the consequences will be heavy.

So in short, if the Lord saved David’s life from Saul, then David had to spare Saul’s life. The hunted cannot turn into a hunter.

In the gospel, Jesus gives us a teaching about how we ought to treat our enemies.

When we think about our enemies, what comes to mind are those who bully us, those who do bad things to us, those who persecute us for no reason. And for some reason, we cannot get back, we cannot retaliate.

And so resentment, anger, bitterness and hatred begin to build up in us. But as it was for David, so it will be for us. One day, we will stand over our sleeping enemy, and all that anger, resentment, bitterness and hatred will make us want to grab that spear and thrust it deep into our enemy’s heart. But would that be sweet revenge?

This teaching of Jesus, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly” is a very difficult teaching to follow.

Yet, that difficult teaching comes with a promise from the Lord, that He will be our refuge and protector, He will save us from those who bully us, who hate us, who curse us.

Yes, the Lord will save us just as He saved David. Let us not grab that spear and thrust it into the heart of the sleeping enemy. Let us not turn into a hunter and a persecutor and lose God’s protection over us.

Let us follow the teaching of Jesus and let Jesus fight our battles for us, so His blessings of a full measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into our hearts.

6th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 17.02.2019

Jeremiah 17:5-8 / 1 Cor 15:12, 16-20 / Luke 6:17, 20-26
Compared with other years, this year the Lunar New Year celebrations can actually go on for 15 days for Catholics, as the season of Lent is starting later, in fact, in two weeks’ time.

Even Valentine’s Day is outside of the season of Lent. If we can remember, last year’s Valentine’s Day was smack right on Ash Wednesday. It’s kind of funny to think of trying to have a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner with bread and water.

And talking about Valentine’s Day, and the other days of the year, there is this reflection about days:

If you marry the right person, every day is Valentine’s Day.
Marry the wrong person, every day is Good Friday.
Marry a lazy person, every day is Labour Day.
Marry a rich person, every day is New Year’s Day.
Marry an immature person, every day is Children’s Day.
Marry a cheater or liar, every day is April Fool’s Day.
And if you don’t get married, every day is Independence Day.

It is understandable that we wish and desire that every day will be a good and happy day. But we also know that it’s not going to be like that.

And we know by now that there is no rainbow without the rain, and there is no gain without the pain.

So as much as we greet each other with those Lunar New Year greetings and well-wishes such as “xin nian kuai le”, and “gong xi fa cai”, and as much as we really mean it, we also brace ourselves for difficult and tough times.

But with the eyes of faith, we will see opportunity in adversity and creativity in difficulty.

So when we read about what Jesus is saying in the gospel, we need to read it with the eyes of faith, and it is with the eyes of faith that we can see the truth of what Jesus is saying.

In short, Jesus is saying blessed are those who are poor, hungry, weeping and hated. At the same time, Jesus also said that woe will come to those who are rich, full, laughing  and praised.

A cursory reading of the gospel text may lead us to start wondering about a few things. Is Jesus propagating poverty and a masochistic life-style? Is He having something against riches and wealth?

But with the eyes of faith, we can see that Jesus is teaching a truth of life here. He is not just challenging the ways and values of the world. He is also showing how God blesses His people.

And God’s blessings come down on those who are poor, hungry, weeping and who are hated. God is there for them and will bless them because God knows that they have no one to turn to and nothing else to rely on.

Whereas for those who are rich, full, laughing and praised, they are so wealthy, there is no more hunger in them. Everything seems easy and smooth and they have the high ratings.

So will they ever need God? Maybe, but God is just one of the options. But that option will be the direction when there is desperation.

So as we think about it, if wealth equals happiness then the rich should be playing on the streets, but only the poor kids do that.

If power ensures security, then the high-ranking officials should walk around unguarded. But it is the simple and little people who sleep soundly.

And if beauty and fame bring about ideal relationships, then celebrities should have the best marriages and families.

So what Jesus said in the gospel today makes us look at the adversities and difficulties of life and look at them with the eyes of faith.

And we want to believe that it is in the adversities and difficulties that God is going to rain down His blessings. Because it is in our adversities and difficulties that we become the poor, the hungry, the weeping and the hated. It is the very people that Jesus said that God will bless and bless abundantly.

And we see these people in the Bible. God put a baby in the arms of the 99 year-old Sarah, He parted the Red Sea for Moses, He closed the jaws of the lions for Daniel, He opened the prison for Peter.

They were in some kind of adversity and difficulty. They had no one else to turn to but to God. And God blessed them abundantly.

And we also know of people who faced adversity but saw opportunity, people who faced difficulty but were blessed with creativity.

So as much as we wish to be rich, full, laughing and praised, let us not be obsessed by it and fret that we don’t have it.

And when we face adversity and difficulty, let us not be in distress about it. Let us rejoice actually. Because it is then that God is blessing us abundantly. 

May we have the eyes of faith to see it and know that we need only God and God alone.

5th Ordinary Sunday, Year C, 10.02.2019

Isaiah 6:1-8 / 1 Cor 15:1-11 / Luke 5:1-11

During this festive season, besides the usual visiting and eating and weight-gaining, there is also one unique thing that we would have done, and it happens only during this festive season.

It is claimed to be a local creation, and it is called “lou hei” (Yusheng), and translated into English it means Prosperity Toss.

It is a pre-meal dish, like a sort of appetizer, and it usually consists of strips of raw fish or abalone, mixed with shredded vegetables and other sauces and condiments, each with some kind of symbolic prosperity meaning.

The practice is that all at the table would dig their chopsticks into this dish and toss the ingredients as high as possible and wishing each other good luck, prosperity, good health and everything good.

And even if we ran out of well-wishes, we can just say “Fatt!” or “Huat!” meaning “prosper!” That is why it is called a Prosperity Toss. And the restaurants and those selling it are certainly prospering from it.

Certainly, as we begin the Lunar New Year, we want life to be well and good and to be prosperous. 

We are prepared to work hard for it because we know that good things don’t come easy. We also know that if it is easy come, then it is also easy go.

But if we had worked hard and yet we gained nothing and have nothing to show for all our effort then how are we going to come to terms with it?

Is it that we are unlucky, or we just missed those opportunities, or that at the “lou hei” there is always someone tossing higher than us, or what?

Maybe that was what Simon Peter was thinking about as he washed his fishing nets. He had worked hard all night long and yet caught nothing.

It was all just so wasted, with nothing to show for all the time, the energy and the effort. Was there something wrong that even the fishes avoided him?

Then came along Jesus who told him to go out into the deep and pay the nets out for a catch. For a carpenter to tell a fisherman how to catch fish, it does not make much sense.

Maybe Peter was desperate or despondent, or that he just wanted to prove that Jesus was wrong. Nonetheless, he did as Jesus told him, and behold, an amazing catch of fish that it filled two boats to sinking point.

More than just an amazing catch, it was also an amazing revelation for Peter as he went down on his knees and exclaimed, “Leave me, Lord, I am a sinful man.”

So we can see that when God blesses us with a fortune, there is also an accompanying revelation. The problem is that we can get so engrossed with the fortune that we missed the revelation and what God wants to say to us.

Now, let’s say as you begin the new year, you win a prize!
And these are the details of the prize:
Each morning your bank will deposit $86,400.00 into your private account for your personal use.
However, this prize comes with rules just like any game has certain rules.
The first set of rules would be this:
1.  The money that you do not spend at the end of each day would be taken away from you.
2. You cannot simply transfer the money into some other account.
3. Only you can spend it.
So each morning when you wake up, the bank opens your account with $86,400.00 for that day.
The second set of rules is this:
1. The bank can end the daily deposits without warning.  At any time it can say, “It’s over, the deposits are over!”
2. It will close the account and you will not receive a new one.
So with $86,400 what would you want to do with it?
You would buy anything and everything you wanted, right?
Not only for yourself, but for all the people you love and your friends as well, right?
Even for people you don’t know you would also want to spend it on them, because you couldn’t possibly spend it all on yourself, right?
You would try to spend every cent, and use it all, right?

Well actually the daily deposit is about life! 
Each of us is in possession of such a “magical” bank account. Just that we don’t see it.
THE MAGICAL BANK IS TIME!
Each morning upon awakening, we receive 86,400 seconds as a gift of life for that day, and when we go to sleep at night, any remaining time is NOT credited to us.
What we haven’t lived up to that day is forever lost.
Yesterday is forever gone. Last year is gone forever.
Each morning the account is refilled, but the bank can dissolve your account at any time ……. WITHOUT WARNING!
Well, what would you do with your 86,400 seconds?
Aren’t they worth so much more than the same amount in dollars? In fact they are worth much more.

So when Simon Peter looked at that huge catch of fish, he could have just been engrossed with it and think of how much money he could make from it.

But he caught the revelation of who Jesus is and who he is.

So as we continue with the Lunar New Year celebrations with the “lou hei” and toss up for prosperity, let us also listen to what God wants to tell us and see what He wants to show us.

Let us lift up our minds and hearts to Jesus to be His fishers of men and to be His workers in the harvest.

That will truly be our joy and happiness.