Last Saturday in Bangkok, more than 200,000 people gathered to sing the royal anthem in tribute and remembrance of the late King. Individually they came, collectively they formed a sea of black clad mourners. These past 2 weeks, witnessing this expression of love has surprised, and at times overwhelmed me, a foreigner living amongst them. Literally, I wish I could climb a tree to see this touching spectacle, this manifestation of emotions, this sea of unifying love. 

Love surprises when it brings us far beyond what we thought are our limitations. It overwhelms when it touches us deep inside, perhaps right where our true identity lies, the core of our being, often hidden beneath expectations and desires of our worldly life. Supressed, subdued, awaiting a call to be set free. 

Many of us are like Zacchaeus. We deem ourselves somewhat unworthy, disbelieving that we are deserving of God’s grace. Amongst people who know us, it will seem unlikely that we are capable to live a holy life. We are camouflaged by the world, our manifested identities lost in the changing colours of a chameleon. But deep in each of us we all have a desire for good. Embedded in this desire is a constant call to bring this identity to the forefront of our lives; to live it. “For the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost”. 

This call is amplified when some things happen to us in life and through these experiences our innermost identity is touched and aroused. It is especially amplified when we experience love over hurt. It moves us when relationships are mended and we reconcile. The joy it brings can overwhelm us to the point of wanting to change our lives; the love experienced, an inspiration to conversion. 

We must seek out experiences of love and save what had been lost in our personal life, and it could be our relationship with the Son of Man. 

Change is not that difficult. Who we can become is already in all of us. We only need to “climb a tree”, to take a physical step however small that may be to demonstrate that we are a willing party for conversion. That is good enough, and God “will make you worthy of his call, and by his power fulfil all your desires for goodness”. It ask only for a small step and an ounce of faith and he will “complete all that you have been doing through faith”. 

We must have heard our fair share of stories of people who have encountered the love of God through reconciliation and how their lives have changed for the better. We have been curious by the transforming effect in people around us but despite it, some of us may still find ourselves stalled in spiritual inertia. It may be due to our perceived unworthiness or lack of belief in ourselves. But sometimes we are simply contented being “ourselves”, unfussed by the tiny ounce of curiosity.  

We must then be like Zacchaeus, not suppressing our curiosity but “climb a tree” to address our “anxiety to see what kind of man Jesus is”. His simple action opened the door to his inner self, into his hidden true identity of one who knows love, is loved and can love. It opened the door to ‘change’ and began the process of his conversion. “Hurry, because I must stay in your house today”. 

Love as I have witnessed in Thailand is a powerful tool of conversion. Alone, it transform self; together it transform a nation. It brings us beyond personal boundaries and we discover the grace to reconcile. Together it unifies, crossing divides of differences. Love gives hope, and with hope, sadness will become joy. 

But it begins with me. I must make that effort to go to the Palace to be part of the 200,000. I must do my small part; I am called to conversion. Individually we change, collectively we become an ocean of good. Change, conversion, is really not that difficult. We only need to tell ourselves, “I must climb the sycamore tree”.

A centuries old sycamore tree in Jericho

31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; all there is to come now is the crown of righteousness reserved for me. 

We oscillate between self-made and God made. There is a tug of war between worldly and spiritual. Exalted against humble. Self-righteousness versus true righteousness.

Our identity falls somewhere in between that of the Pharisee and the tax collector. We know we need to be humble but struggle to remain. The races of this world declares a winner when we have left everyone behind. The race St Paul speaks of is not of winning but of completing. “I have run the race to the finish”.

Everyday life constantly demands a race out of us. We fight to be the best in school, at work, in social life and in everything we do. Meritocracy is the system, and often there is nothing much wrong with that, and there is nothing much we can do about it. The world rewards a winner. And so ‘I’ need to excel and to exalt myself.

Christian life reminds ‘me’ that every time ‘I’ win, there will be a trail of disappointed people as a consequence. But I cannot give up my place in university or my promotion at work. I have earned it. It is mine. ‘I’ am blessed with abundant gifts and talents. ‘I’ have made the most of it, seizing opportunities that come my way. A self-made man, “God, be thankful for me, a winner” who have used your gifts to the full.

Everyday Christian life calls out to us. It reminds us of the people around us, those left in the trail of disappointments; those perhaps who have less than us. To win the race in everyday life, we have to use our talents and outfight everyone else. To win the race in Christian life, the one St Paul described, is to use our talents and help those around us, to finish the race.

Christian life is a journey. Born into this world, a journey that can take us in many directions. Like an open desert, we can go in any direction but risk being lost. But God has given us a compass and equipped us with talents.

Our race is to get away from the poverty of this worldly life into the riches of the heaven of eternal life. On the way, we fight the elements of this world, the distractions that will lead us off course and deeper into a desert of spiritual poverty. To God, the ‘winner’ are those who complete the race of life, not by being the only one emerging from it, but rather how we fought to stay the course of Christian morality. He crowns those who had been righteous in his name.

Often it involves us using our gifts and talents to help the neighbours along the way to finish their race as we finish ours. It is not about crossing the finish line alone and ahead of everyone else but rather to cross it with as many neighbours as we can in whose lives we had made a helpful impact.

Our present identity probably falls somewhere in between that of the Pharisee and the tax collector; the value system of this world constantly lures us deeper into desert of spiritual poverty but the voice of the Spirit is often heard in the desert calling us into a humility of total dependence on God to lead us into heavenly riches. This tug of war, this oscillation, is our conversion process.

This is our true race: to complete our conversion when instead of saying “God be thankful for I am a winner”, we say “God be merciful to me, a sinner”. In this fight to complete our race, humility is our grinding stone. To God, be the glory.

The journey to complete our race of life. We fight to get out of the desert of worldly life into the oasis of heavenly life

 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

When life is completed it will look like an intricate mosaic. We are each like a small mosaic tile, insignificant on our own but together become a beautiful image. The image loses perfection with the absence of one single tile. It does not matter which part of the mosaic we sit, even if we are right in the middle. Because alone, we cannot carry the overall beauty of the image of the mosaic. When we live life side by side with one another, we each play a contributing role in the beauty of life. 

Life is this intricate mosaic. We ask for space to fit in among other tiles. At the same time, we must give space to ensure that neighbouring tiles fit in around us. In life, sometimes we ask, sometimes we give. We can sympathise with today’s poor widow asking but often in life we also play the role of the judge, unjust in many ways, often in delaying to give when we can. Other tiles have to wait to fit in around us, and they may wait a long time. 

When we pray to ask God for something in life, he as the Ultimate Giver will want to grant it to us. But he depends also on others to cooperate in the giving. If left up to him alone, there will be no hunger or poverty in this world. But worldly life is a journey towards salvation and on our ticket to this ride, it states that we will all be given a free choice to give and take. We, as “others”, have a choice to exercise our right to give, and how speedily we choose to exercise this right.  

In God’s picture of salvation, each tile has just rights to sit beside each other. This is God’s plan, this his will. Ultimately, we will all fit. This is his faithful promise.

Today he assures us, “will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them?” but we “need to pray continually and never lose heart” or “to pray always without becoming weary”.  

In asking, we can and will be tired of waiting because of our human nature. But because we live in faith journeying towards the promise of eternal salvation, we must not grow weary or lose heart. The answer will come.  

In giving, we can soothe the tiredness of others by reducing the time of their waiting when we give speedily. We as a single mosaic tile must polish our rough edges so that other tiles can fit in beautifully around us. “Giving” is this polish. This is the wisdom from the second reading today, “the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” as we have a capacity to be a dedicated giver “fully equipped and ready for any good work”. 

Life in motion is the dynamics of asking and giving, each person co-existing next to one another. The perfect mosaic of salvation is to have every tile smoothened on its edges in place, all together forming an image that tells a perfect story of our journey together to claim salvation. God, the ultimate giver himself provides his Love as fuel to set life in motion, and the glue that hold all the tiles in place in picture perfect harmony. 

Moses, on journey in the first reading, is this image of perfect harmony. He raised his arms up till they were tired in asking but he never grew weary because he knew of God’s love. As he asked, he was also giving; his tiredness pushed his capacity to its limits. Through his giving “the edge of the sword of Joshua cut down Amalek and his people”. 

For us to be the one tile in the mosaic of life, we must not be weary in asking nor tired in giving.

Each tile insignificant on its own but together become a beautiful mosaic at the house of St Peter in Capernaum

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

To be thankful and to be grateful is quite different. The 10 lepers in today’s passage would very likely all have been thankful to have found themselves cured. Being thankful is part of our human nature. If we found ourselves in the situation of these 10, we would have muttered, or even shouted “Thank God!” 

We would have gone on to capture the moment with a ‘selfie’, texted on instant messaging and posted on social media. We would have celebrated excitedly with friends and family this “miracle in my life”. Since we have been taught that God exists and “He can do great things” we may simply feel lucky to be a recipient of this gift. We do not get far beyond the point of muttering our thanks and nodding in heaven’s direction. This would have been so for many a number of factors but one of which is that we lack the awareness of God, present and interested in our personal life. 

One of ten dwelled on the moment. In dwelling into what had just happened, he silenced the distractions around him and overcame ‘the urge for a selfie’. In the silence he felt thankful, deeper down in him he felt a sense of gratefulness. The gratefulness was calling out to him to seek the Giver. He responded and through physical healing he found spiritual bliss.  

God is active in our everyday life but buried and hidden under the mayhem of the distractions of our worldly desires and priorities. Often unseen and unrealised, God puts to order the disorder of our personal life. Because of his unconditional love he will continue to do so for any “10 lepers” even if 9 went away each time without gratefulness.  

Gratefulness is a powerful blessing. It is a blessed tool to open our eyes to see the powerful presence of God in our personal life. Gratefulness opens up our heart to respond to this divine presence every day, every moment. Through gratefulness we become acutely aware of God and enter into a personal relationship with him. We go beyond the moment of thanks into the spiritual bliss of experiencing our faith.  

Gratefulness is a gentle way to journey towards God. God calls us to be closer to him every day but often we cannot hear his call amidst the loud cacophony of our daily distractions. We are much like the 9 lepers too busy and too excited wanting to get back quickly into the rhythm of our worldly life, not wanting to miss a beat.  

Often it is easier to see and hear God when we are in deep despair, when we have not much left and few people to turn too. In a prolonged period of darkness we stretched out our hands and grope desperately to find a divine presence. We break thresholds of pain through emotional sufferings before we wise up to embrace faith and go through healing to discover that God is present in our life every day, every moment. 

Gratefulness helps us to bypass the rough steps to climb towards God. Being grateful, not just merely thankful, for the many small blessings in our daily life keep our heart and eyes open to an unseen God who through his unconditional love want to be visible in our personal life. Being grateful is to dwell in God’s presence. The opportunities comes to us in many small gentle moments each day.

We can choose how we want to live our life. We can walk towards our Giver of life, thanking him each step along the way. And like the one leper, we can opt for the path of gratefulness as it is the gentle stairway to heaven.

Stone steps by the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu on which probably Jesus walked on from the Last Supper to Gethsamane

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I have been faithful to my belief in the Catholic Church all my life. Faith was built on teachings; catechism classes as a kid, and into Christian apologetics fiercely defending the faith as a young adult. There was an unshakeable conviction in my belief. Faith and belief were two of the same. I had always thought so. Without ever pondering on it, the difference in my understanding of belief and faith was probably the size on a mustard seed. 

We will only begin to ponder when our deeply held belief gets challenged. Often this happens when challenges in life turn into a crisis and we realise that our “deeply held belief” are not deeply rooted at all. Faith flickers to life when belief is almost dead. Faith becomes real when we enter into the darkness of a crisis, when we realise our “long held belief” did not buy us that ticket for a smooth sailing life.  

It is in that darkness where our small seed of faith germinates. When the going in life gets tough, when our belief can explain nothing no more, we search for the divine in our life. Our journey in life enters a deep, long tunnel. In that darkness, we see nothing and can only cling on to hope for light at the end of it. “Faith” says St Paul “is an assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”. 

Faith grows through our personal encounters with the Divine. When we pull out of the tunnel and look at our life in the light, the journey we had just travelled, we experience hope fulfilled. Understanding from belief becomes wisdom from faith. Such an experience in life gives birth to faith. Faith, unlike belief, cannot be taught. Faith is an experience and it grows from our many encounters with God on our journey through life. 

An encounter with God is an experience in life when we know we are being loved. This is the nature of God: to love us first, unconditionally and most times unseen. Faith open our eyes to see and our hearts to feel. Both love and faith cannot be rationalised in the mind. 

When we ask today “to increase my faith” we make ourselves available to experience the limitless, infinite depth of God’s Love. Imagine standing on the seashore and one tiny drop of the ocean represents the love of God we already experienced in our life journey thus far. “Increase our faith” make available for us the entire vastness and depth of the ocean. It is somewhat like having faith the size of only a mustard seed and we can say to a mulberry tree “Be uprooted and planted in the sea” and it will obey. 

This beggars belief but faith offers “not a spirit of timidity, but the Spirit of power, and love, and self-control” to embrace our journey in life. We cannot, and must not, be limited by the boundaries of belief. 

This is best summarised by the author Rea Nolan Martin who writes, “Belief is the product of the mind, but faith is not. Faith is the product of the spirit. The mind interferes in the process of faith more than it contributes to it. To have faith in the worst of times will no doubt require us to silence, or at least, to quiet the mind. Faith is what happens when our beliefs run aground. The spirit can be buoyed by our beliefs, but can also be brought down by them when they prove inadequate, as they most certainly will at some point in the journey”.  

Life is this journey from the head to the heart. Along the way, a mustard seed is all we need to be assured of things hoped for and be convinced of things yet unseen.

Mustard seeds in the compound of the Church of St Lazarus in Bethany

 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time