When I first got involved in church retreats I was always self-conscious that I must give the right answers. Everything was about knowing your catechism. When today’s question by Jesus came around, “Who do YOU say I am?”, I would look around sheepishly and search the floor for an answer. The little consolation to this was that I would have felt like the first disciples on a hot day in Caesarea Philippi when Jesus asked this question of them.

Like them, we need the right answer for the teacher. Unlike them, we have the answer in our books. The difference, and a life-changing difference this can be, is that we search the pages, while the disciples searched their real-life experiences. Then nothing had yet been written for them while today we are taught extensively from volumes of books. We too can give the right answer but the method of our arriving at the answer can be wrong.

“Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said, ‘the Son of the living God.’”

With the wrong process, getting the right answer in this case means naught. It does not bring out the value of what Peter’s declaration mean to our life on earth. Peter’s declaration came about through his personal experience of Jesus. He was further convinced when he witnessed the personal encounters of the disciples around him. Through these experiences and encounters, Peter enjoyed a personal relationship with Jesus.

To answer the question “Who do YOU say I am?”, we must close our books and open our hearts. It is not tough to see Jesus’ presence in our midst when we open the eyes of our heart. We have to respond to all he taught us, to change knowledge into experiences. We must live a life of love. It is in serving, giving and loving where we will encounter and experience him in the people around us and in ourselves. It is only when we allow love to flow through us that we establish a personal relationship with Jesus.

When we allow love to flow through us by loving freely and without prejudice, we hold the keys to unlock the faith life of people around us. By our actions we build the church. By allowing others to experience us, we bring Jesus into their midst. Through good actions, Jesus will be encountered every day in our lives. This is the simple truth when knowledge becomes faith and when religion becomes a lived experience.

Our faith must be hewn out of our daily experiences with Jesus. Through experiences, our personal relationship with Jesus will be rock solid “and the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it”. 

The next time we are asked the question, we open only the book of wisdom. This book of wisdom is in our heart and etched by Jesus himself where each encounter with him is life-giving and life-changing. Through these pages we arrive at the declaration, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Right answer, right method.

Part of the giant rock at Caesarea Philippi – where Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do YOU say I am?” 

21st Sunday Ordinary Time

In my childhood decades ago I used to walk to school along the mud track through the kampong. Along the path I came across the creeping ‘touch-me-not’ weed growing in abundance. For the fun of it I would touch it to see its leaves shrivel and close. Decades on, mud tracks have given way to highways and I see much less of this plant. Modernity and progress have also afforded us manicured gardens. We choose what we plant.

Like the gardens around us, we too have grown to be different. Modernity have afforded us abundant choices to be who we want to be. We can choose to weed out what we don’t fancy in life. We can choose from the numerous highways to achieve happiness. Unfortunately for some of us we leave the path of faith.

The ‘touch-me-not’ plant has many nicknames. It is called the ‘shy, bashful, sensitive plant’. It is called ‘sleeping plant’ and ‘prayerful plant’. It is also known as the ‘shame plant’. Today’s gospel touching on the Canaanite woman and Jesus seemingly refusing to help her provoked this reflection about faith in today’s world. And many of us are perhaps like this plant.

The bait of worldly riches has led us down many different paths. We have also grown to become more guarded as individuals. The ‘open door kampong spirit’ has shriveled to be the ‘closed door my-privacy-please’ lifestyle. Our manicured lifestyle has had a great impact on our faith life. We have strayed far into “disobedience of God” where we cannot anymore feel connected or touched by faith.

Try telling someone that the God of the universe, our almighty God is in fact a God who is very personal to us and very involved in our daily life. Try telling that Jesus wants to touch our life every day. Chances are people in this over-informed age will find that incredulous. Until we encounter road-blocks on our highways and find ourselves in desperate situations, will we then only turn to look for God.

One of the biggest obstacle to return along the path of faith is the feeling of unworthiness. Like the ‘touch-me-not’ weed, we shrivel and curl up in shame. When life arrive at the point when we need to be re-connected with God, we don’t have to close up in shyness. For the absolute truth is that our God is a faithful God who waits patiently for our return to the path of faith. There is no penalty, no toll fee to pay.

Today’s second reading, “Just as you changed from being disobedient to God, and now enjoy mercy because of their disobedience, so those who are disobedient now – and only because of the mercy shown to you – will also enjoy mercy eventually. God has imprisoned all men in their own disobedience only to show mercy to all mankind”.

Jesus never refuses mercy and is present every day wanting to touch us. We must not say “touch me not” but instead let our guard down and allow him to. We must re-plant the seed of faith. Faith can only grow when we wake from our sleep, put aside our shame, sensitivities and shyness, open up and prayerfully say, “Touch Me”.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

We sometimes feel like we can walk on water. We have enjoyed moments when everything in life clicked into place. ‘Happiness’ hormones flow when effort, hope and desire are rewarded with top results. Sporting results can thrill and leave us euphoric. Outstanding achievements delight and exhilarate us. In the ecstasy of glory we feel so positive we can walk on water.

Enjoy the moment while it lasts. As the hormones ebb, we sink quickly back into the reality of life. Glory and disappointment co-exist; walking and sinking are its simplistic dynamics. And in unsympathetic reality we seem to sink more than we walk. But this imbalance need not be and we can haul ourselves out of the water more often when we trust in God and embrace a faith life.

There is a balance to life’s journey. Faith is a counter force to the gravity of life’s issues that drown us. Without belief, faith and trust we journey alone in the strong currents of fear. With belief we know we have God. But we need to turn this belief into faith and trust in order that the currents of life’s challenges do not suck us under. When we have a faith life many difficulties will flow under our feet as our trust in God buoys us.

Belief need to become faith. A faith life is a lived experience. Trust in born out of experience. Trusting in God comes out of a personal experience of God. A vibrant faith life is coloured by numerous such experiences. When we actively seek out such experiences we grow our trust in God; we allow a lot more water to flow beneath us and we walk our journey knowing we will not drown.

Prayer is the beginning of active seeking. A priest in Bangkok shared this week about the three types of prayer in today’s passage. Jesus “went up into the hills by himself to pray” and so must we spend time to pray so as to develop a personal relationship with God and to listen to him. When the disciple “took fright and began to sink”, we must be like Peter when we are troubled to cry and pray, “Lord! Save me!” “And as they got into the boat the wind dropped. The men in the boat bowed down before him and said, ‘Truly, you are the Son of God.’” When in ecstasy, let us bow in thanksgiving and pray to acknowledge his presence in our daily life.

The prayer we know best is the prayer when we cry out in desperation and fear. And Jesus knows that all too well as he “put out his hand at once and held him”. He knows about the undertow in our life. He understands the hurt when we fail to achieve and when we end last in bitter disappointment because more often this is the unsympathetic reality of our earthly life. But he wants to be there for us to comfort and console in the shattering moments of life. Through this prayer for help we will experience him.

Be quiet. Be still. Be trusting. Be grateful. Be thankful. He comes to us not in a mighty wind or in an earthquake or in a fire. He comes in a gentle wind. He comes to redress the balance of life, to counter its negative forces. Physically and humanly, we cannot but spiritually and in the gentleness of a faith life we can calmly walk on water.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I used to stay hidden in my faith life or more correctly I use to hide from my faith. There was very little chance of me going on a church retreat. Simply it was not on the list of things I want to do or think I need to. There was so little to connect my daily life to church. And I was happy to keep the distance. Going for a retreat was perhaps as tough as climbing a mountain. The idea would not even enter my head.

“Suddenly a bright cloud covered them with shadow, and from the cloud there came a voice which said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.’” 

I never knew what being spiritually high was about. Actually we do? Or think we do? Reading the words that describe it or hearing about it from a friend, is not knowing at all. To know it, we need to experience it. We need to live the experience because the high can only come about when we are touched deep in our hearts. Only then can we be like Peter to declare, “Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here”. 

The Transfiguration of Jesus had been something I found difficult to relate to. To be in the presence of God, let alone to be in a personal relationship with almighty Him was an idea I couldn’t get my head around to. Until I experienced being spiritually high that opened my heart to search for more.

This Transfiguration of Jesus can occur in our lives daily. It will occur only when our hearts are open to it. Jesus is transfigured into our daily life for us to live in Him. He is transfigured to fit into our daily schedule. He is there at the corner even when we choose to ignore him. He is there to touch us when our own decisions fail us. When we realise this and accept Him, his transfiguration becomes for us a transformation of our life.

The clouds above us want to open up to declare, “This is my Son, the Beloved”, but we must first get into the position of ‘being under the clouds’. We must choose and make a decision to open our heart to “Listen to Him”. It actually only require a sincere “yes” from us, however weak and small our “yes” is to allow Jesus to take us with him up to a high mountain to be alone so that we know who he truly is.

The path up the mountain is made visible by his bright presence in the events of our daily life. But we must first make the choice to want to see him. And the easier way to light up our path is to live with gratitude. When we live all the little moments of our day acknowledging and giving thanks to him, we open our eyes and our heart to see him transfigured in our life. When this sense of his presence become more acute, we can scale up the mountain to reach our spiritual highs. Gratitude can be a start to get us under the clouds.

We must continue to find opportunities to expose ourselves to faith, to narrow the gap and come closer. We must scale mountains for the fresh air of faith. Retreats will help us but daily life is lived down from the mountains. “As they came down from the mountain Jesus gave them this order, ‘Tell no one about the vision until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.’” Holy Communion is the Risen Jesus transfigured in a special way to be with us when we come down from the mountain to live our daily life.

Every day there are moments of opportunity to connect, to be in relationship, and to come under the clouds. But it is up to us if we want to.

In the Church of the Transfiguration on Mt Tabor where divinity met humanity.

The Transfiguration of the Lord