The pulse of Lent will pick up as we enter Holy Week. It will remind us of the intensity we felt during the first week. In between I had somewhat fallen off the pace once I got used to the fasting and abstinence. Time carried me through Lent. Did I stop time to reflect? Did I pause it to go deeper into my spiritual self? Amidst all the noise, did I hear the cock crow?

I do wish for an easier path in life. It is easy to navigate life if every day is a good day to get to heaven at the end of it. I firmly believe in God but belief alone will not get me there. Events in life will always conspire to take me off course. The people in my life have a greater influence that I care to acknowledge. Such is the nature of my earthly life, my worldly journey. It is not merely about belief but how I choose to respond.

I read the Passion of Christ with a very simple mind. I try to situate myself in the events of Holy Week to remind my spiritual self what it all means. But the length of today’s Gospel is already a big distraction. And then there is the Easter Triduum ahead demanding my time and attention. I just want to get through this week. Then deep in me I hear a cock crow; my worldly self is denying my spiritual self.

I have assumed that I am one self. If I continue to allow time to carry me through life I will never realize how separate my two selves are. When our worldly life is smooth, often our worldly self dominates our spiritual self. This week the cock crows to say that it should be the other way around.

I am not a bible scholar. I am just one from the pews. I have had my fair share of triumphant, happy days. But when those days came my worldly-self galloped away. Until something happen to take away my happiness. Only when I am in despair will I start to look for my spiritual self. Often it will take me a long time to find it. I find my spiritual self far behind, riding a donkey. The cock crows to say that our response in life must always be rooted in humility.

Today I live in a world full of righteous opinions. I have dished out my fair share. I want to be heard more than I want to listen, I want to be understood more than I want to understand. So much so that relationships are broken, happiness disappear, wars start. In front of Pilate, Jesus stood silent. This is the loudest silence I have ever heard.

So how do I unite my two selves? My worldly-self need to be enlightened so that it could accept that the best vocation in life is to wash other people’s feet. Unity is found when we eventually become a humble servant. ‘Eventually’ because there is a life for all of us to live in this world. There are daily challenges that must be met. We all must go through the journey of life with lessons learnt and lessons applied. The cock will crow when our worldly-self wander too far away from our spiritual-self.

The week ends with Holy Saturday. Time seem to stand still. Whenever we are in deep despair in our worldly life we must wait patiently in hope and faith. Unlike Peter, we have the benefit of hindsight.

In the compound of the Church of St Peter in Gallicantu, Jerusalem reminding us of the triple denial of Peter.

Palm Sunday

“Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest”.

The grand purpose of our existence is found in our co-existence with others. Life is given to us so that life can be given through us. We are born as individuals, each purposefully unique, to fit into the grand artwork of eternal salvation. The prize of our own individual salvation will be lost if we seek only to win salvation for self. We co-exist for one reason only; to help the other person claim the promise of eternal life.

The message of today point us towards the rich meaning of our existence. Carefully internalized, it tells that each of us, as a single individual, have the potential to positively impact the many lives around us. Our impact can be so powerful that it is so far-reaching, touching even the lives of people we will never meet. We are like a single grain of wheat that can yield a rich harvest.

But first we must fall and die. We must learn that our role in this ‘co-existence’ is to play a servant’s role in the lives of the others; service before self. To be a servant requires us to fall off the high pedestal of self-importance and fall deep into the grounds of humility so as to die to self for the sake of others.

“Anyone who loves his life loses it; anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it for the eternal life”.

In this world. It is tough to go against the grain of our human nature. This nature, perhaps driven more by fear and uncertainty, rather than selfishness, gravitates towards being self-loving and self-serving. It clings to being self-concerned and self-interested. Social media today may shape us to become more self-absorbed. It is also easier to look for immediate self-gratification. We must die to all these to release the seed in us.

For us to die to self for the sake of others, we must first give away our life so that others will receive life through us. There is a simplicity in this giving of life. The time we have on earth is the amount of life we have. Simply put, when time runs out, life ends. Service for others require that we spend time for them. When we give time, we give life.

The grain of wheat is tiny but every big harvest starts from a tiny seed. Our life can be used to impact the world. This is how enormous we can be. But we cannot do it on our own. When we choose to fall from the pedestal of self-importance to embrace the call to become a servant to all, we surrender the seed in us to be germinated by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we fall and die to self to be servant to others, we allow the love of God to flow through us to the touch the hearts of others. We plant the seeds of the Good News so that we will journey on to embrace eternal salvation together. This is the grand purpose of our co-existence and we must fall and die to become this servant.

“If a man serves me, he must follow me, wherever I am, my servant will be there too. If anyone serves me, my Father will honour him”.

5th Sunday of Lent

John 3:16, “God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not be lost but may have eternal life.”

Culture, environment, exposure, conviction all play an important role in building our belief system. Tradition is an important element of the Catholic Church. Tradition in our families and in the faith we practice build and strengthen our belief system.

When a strong belief system is built in us it becomes a reference for the choices we have to make before us. A strong belief built over time and tradition is difficult to break. Most times it is locked deep in us that we do not even question it.

There is a strong case here for infant baptism that make cradle Catholics. Being born into a Catholic family steep in Catholic prayer and tradition installs a belief system in the child. The child will grow up knowing no other faith. Importantly the child will grow with only one truth in life and not have various alternatives. If we truly “believe in him so that we will have eternal life”, then our faith cannot be like a choice sitting on a supermarket shelf with many alternatives around it.

If we really believe in Christ and the Catholic Church, then we believe in the one true God and adopt the way of the Gospel as the way for our self and family. If this is the unshakeable belief for us then how can it be different for our child? If we experience this love of God and are convinced then why are we not wanting to build this belief system for our children?

There are many distractions in the world today; dangers that will take us away from the promise of eternal life. A strong belief system protect us from such dangers. Many of us lose our way in faith somewhere along our journey in life. We are especially vulnerable when life treat us well and we don’t have an urgent need for God. We stray from God happy and unconcerned until the day we hit a crisis. This is when having a strong belief system will save us.

Without the strong belief system we will be unable to hear God calling us back. “The Lord, the God of their ancestors, tirelessly sent them messenger after messenger, since he wished to spare his people and his house. But they ridiculed the messengers of God, they despised his words, they laughed at his prophets, until at last the wrath of the Lord rose so high against his people that there was no further remedy”.

Our belief system is built on the love God has for us. This love is faithful and unconditional. He waits for us while we stray. Love is ultimately an experience. When we stray and eventually return we experience, “God loved us with so much love that he was generous with his mercy: when we were dead through our sins, he brought us to life with Christ – it is through grace that you have been saved”.

It is through the continued experience of God’s love in life that our belief becomes unshakeable.

4th Sunday in Lent

The mass ends with this command, “Go and preach the Good News with the life you live”. We have great influence on the people around us especially those who have won our trust. It is for these people, few or plenty, that we are commanded to go and influence their lifestyles with the way of the Good News through our beliefs and action.

Most of us in reality live two lifestyles; part of us faithfully track the Good News while the other part struggle with surrendering everything to God. But this is a result of our human nature and the very reason why the Church exist for us. The Church lives in us and we are in union when we completely trust God but there are parts of us living outside the Church when we are unable, or choose not, to trust completely in the Good News.

Which part of us dominates our lifestyle? How are we influencing the people around us? What ideas do we sell them through our opinions and actions? What are we selling outside the Church?

Today’s Gospel, “Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and in the Temple he found people selling cattle and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting at their counters there. Making a whip out of some cord, he drove them all out of the Temple, cattle and sheep as well, scattered the money-changers’ coins, knocked their tables over”.

The secular world has become a bigger distraction to our faith life – the part of us that lives in the Church. It is a great temptation to come out. The increasingly material world with progressively shorter term fixes tell us that God has become old fashioned. He is perhaps even more old-fashioned when we are tempted towards embracing more liberal lifestyles contrary to the values of the Good News. The biggest reason for falling into these temptations is that we have lost trust in God.

Who are we outside of mass? Who are we outside of Church? Who are we in the secular world? What do we sell on our own tables of plenty?

When our lifestyle does not preach trust in God then we are directly opposed to the first commandment that is given to us to guide us through life. “You shall have no gods except me. You shall not bow down to them or serve them”. Materialism and liberal lifestyles are such gods. Labelling God old-fashioned elevate our self above Him.

There are many other parts of how we live life that we promote on our tables of plenty. Pride and our competitive edge often lead us to bear false witness and kill the reputation of others through our unmerciful tongues. Disrespect of the sanctity of marriage open the doors of liberalism that takes away the guilt of adultery. We steal peace and happiness when we exclude or are prejudice towards others in our life. We feed into the fire of jealousy when we continue to covet what someone else have.

Today Jesus is angry. He makes a whip out of some cord. But he does not lash out at us. Instead he lashes out to destroy what we are promoting and selling. All of us are preserved from this destruction. He only overturned our tables promoting a lifestyle away from the Good News.

As for us we are preserved so that we preach the Gospel with the life we live. We are salesmen of the Good News. We sell Christ.

“What are you selling?” A man on the streets of Yangon selling sparrows for merit-making.

Third Sunday of Lent