“Love your enemies”. If I want to follow the Christian way of life, I need to “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly”. Now in reality, just how difficult is that? It is easier preaching and proclaiming but as a human soul it is practically impossible. After all Christianity is not to be witnessed by words alone but through action.

“To the man who slaps you on one cheek, present the other cheek too; to the man who takes your cloak from you, do not refuse your tunic”.

I pondered and found it easier to imagine myself as the victim, the long suffering Christian who always try to present the other cheek. My Christian image shines behind my gallant effort, but then very often I had failed to allow them to slap me again. It dawned on me that in the reality of my world, I am the one who slap others and persistently take their cloak.

In this reality of my world today, I guard myself from others. I want to preserve the way I want to look at the world, and subconsciously retain my prejudices against people I dislike. To help my gallant effort, I encamp myself with people who allow me my opinions and add colour to the vision of my world. I call them friends. Simply put, I want to have it my way.

From within this camp I allow dislike for the other to fester. I have strength in a group but this strength is double-edged, blinding myself to the good of the other. I judge, and I eventually condemn by my own measure of righteousness. I weakly use half-truths to scandalise. Effectively, I am taking the cloak of reputation off the other and yet he offers me his tunic as well.

I choose not to see the fruits of his or her goodness. I prefer the lustful satisfaction of fueling my opinions, of having it my way. When I choose to be blinded by my prejudices, I continue to repeatedly slap him or her on the cheek. I am the enemy.

There are many people around me that are doing a lot of good. It might be envy or simply a past hurt I cannot forgive. I refuse to acknowledge that they doing more right than wrong because I prefer to remain in my drunken state indulging myself in the pleasures of self-gratification. Simply because they didn’t do it my way.

In truth in this human life we are both hand and cheek. “Love your enemies” is not a prerequisite, not a demand. It is a way to get out of the madness of our self-opinionated world where we keep slapping one another. It is a call to journey in life as a human soul to become a life-giving spirit.

For all of us who have persevered in this way, having been repeatedly slapped, take it as a privilege. Presenting our other cheek is offering our face of conversion to the hand who slaps. As Jesus died on the cross he said, “Forgive them as they know not what they do”. Practically impossible, but it did happen in our world. It is happening to you.

“Love your enemies”

7th Ordinary Sunday

Are you happy? Pause. I am not unhappy. Yeah, but maybe things can be a bit better. But are you sad? No, not really. Happy or sad, our life is constantly spent between these two stools falling between past and future but seldom sitting in the present.

Often in the pursuit of happiness we blind ourselves to the present moment. If we are not really sad at this moment, can we without pausing appreciate that we are happy?

We are fretting about the future fearing that we will not be happy. We regret the past; mistakes haunting us ghosting our present. Happy the man who lives in this present. Because only in the present moment can we actually count our blessings in life.

It is also only in the present that we can experience the touch and love of God. Only in the present that we will know that this God is real. When we begin to feel God with us every moment in life, then we will always be happy.

The presence of God leads us into gratitude. Are you happy? Look at all the blessings in life that have led us out of our past. Life could have been worse. If ‘I’ am not sad or unhappy, then ‘I’ must be happy. Life is full of ups and downs and ‘I’ have managed this far with God’s constant presence. Being grateful help ‘me’ see it.

Life for many too is a constant stream of issues, problems and challenges. Life is perpetually crawling on the downside. Are we happy or sad? We are sad about the events but in truth we do not live every present moment in sadness. These despairs hurt us deeply but the constant presence of God want to touch us with consolation and hope. And yes at times we can’t be reached as we are disappointed and angry with hope. But this hope will always remain for us; it can never die.

“Happy the man who has placed his trust in the Lord”. (Today’s Response)

We must become poor, not necessarily materially, but poor in spirit. We must live life as a series of moments trusting God whilst being acutely aware of his presence. Gratefulness help us to be more dependent on him. This is what it means to be poor in spirit.

“How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God” (Gospel).

The pursuit of worldly happiness is like a dog chasing its own tail. It will always be something in the future. Chasing it is futile and the first reading tells us:

“A curse on the man who puts his trust in man. If good comes, he has no eyes for it. A blessing on the man who puts his trust in the Lord; it has no worries in a year of drought and never ceases to bear fruit”.

Live the present. Be happy. We already are.

6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

All of us have experienced God’s call. How loud the call was depended on how deep we allowed it to echo in our heart. Typically the call took the form of involvement in some church ministry. Often without giving it a second thought we brush it away. We say “it just isn’t me” because we never think ourselves qualified, deserving or worthy.

Today’s three readings all echoed God’s call. Reflecting deeper into them they tell us that God wants to heal and restore each of us. Isaiah did not feel qualified, “for I am a man of unclean lips”. St Paul having persecuted the Church of God felt underserving, “I am the least of the apostles”. Yet. Simon Peter expressed this common unworthiness, “Leave me Lord; I am a sinful man”. No one will ever be worthy. So he persistently call each of us. Are we not familiar with these replies?

God’s call is mistakenly interpreted as a call to give up our comfortable life to go into some form of sacrificial suffering. In our salvation history, the Red Sea was parted once to take us out of slavery. The journey has continued from that to lead us on the long road to freedom. God’s call is more of a beckoning to come his way through the maze of life’s many paths including the path of suffering, sign posting the journey that will eventually lead to our heavenly freedom. It is a beckoning call to guide us to stay on the right path.

He beckons us in the ordinariness of everyday life, present at every corner of our weariness. Often we are blindsided by our challenges, unable to see him when we look around us. Tired, exasperated we say, “We worked hard all night long and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will pay out the nets”. His daily call is “to put out into deep water and pay out your nets for a catch”.

Indeed we must first go deep within ourselves. We must not be afraid to confront past mistakes and hurts. He is there present beneath the rubble of all our destroyed hopes and brokenness. Where there is a stone of bitterness, he will help roll it away. Where there is a door of forgiveness, he will help us through it. All these is restorative to qualify us, to make us deserving and worthy. He calls us not into more suffering but to lead us into peace and joy.

When we cast into the deep where he want us to cast, he is showing us where to find the true treasures of our earthly life. When we heed his beckoning call and cast deep we find our true vocation that brings lasting fulfilment. Many of us wander through life and wonder about the meaning of it all. Here is a call to become a fisher of men not to make a tough life tougher but to fulfil it with meaning and direction.

“And when they had done this they netted such a huge number of fish that their nets began to tear”.

Listening to the echoes from within, we have all gone fishing.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Today our pastor shared an interesting homily about being prophet and going on mission. The outward signs of mission is about going out into the countryside and provinces to do acts of charity. Through these we are prophet in manifesting the kingdom of God. What was thought provoking was when he invited us to reflect on a different perspective: prophet and mission is about us going out of our ‘self’.

‘I’ need to step out of my ‘self’. I need to go out, leaving ‘self’ behind. We are somewhat attached to our worldly expectations and needs. These have put on us an identity who we are truly not and shifted our purpose of life. ‘I’ have a worldly identity at odds with my spiritual person. So who have ‘I’ become?

To prevent our worldly self from detaching from our spiritual person we must live in Love; not only to know and understand but to live it. Today’s second reading is all about Love. True love, as it is. It also tells us when ‘love’ is not true love, suggesting how it can be contaminated by worldly needs and expectations leading to a sub-conscious pre-occupation of ‘self’. It is this ‘self’ we must depart from to be prophet on mission.

Not all of us have this desire to be a prophet on mission. Few have. Because who we have become have buried who we truly are. The root of this is true Love, or more poignantly the absence of it.

We have become better skilled at maneuvering life. Which life? We are trained to become more eloquent, a sharp witted talker able to impress. We have acquired knowledge and education sometimes simply to be better than the other person. We window dress our image by donating sums of money to charity. We do it partially to climb the ladder of success. All these are not wrong except that at the top of this ladder we won’t find what we expect to find: true and lasting happiness in life.

“In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope and love; and the greatest of this is love.” (Today’s second reading)

Only love leads to lasting happiness. But love need to be true. True love is giving without expecting returns in any form. In the higher realms, to love and give “so that God will bless me” is stained purity. Love is giving without accounting. When a person use lifelong savings to help a brother in debt instead of going to the bankruptcy court, the person want to give faith, hope and life back to the brother. Love is such, it is life-giving.

All of us are created with this capacity of true love, simply because we were created from the Love of God. It is there beneath the identity and purpose the worldly world have given us. Our spiritual persons are meant to be prophets to bring the Kingdom of God to others. This is our true purpose in life, our mission to give life through Love.

When we give, we live. Not as a reward but a natural consequence of Love. All you need is Love.

4th Ordinary Sunday