I am learning Thai. It is a tonal language. Some of its sounds are very unfamiliar, unnatural for me. Some I never knew I was capable of making. But I realize the ability is there in me, and in anyone of us. It does require focus, training and nurturing to bring out our raw abilities and put them together into a useful language. It is just not about a language, but all of us are capable of a lot more in life when we explore deep into ourselves for things unseen.

We are into the Easter season. It gives life, and help us to live life. The Easter message is that the Risen Christ walks with us on our earthly journey. This is a peaceful reassurance, a consolation available to draw from when our journey go into stormy times. He is unseen but he is there, for everyone even if we “refuse to believe”. But how can we see the unseen Risen Christ?

Where do we look? We must explore deep into ourselves for things unseen. Often divine guidance and protection are in the things that never happened to us. When we embrace this, we inspire our disposition of gratitude that is already present in us to surface as a refreshing attitude to life. With gratitude follows humility. We cannot be grateful for our life if there is no higher Being for us to acknowledge. Humility reduces self-importance to concede that the Divine is in control.

It is in ordinary, day-to-day life where the Risen Christ is seen. We say that God is in the details. The little innocent things that happened for us, the major events that crossed our path, the trials and tribulations and the happy fruits of our life, all are both dots and milestones that make our journey in life thus far. They all join to make a picture of a blessed life, our personal salvation history. It is in these chapters of our life story where we find the hidden, unseen Risen Christ.

The events or things that have happened in our life are all very personal. No one shares the same life path. We are all unique in this sense. The Risen Christ uses things that have happened, or are happening, to us to dialogue with us. It becomes a spiritual language, its tone varying in the love, consolation, reassurance and peace that we need to move on day to day in life.

In recent weeks we witnessed the events at Notre Dame and in Sri Lanka. Both events a consequence of human actions. One may be the result of a careless stray flame while the other was from the choice to hate. God allows us to choose but he is there and seen in the aftermath. We can see him in the love among the people, in the consolation to the victims, in the courage and determination to rebuild and in the unity where the world stood together. We shall not be moved. The unseen is seen.

And so it is in our personal life. We must first know where to find him. Then we focus, train and nurture until the unseen is seen. Storms will come for us in life. Look in its aftermath, in the healing. When we find the Risen Christ in the personal details of our life, we establish a personal relationship with him speaking a spiritual language. “Peace be with you”.

“Doubt no longer but believe.”

2nd Sunday of Easter

“He saw and he believed”. John saw an empty tomb. It was in nothingness that he saw something. We too will do well to search in the emptiness of our life, in our losses and our brokenness. In these nothingness he is present. This has been the experience of our faith. “Why look among the dead for someone who is alive?” Why do we continue to look for him in “the things that are on earth”? We have been told countless times that He is not there.

The Easter liturgy is very rich. And there are many readings to ponder that can map the journey ahead for us. New life, new life. It remains only a promise until we embrace it by getting rid “of all the old yeast” and make ourselves “into a completely new batch of bread”.

We are also called to have yeast-like effects on the people we meet on our path in life. A common thread runs through the many readings. There is excitement causing the people to run and share what they have witnessed. Searching deep into ourselves we too will find many accounts of our encounters when “our hearts burn within us”. We are “all the prophets to bear this witness”. It is my privilege today to be vulnerable and humble to share an account from a personal chapter in my life about the woman who handed me my faith and taught me how to love.

It took her 5 days to journey through the passage of death to get on to the other side of life. She had suffered 25 years of crippling pain from rheumatoid arthritis, each new day decreasing her mobility and increasing her pain. She sits still unable even to scratch an itch away, patient with time as her only help to take it away. Yet she wore a brave smile, never once complaining, “Everything is in God’s hands”. She was my model of faith, my own ‘Mary’, her life a living lesson of “Christ must increase, I must decrease”.

It was on the fourth day that she said to me that it was difficult to die. Around her was her family grieving not ready to let her go. I asked if she wanted each to say a personal goodbye but she said not. She wanted the family to gather around to pray with her. At the end of the prayers she raised her crippled hand and waved. She only said two words, “Alleluia, Alleluia”. Not good bye, not thank you.

You see she had never uttered these words before. She never went to school, cannot write and was never conversant in Western languages. We wanted to be by her side, to pray more but she waved us away. She entered a physical state, groaning unintelligible sounds. She fell asleep and when we woke up at dawn she was gone. One of our wristwatches had unexplainably stopped while we slept. Did she leave us the time of her departure?

It took me awhile to comprehend, to see the something in the nothingness. At that final prayer she came face to face with her Creator which was when she proclaimed, “Alleluia! Alleluia!” following then no prayer was needed anymore. That moment her soul reached the afterlife of eternal life, leaving her physical body to pass away according to its earthly time-table. That day I experienced the truth of faith; the resurrection became convincingly real for me. I saw and I believed.

Happy Easter! May each of us experience the Risen Christ on the paths we travel in life. May our eyes be opened to recognize Him!

Our journey to Emmaus. May each of us experience the Risen Christ on the paths we travel in life. May our eyes be opened to recognize Him! 

Easter Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week. We display palms not as charms to ward off evil spirits. Waving a palm simply symbolize that we welcome Christ into our life. Life is a long journey. Along the way we constantly battle our conscience; Good versus evil. Evil always seem to intrude on us while good needs constant working on. In today’s world the voice of conscience is gradually being drowned out. The cock is crowing but we can’t seem to hear it anymore.

This week is a good time to quieten down and listen to the cock crowing in our life. Who have we become? The Passion of Christ is a journey made once for all of us. It is the triumph of good over evil. In the journey to Calvary, good is hidden in the shadow of evil. All along the way till the very end, evil forces itself upon good. Such is also true for our own journey in life. We must wave our palms to welcome Christ on our own journey.

Evil penetrates all aspects of our daily life. Many things create for us a distracting din. Progress and material comfort are obviously good but evil use them to raise the level of cockiness in us, increase our self-importance and reduce our need for Christ. It uses our power to reason and even our fellowship with one another to effect itself. It attacks our pride to take away our humility, our humble need for Christ.

We can identify with the many characters along the route to Calvary. A collective voice is a very powerful tool of influence. We too have been in a baying crowd. We too have gotten together, formed opinions of others to crucify their reputation. Like the crowd it was easier for us not to believe. We take lustful pleasure in soaking in our own opinions. It happens to every one of us. The collective voice is many times greater than the sum of individual voices. “Crucify him, crucify him!” The cock crows.

Sometimes we can heckle like Herod. Perhaps we have become too powerful in status, or become too learned, too cocksure of everything. We delight to debate to display our power to reason. But our pride takes over to mock and belittle. We treat others with a lower capacity than us with contempt and make fun of them. We unite with others with similar behavior and become an even greater destructive force. The cock crows.

Our lone voice placed in a group is a fearful voice especially if it is isolated. Pilate was this lone voice. His conscience found no guilt in Jesus but preferring self-preservation he gave in; the voice of the howling crowd drowned the voice of conscience. How often have we placed ourselves in this position in our daily life? The cock crows.

Along comes Simon from Cyrene. We can identify with him. He helps to carry the cross but for a short distance. In that short distance Christ unites himself with all our challenges in life. He is saying to us he will carry our cross all the way. He is the hidden good, and many times he is present in the worse things that did not happen to us.

Let us enter Holy Week with a disposition of humility. Let us quieten ourselves to listen to the cock crowing in us. Maybe it will become too loud a jarring intolerable noise. Then let us raise our palms and wave.

Let us listen to the cock crowing in our life.

Palm Sunday (Passion Sunday)

I grew up living the mantra “nobody is perfect”. I was schooled to work hard and try harder. Perfection is impossible to attain, but strive towards it. Nadia Comaneci came along and I was entranced by gymnastics. When in the 1976 Olympics she scored the first perfect 10, the whole world was mesmerized. But still perfection belonged only to sports until Bo Derek came along in 10 a few years later. Perfect 10 began playing in our minds in all aspects of life.

I grew up also believing in life after death. I believe in the resurrection. Only through the passage of death will I find perfection. Many argue this belief, but for me it has given me a strong handle to deal with the challenges of my earthly life. It gives me time to rebound from my wrong doings and learn from my mistakes. Ahead of me is the prize of perfection: eternal life of everlasting happiness and joy. There is no judgement until we reach the finish line and we are allowed to fail as many times as we fail.

Today’s second reading is perfect for this reflection. “I am no longer trying for perfection by my own efforts, but I want only the perfection that comes through faith in Christ. All I want is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. Not that I have become perfect yet: I have not yet won, but I am still running, trying to capture the prize for which Christ Jesus captured me. I am far from thinking that I have already won. All I can say is that I forget the past and I strain ahead for what is still to come; I am racing for the finish, for the prize to which God calls us upwards to receive in Christ Jesus.”

The elder son from last week’s parable continue to cast his shadow of our reflections. Like him we too have our image of the perfect 10, a line of what is acceptable and what is not. Cross our line and we uncontrollably judge. We condemn, stigmatize and throw stones. Our lifetime is the duration of this race and no prizes are given mid-race. There is time yet to stumble but as a friend wisely wrote, “But many times through these stumbles we reconnect with God”.

In today’s Gospel, Christ knows we will stumble. He bents down to the ground and provide us with grace to race on in life. This is the love of God in action. Each mistake or wrong doing is polished with forgiveness and given time for restoration. Life is this run towards the perfection of eternal life. Along the way, especially through our stumbles, we are being perfected take our place in it.

Lent is a time of returning and perfecting. Lent is a time of prayer to get into that deeper reflection. We are not only in the woman on the ground but often too in the baying crowd, quick to condemn and refusing others a chance of restoration (Today’s Gospel). In this we hear that we are never condemned whoever we are even if I am a disbeliever. God will continue to perfect us. We are not left to our own efforts. The more we strain ahead the more we find God’s graces perfecting us.

God perfects us in the things that happened to us in life. We can look back at our past and find many events to be grateful for (first reading). Today we acknowledge we are not perfect but that He is always perfecting us. With this we can continue to run towards 10, with grace and gratitude.

5th Sunday in Lent