Our Sunday obligation was taken away. The doors of the church closed. The rituals of Sunday mass reminding us of our Christian identity is no longer physically available. The absence of receiving the Eucharist is deeply felt by the laity. In this absence, clarity emerged that you and I are also the Eucharist to each other, and especially to others in need. The Church is not behind those closed doors, but in us.

Outside with us stands grief and hardship from this pandemic. For many around us, life has become a lot tougher. Three months into the lockdown, there is a spiritual metamorphosis happening. The Church as an institution has incubated the laity for decades, drip-feeding the power of the Gospel. Soon we will emerge from this lockdown, but we must emerge a transformed Church. This can be the great Pentecost* if we the laity emerge to be church and gospel to the people present in our daily lives.

The tide is turning. There is a marked shift towards social and economic concerns. The world needs to emerge from the lockdown despite the virus still present. As little individuals we have little sway in the decision. This is just the tick-tock of time, of developments and consequences. People are simply carried by it. The immediate post-lockdown period will not be easy as the respirator of government aids are withdrawn, and businesses will try to stand on their own again. Some will fail and people will continue to struggle getting income. Certain to emerge will be individuals who are emotionally troubled.

This is where we as laity are called to fit into the next norm. There is a purpose why we exist in our circle of family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and even the occasional strangers who wander into our daily routines. Our identity as a Christian is today more pronounced than ever before; we are to be in the center of that circle, to be church and gospel to people in our lives, to be the light of hope and the salt of mercy. We are, by duty as laity, to communicate into their lives the language of God: Love.

When Pentecost day came the disciples were all in one room, when suddenly they heard a powerful wind and noise; and something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech. When the disciples emerged from their locked room, they preached and those assembled were each bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language. They were amazed and astonished. “How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? We hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.” (from the First Reading)

We live in social circles. There are people present in our personal circles who are deeply troubled, bearing the painful consequences of this pandemic. We know them quite well. We know their catalysts of joy and their triggers of depression. We are privileged to know the personal details of their life. The Church as an institution cannot reach these personal depths. But the Church in us as individual laity can and must. The language of God’s love is more than just verbal. In the way we are intimate to each other in talking, listening, doing, and sharing, we are effectively communicating in a native language that only our circle can clearly understand.

Being the Eucharist, the Body of Christ, is expressed through daily, simple acts not beyond you and me. As laity, we are affirmed that a tongue of fire sits on our head. “The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all I told you.” Accept this affirmation and go and be church, pro-active to engage. We must give, often not only in terms of material but also more preciously in time and presence to listen and comfort, and to recognise and affirm. This native language is often expressed in the simple alphabets of a kind word, listening ear, smile or hug. Instead of just saying, “I pray for you”, realise that we are probably God’s intended angels as answers to their prayers.

This spiritual metamorphosis will release us into the next norm. The sheep has been scattered wider and farther. The Church need us the lay faithful to reach into the realities of the secular world. God will be needed in the realities of people’s struggles. And we are needed because we know the native language. We the laity make God ‘real’, more so than bible scholars and clergy. St Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel at all times, use words only when necessary”. This Pentecost the lay faithful is summoned to light up small tongues of fire in their social circles.

The world today is like a tree without leaves but with abundant fruit. Fallen leaves indicate impending changes and fruits indicate a ready harvest. We the lay faithful are sent into these fields of mission. Today together as one body, we can make this the great Pentecost. But we must hurry before the fruits fall into waste.

“There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose. Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ.” (Second Reading)

*Pentecost celebrates the 50th day of Easter, commemorating the descend of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other disciples, and marks the beginning of the Church’s mission to the world.

Pentecost Sunday

One of the readings this past week was about St Paul in Athens regarding an altar on which was inscribed, “To an Unknown God”. I was raised steep in Catholic traditions. I know well the God of my doctrines. I regard myself a good person. I have been good by simply avoiding doing bad things. The God I know is the One I worship at Sunday Mass, a weekly obligation I have faithfully fulfilled. Can you describe me to be worshipping “an Unknown God”?

Probably not. I know of creation, I know about the death and resurrection of Christ, and I firmly believe in eternal life. But in this contentment with my faith life, I have limited myself and missed to know so much more about God. Just worshipping at Sunday mass had not been enough. For starters, I asked myself, “Who is the Advocate?” As a cradle Catholic, I don’t know about you, I struggled to describe the Holy Spirit. Not knowing the Advocate, not welcoming the Holy Spirit into my daily life, put me back in front of the altar on which was inscribed, “To an Unknown God”.

God really want us to know much more about Him, especially about his unconditional love and mercy. Love is not a dead theory but a living experience. God will remain unknown if we cannot feel and experience His love in the here and now of our daily life. When Christ ascended, the Advocate became the next norm of our faith life. God desires us to have this living experience of Him. For us to feel loved, God needs a personal relationship with you and me. And the Advocate was sent to be this connectivity.

When faith is handed down through family tradition, we are at Sunday Mass because of our parents. The Holy Spirit work hard to open our eyes of faith and soften the hardness of our heart. God is very active in the many events of our personal life. He will never stop. But until we are convinced, we will never be able to claim a personal ownership of our faith and establish this personal relationship with Him. We must look for evidence of the Advocate in our life.

The Holy Spirit is always present in the shadows of events happening to us. He shows himself in different shades, just so to be relevant and personal. In desperate situations, he is the unexplained hope we cling to. In a turbulence, he is the quiet inner peace we tiredly withdraw into. In the search for assurance, he is the touch of affirmation sometimes so powerful that leave us in uncontrolled tears.

He is also our inner voice of conscience and our compass in our search for meaning to life. He is the path that sometimes take us back into our past only because he knows we need to be healed. He is the fixer of life, putting events together, then disguising them as coincidences. He is the link that joined event milestones, drawing us a map of how God had intervened in our life story. He is the spirit of truth, and so much more.

Pope Francis recently repeated that Christianity is above all about relationships; our relationship with God and one another. The greatest commandment, “Love God, Love Others” can only be accomplished through honest relationships. All of humanity is interconnected and we are interdependent on one another. The Holy Spirit help us to apply this teaching into our daily life and allows us to be empowered by it.

This week is also the 5th anniversary of “Laudato Si”, our Pope’s encyclical “On the Care for our Common Home”. In this is highlighted the “’intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet’. Protecting the planet requires an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature. Global inequality is a central theme: the poorest are the most affected by climate change and ecological chaos, yet they have done the least to cause it.” * The poorest has been most affected by Covid-19.

In this pandemic we have seen how fragile this equation has been. This responsibility is now in each of our hands. If you hear this it is the voice of the Advocate calling us into this interconnectedness and interdependence with one another and be united as one.

Significantly for me, the Church in Thailand today open its doors for public mass, letting us into the next norm. Today’s Gospel passage (7th Sunday of Easter) is the prayer of Jesus before he died that God may be glorified through his deeds. Let us be ready now to enter this new norm with the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, fully conscious that every little deed of ours is significant to make an unknown God known to the world. Let us resolve to be collaborators with the Advocate in this next norm.

“Be present to those in need in these trying times, especially the poorest and those most at risk of being left behind.”

*https://www.caritas.org.au/act/our-common-home/about-the-encyclical

7th Sunday of Easter

We are waiting, somewhat impatiently, to bolt from this lockdown. The currency of worldly life is money. It is a practical truth that if economies are not revived there will be more forms of suffering. The currency of our spiritual life is love. It is the ideal truth. Throughout time, humanity struggled to strike a balance between two truths. There is always the need to address immediate concerns, both for progress and to alleviate suffering. So, often because of this immediacy the currency of money comes out the stronger.

We are promised a new norm when the lockdown is lifted. It will be very pronounced because many changes are physical and immediate. Social distancing, mask-wearing and temperature checks will remind us daily that our norms changed. Yet, as a person this will not be the first time we step into a new norm, but maybe not as consciously as this. As an individual person, we ‘progressed’ as the world progresses. As a person we have always entered new norms afforded by both money and love, changes pronounced by our changed lifestyles and values.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus spoke to his disciples about his leaving them but promised that the Father “will give you another Advocate to be with you forever, that Spirit of truth”. We will have the Holy Spirit as a constant presence. When Christ ascended, Christ unseen became the new norm for the disciples.

The only thing constant down the centuries in an ever-changing world is the love of God. Money has changed its value throughout time, but this love has never. The Love of God remains a constant norm.

So, as we enter this new norm post-lockdown, today’s message reassures us that the Advocate enters it with us. This is not about resisting change but to realize that in every change something does not change; in every new norm there exist a constant old norm. The faithful are called to be disciples. Disciples are gathered to offer this vital balance to humanity. With all the necessary appeal of money, disciples are still to barter with love.

These are extraordinary times with the winds of change howling. Our priest also says, “these are graced times”. Graced because we can see the Advocate actively working amidst the chaos. This is an opportune time to offer compassion, hope, faith and peace to the new world out there. A time to bring the constant old norm to fore.

Evangelization must go out of the classroom. Witnessing must get out of the church (building). Prayer expressed in rituals must also now expressed itself in acts. Never more urgent than now, but our faith life must be relevant to daily life. Otherwise it is meaningless. We have all been educated in the academic of our Christian religion. In this new norm, teaching and passing on our faith can effectively happen only through tangible experiences. The Advocate await us to become channels of these experiences. It is time for disciples to be more pastoral.

This is not to say the academic aspect of our faith is not important. It will always be an important foundation. But in a world that now allow us virtual realities, the Church is challenged to build upon this foundation to provide a real-time experience of the Advocate. It is a time of grace, to constantly make the unseen seen and to actively witness by actively acting.

And this is how we gently remain the constant norm in every new norm. “Reverence the Lord Christ in your hearts, and always have your answer ready for people who ask you the reason for the hope that you all have. But give it with courtesy and respect and with a clear conscience, so that those who slander you when you are living a good life in Christ may be proved wrong in the accusations that they bring.” (Second Reading)

The difference between the two currencies is that money does not take everyone along. But love pick up those who are left behind. This ideal truth must exist in the practical truth. The Advocate is this constant old norm silently anchoring the world as it keeps moving into new norms.

Food shop outside of home in Bangkok

6th Sunday of Easter

Staying home and watching nature documentaries on Netflix. This week a situation a shrimp found itself in opened for me a window for contemplation. When the tide pulls out, it leaves behind rockpools where creatures are trapped unable to return to the ocean. In one was the unfortunate shrimp. As night progressed, oxygen began to run low. The desperate shrimp climbs out of its natural habitat onto the rock to breathe. It risked drying up and dying but the tide returned in time.

We are all trapped in little rockpools today. Covid-19 have deposited us into one. Like the unfortunate shrimp, we too find ourselves trapped in a very unnatural habitat. Some are running low on the oxygen for our livelihood: income, money. Others are choked by the carbon dioxide of worries. But nations have begun easing lockdown measures. The tide is coming back in, soon, to take us back out into the ocean of life. What learning will we take with us from this rockpool?

When the pandemic first came, it arrived like a tidal wave. Fear overcame us. We faced our mortality. The invisible virus showed us that every piece of possession and every strand of power was powerless against it. On a global scale, the tiny unseen threatened superpower nations. This enemy could not be nuked. Instead it needed small, individual but collective acts. Suddenly, we all became equally important as individual persons, made equal by the human life in us. The virus flattened the curve of power and possession. If anything, it restored my dignity as a person to know that what I do, or not do, counts in the equation of life.

When the tide come back in to take me out, I want to take with me this lesson of relationships. Every person shares a common relationship living in this world. We live in a spiritual ecosystem. We recognized that the best way to fight the virus is for humanity to be one and act in the interest of each other. Underlying this is the creed of our spiritual ecosystem, “Love one another”. It is a curious fact that governments and organizations shun away from this word “love”.

Without love, there can be no true relationships. Without love, relationships exist to be plundered, where we only take and not give. Without love, the spiritual ecosystem suffers. This pandemic has shown that humanity need this relationship for the order of life not to break down. We saw and heard of many heroic examples of people giving generously, some to the point of losing their life for the sake of the other. When we turn a blind eye to love, the common relationship among us breaks, gradually snuffing out the oxygen of life.

“The Lord is the living stone, rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him; set yourselves close to him so that you too, the holy priesthood that offers the spiritual sacrifices which Jesus Christ has made acceptable to God, may be living stones making a spiritual house.” (Second Reading)

When lockdowns are lifted, we will not immediately return to the same habitat as we knew it to be. Social cost will be high as we see that social distancing has perhaps been more lethal than the virus for some, especially the poorest and the marginalized.* There are many people out there, unemployed now, paying the high social bill of this fight. The faithful are the elected people full of the Holy Spirit appointed to give out food (First Reading). The faithful are called to be the living stones in the common relationship among people in this new equation of reality.

What we do as individuals may be small, but it counts. It is time to become the oxygen of life.

“I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself, he will perform even greater works, because I am going to the Father.” (Gospel)

*The unequal cost of social distancing.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/from-our-experts/the-unequal-cost-of-social-distancing

From the Netflix documentary “Night on Earth” taken off my TV. 

5th Sunday of Easter

What does it mean that we “may have life and have it to the full”? (Gospel). The fullness of life is perhaps best comprehended from a lack of it. We would all have experienced periods in our life where we felt an emptiness in us, a void that prompted us to seek and search. Despite everything going well with family and work, we are bugged by a restlessness in us. Initially we cannot quite grasp it. But an inner voice gradually echoes louder in that emptiness, “What is the meaning and purpose of my life?”

The fullness of life is not a reward or an exchange. The fullness of life is simply a higher state of our being. It is attainable by every person of every belief. We can taste it fleetingly or we may dwell in it. This higher state of our being is marked by peace, joy, contentment and fulfilment. Contrast it with the prizes of possessions and status we crave for in worldly life. We do realize that each bag of gold, each platinum level of status will never satisfy. It has not helped in this pandemic.

There is an ongoing lesson about this fullness of life as the world battles Covid-19. Along the front line, every health care worker and every support staff draw from deep within their ‘self’ to give their all to save lives, even at the risk of their own. Ask anyone of them and its guaranteed that they are at peace with a sense of fulfilment. They have gone to give their life so that others will have theirs to the full. These people have experienced what the fullness of life is. In what they have given, their life is holy.

“He was bearing our faults in his own body on the cross, so that we might die to our faults and live for holiness.” (Second Reading)

Most weeks I write inspired by this photo in front of me. This picture is today’s Gospel passage. “The sheep follow because they know his voice.” The Good Shepherd is unseen, “he goes ahead of them”, but the sheep are being led, following with the help of a shepherd faintly seen in the light of the sun in the background. In this whole scene I see the way to a higher state of being. It begins with humility, a surrender of self, to look upon ourselves as sheep. But mistake it not, striving to be truly humble is a lot tougher than chasing for gold and platinum.

The feeling that something is missing in my life can only be satisfied when we find the meaning of our life. An emptiness in life cannot be filled with possessions. The shepherd faintly seen in the photo is helping the Good Shepherd tend to his flock. He is not guarding possessions but is the helping hand of the Good Shepherd to look for the lost, to tend to the sick, to guide them through valleys of darkness, to comfort the weary, to lead them to green pastures, and involved in the daily life of the flock. He puts himself in danger for the sheep and is life-giving. His life is in holiness. He is a disciple.

A disciple is self-giving, always putting others first. A disciple gets involved in the life of others to share the fullness of life. This is a life where meaning and fulfilment are found.

In humility we will also recognise that throughout the journey of life our own actions have a consequent effect on others. Often, they cause harm. In humility we recognise that we are both shepherd and sheep, dependent on the goodness of one another. Helpful and helpless. Covid-19 has shown us this.

Covid-19 has also perhaps shown how lost we are. The underlying principle for the fastest way out of this pandemic is to truly love one another. Every measure to contain the virus, every step in our exit strategy is dependent on this principle. But few governments who lead us the way have managed to utter this word, “love”. Perhaps it no longer fit into the image of modern man. But love and holiness are a higher state of existence.

As we get our first haircut and start to eat out at a distance, we are running out of time to decide on our own exit strategy for our spiritual self. We can remain incognito and wait out these few weeks for life to return to what it was but where has that led us to? Or we can use this time to listen to that inner voice and map out our own exit strategy to move into this higher state of being and share in the fullness of life. What am I seeking? It is only in the fullness of life where our restlessness can be satisfied, where emptiness is full.

A photo I bought in Hanoi. Though it is signed I cannot make out the photographer’s name. “The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want”.

4th Sunday of Easter