When we are blessed to live pass major milestones of our age, we find that we grow in wisdom on the road of life. This road is a hard teacher. As we aged, we grow in practicality, our youthful ideals diluted in realities. As we enter our sunset years, we come into the end game of life. Our chess board was once full of pieces. Over time we realised that life involved making sacrifices, but sacrifices brought with them fulfilment of a good life lived.

“Think of God’s mercy, my brothers, and worship him, I beg you, in a way that is worthy of thinking beings, by offering your living bodies as a holy sacrifice, truly pleasing to God.” (Second Reading)

We are perhaps not fully aware of our own capacity to be living sacrifices. Will not a parent willingly endure all the hardship of a child? Will not a spouse willingly take up the cross of suffering for the other? Mercy, love, is a great driver. One rook sacrificed can lead us into a meaningful end game of our life. “For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it”. (Today’s Gospel) 

“Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day.” (Gospel)

The road of life will show us that suffering for all of us is unavoidable. We must continue to travel on the road to our own Jerusalem. But it teaches us how to make the best of it. Redemptive suffering is a Catholic belief that when we unite our sufferings to Christ, we can redeem our sufferings for the physical or spiritual need of another. When we are fully aware of being redemptive in suffering, we take up our cross with intent rather than to allow our crosses in life to saddle us.

We can look at life as a chess game. For the average person, the major pieces will only come into play when we are older and tested by tougher issues. To prepare for our end game, we begin by moving our little pawns. Little pieces and small moves, but they shape the end game. Similarly, we can do little acts in daily life that will shape our behaviour so that when we eventually come to a crunch, we are able to respond in a way that would bring us fulfilment in life.

“Do not model yourselves on the behaviour of the world around you, but let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind.” (Second reading)

Being a living sacrifice for another person, and to love the other above self, are behaviour models that contradict the way of the world. This is the “new mind”. The road of life will eventually teach us that the road the world wants to lead us up is a cul-de-sac. “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.” Chess is a game, life a match, for thinking beings.

We are not created for suffering, but suffering is an inevitable encounter along the road of life. Living our life as a living sacrifice is a strategy to prevent suffering in life to checkmate us.

“This is the only way to discover the will of God and know what is good, what it is that God wants, what is the perfect thing to do.” (Second reading)

 22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

During the week we celebrated the memorial of Pope St Pius X. He was the pope who introduced the “Decree on Frequent and Daily Reception of Holy Communion”. Perhaps over time since, we have been guilty of taking for granted our privileged reception of Holy Communion. Daily and frequent availability have somewhat taken away the awe and wonder of this mystery of our faith. The memorial also reminded us this fact: the succession of popes can be traced all the way back to Peter.

“So I now say to you: You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld can never hold out against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.’” (Today’s Gospel)

This too is somewhat mystery. This unbroken line to the apostolic church.

Today, science has revealed many hidden mysteries of nature. Knowledge has schooled us, and information has shaped our attitude towards the unknown, somewhat denying us acceptance of mysteries. Affluence came hand in hand with progress, putting ourselves higher on the pedestal of life. Everything needs to be proven. We need to understand before we can believe.

Somewhere along the line, we have lost the sense of mystery. The early church had faith and grew to understand. Today we need to understand before we embrace faith. Faith transcends science. In this sense, faith is a mystery. At every mass we recite the mystery our faith, “Christ has died, Christ is risen, and Christ will come again”. But our human mind is limited in its capacity to fully understand God.

“How rich are the depths of God – how deep his wisdom and knowledge – and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mind of the Lord?” (Second Reading)

There are many mysteries of our God. He is this unconditional, non-judgemental love, rejected a hundred times over by us, but who continues to follow us silently in our earthly life. He is this humble Eucharist, waiting and giving himself up in Holy Communion, every day at daily mass even if there are very few people coming. He is a God so almighty, so why must he wait humbly and faithfully for us? This is the mystery of our faith, the mystery of our God. We can never fully understand but we can have full faith.

The mystery of God is in our everyday life. An Almighty God, Creator of the Universe desires a personal relationship with you and me. He comes daily and frequently in spiritual communion with us. When we take away our sense of mystery, we lose ourselves the daily opportunities of witnessing God actively intervening in our daily life, in the little details. We shut ourselves from being in awe and wonder of our God. It is the experience of mystery that gives us faith. And then, we can understand.

In today’s Gospel, You asked us, “Who do you say I am?” Andrew Louth, an Eastern Orthodox priest and professor of theology says, “the mystery of faith is not ultimately something that invites our questioning, but something that questions us”. Today’s question should leave us all in awe and wonder.

At Caesarea Philippi, the site of today’s Gospel. “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church”

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Naam mai koy mii kha. I had trudged two kilometres uphill to reach the seventh level waterfall, the top of Erawan Falls. In a Thai polite way, it means, “there is not quite enough water”. I muttered an impolite rude word. I was disappointed with the sight before me. I mused at the politeness, their choice not to curse, rather to accept. I realized that beneath that disappointment, I was happy to have made it to the top. I felt fulfilled from the journey of the climb.

On my way down I met panting pilgrims on the way up. I offered information that there wasn’t water cascading at the top. I was greeted with the same disappointment but every one of them trudged onwards and upwards. I had half expected them to give up and go back down. I realized then that I was no Moses coming down the mountain, no prophet they would listen to. Suddenly the message of today’s readings came to life. I had struggled with Jesus’ rudeness.

“He replied, ‘It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the house-dogs.’ She retorted, ‘Ah yes, sir; but even house-dogs can eat the scraps that fall from their master’s table.’ Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman, you have great faith. Let your wish be granted.’” (Gospel)

The message of today’s reading is that Christ brought salvation to all mankind. In Jesus’ time this politeness was extended to pagans and Gentiles, fulfilling Isaiah. “Foreigners who have attached themselves to the Lord to serve him and to love his name and be his servants – all who observe the sabbath, not profaning it, and cling to my covenant – these I will bring to my holy mountain.” (First Reading).

I mused on the scraps that fall from the master’s table. We are panting pilgrims. Daily life experiences with its emotional ups and downs is a spiritual journey. Often arduous, this journey is like a climb to the top when our life completes. In life it seems that God does not always deal a fair hand. No one completes a suffer-free journey. Many even suffer throughout life. At times it feels that our spiritual life is feeding on scraps on mercy.

The panting climbers `underlined a realization. I took away the expectation of a beautiful sight as a form of reward for their journey, but I could not take away their spirit of wanting just to complete the journey. I realize the human in me is noisy. He seeks gratification externally, here to behold the sight of a cascading waterfall. The absence of that brought out a presence in me. There was that quiet fulfilment in me of having completed my journey despite not quite the way the human in me had expected. I carried down with me that scrap of satisfaction.

Circumstances in life will always continue to deal us bad hands. We always had grand expectations when we embark on journeys in relationships and careers. Often these expectations disappeared midway, but we continued trudging on through life. Our spirit continued to hold on to hope and faith, even if we did not realize it. We have all been through these everyday life experiences. In every disappearing expectation, we must look beneath our noisy human self to find that scrap of mercy holding our spirit together.

“God never takes back his gifts or revokes his choice”. (Second Reading)

God gave us the gift of life. The Canaanite woman emphasized a realization. God’s mercy is for everyone; Mercy expressed as unconditional love. This mercy accompanies us through everyday life. God appears to us in the form of hope. He does not feed us scraps. Our everyday life is a journey back to God our Creator. When this journey is over, our life will be fulfilled, waterfall or no waterfall. God does not revoke his choice.

We are panting pilgrims and we journey on in faith. Onwards and upwards.

Erawan Waterfall, 7th level. Naam mai koy mii krub.

20^th Ordinary Sunday

We are familiar with a ‘blessing in disguise’. Our life is filled with more of such blessings than we are aware of. A friend lost her job leaving her betrayed. Her eyes searched the heavens, “Why God?” A few months later she lands a dream job, an eventuality resulting from a series of events that began from that bitter loss. Our life is full of such intricate patterns. Our life’s master weaver is always at work.

Our life is a journey of events, one event after another. Things will continue to happen to us, one day and every day. We have little control. We will have our fair share of difficulties. Some events will conspire to leave us broken. Our eyes bleary, our hearts disheartened, “God, where are you?”

“After the earthquake came a fire. But the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there came the sound of a gentle breeze. And when Elijah heard this, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.” (First Reading)

We live in a time where much is available at the click of a mouse. But even the mouse has since moved on and replaced by a touch on the screen. We are also no longer patient with God. Becoming more competent as a human race has made us more reliant on ourselves. But life remains unchanged, continuing to take its course through events. When something unexpected happens, crushing our expectations and hopes, we expect God to appear in the mighty winds, earthquakes, and fires of our life.

The master weaver works gently and silently beneath the rubble of our crushed hope. He weaves every suffering towards peace, stitch every wound to heal. He is a fussy weaver paying attention to the smallest detail, often going back into our past to heal a small wound that we didn’t care much about. With an uncanny vision he puts together mismatching colours, linking seemingly unrelated events to bring about many blessings in disguise. He turns our scars into beautiful intricate patterns.

We must live with more patience accepting each unfortunate event that occurs in our life with faith that the master weaver will use it to make our life more beautiful than we can imagine. Sometimes the big patches of ugly patterns and designs are there for a lifetime. We are not able to conjure up any need for or beauty in them. A lifetime of suffering though can end in one short final chapter. This short final chapter make sense of every event that had happened. In one weave, the ugly patterns and designs are turned into an intricate art piece of supreme beauty.

Life is a journey of understanding and a journey into believing. Each scar turned into a pattern grows faith. But faith must come before a greater understanding. The lessons of faith can be found in our personal life history. We only have to look back into our life and join the events that happened to uncover the disguises and see how blessed we truly are. To find that God came in the gentle breezes.

It will only be from a life experiencing the Holy Spirit that water will feel firm enough to walk on. In faith, we walk on our trials and tribulations and they won’t sink us. Only then will come understanding. (Gospel)

19^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

It is a common statistic that in every parish only ten percent, or even less, of the congregation are actively serving in ministries. But it does not make this ten percent superior to the rest. I know many mothers who want to serve but their young, active children make it almost impossible to spare any time or focus. And for this ten percent, it is not always the same people all the time. People come and go. There are seasons too in our spiritual life.

What is more common is the hesitancy to serve. I don’t know enough. I am too busy. Church is not my thing. My faith is personal, I don’t share it. I am not good enough as a person. I commit a lot of sins. Maybe when I retire. This is not just the ninety percent but all of us. We have all been through these seasons as well. In our spiritual life, we have all been broken, fractured and fragmented. We have all been basket cases. Yet we are called to serve.

“But they answered, ‘All we have with us is five loaves and two fish.’ ‘Bring them here to me’ he said. He gave orders that the people were to sit down on the grass; then he took the five loaves and the two fish, raised his eyes to heaven and said the blessing.” (Today’s Gospel)

The disciples surveyed the hillside. 5000, maybe more. Glancing into the basket, 5 loaves and 2 fish. God surveys the world in this pandemic. Many are suffering, hungry in many ways. He looks in his basket, who can he send? Our hesitancy to serve, perceived unworthiness and lack of conviction and courage makes us basket cases. In his basket, God is seemingly poor with only 2 fish – us. Poor because of our lack of conviction.

“Oh, come to the water all you who are thirsty; though you have no money, come! Why spend money on what is not bread, your wages on what fails to satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and you will have good things to eat and rich food to enjoy.” (First Reading)

This pandemic has flattened the curve of status and wealth. It is telling us that the riches we desire of this earth will fail to satisfy. But it also tells us that the individual matter. Each enjoy equal importance. Our little actions count through simple acts of wearing a mask and social distancing. Imagine our world acting as one, each person just obliging by these simple acts for the sake of the other. We need to always look out for one another. Maybe there won’t be this pandemic today.

We keep learning the lessons of life. Different people come, different people go. Young age, old age. A journey through experiences and events of life. There will come a season in every one’s life to know that our life on earth is a shared life. A life of service brings fulfilment. A hunger is satisfied when we find this true purpose in life. Today is a day to contemplate if it is my season to be the fish in that basket?

We are all basket cases when it comes to our spiritual lives. God’s basket is seemingly poor. But this is who God is. In his infinite love he reaches out to us in our brokenness. He touches up our cracks with leaves of gold. Then put us into a life of service in a way we never imagined filling our life with meaning, purpose, and fulfilment.

In one blessing our brokenness yields riches twelve baskets full.

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time