The one certainty in life is that it will end in death. We spend a whole life preparing for it, or do we not? We are supposed to be going on to a better life where there is no suffering, only everlasting joy. Yet for the majority of us there is a fear factor. It is natural, after all, we are humans.

What do we fear? When I experienced job loss, I was anxious, afraid and fearful. In moments when these emotions went unchecked, I slipped into panic. In moments of calm, I asked myself “what is it that I fear?” It wasn’t exactly that I would immediately go hungry or be without shelter. It was more a fear of losing what I have and flying into the unknown.

Fear then blinded me to what was immediately happening for me. There were the many messages of support that assured me of the many family and friends who will journey with me through that difficult period. I was blind to this same message I hear today, “Can you not buy two sparrows for a penny? And yet not one falls to the ground without your Father knowing. Why, every hair on your head has been counted. So there is no need to be afraid; you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows.”

I was blind to God’s immediate response of not allowing me to fall to the ground as He acted through family and friends. I was blind to God’s immediate response to my fears.

Fear will make a sparrow fly away from familiar grounds. But the world is so vast, and as far as the little sparrow can fly, there will always be an abundance of food to feed the hundreds of sparrows. This is the reassuring message of today of a God unconditional in his love and generosity.

Often when we look back at our misadventures in life, we realize that they were turning points that took us into new abundant fields. Today is a good day to look for God’s hand in the unfortunate events that happened to us and to trace this guiding hand as He led us into unknown territory to find a new beginning and a new life. For some, life became even better! We may casually call it a “blessing in disguise” but dwelling deep in gratitude it is an experience of God’s unconditional goodness.

The path of life to death is a rocky one. Every one of us will experience trials and tribulations, sadness and grief alongside happiness and joy, jubilations and exultations. And fear accompanies us on this path. But it is in fear that we should find no fear but this opportunity to discover that God’s unconditional love, goodness and generosity will always bless us into new fields of life.

Like a sparrow we fly unafraid. Each conquest of fear deepening our relationship with God our Creator. Each step on this rocky path prepares us for the ultimate fear of death, of having to give up all we have. Like a sparrow we must fly in life allowing God to show us his treasures of generosity beyond the perimeters we fear to go beyond.

Often all we have been praying for in life are found in those fields. Let go of fear and fly.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I was not present at Calvary and neither were you. We were not there to witness the ultimate act of giving; a man giving his body and blood for the love of mankind. Yet at every Catholic mass we can be present again and again on Calvary as He gives himself, his body and his blood, to us and for us.

It is not just about the crucifixion. Perhaps if we were present at Calvary on that day it would have been. But we are a privileged people in faith. Everything have been subsequently revealed with the Resurrection.

“I am the living bread which has come down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever”.

I was raised a cradle Catholic and week in, week out I fulfilled my Sunday obligation by being at mass and inevitably receiving Holy Communion. It was a ritual that became a habit. The significance of this entire life-giving event was unsurprisingly lost of me.

I have since become spiritually aware. Holy Communion is so easily available, not just weekly on Sundays but every day at daily mass. By worldly calculation common availability infers something of less value. But I have missed this point for the longest time: A God Truly Present in Holy Communion has humbly made himself so easily available is over-generous and over-indulgent in love for us.

When I now “eat the flesh and drink the blood”, I feed myself on the wisdom of love. The life and suffering, and the subsequent crucifixion and consequent resurrection was the ultimate definition of what love truly is. It is the ‘giving of self’ for the sake of the other person, and it is through the ‘dying to self’ that we find true life, “eternal life”.

Herein lies the meaning of life. We are called to be imitators of this love by allowing this love to flow through us, through our deeds for the other person. When we ‘give of our self’ to the other, however small, we give life to the other person. When the giver and receiver partake in this action of love, we embrace “that there is only one loaf, means that, though there are many of us, we form a single body because we all have a share in this one loaf”.

When I receive Holy Communion, I am now aware that I am called into this one common loaf of this world, where my every subsequent action has a consequent impact of the life of the other. We are inter-twined with one another and with Christ. I eat this wisdom, “He lives in me, and I live in him”.

When we partake in Holy Communion and live in him, we allow him to come alive in us so as to bring life and love to our neighbour. The bread of life who we receive must become the manna, the food of life for us in our spiritual wilderness. From our own little Calvary, when we give our time and our effort, we give our own body and blood, we toil and we sweat, we give away our life, so we can have life together, we become the yeast in the loaf of this world.

Two beautiful little girls celebrating their first Holy Communion at St Joseph Church, Bukit Timah – “I am the Bread of Life”

Corpus Christi

We mark ourselves with the sign of the cross, in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The perfect union of the 3 Persons in the one God we worship, and, or the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the “I in you and you in me” union. For the longest time in me, the Holy Trinity had remained a ‘mystery’, and no more than an accepted doctrine.

The world is very much an imperfect place. We think this example of a perfect union cannot exist simply because it is too perfect and we are too imperfect. Building a community where one person unconditionally love the other may exist only in theology. But the sign of the cross we make every day compels us to reflect on this perfect existence and long for it in our daily life.

We search for love to be unconditionally given to us, we look for peace in the endless differences we have with one another and we try to find the energy to do our best for each other each day. But where do we find this perfect existence?

To God every person is equal. We are all equal in His eyes despite our different abilities. To the world, every person has not been equal since the day of birth. This world grades us on our capabilities and our achievements. There lies this tension, this impossibility of co-existing in perfect communion.

This world build us into the triangle shape of a pyramid. People with more abilities and influences sit at the apex. Often the seat comes with authority and power. Leadership is a hierarchy from top to bottom. This is a common structure in daily life, in work places and also in church communities. A perfect community will never exist in this triangle.

True life chooses a circle as its shape. A perfect community places God in the centre. Each person is blessed with abilities. In this life we are all called to share. By this world’s standards our worth is measured by our capabilities, but in God’s eyes we are measured by how we use our abilities for the good of the other person so as to make the world a better place.

We are all parts of the one body of Christ but each with a different function. The shape of a circle is perfectly maintained when everyone contributes their best effort while recognising and respecting the different charisms of the other person. Equality does not mean equal in authority or in opinion, but our best effort with the purest intention to do what we do best makes us equal. Everything radiates from God in the centre and we are held in a perfect circle by the equal tension of our best effort. After we have given our best, the Holy Spirit will perfect the circle.

Perfect communion is in the flow of a circle. The world’s triangles must fit into this bigger circle, into the sphere of God’s creative wisdom. He is the Holy Trinity and He want to make us all part of His perfect communion.

The shape of the circle. We are made equal by offering our God-given abilities for the intention of doing good for God’s glory and by giving our maximum best. The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

The Holy Trinity

I have often wondered how on earth I can hear God speaking to me. Often I am told to listen to the Holy Spirit. My ears would prick up but hear nothing, my eyes enlarged is disbelieving amusement. As I grew spiritually wiser, I realised that we listen to God through our hearts and not our ears. As I grew older, my eyes would open wide again, but in awe and wonder in seeing God in the happenings of my personal life. 

The happenings in life are often pretty random. Mostly they also seem isolated and unrelated. Generally they are minor affairs, occasionally they are a major event in our personal life. On a piece of drawing paper, they appear like random dots. But when we trace these dots together, a path comes into view. This path cuts across the eventful picture of the jubilation and tribulation of our personal life. 

It is a spiritual path through our earthly life leading us back to our Creator. Little events become milestones on a spiritual journey. One milestone lead to the next, one door closing lead to another opening, one event in life leads to another. This path lengthens as we grow older, more events would have occurred but these events no longer seem isolated. Linked together, they make picture perfect sense. 

Joining these dots and linking these milestones is the work of the Holy Spirit. The events in our life is the language the Holy Spirit use to speak to us. It is God’s medium of communication. He speaks and we hear him in the happenings of our life. 

Today is Pentecost. The Holy Spirit descended onto the apostles and they emerged courageously from the Upper Room and began speaking in foreign languages. The diverse audience were amazed and astonished. Each person bewildered to hear a native language they personally understood.

This is the language of events. For each of us, this language is unique. Only ‘I’ alone can understand what God is saying to ‘me’ in the events of ‘my’ life.  But people around us are important. People lend a ‘voice’ to these events by their actions and experiences. Some people have a louder and wiser voice simply because they are ‘older’ and had passed through these events before.

Every event in life is unique but some can be hauntingly similar as though someone else’s experience is speaking directly to us. Our ears prick up as their story resonates with our senses and the sound of God’s calling echo in our hearts. For both the listener and the testifier, the receiver and the giver, there is awe and there is wonder at the remarkable ‘coincidence’ that has left us bewildered. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the language of God’s love. 

This language is beautifully expressed; its finesse expressed through the seemingly minor, random events we least suspect would have a great impact in our later years. We must be aware to these probabilities because they will eventually prove to be milestones on our journey. 

The Holy Spirit is a wonderful experience. The personal events of our life in all its minor details is a beautiful and flowery language. When we begin to speak this language and share our personal experiences of God, we become the voice of God calling to the other. At the same time we experience the music of healing written with the notes of Love for all our past experiences that had not been so wonderful. 

These would remain dots, if not for the Holy Spirit. Joined,  they preach through the language of events about the marvels of God.

“Come, O Holy Spirit, Come”. Huddled in prayer in the Upper Room in Jerusalem.

 Pentecost Sunday

We are used to chasing for glory. When our favourite football team win the league, we are covered with glory. It is the best feeling in the world. We chase glory on every field and court, in the classroom, at the work place and in social life. We out-do and beat every team and every one along the way to be the best and win. Glory is the top of the world feeling.

But “Glory to God” is much bigger than this world. It extends beyond the vastness of the universe. Yet to win this glory is a million times easier than to win the football league, and every one can win and share this glory of God. Because glorifying God comes in little every day acts.

There is goodness in everyday life. In our hurry to attain the world’s bigger prizes and earthly glory, we can be blind to the little acts happening constantly around us to ourselves, to the people we know or the strangers we see. These little acts of kindness are little simply because it does not cost much to give or receive. 

We are part of the intricate beauty of everyday life. Our acts, and those done for us, are used to sew together a colourful pattern linking every person. This becomes intricate because it is in the little details of everyday life. 

God places us in the path of people needing a lift in life, as He places people on our paths too. We may not know the scale of their issues but when we stop our life for that moment and offer a small act of kindness, we help them over a particular obstacle to get on with their day. We have the power to lift the spirit of the other person. A simple act of kindness, say to appreciate the delivery man by offering him a snack goes a long way to lift him. In that snack both the receiver and the giver taste the glory of God. Both win, both share the glory. 

For kindness is the face of love. Love is the crown of God’s glory. When we perform acts of love, we make God visible, we glorify God. “Glory to God” is the physical manifestation of God’s Love, his presence in our daily life. When we carry out these acts of love, we experience the understanding of what Jesus meant “to know you, the only true God” and “all I have in yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified”. 

This glory is not difficult to win. We must open our eyes to the little happenings of everyday life and begin to attribute them in thanksgiving and gratitude to the presence of God. We need to look at each moment and see God’s comforting love in them. He is there as needle and we follow as thread weaving together a picture perfect day. 

Each of our very little act of kindness, gratitude and love are indeed glorifications of God. Glory to God in the Highest. And the opportunities come constantly at every weave in everyday life, these little glorifications.

In the Dome of the Ascension on Mount Olives, around what is traditionally regarded as the last impression of Jesus’ right foot on earth as he ascended into heaven

7th Sunday of Easter

When I was inactive in my faith life, I couldn’t grasp the concept of the Holy Spirit. He wasn’t a ‘Who?’ but a concept. I think I was enlightened when I read Sr Briege McKenna who described the Holy Spirit as like the wind blowing through the trees. You do not see it but you feel the coolness of the breeze and see its effect when the branches sway and the leaves fall.

It wasn’t exactly a ‘eureka’ moment. But it typified something about the experience of the Holy Spirit. He was always ahead on my life path, leading and cajoling; most times my conscious self was unconscious of his presence. But deep in me, I began to feel a presence and to sense the Divine. I cannot touch but was touched.

Often we speak of the fruit of the Spirit; an end result to confirm His works. But in truth the Spirit’s work can be identified in a series of events, perhaps more tellingly in a series of ‘coincidences’. A person’s journey to return to Church may have started by a chanced encounter with a long lost acquaintance. An innocent shallow conversation about being involved in a Church ministry is enough trigger for the Holy Spirit. Curiosity led to an “I don’t know why I did it” moment of googling “coming back to Church”. Holding the fruit and looking back, we realised that it was all mapped out by the Holy Spirit.

The events in our personal life are often inter-linked. A door closing leads to another door opening. A diversion on a planned route lead us into an unfamiliar place. Events conspire to place us in a situation to make decisions we would not otherwise make. Difficult life challenges force us to re-map life’s destination. Eventually we are led into a spiritual environment. We find ourselves at the door of faith.

Often the wind blows to activate our faith life. This is the call of our Creator. Our earthly journey has often taken us to the wrong places but at a point in time the Spirit comes along to reset our compass. It points into the direction of the Father. He cajoles and leads. He is always ahead of us.

We are called to embrace something greater than faith. We are called to transform our life, to change direction and walk down the path of love. This is the Spirit that blows into our life; this lead to love. We can see the Holy Spirit only when we love. “If you love me you will keep my commandments. I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate”.

There are many people who do not know the Holy Spirit. When faith is activated, we are activated into a life of love. Through the actions of love, others who though cannot see, will begin to feel and to experience the work of the Holy Spirit. We play a role in the “coincidences” in the lives of others to facilitate this work.

As the wind blow into the lives of the people around us, let us be the swaying branches and the falling leaves. Let us make visible this Spirit for others through our actions in life. Let us be the wind tunnel for a strong and constant blowing of the Wind.

St Peter’s Church, Jaffa

6th Sunday in Easter

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering”. Wisdom from Yoda. 

There are many paths in life. Things happen to us every day. Our emotions are in a constant swirl. When they are in a spin they can lead us down a slippery slope. Unchecked, our heart may end up entrapped.

There are many rooms, even on the dark side. Anger is a common emotion. Caught by it, we become vengeful. Unable to strike back, it turns into hate. Unchecked, we are trapped in bitterness. We find our self somewhat like in a dark room, unable to get out. 

In that dark, despairing silence, we hear a faint voice that says, “Forgive, let go”. It is like a faint ray of light entering the darkened room. A door is opening, but we must forgive to get through that door into light. But often we refuse, preferring to grovel in self-pity thirsting for our own image of justice. 

His image dominates the door. He beckons us to come out and trustfully follow him. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me”. 

The way out of the many dark rooms we find ourselves in is simply to love. Not simple, not easy but once experienced it is so liberating that it gives us strength to do it again. Forgiveness is born out of love. Self-giving and denying hatred too is born out of love. Love quenches that thirst for revenge. Love is His way, the only Way. 

We refuse to follow. We do not want to believe. We prefer to have things happen our way. We place our hopes on our own version of truth. We want to save our life but we end up losing it. Repeatedly we allow our emotions to lead our heart into dark rooms. Faithfully, Love waits and continue calling.

“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”. There are no other ways.

We are a diverse people. We are of different faith and belief. Whoever is our identity, we can only leave our dark rooms through the only one door unlocked by the only key. We turn the key by giving instead of taking, by losing instead of winning, by being generous instead of hoarding, by caring first for the other instead of for self. This key is Love, the only way we can go, the only truth that will fulfil our every hope and the only key to be alive and have life to the full. 

Love is recognizable only through action; our action. It does not take into account what our faith and belief are. It is for everyone. Jesus came and died for every one of us. For “there are many rooms in my Father’s house”.

The Way is to Love: A Life of Self-Giving, Alive in Truth. (On the Via Dolorosa, the path He walked in the greatest act of Love)

5th Sunday of Easter

Have we all not experience a nudging feeling within us to become more active in our faith life? Occasionally someone pops up in our life to pop the invitational question about serving in a church ministry, or to be further involved and hold more responsibilities? We immediately curl up in defence behind the busy-ness of our work schedule or our family commitments or simply, “I am not ready, I don’t feel adequate”. 

Distractions are rather attractive in life. Faith life is about the only lifestyle where the pasture is greener on this side! Distractions that prevent us from fully trusting our work and family to the Good Shepherd is like someone who “does not enter the sheepfold through the gate, but gets in some other way is a thief and a brigand”. A thief using distractions to steal our faith life. 

Like sheep we follow distractions. We can follow them and wander so far away till we find ourselves out of a faith life, away from Church. We become the lost sheep. When we eventually come into the realisation that we are lost, we experience the nudging feeling to return to faith. Dwelling into this ‘feeling’, we actually hear a whisper in our heart: a call to return to the sheepfold. 

This whisper has been persistently there; the voice of the good shepherd calling out to his sheep. We don’t hear it because our lifestyle has reached a certain comfort level.  If nothing shakes it, we stay where we are, be it if we are out of Church. This whisper will only be amplified into a call when our life fly into turbulence. 

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. “The sheep hear his voice, one by one he calls his own sheep and leads them out. He goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow because they know his voice”. 

In truth, we believe that “The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for” (CCC). The Good Shepherd persistently calls out to his sheep as God never ceases to draw man to himself. 

The Good Shepherd is leading us into greener pastures. Here, it is true that the grass is greener on the other side. He knows that the carousel of life will stop spinning one day and the fun in the spin will cease, happiness as we know dissipates. 

We pay attention to the events of our earthly life. It is the events of our personal life that God uses to draw us closer to Him. Events are like dots on a journey; joining them reveals the Good Shepherd ahead of us, guiding us along the right path. In these events we must strain to listen to the whisper in our heart, 

“The Lord is my shepherd: there is nothing I shall want. Fresh and green are the pastures where he gives me repose. Near restful waters he leads me, to revive my drooping spirit”. 

Listen to that whisper and be nudged.

Visiting the Church of the Good Shepherd, Jericho

4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday

We are troubled people. Even when we don’t go looking for trouble, it can come to us. We will realise by now that we cannot have control on everything happening to us. Our life can change as a consequent of another person’s action. Our path in life is often littered with such challenges. 

Two disciples were walking the path to Emmaus talking about events that had happened. When the Risen Christ walked beside them, they did not recognise him. Instead they expressed incredulity that he did not hear about the things that were happening. 

Of course for the two disciples it was about the crucifixion and their walk on the path of enlightenment about the resurrection. We as believers today have the benefit of faith to help us walk the path of our challenges. 

Some of us would have experienced events that had large-scale implications and affected a larger number of people in challenging ways. It can come from a government policy or changes at work where we have little choice but to accept. Worse still, we may be part of a retrenchment exercise in which we were short-changed and unjustifiably dealt with. We can also be found challenged as a consequence of the action of people holding power over us. 

When these things happen to us we are like the two disciples. We are anxious and in fear of what’s to happen. We are angry and bitter about the injustice. We are confused and lost. Even though we are blessed with the belief of the Risen Christ, we cannot recognise him in these events. Who can see Him in injustice, especially when it come from a system or a person we were taught to trust? 

But the Risen Christ recognise this about us and He patiently walk with us through our emotions, patiently guiding us and gently healing us. He does not create injustices to test us; the Risen Christ rose out of injustice to accompany us. Injustices are man-made. 

He sits with us as we huddle in groups venting our frustrations and listening to our words of anger. He allows it knowing that our human condition need a release. We want to hit back at the employer and the system but He works silently and unseen in our hearts to take away the strength to fight. In our tiredness he moves us on into the less violent pastures of grief. Here our tears flow; grieving is okay, it closes a chapter otherwise a new chapter cannot be opened. 

Overcoming challenges is a process; a walk we must walk. We cannot walk it alone. “Two disciples” represent companions. We were never meant to be alone; friends and family are gifts from God. We need one another in troubled times, to have the conversations so that we can hear him, and eventually recognise him in the breaking of bread.

In whatever challenging circumstances in life, we must encourage each other to walk on. In this walk together, we will recognise the Risen Christ walking with us. He is the one we can completely trust. We walk on Trust.

Two disciples walking the path to Emmaus at Nicopolis, Holy Land.

3rd Sunday of Easter

We live now in an over-informed age. At a click we have access to any sort of information on any topic; facts, analysis, speculative, sensationalised, real or fake. News tickers update us constantly exhausting us till we are tired of knowing. We find that we shut ourselves from listening and reading, and become selective to what we ‘click’. 

We shun knowing anything that doesn’t directly affect us. 

In this internet age we have easy access to so much news and information, some so incredulous that we are no longer even slightly amazed. It doesn’t matter if it is real or fake, we may not even be interested. If Jesus lived and died in these times and is resurrected from the dead and appeared to a handful of people, how many of us would not have grave doubts? Or actually be even interested if it didn’t directly affect us? 

We are the modern day Thomas. We cannot bring ourselves to simply ‘believe’. We demand that our ‘unless’ is fulfilled with a convincing proof. “Unless I can put my hands into his side, I refuse to believe”. Or perhaps there is no urgent need to ‘believe’ because at this moment we don’t need God in our lives. 

However, knowing is not enough. Catechetical knowledge is not sufficient. Knowing the facts is not enough to bring about ‘believe’.  ‘Believing’ is a process. It requires a personal experience to bring it about. This process actually begins not with knowledge but with a personal encounter with the Risen Christ. 

Incredulous as it may sound to the Thomas in us, this encounter is available to us every day. When life is running smoothly we find less need for an active faith life. Yet he is there hidden under our heavy work schedules and active social life. We pay little attention, or even worse, we reject his existence as the notion that God exists has become too incredulous. 

Often it is only when we face a crisis that we begin to look for signs of the Divine in life. In our desperate need, we want to ‘believe’ however ‘incredulous’ this has been for us before. Because ‘believe’ directly affects us now. But the long period of ‘unbelief’ in us mean that it will take a time process to get us around the incredulity. 

Today’s gospel concludes with this passage, “There were many other signs that Jesus worked and the disciples saw, but they are not recorded in this book” 

There are many signs of the workings of the Risen Christ in our lives and these are recorded in the book of our personal life. He has always been present silently working in every small detail. When crisis hit us, we must look into our past history and see how we had emerged from each crisis. There would have been ‘something’ each time that set us on the path of recovery. In that sign of a ‘something’ we see the Risen Christ. 

It is only when we encounter him in our personal situation and see the effect He has on our life, can we rise up to ‘believe’ and say in incredulity the words of Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

A poster ad for a Landings event where Catholics who had left the Church and returned share how they came to ‘believe’ after encountering the Risen Christ in the chapters of their life story.

2^nd Sunday of Easter (A)