Tag Archives: Christ

Apr 13 2013

Experiencing the presence of the Risen Lord

Homily  for 3rd Sunday of Easter year C 2013

feed my sheepWow! Time is really moving fast. It seems like Easter Sunday was only last Sunday, but we are now on the third Sunday of Easter. I hope that we are still in the Easter mood. I mean I hope we are taking each Sunday or each week during this Easter Season as a journey to meet and experience the risen Lord ourselves. If not then it’s never too late. The person standing beside you or behind you or in front of you is an image of the risen Lord. Look at each other in the eyes of faith and of hope and you see Christ- the risen one. We can see in each other the reason why Christ has died and has risen from the dead. Because we are worth dying for. The fact that we are here this time on this third week of Easter, when we could have done something else or have gone somewhere, attests to the fact that we are people of hope, people of faith, people who are taking Easter seriously. Thanks be to God.

Last Sunday we heard of Thomas who came to believe in the resurrection because he has seen the wounds of Jesus himself. He has experienced the real presence of the risen Lord. In our gospel today we have just heard Peter and 6 other disciples who have experienced the presence of the risen Lord again. And this is also what we are invited to see today. We who are here celebrating our faith together are called to experience the risen Lord. But in what way can we experience the presence of the risen Lord today?

Our gospel today points to us three ways in which we can experience the presence of the resurrected Christ.  

First, is by listening to Jesus and doing whatever he tells us. This calls for humility, courage and decision for our part. Peter and his fellow fishermen would have some discomfort when they heard Jesus (though they haven’t recognise him at first) telling them to cast their nets on the right. They were experienced fishermen and here someone who is not even a fisherman, but only a carpenter, telling them to do something differently, when they had just spent all night there catching nothing. But no, they didn’t protest against Jesus. Instead, they listened to his voice and acted on it and the catch was great. When they listened to Jesus they realized that their former way of life (i.e. fishing) couldn’t assure them of a life in abundance and contentment.

Listening to Jesus today is not easy though because of the many voices we hear that tend to drown his voice. There are voices that oftentimes lead us to think more for ourselves and less for others. There are voices that call us to be DOING more and BEING less. There are voices that push us to believe life is more of doing something rather than being who we are and enjoying what we’ve got. There are voices that lead us to hoard and keep rather than give and share. Thanks for the example of Peter and the other disciples. They listened to Jesus. And they did what Jesus told them to do and because of this they caught plenty. By listening to Jesus, Peter had the chance to reverse his three-fold denial of the Lord by making a three-fold profession of his love for the Lord.

So today, Jesus is challenging us as he would have challenged his disciples. We are Easter people, people of hope. So we must live out this noble identity by not going back to our former way of life in sinning and selfishness and by listening to Jesus telling us to do the right thing, to take another way, or to get out of our comfort zones.

The second way we experience the risen Lord is through this Sacred Liturgy, in this Eucharistic celebration.

When the disciples got to the shore with all their catch, Jesus was already there. Apparently he has prepared breakfast for his disciples. This is what the Eucharist is about. Every celebration of the Eucharist is not our doing. Every celebration of the Eucharist is a miracle unfolding before us. Isn’t it an amazing thing to reflect on, that  every time we attend Mass we are witnessing a great miracle. And what is this miracle? The miracle that God becomes present in all of us together, in His Word being read, and in the changing of the bread and wine into his own body and blood (Sacrosanctum Concilium, Vatican II # 7-8). The disciples recognised the risen Lord in the breaking of the bread. Therefore, we can really experience the risen Lord in our participation in the Eucharist. Vatican II taught:

Christ is always present to his Church, especially in the actions of the liturgy. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, in the person of the minister (it is the same Christ who formerly offered himself on the cross that now offers by the ministry of priests) and most of all under the eucharistic species. He is present in the sacraments by his power, in such a way that when someone baptises, Christ himself baptises. He is present in his word, for it is he himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the Church. Finally, he is present when the Church prays and sings, for he himself promised: Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. (SC 7)

The third way we experience the risen Lord today is through discipleship, through following Jesus Christ. Peter in our gospel today shows us a way to follow Jesus, in fact this should be the first step: to profess our love in Jesus and decide to live out this love by loving one another, by tending or by looking after the sheep of God. It is a big call, but our faith would tell us that if we just keep listening to Jesus and act on his words something great and wonderful happens. The Apostles in our First Reading today could attest that by following Jesus and proclaiming his gospel, they are given power and courage to go on proclaiming the good news to all people despite oppositions, indifference or persecutions. Because they realized they are following the real Christ, they stood on their ground no matter what awaited them. They remained firm in their principle: ‘that obedience to God comes before obedience to men.’ This is then a reminder for us. Discipleship doesn’t mean that everything would be always right or perfect or to our advantage. It doesn’t mean walking on a red carpet all the time, or sleeping in a bed of roses. Discipleship is following Jesus even to the Cross. But if we do persevere, we can be assured of the promise of a full sharing in the glory of Christ in the kingdom of his Father.

 

 

Mar 30 2013

Resurrection of Jesus- a call to be Easter People

Homily for Easter Vigil year C 2013

Tonight is the night of all nights. Tonight we celebrate our salvation. Tonight we remember and re-live that momentous event in our salvation history when our God  has shown us that there is an end to sin and to death through the resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ from the dead. This calls for our celebration because this shows us that God has given us not only another chance to live but really he has given us a new life. So to celebrate this, we have taken parts in all the rituals for this Easter vigil.  We have done this by making ourselves available to become symbols and concrete expressions of being saved by Christ. We lit the Easter candle, the light of Christ, which points out to us that through Christ the darkness (of our sins and of our world) has come to an end. From that light of Christ we also lit our own candles and that tells us that we allow Christ to be our  source of light and nothing or no one else. We would express this in a more concrete way later when we renew our baptismal promises. We have also heard the series of readings (both from Old and New Testaments) which are particularly organized for this Easter Night, recalling the history of our salvation, and our journey with God from creation to our redemption. We have also with us tonight, people who are going to be baptised, confirmed and receive the Holy Eucharist for the first time. These new members of our Church  tell us that indeed tonight we are celebrating a new chapter in our life, a life with Christ. So we have all this fuzz if you like, because Christ, our Saviour, our Messiah, our God has risen from the dead. It is worth celebrating and rejoicing because Christ’s rising from the dead gives us strength and gives us hope that Good Friday is not the end of it all, but only a necessary component for the day of Resurrection. The resurrection of Jesus tells us that suffering is not and should not be what characterizes our being a Christian, but our being an Easter people.

We therefore are called Easter people. And we are called to live this out in our lives. We have to take the challenge to show it in our faces that we are worth dying for as to what Jesus has done for us.

Being Easter people, we need to put an end to our search for the living among the dead. This means that we stop looking for Jesus Christ among the dead. He is not there anymore, he is risen. He can now be found among the living, in each one of us. And to see the risen and  the living Jesus we need to stop searching him from among the dead and/or deadly things such as atheism, materialism, greed, envy, pride, self-righteousness, selfishness, etc. This means we need to see Christ in others by looking at one another through the eyes of Christ whose eyes looked beyond the physical features, who sees the sinner over the sins, who looks at the person over what he/she has done or has failed to do, and loves the person no matter how much it cost him and no matter what it takes, even death.

Being Easter people also means we need to bring the good news to others, like the women in our  gospel for tonight. How can we do this? We need only look at how Jesus Christ did it. He stood on his principle of love, forgiveness, justice, compassion, and mercy. He came to serve, not to be served. He taught and spoke of the truth even if it was a big risk to take for him. He was constantly in touch with his Father in prayer and in solitude thus making him for firm and strong in obeying the will of his Father. He dined with sinners and didn’t discriminate. He loved the unlovable. He touched the untouchables. Lastly, he lay down his life for his friends.  

So tonight as we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, let us thank him in the silence of our hearts for loving us, for making us feel special and worth dying for, for allowing us to experience a new life again, and for showing us that if we persevere till the end even if we have to suffer for the sake of truth, justice, love and peace, there is resurrection awaiting for us after all.

May this Easter season be a happy, holy and a wonderful celebration for each one of us. May Christ be truly alive in our hearts.  

Happy Easter.

 

Mar 17 2013

Seeing our real worth: Jesus’ way of love

Homily for 5th Sunday of Lent year C 2013

If we found a crumpled, even slightly torn off five-dollar note on the road, why do we take it. By the look at it, it seems not pleasant at all. It might be soiled but still if no one is looking, we would readily pick it up, well I am speaking for myself now.

We do pick up dollar note no matter how badly it has become not because of its appearance but because of its value, because of its worth. We can still use it. We can buy something out of it despite its appearance because of its real worth.

This is more or less the same message that Jesus wanted to express in our gospel today. He wants to show us that there is more to us than just following the what the  law tells us to do. There is more to the person than just looking at what he or she has done or has failed to do.

The Pharisees and the Scribes wouldn’t realize this because they didn’t really care for the woman at all. They were not concerned of her at all. They just took advantage of her humble and unfortunate situation to further their own self-interests and to realize their plot to get rid of Jesus. They wanted to have their way done in their favour, no matter whose life it may need to sacrifice. All they are interested to hear was Jesus’s answer to their case, and for them, so they thought, there is no way out for Jesus. He has to say YES or NO. And for both answer they have already made up an accusation against him. If Jesus said ‘no’, they’d say he’s breaking the law of Moses. If he said ‘yes’, then many of those following him would immediately stop following him because his YES would betray his claim of a loving, forgiving and a compassionate Father.

But Jesus didn’t like what they are up to. He knew they had lost sight of the reality of the situation. So he had to remind them that he looked at the person as he/she is, not on what he/she has or has done. He has seen that the woman was helpless and thus needing his help, his mercy, his forgiveness. He also has seen that all the people around him, the Pharisees and the scribes included had to be directed back to the real perspective.

He did that quite subtly yet powerfully. He didn’t make any judgment over anyone or over the woman. He seemed to have done this by saying like this: ‘Come on people, there’s life at stake here…and you are still thinking of your own self, of your personal interests, of your distorted understanding of the law of God. Look at the person, not on what he or she does or has failed to do.’ What he did was challenging everyone to have a life check and a lifestyle check. So he said: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.’ That caught the Pharisees and the scribes by surprise. They didn’t expect that answer from Jesus. They lost the case, so they left. Of course, the might have realized how narrow-minded they were. And Jesus gave the woman another chance to live.

However, this episode must not lead us to think that Jesus just takes sin lightly. In fact, he is serious about it. He even died on the cross for all our sins and for us sinners. What he did rather here is to show us that  if we humble ourselves before him, acknowledge our sins, come to him as we are, he would not only forgive us but he also would give us another chance to live and take on life, and even promised us of  eternal life.

And this is the beauty of our saviour. He knows that because of pride we tend to focus more on ourselves. Yet, he always gives us another chance. He always looks at our real value and worth despite everything we do and have. But we need to listen to him. We need to respond to his invitation to renew our relationship with him especially when we break it through sinning.

This beautiful and wonderful God has also come into the life of St Paul. He met him on the way. Again, in St Paul God didn’t look at his background or what he did. He looked at his inner goodness, which is his fidelity to the commandments of the Jews. Jesus only had to re-direct him to be faithful to his mission of proclaiming Christ to all the world. Today’s second reading is an example of this. So we heard St Paul  exclaimed: “For him I have accepted the loss of everything, and I look on everything as so much rubbish if only I can have Christ and be given a place in him.” St Paul realized that Christ is his supreme advantage because he died for all of us and for each one of us to live. For Christ, and even St Paul would agree with me in here,  we are worth dying for.

So as we continue our Lenten journey, let us have a life check and lifestyle check. Are we living according to our real worth and value that God has put on us? Are we seeing others as they are (with all their flaws and imperfections) as Christ sees them? We have to realize that no matter how sinful or bad we are, God sees us in our real worth, which cost him dearly of his blood. So then, let us  endeavour to appreciate the gifts that God has given us everyday without us even asking for them. Let us also begin, if not continue to see others the way Christ sees them, to bring Christ to others and to bring others to Christ. Amen.