Tag Archives: Reading (legislature)

Jul 16 2011

Reflection on the Gospel for 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time

16th Sunday of the year (A)

A saintly old lady was out for a short stroll one night, before going to bed. It was a beautiful night, clear sky, bright stars, full moon. The old woman was deeply touched as she looked up at the sky. With a deep sense of reverence at the awesomeness of God, and his creation, and her own limited humanity, she fell on her knees, and cried out, ‘Oh God of infinite goodness and beauty, please don’t ever let me offend you in the slightest, tiniest way again.’ Then she heard a voice saying, ‘My child, if I granted that request to everyone, how could I ever show my infinite mercy and forgiveness, which is one of the clearest ways I have to let people know and experience my love.’

Sometimes in life, we really wish everything would be alright, that every mess would be sorted out, that every problem would be solved, that like our little old lady, we would never sin again, that we would get out of our bad habits and bad lifestyles, that all bad people would be taken out of this world and so on. And so at times, we would wish together with St Julian of Norwich, that ‘all will be well.’

Friends, one of the many things that our gospel is telling us today is really this. In the parable of the wheat and the weeds, the servants who saw the ‘darnel’ (weeds planted by the devil) growing alongside the wheat, they asked the owner, if they can uproot them. But like the voice that the lady heard in the story, the owner said ‘No, because when you weed out the darnel you might pull up the wheat with it…Let’s just let them grow until harvest time and then we’ll gather the wheat into my barn and burn the weeds.’

I read somewhere a caption that says, ‘If your Church claims to be the Church of the Saints, stop going to that Church.’ If this church only opens its doors for the ‘good’ people, then this would not make any sense at all. It’s just like a hospital that admits only ‘healthy people.’   Friends, though we are not for this world, but we are still in  this world. And everyday we are confronted with all sort of things, confusion, chaos, violence, injustice, and the list can go on and on. To be able to uproot all these weeds in our society today is delusional. This is so because some of us might think that all these ‘bad’ things are only done by ‘bad’ people. Some of us just pass the buck to someone else. But  we have to know, that one of the very bad things in our times, is for the ‘good’ people to do nothing. And our idle mind, mind you, is the favourite workshop of the devil. We know this in our gospel today, the evil one went to the farm at night, when no one was there, and sowed the bad seed.

The other day, a friend told me that even though he’s doing the best he can, there are still people who are turning against him. This upset him and he wanted to express his anger to them. I calmed him down, telling him that ‘a fire can only be extinguished with water, not by another fire.

Yes, we may at times feel we’ve sown a good seed, but one day, we just wake up finding weeds in our precious field- a friend on whom we were relying lets us down, a kid for whom we had high hopes and done so much goes wrong, our relationship with each other goes sour and even leads to break-up.

What can we do then? First, let’s allow the weeds to grow, learn from these ‘weeds’ in life, but we should not imitate or allow these weeds to outgrow us. Second, let’s reflect and make this our prayer, our first reading today from the Book of Wisdom. This tells us of our God who cares for everything, who only has to will, and has power over everything. Third, turn to God in prayer, as St Paul urges in our Second Reading today. He knows our weakness. He knows everything in our hearts. We just have to allow his Holy Spirit to dwell and work in and through us, for it is this same Spirit who would strengthen and sustain as we continue to grow as ‘the wheat’ of God even though we are surrounded as well by the ‘weeds’ of this world.

Let this be our prayer then…That we would stop categorising people as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but rather we would help each other to grow in love and holiness as we go on with our pilgrimage towards the Kingdom of Heaven. Otherwise we would leave nothing for God to do. Amen.

Jul 2 2011

Reflection for 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time 2011

14th Sunday of the year (In Ordinary time)

Yesterday I had a conversation with a cab driver from the train station to the seminary in Melbourne. He opened up the conversation by asking what am I doing in Melbourne. I said “ I am studying to be a Catholic priest.” He was surprised and shocked. He never thought and never heard that Catholic Priest has to study to become one. He said, in his religion, they don’t have to study because for them religion is more  of a feeling thing. He then revealed to me later that he belongs to a Sikh religion. We had a good talk about things, about faith, his faith and my faith within that short 15 minute-ride to my destination. But then he said something that really struck me. He said, he believes in God, and he’s sorry for those who don’t believe in God at all. He continued to say that he’s been driving a taxi for 4 years already. He said driving a  taxi is a hard job since he has to queue and wait for passengers and only get very little income out of it, plus he has to pay the operator.  But he declared he’s not worried much about the money, because He believes that God provides him everyday.

Friends, sometimes in life we think that money can assure us of everything. We dream sometimes if we’ve got enough money or more, we would do this charitable work, or go there, or do this and that. We  tend to think, money can buy everything including happiness. We tend to believe that with money, we can make the world go round. We sometimes think all that we need is money and the rest will follow.

But our human experience attests and tells us that money is really not the ultimate end and the motive of everything that we do and aspire to. If we’ve got money, been to a wonderful holiday, been to the places that we dream to be in, and so on, then we come back home, we still realise that there is something more, something deeper that we want, that we need, that we seek for. We crave for something that no money can buy.

Friends, this is God. Our Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that God has written something in the innermost part of our heart- that is “longing for him.” That’s why no amount of worldly wealth or treasures can satisfy this longing, but God. St. Augustine has made this wonderful realization. After years of life in sin, of sexual promiscuity, of going astray, of living life in debauchery, he was graced and had undergone a complete transformation and declared, “My heart is restless, until it rests in God.” Then we know the rest of the story. Augustine lived the rest of  his life in service and in love of God.

If St Paul were to speak to St Augustine and the cab driver today, he would have affirmed them saying as in our First Reading today, “Your interests are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit has made his home in you.”

I didn’t ask the cab driver what kind of God he believes in, but I can surmise, our Only One and True God is the one who makes him contented of his life and of what he does.

However, we are not just to wait for God to do something for us. We have to do our share. It is rather not with the attitude of a [good work = reward or bad thing= punishment]. But the attitude of dependence, trust in God- a child-like attitude- trusting that a child of God, He already knows what we need and what’s good for us. Just trust in him.

Sometimes in life, we feel that the world have tumbled over us, that we lose hope, no light, distressed, discouraged, depressed, disappointed, and more so we feel like we are being abandoned by God. Our gospel today would tell us that yes, these are normal human feelings and experience, but we would really be enslaved by these negativities, if we think  and try to console ourselves, that we can do everything on our own. No…If we can’t do anything on our own without God’s help in some way, we could not also try to solve all our problems on our own. This is why Jesus invites us in our gospel today, “Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder  my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls…”

Money is not the real God, so it can only give false hope, false rest, transient happiness, temporary contentment. The God in Jesus is the One true God, and He is the only one who can provide us with everlasting happiness, real rest and lasting contentment.

So as we continue our celebration today, let’s reflect on who really God is in our lives.  Is our attitude towards money helping us to enhance our relationship with our God, or is it driving us away from the true God?

May 14 2011

Good Shepherd Sunday Homily 2011

4th Sunday of Easter Reflection

This is one image of a good Shepherd that I really like the most, it is the image of a Shepherd looking for his lost sheep. After some times, he found his sheep on the edge of the cliff. With his left hand clinging on the tree trunk above him, he reached out his right hand to save his sheep from falling down the cliff. That image always moves me because, that was a great risk he took, risking his very life to save his beloved sheep. And that is a Good Shepherd, the one who would risk everything just to save his sheep.

Brothers and sisters, today our gospel speaks about Jesus as the Shepherd as well as the gate of the sheepfold. As a Shepherd, He took the risk of taking care of  the sheep from thieves and brigands. As a gate for his sheep, he took the risk of  preserving, protecting, and keeping them all together. He knows each of his sheep by name, that means that he cherishes and loves each of them equally, and parents could attest to this…loving your kids equally is a great risk…and you know the reason why…You just couldn’t show special and more affection to one and neglect the other otherwise the consequence is not good.

Today is also called a Good Shepherd Sunday. Seminarians in some parts of the world are at this time in the parishes, giving vocation talks and awareness, campaigning for vocations, encouraging people to pray for more vocations.

Yes, answering the call to the priesthood or religious life today is a great risk. This  can entail leaving your circle of friends, sacrificing the things that  you always love to do, doing the things that you don’t like to do. But this is also the same with the marriage. Both couple have to risk something just to get on alright. Just the same in all kinds of life we are living in. If we don’t risk, perhaps it’s worth checking if we are really and truly human beings.

But do we just have to take a risk all the time? Yes, but Jesus shows us the example to follow according to St Peter today in the Second Reading. Risking is not bad at all if we only allow Jesus to be with us, to walk with  us. True, it’s  a risk to listen to the call of Jesus today, because there are more attractive, appealing and persuasive calls that the world is calling us into. But then again, the words of Jesus in the gospel echoes more loudly, that “All others  who have come are thieves and brigands…The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full.”

 SO as we continue our journey of Easter, let us keep in mind that Jesus is our life, our way, our resurrection (Easter Sunday), our Divine Mercy (2nd Sunday), our Lord and Saviour  (3rd  Sunday), and our  Good Shepherd (4th Sunday).

Let’s pray therefore, that in whatever vocations we are answering into now, let’s put our risk at rest in the company of  Jesus. And please pray for more vocations, to married life,  to the priesthood and religious life. And that we’ll become not only a SHEPHERD but really a GOOD one…Amen…