In life, we face all sorts of challenges and obstacles. As time goes by, some of us may feel worn out, discouraged, anxious, afraid, etc. However, Jesus in today’s Gospel assures us: “Courage! It is I! Do not be afraid.” Jesus can help us as we struggle along in life and with Him as our guide, we do not need to fear or worry any longer. Storms may come and go, but Jesus is there to protect us and help us weather the storm. Are we willing to let Him take control and care for us? Do we really and truly trust Him with our lives?
Author Archives: Andrew Kooi
Tuesday after Epiphany
When we hear of some people loving others without any hidden agenda or condition, we call that unconditional love. However, we sometimes come across people loving others because it is beneficial to them, and such love would be advantageous to them in some way. What about us? What sort of love do we have and practise?
Today’s reading reminds us that love comes from God “and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” Also, today’s reading tells us of God’s unconditional love, where He “sent into the world his only Son so that we could have life through him…” We also see in today’s Gospel how Jesus loved the crowd by not only teaching them, but also feeding them by performing the miracle of the multiplication of five loaves and two fish. Do we really know God and are willing to love unconditionally just as God loves us unconditionally? Are we following Jesus’ example in loving all?
Monday after Epiphany
Every once in a while we hear someone preaching something which seems to be about Christ. They appear to be gaining lots of followers and soon they have mega-churches or big buildings, property and land to be used for so called evangelisation. However, today’s reading warns us to be careful and not be easily influenced by such people. The reading tells us:
“It is not every spirit, my dear people, that you can trust; test them, to see if they come from God, there are many false prophets, now, in the world. You can tell the spirits that come from God by this: every spirit which acknowledges that Jesus the Christ has come in the flesh is from God; but any spirit which will not say this of Jesus is not from God, but is the spirit of Antichrist, whose coming you were warned about.”
Not everything which people do in Jesus name is true. Sometimes there is deception in what appears to be true, so we need to discern carefully and see whether these people are genuine or just trying to lure us away from the Gospel. Many tragedies, forms of cheating and other evil have been committed, under the pretext of preaching the Gospel. Let us be careful and not be so easily influenced.
Epiphany
Some of us like to follow stars. Some like to follow movie stars, singing stars, successful stars, wealthy stars; hoping perhaps that one day we would be like the stars we follow. The wise men in today’s Gospel were also after a star. However, this star is not just any ordinary star. This star is the true star which we should follow: Jesus Christ, King of kings.
To further affirm that Jesus is the true star, even the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh which the wise men brought have great significance. The gift of gold symbolises the kingship of Christ. Jesus Christ is a king, not of this world, but one of justice, peace and love. The second gift is the gift of frankincense. This gift symbolises the divinity of Christ. Christ is no mere human person. He is God made man. He is God with us. Finally, we have the gift of myrrh which points to the passion of Christ. Christ must suffer and die to save us. We must also be prepared to follow his ways and eventually on the way to the cross.
Today, let us choose to follow the one true star that really matters: our Lord and God, Jesus Christ. All other stars come and go, but Jesus is here to stay and He is leading and guiding us to be with him eternally. Are we willing to follow Him earnestly?
3 January
Sin and God are incompatible. So if we sin, we are distancing ourselves from God. Sometimes we find it difficult to stay sinless, because of all sorts of temptations and attractions of the world. However, we have much opportunities to cleanse ourselves from sin by going for confession. The question is: have we been regular for confession? Do we value this precious sacrament?
Today’s reading assures us that “we are already the children of God but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed; all we know is, that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.” The reading also admonishes us by reminding us that “Surely everyone who entertains this hope must purify himself, must try to be as pure as Christ. Anyone who sins at all breaks the law, because to sin is to break the law.” If we want to remain in Christ, we must make every effort to avoid sin. If we sin, we must purify ourselves by going for confession. Let us not be shy or procrastinate, as our time is short. We do not know when the Lord will call us, so we should always try to remain ready, clean and pure to meet him.
2 January
Most of us would have been taught about the faith as children or as adults, depending on whether we were baptised as infants or as adults. However, regardless of when and how we were taught, we are reminded in today’s reading to “Keep alive in yourselves what you were taught in the beginning: as long as what you were taught in the beginning is alive in you, you will live in the Son and in the Father; and what is promised to you by his own promise is eternal life.”
As we go on in life, we may face various challenges, persecution, temptation, etc. However, we should make every effort to remain faithful to Christ and to God. As the reading also reminds us: “You are anointed with truth, not with a lie, and as it has taught you, so you must stay in him. Live in Christ, then, my children, so that if he appears, we may have full confidence, and not turn from him in shame at his coming.” Have we been taking heed to these words and remain in Christ? It may not be an easy task, but let us persevere and trust in God, knowing that God will care for us and not abandon us.
Mary, Mother of God – Solemnity
Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. More importantly, we celebrate God becoming man. Because of Mary’s yes to God, God became man and we have Jesus Christ our Lord. Salvation is the result of the cooperation between God and man, and Mary’s cooperation made this possible.
God sent his Son to redeem us and to enable us to be adopted as sons. As the second reading tells us: “The proof that you are sons is that God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts: the Spirit that cries, ‘Abba, Father’, and it is this that makes you a son, you are not a slave any more; and if God has made you son, then he has made you heir.” Are we aware of our being adopted sons of God? Are we appreciative and humbled that we have been made heirs? Sometimes in life, we may forget who we are and may go astray. However, God is always waiting patiently for us to come back to Him, just as the father waited for the prodigal son to come home.
Let us thus, like Mary, treasure all these things and ponder them in our heart, for God has given a wonderful gift to us, the gift of His Son. As we also celebrate World Day of Peace, let us bring the peace Christ to all and continue to dwell in His presence.
7th day within the octave of Christmas
Are we children of God, friends of Christ? Or are we rivals of Christ? This may seem a simple question. After all, who wouldn’t want to be a child of God, a friend of Christ? But sometimes our way of life, our behaviour, our actions, our attitude, may cause us to be rivals of Christ instead of friends of Christ.
Today’s reading tells us that “Those rivals of Christ came out of our own number, but they had never really belonged; if they had belonged, they would have stayed with us; but they left us, to prove that not one of them ever belonged to us.” What exactly does it mean to belong? If we say that we love God and neighbour, then it may seem that we may belong. However, saying we love God and neighbour is not enough. We need to show that we love God and neighbour. It is through our actions that others will see that we are Jesus’ disciples. Talk is cheap, action speaks louder than words.
Thus, let us seriously ponder. Are we really belonged? Or have we gone astray? Let us choose wisely, and do what is necessary if we want to belong.
6th day within the octave of Christmas
Some of us would have struggled through life to be in good relationship with God. Sometimes, we may feel as if our efforts are not bearing much fruit; or being and staying good seems like an uphill task. However, today’s reading is a great source of inspiration and comfort for us:
“You must not love this passing world or anything that is in the world. The love of the Father cannot be in any man who loves the world, because nothing the world has to offer – the sensual body, the lustful eye, pride in possessions – could ever come from the Father but only from the world; and the world, with all it craves for, is coming to an end; but anyone who does the will of God remains for ever.”
Do we have the love of the Father within us? Or have we begun to love the world more? Though we need to survive in this world, let us not be overwhelmed and seduced by its embrace. Though we do not know when the world would actually come to an end, let us not be caught offguard. Our goal ought to be to remain forever with God.
Holy Family
Where do we get most of our education from? Some may say from kindergarten. Others may say from primary or secondary school. Others may even say at college or university. However, all these forms of education can only be beneficial to us if we have learnt the basics, and the basics are (hopefully) taught to us at home, at a very young age. It is in the family that we learn to be a person, a citizen, a Christian, and God’s children.
However, the family is under threat. We see more and more families becoming broken. We see lack of communication taking place; husbands and wives not talking to each other; children not talking to their parents or siblings. We see greater increase in divorce rates, because some people are not happy in their marriages and look elsewhere for love and comfort. We see children being left alone at home or under the care of grandparents, maids or babysitters, as parents work late or prefer to live and enjoy their lives outside. We see elderly parents being abandoned or placed in nursing homes and rarely visited, because some people find it inconvenient to care for them (it seems strange and unfortunate that our parents were making sacrifices to care for us when we were young, but some of us are unwilling to do the same when they are old). Some parents have even given up or lack patience to teach their children, preferring to wash their hands and let others do their dirty work. I remember hearing a parent approaching a teacher and asking the teacher to control his son who is very “naughty.” The teacher said: “If you cannot control your son at home, where you see him daily for several hours, how do you expect me to control him, when I see him only twice a week for about 30 minutes each?”
All these things may sound like a hopeless situation. But it need not be, if we are prepared to make God and our faith the centre of our lives again. The Holy Family, whose Feast we celebrate today, reminds us that it is not hopeless. The Holy Family was not a perfect family. They too had their problems. But what sets them apart from other families is their faith in God. They understood that a family is never truly a family unless God is made the centre of it. Does this mean that once we make God the centre of our lives, we will not have any problems? No. But we know that God will care for us and not abandon us. The problems we face become easier to manage, if we let God take control and help us, for he will not abandon us.
Whatever obstacles and problems we face in our lives and in our families, let us not despair or give up. God can and will help us. The question is: are we humble enough to walk in His ways and let Him guide us and our families? Do we offer ourselves and our families to God, so He can transform us into something better?