Category Archives: Ordinary Time

It is not easy to build a relationship or gain friendship. It takes time for a relationship and friendship to become strong and mature. However, there are two attitudes which can destroy relationship and friendship. What are the two attitudes? They are jealousy and ambition, as they can cause soured relationships, rifts and disharmony. As St. James warns us in the second reading: “Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done…”

Relationships and friendships breakdown, deteriorate or even disintegrate because we develop feelings of jealousy against one another, and this is often fueled by ambition for power and status. What is the cause of jealousy and ambition? St. James in today’s second reading gives us a clue: “Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force.” Moreover, in today’s gospel, we see the disciples of Jesus fighting among themselves over the issue of power. They were arguing over which of them was the greatest.

Why do we need to be jealous and ambitious? Why do we need to be the greatest? It is precisely because we are insecure; we are not comfortable with ourselves; we feel that we are not good enough and that others are better off than us; we feel that others threaten our status and position; and all these could lead us to become more and more jealous until we come to a point where jealousy consumes us, and we become more interested in working towards the downfall of others. Jealousy leads us to gossip and slander, and we end up wasting all our time and energies in our petty squabbles and in our scheming, instead of building God’s kingdom.

So what do we need to do to break the deadly and poisonous grip of jealousy in our lives? We need to put a stop to all the nonsense we are doing immediately, no ifs, maybes or buts. We cannot go on being jealous, as it will only lead us to our ruin. Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.” This means we should strive towards serving with humility, we should strive to work with one another in building God’s kingdom, and we should strive towards a conversion of heart. This can come about if we pray earnestly for ourselves, for one another, and for the community. But prayer alone is not enough. We must be prepared to change our ways and heal our relationships with one another, instead of continuing to point fingers at one another and hurting each other with our words and deeds. May we let the Lord be our guide and strength, and release us from our jealousy, so that in all we do, His name be glorified.

As children, many of us may have attended Religious Education each Sunday. For some of us, such classes are called Catechism classes or Sunday school. During such classes, we would have learnt so many things about God, about Jesus, about the ten commandments, the list goes on. But the problem is: is this what faith is all about? Is our faith confined only to memorising our catechism? Some of us may have gone through rote learning in school, where we had to memorise things and regurgitate such facts in order to pass exams. But what benefit did we eventually gain from such methods of learning? Do we understand what we have learnt and are we able to apply such facts in daily life? In the same way, do we understand what we have learnt at Catechism classes, and are we able to apply what we have learnt in daily life?

The fact is: faith is more than just memorising facts, as the readings today tell us. Faith is more than merely reciting the creed; more than learning our catechism; more than just knowing about God and Jesus. It is pointless for us to just have the kind of faith where we have head-level knowledge about something or someone, where we merely have facts and information about that thing or person. Instead, our faith should be about knowing someone, whereby we have a special and intimate relationship with that person.

In today’s gospel, Peter recognises Jesus as the Christ, the Anointed One of God. However, this recognition is only head knowledge. Peter knew about Jesus but didn’t know him as a person. Jesus, therefore, explains who he really is and what his mission entails. Jesus tells Peter that He must suffer grievously, be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, put to death, and after three days He will rise again. But this is the part which Peter could not understand. Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ but could not accept the fact this Christ must suffer and die. To help Peter, Jesus further explains that for one to become His disciple, that person must be prepared to renounce himself, take up his cross and follow the same fate of Jesus. This means that the disciple must have an intimate relationship with Jesus and not only be satisfied with knowing about Jesus.

That is why our faith would be meaningless if it stays only within head-knowledge. Our faith calls for conversion, commitment and action. St. James in the second reading challenges us to show our faith through our good deeds. It is not enough to just say that we have faith, but we must prove our faith through the lives we live, by our readiness to accept the cross of Jesus and follow him. We must be prepared to lose everything, even our lives knowing that “anyone who loses his life for Christ’s sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Let us therefore honestly examine our faith. Is our faith merely head-knowledge? Is our faith only a safe kind of faith that tries to avoid trouble or the cross? If we call ourselves Christians, then we should be doing what Christ did. We should renounce ourselves, take up our cross and follow Jesus, since He is the way to eternal life and glory.