Category Archives: Sunday

What is your favourite chapter or verse in the bible? Some of us seem to have a favourite chapter or verse, which we often turn to, to remind us of God’s love, to comfort us when we are facing difficulties, or when we are in need of strength and encouragement. But the bible is not only about such things. The bible also contains chapters and verses which could make us feel quite uncomfortable and uneasy, as the second reading reminds us: “The word of God is something alive and active: it cuts like any double-edged sword…” This means that the bible not only consoles us but also challenges us. It does not only promise blessings but also spells out curses which arise when we fail to remain faithful to God.

Today’s Gospel is one example where reading the bible could make us feel quite uncomfortable or uneasy. Why so? In the Gospel, the rich man claimed that he had kept all the commandments from his earliest days. Then Jesus posed him a greater challenge, “Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” If you were in the rich man’s shoes, how would you have felt? Quite likely some of you would have been bewildered with such a challenge. It seems crazy and absurd for us to get rid of everything that we have and become a pauper, just to follow Jesus. But what is Jesus really trying to tell us? Are you able to read between the lines?

What Jesus is trying to tell us is quite profound and concerns us as Christians, as His followers, as His disciples. Jesus is reminding us that the kingdom of God is far greater than the kingdom of men. The treasures which we will find in heaven far surpasses and outweighs the riches which we accumulate on this earth. Unless we are prepared to let go of things on this earth by being detached from them, we will not be able to gain treasures in heaven. This is because when we are concerned only on things of this life, which are temporary, will fade, and which we cannot take with us after death, then we are truly being foolish, since we are spending so much time trying to accumulate earthly things which would eventually be lost to us.

But is being rich wrong? No, that is not the point of what Jesus is trying to teach us. What Jesus is trying to tell us is to remove all obstacles, such as our riches, our pride, our wealth and possessions, or our power, which prevent and distract us from following Him and becoming truly His disciples. While we do need to survive in this world, we should not be entangled by what this world has to offer, and lose sight of our heavenly goal. As some may have heard, we should “eat to live” and not be concerned with “living to eat.” This means that, like the camel in the Gospel, we must remove earthly burdens which encumber us, so that we may pass through the “eye of the needle,” if we seek to be in the Kingdom of God.

Some of you may be thinking: giving up our earthly riches and being detached from them? Sounds impossible. We are surrounded by so many forms of temptations to gain more and more of what this world has to offer. How do we tear ourselves from such constant bombardment of earthly attractions? Once again, Jesus assures us: “For men it is impossible, but not for God; because everything is possible for God.” May we seek God’s help and grace, so that we would be able to give up all attachments that will prevent us from following Jesus, so that we would be lightened and free to strive towards His Kingdom.

What does it mean to be married? Is marriage merely an event for show or for display, such as what we see in some of the reality shows appearing on television these days, which treats marriage as a form of entertainment? Some people may say that they have a right to get married, so long as they are at the right legal age, and they love each other. No matter what others say, no matter what the church may say, they insist that they have a right to marry. While the church recognises that individuals have a right to marry, the church also requires that those planning to marry be properly informed about what marriage is all about, in other words, what such individuals are getting themselves into.

Why is the church so fussy about preparing couples for marriage? What is the big deal, some may ask. Is the church behaving like a Big Brother, trying to control our lives, even when it comes to marriage? No. The church is not like that. It is precisely because we have seen many marriages fail, sometimes so quickly and at an alarming rate, that it is a great cause of concern. When affected couples were asked what had happened and what went wrong, it is quite often the same story: they were actually not ready for marriage, even though they had initially thought they were; they had not known each other long enough or well enough; they had not truly and clearly understood what commitment in marriage is all about; they were more concerned about their own needs and issues; and a significant number of affected couples realised that God was not present in their minds when they decided to get married. When you marry without being ready in all sense of the word, you are merely brewing a recipe for disaster, leading to another statistic for marriages gone bust.

The readings today gives us some understanding of what marriage is all about. We must realise that marriage is not a human institution but a divine institution. It is a vocation. Very often, God is forgotten in all the hustle and bustle of making preparations for marriage. Couples are more concerned with so many other things, that God and the church seems to have become a necessary inconvenience. Some couples feel as if they are being forced or pressured by their parents to marry in church. But what they forget is that it is God who makes marriages possible and lasting. If God is absent from our lives, it would really be very difficult to make the marriage work. Also, a marriage calls for couples to experience a conversion in their lives. Conversion must take place because, as Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel: “the two must become one body.” Conversion must take place for couples to die to their selfishness and learn to live together as one. That is why the preparation is so important. Some people try to find ways and means to take short cuts during the preparation, but what they fail to realise is that Rome was not built in a day. If you want to graduate with a degree, you work hard for it and you pursue it relentlessly. Likewise, if you want to stay married, you must also be properly prepared and work hard for it. Moreover, marriage is about commitment. Love is all about commitment, and never about feelings and emotions. Commitment means accepting the whole package as is, “for better or for worse,” and not just pick and chooose the parts we like. Commitment means learning to forgive not once but again and again, and is more concerned with giving than with taking and receiving. Commitment calls us to change ourselves throughout our lives.

Today, marriages are in trouble. Couples are behaving more and more individualistic. The togetherness and oneness seems to have become lost in translation. Divorces have become so rampant. I recall being present for a hearing for divorce cases at a family court some time back, and on that one day, more than fifty cases were being heard, and each case was disposed like products moving along a conveyor belt. Can you imagine that? What has marriage become? Have some couples become so selfish and self-centred, that people are seen as objects to be used, and when they are no longer seen as useful, they are then discarded? This is why I pray that couples will take responsibility and initiative for their marriage to remain strong. Remember that your children learn from you, and your children too may someday follow in your footsteps. If your marriage is messed up, do something about it and seek help where necessary, don’t play play with your marriage, don’t wait until it is too late. Let us pray that God would continue to bring healing into our lives so that our lives would be filled with selfless love instead of selfishness.

Each and every one of us has got a certain role and purpose as a church. No matter how small, medium or big the role and purpose is, it is necessary and needed. Some of us may feel as if what we are doing in church may seem insignificant or nothing to shout about, but what we often forget is that everything that we do as a church has got a reason, a purpose. The church is the Body of Christ and we could look at the church in reference to the human body. The human body, as we know, has got different parts, and each part has got its own purpose and function. Hands are used for writing, lifting, holding and carrying. Feet are meant for walking. Our eyes are meant for seeing and our ears are meant for hearing. Each part cannot take over the function and role of the other, since each part has been designed specifically for a particular role and function.

The problem that some of us may be facing is when we allow pride, ego, and especially jealousy, to take control of us. When we allow jealousy to rear its ugly head, we become indifferent and blind to the importance and roles of others. We begin to think that whatever we do is the most important, or that we are the greatest, and that our role is indispensable. When others seem to be doing the same thing as we are doing, we begin to feel irritated, threatened and insecure, and we begin to find ways and means to put down or even destroy others so that only our skills and abilities are accepted and recognised. We allow Christ’s mission to be disrupted, when we allow competition to fester in the life of the church.

In the first reading and in the Gospel, we can clearly see how jealousy can cloud our minds, our eyes and our hearts, causing us to lose track of who we are and what is our role and purpose. In the first reading, some of the elders appointed by Moses and who had received the spirit from him felt threatened by others who had not gone through the same selection and yet somehow had received the spirit. What they failed to realise is that God freely gives His spirit to anyone He chooses. Nobody can claim to have a monopoly or control over God, or His Spirit, or Truth. God gives Himself to all. The disciples of Christ in the Gospel also had the same problem. They felt threatened by another man who was able to cast out devils and saw him as a competitor. However, Jesus saw him differently and recognised the gift of the Spirit in this man. This led Jesus to make an important observation: “…no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me. Anyone who is not against us is for us.”

So what does this all mean? It means that we must remember that we are all part of Christ’s Body, and each and every one of us are necessary and important. We must not see each other as competitors. Instead, we must encourage the gifts, talents and contributions of others, since all of us have one common mission, that is to build God’s Kingdom and not our own kingdom. After all, what and who are we trying to ultimately prove? Thus, if we have been jealous of others in the community, if we have been an obstacle to others, or if we have failed to give encouragement, then we must make effort to change, and not expect others to change to suit us. This is what Jesus was trying to tell us in the Gospel when he said: “if your hand, foot or eye should cause you to sin, cut it off.” Let us stop all this nonsense and ridiculous waste of time and energy in blaming others and start taking responsibility for our actions and for the problems we have brought to our church community. May we learn to focus more on doing God’s will and giving Him the glory, instead of trying to gain glory and gratification for ourselves.

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.