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“Heaven is not empty,
Life is not a simple product of laws
and the randomness of matter,
but within everything
and at the same time
above everything
there is a personal will
there is a Spirit
who in Jesus has revealed himself as Love”.
Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi
WISHING YOU A HOPEFUL 2008
When I tried to understand all this,
it was oppressive to me
till I entered the sanctuary of God...
Psalm 73:16-17
(New International Version)
The Son of God once said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”. This bespeaks spiritual hunger. It refers to those who realise the poverty of their spirits and the starvation of their souls, and who actively acknowledge it and ardently seek to be made full. The kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
Spiritual hunger does not seem to be very common these days. Our lives are too cluttered; we do not give ourselves the space to be spiritually hungry. We quickly fill the nothingness of our lives with internet chats and forums, movies, music, sports, and frantic socialisation.
The more religiously inclined ones seek spiritual entertainment by fraternising with the pop-Jesus. They look for churches that provide them with this particular “effect” they seek in their very seemingly Christian but very unspiritual journey.
These things do not satisfy spiritual hunger; they prevent one from experiencing real spiritual hunger. They acutely dull the human senses towards the longing, the searching, and the reaching out for the divine.
Those who are truly spiritually hungry often find themselves lonely in a world that has forgotten the virtue of spiritual hunger. Most others are just really quite okay with the way things are, and this often (but not always) includes religious leaders. So the ones who are truly spiritually hungry and who pursue truth find themselves outcasted even from religious communities.
How can spiritual hunger be cultivated in a world that promises so much gratification to the desires of the restless soul, and ironically, perpetuates that state of restlessness? Religion, we can find - just walk into any church. But what about true spirituality that really feeds the poor in spirit, brings the Kingdom of God to them and then draws them into it?
May God bless you with discomfort,
at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships,
so that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger,
at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
so that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
My God bless you with tears,
to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war,
so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain to joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness,
to believe that you can make a difference in this world,
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
Amen.
It’s Christmas Eve. And it feels strange writing, on Christmas Eve, an article due for publication on Holy Week. But that’s precisely what I’ve been doing all day.
This exercise really does give a twist to the meaning of Christmas for me. It takes the commercial glimmer away from Christmas and dissipates the sparkle from the eyes of baby Jesus when I have to be contemplating on how he would one day have to have the weight of his body supported by three nails pinned onto a cross.
On Christmas, we speak of the arrival of hope. But the coming of this hope was embellished with a host of unrealistic expectations about how God would save his people at his coming. When Christmas is commemorated through the lenses of an excruciating crucifixion, suddenly there’s a pain that comes with it.
Christmas is the arrival of hope. But by the time of the realisation of hope at Easter, one realises that the journey towards hope must pass through a Good Friday.
A Blessed Christmas to you, as we together remember that hope is one that brings together with it pain.
There are times in our lives when we are shaken by evil or painful realities that confront us. Those of us who're not living in shielded environments and who expose ourselves to the "real" things of the world soon find that assumptions of security and stability in life are but false notions.
When misfortunes befall us (whether or not it's through our own fault), the fact of human vulnerability abruptly stares us in the face of our souls. We then no longer find that life consists of sugar and spice and everything nice. When misfortunes befall other people, we may perhaps feel a sense of sympathy; but still, they remain far off from us. But when misfortunes confront us, we feel robbed, we feel violated, we feel oppressed.
It's good for the soul. It's good that we're constantly reminded of the fragility of life. It's right that we should place our hopes on things that last and things that aren't vulnerable to human violation. Being confronted by the reality of vulnerability in the present scheme of things does serve to bring our consciousness back to the way our lives should be.
As human persons, we constantly strive for an equilibrium in our existence. The problem is, we seek to create this equilibrium externally, and external equilibriums are volatile since they can be tampered with by forces other than ourselves. Life is about finding a place of equilibrium within, not without. Then we will be able to say, "Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say, 'Even so, it is well with my soul.'"
Some things remain universal beyond the boundaries of chronology.
As it is with the modern day, it does seem like many (if not most) people of Jesus' day were comfortably happy with the mode of religion constructed for them by the religious authorities. Perhaps the religious programmes that were institutionally constructed helped them to feel a sense of security. "Do this and this and that, and participate in this ritual and that ritual, and you're all right."
In as much as we would like to think that people are beginning to seek reasons for their faith and to question the meaning of their existence (and hence, together with the significance of familiar religious symbols), this is perhaps not characteristic of the vast majority of the masses. Perhaps most religious people are simply secure in their unquestioning state, preferring to stay with prevalent religious conventions.
This presents the dilemma of preaching a revolutionary Christ, who by his very nature of being God, questioned the religious order of his day. He was the oddly strange person who seemed to be dissatisfied with what conventional religion had to offer to the human dilemma. And yet, how could anyone know if his revolutionary ideas were truly those that God desired? It was an insane risk to follow him. Some did anyway.
To those who were desperate for some fresh answers to their lives' concerns, Christ's message seemed inspirational and refreshing. To those who were "all right" because the religious institution said so (since they were abiding by all the prescribed religious requirements), Christ probably seemed to be a psychologically displaced oddball.
Perhaps those who did listen to his message were simply the misfits who had nothing left to lose in life. When there is much to lose, much of the revolutionary message of the Gospel has to be sifted through the lenses of our vested interests; the message of Christ needs to be "neutralised" so it becomes less distasteful.
After centuries of "preaching the Gospel to all the world", the dilemma of preaching the authentic Gospel abides. And I wonder just how much "evangelicalism" (if this term even means anything anymore) is contributing to this dilemma.
In one of today's newspapers, the Vatican is reported to have defended the right to evangelise and to accept new converts (read here).
Let's face it: few of us ever bother to open our hearts to try and understand what others believe. We're afraid that in listening, we might be "bought over". That just shows how confident we are (not) in what we believe.
I think all of us need some evangelisation. Some of us are really good at evangelising others but become stiffly resistant towards others' evangelisation efforts, as if only our gospel is worth listening to. At a human level, I think if we want others to hear us out, we too should listen. Otherwise our gospel is no more than one that defies the right to human dignity.
But what if after listening to the gospel from over the other side, we discovered the poverty of our own gospel? Frightening thought, isn't it? Here's how I see it:
If we end up being "bought over" to a belief that we have reason to think is more credible than our previous convictions because we're now more informed about the issues surrounding our faith, what's wrong with that?
In response to the newspaper article, here's something good for our souls:
The purpose of this video is to help Protestant Christians and others develop a better understanding of the Roman Catholic Church, its history and basic beliefs by listening to Roman Catholics tell their own story.
Mary the Mother of God; the theotokos, the God-bearer.
She becomes a model for all believers because she dared to believe that which the world would say is impossible: "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said."
O Theotokos and Virgin, rejoice, Mary, Full of Grace, the Lord is with You; Blessed are You among Women, and Blessed is the Fruit of Your Womb, for You Have Borne the Saviour of Our Souls.
When Ignatius of Loyola and his companions decided that they would dedicate their lives to an unrelenting commitment to “the greater glory of God”, they knew exactly what that commitment would entail: falling into the disfavour of all sorts of establishments, i.e. the church, governments, and families.
The rest was history. In countless national contexts, the religious of the Society of Jesus have been the catalysts for major societal revolutions as they staked their lives and reputations for justice and peace. These revolutions often caused them to have been regarded with disfavour and suspicion by secular and ecclesiastical authorities.
The point is this: when a man is so dedicated to the greater glory of God, no establishment - not even the church - can contain the magnitude of his vision. A man who is sold out to the greater glory of God becomes a threat to governments, to the church establishment, and even to his own family. A commitment to the greater glory of God compromises the political stability and the self-serving motives of such establishments.
Can one truly serve the greater glory of God without provoking the disfavour of earthly establishments? Ask Jesus. Ask history. Try as we may to shield ourselves against the wounding accuracy of this reality, it remains true that being subservient to the greater glory of God makes one an enemy to the illusions of these establishments.
"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
I wouldn’t kid myself.
I'm seldom speechless. Or very emotional.
But today I've been stirred bonkers.
By friends.
Surely this statement may invoke some fury, but I really do think that people generally don’t know how to write melodies and poetic lyrics that speak anymore.
I remember how in the very early 1990s, when my schoolmates were consuming the works of Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Guns ‘N Roses, Taylor Dayne, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston, among many others, I was into folk. That was rather strange for a kid my age.
I recall how every single day, after returning from school, I would sit down and listen to James Taylor, Paul Simon, and Don McLean sing for hours upon hours.
Don McLean, he’s a prophet, if you know what I mean. I could just listen to him for hours without getting bored. He sang so much about life. His songs made me sad, angry, excited, loved, these and a whole plethora of other emotions… he sang about real stuff. I’ve hardly met a singer-songwriter who’s so connected with life.
There’s this one particular song of Don’s I used to listen to every single day: Crossroads. Over time, listening to it over and over again became like a prayer. Here it is, and it’s making me pray all over again:
Listen to this:
Who ever writes lyrics like that anymore?
By the way, I've finished writing my doctoral dissertation. Yeah, all 280 pages of it, the whole hundred thousand words.
The finishing line is much nearer now than it was five years ago.
And I love God more now than when I first started.
The only thing is, my understanding of God, of the faith, and of the church has changed because of what this rigorous discipline of research has put me through. The peril of discovering things by accident which you never expected to discover. I'll have to decide what I'm going to do about that.
It's been one hell of a journey.
It feels rather strange when a well-respected man who once told you in private to never compromise what you believe in now compromises you.
It seems odd when the one who once told you never to cave in when confronted by public opinion now shows himself to be most afraid of what the public might say about him.
How does one now "unrespect" someone in a respectable way?
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
Father, forgive him even though he knows exactly what he is doing.
Waiting is a tedious discipline.
I stand at a place of waiting. I await many things; things I expect to happen, answers I expect to get, things I expect to receive, and also things I expect to give, all at the appointed times. Some of the appointed moments are imminent, others remain uncertain.
What does one do whilst sitting in the waiting room? How does one wait? Does one sit and really just do nothing?
The problem with waiting lies precisely in the nothingness of that act itself. It feels like nothing is happening, like nobody cares to make something happen either. Waiting sometimes inflicts a sense of abandonment on the one who waits.
The discipline of waiting tests the depth of peace present in one’s soul. To survive moments of waiting, one needs to focus on the duties of the present moment, inconsequential though those menial duties may seem in comparison to the significance of that which one is waiting for.
Also, one needs to sustain the awareness of God’s abiding presence during such moments of waiting; to know that even though God has not yet moved, he is there, remaining with you. With me.
So, wait.
Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us?
No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation...
And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return.
Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.
Homily of His Holiness Benedict XVI
St. Peter's Square
Sunday, 24 April 2005
