If there is one thing gone wrong with Christianity now, it is that it has become a showy religion. We go for the big stuff, the grand stuff - concerts, lightings, crowds, charismatic rhetorists, and massive buildings. We fancy our Christian organisations as being highly sought after, making a great impact in society, changing lives, all in the name of "doing great things for the Lord".

Even for some of us who come from very liturgical traditions, we are taken in by the glory and the glitter of other non-liturgical traditions that model themselves after giant corporations through almost perfect concoctions of psychological theories, management skills, and marketing strategies. The way some of these liturgical traditions are aping the other "happening" Christian groups is unmistakable.

The Church as become a capitalistic marketplace, creating its niche and competitive advantage in order to create a demand for itself.

For all those times that Jesus withdrew from the crowds and all those times that He revealed His glory only to a very selected audience, we are reminded that the Christian life is not about the glory and the glitter. It is about the richness of the hidden inner self, which needs to be cultivated in secret and away from public eye.

We are challenged to withhold our "capabilities" from being exposed for self glory. We are called to understand the difference - the very subtle difference - between witnessing and showing off.

Jesus bids the Christian to come and cultivate the hidden inner life which can happen only in secret, that through our hidden inner lives, His true glory and the glitter of the Kingdom might be revealed as a reality bigger than ourselves. May the witness of the Spirit within us forbid that we might somehow be mistaken that we are the ones who have been responsible for the magnificent manifestation of the Kingdom of God in this world. For really, we are nothing.

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A monk is a man who has freed his intellect from attachment to material things and by means of self-control, love, psalmody and prayer cleaves to God.

He who has renounced such things as marriage, possessions and other worldly pursuits is outwardly a monk, but may not yet be a monk inwardly. Only he who has renounced the impassioned conceptual images of these things has made a monk of the inner self, the nous.

It is easy to be a monk in one's outer self if one wants to be; but no small struggle is required to be a monk in one's inner self.

St Maximos the Confessor

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Vatican, Jun. 6, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Church leaders in Asia must find ways to touch the "innate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soul," Pope Benedict XVI said during a June 6 meeting with bishops from Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei.

The Pope told the Asian prelates, who were finishing their ad limina visit to Rome, that "you are sowing the seeds of evangelization on fertile ground." He explained that "the peoples of Asia display an intense yearning for God," leaving Christian evangelists with the challenge of bringing the Gospel message into the context of Asian traditions.

"In particular," the Pope said, "you need to ensure that the Christian Gospel is in no way confused in their minds with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment." As Asian cultures struggle with the intellectual results of the Enlightenment, he said, Christians should offer an alternative that combines a deep sense of reverence and the transcendent with a commitment to human rights and freedom.

Pope Benedict remarked that the bishops he was addressing, who form a single episcopal conference for purposes of administrative convenience, lead local churches in countries with very different approaches to the issue of religious freedom. The Church should insist on respect for religious liberty, he said, while actively pursuing dialogue with other faiths and striving to reach accord on "the law written on their hearts."

[ Taken from CWNews ]

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VATICAN CITY, JUNE 6, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Christianity isn't a mere foreign import that is alien to Asian culture, but rather the truth that resonates with the law written on the human heart, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope said this today upon receiving in audience today the bishops of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei, in Rome for their five-yearly visit.

Quoting the apostolic letter "Ecclesia in Asia," the Pope said, "The Church's faith in Jesus is a gift received and a gift to be shared; it is the greatest gift which the Church can offer to Asia."

He continued: "Happily, the peoples of Asia display an intense yearning for God. In handing on to them the message that you also received, you are sowing the seeds of evangelization in fertile ground.

"If the faith is to flourish, however, it needs to strike deep roots in Asian soil, lest it be perceived as a foreign import, alien to the culture and traditions of your people."

"You are called to present the Christian faith in ways that resonate with the 'innate spiritual insight and moral wisdom in the Asian soul,'" the Holy Father added.

False illumination
Benedict XVI continued: "In particular, you need to ensure that the Christian Gospel is in no way confused in their minds with secular principles associated with the Enlightenment.

"On the contrary, by 'speaking the truth in love' you can help your fellow citizens to distinguish the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of materialism and relativism.

"You can help them to respond to the urgent challenges posed by the Enlightenment, familiar to Western Christianity for over two centuries, but only now beginning to have a significant impact upon other parts of the world."

"While resisting the 'dictatorship of positivist reason' that tries to exclude God from public discourse," the Pope said, "we should welcome the 'true conquests of the Enlightenment' -- especially the stress on human rights and the freedom of religion and its practice."

"By stressing the universal character of human rights, grounded in the dignity of the human person created in God's image, you carry out an important task of evangelization," the Pontiff said, "since this teaching forms an essential aspect of the Gospel."

"In so doing," he added, "you are following in the footsteps of St. Paul, who knew how to express the essentials of Christian faith and practice in a way that could be assimilated by the Gentile communities to which he was sent."

Dialogue
Benedict XVI also encouraged the Southeast Asian bishops to continue their "commitment to interreligious dialogue."

"I encourage you to carry forward this important work," the Pope said, "exploring every avenue open to you. I realize that not all the territories you represent offer the same degree of religious liberty, and many of you, for example, encounter serious difficulties in promoting Christian religious instruction in schools.

"Do not become disheartened, but continue to proclaim with conviction the 'unsearchable riches of Christ,' so that all may come to hear of the love of God made manifest in Jesus."

The Holy Father said that through dialogue with other religious in which the Gospel is clearly articulated, the Church helps others "to recognize and observe the law 'written on their hearts.'"

"In this way," he added, "your teaching can reach a wide audience and help to promote a unified vision of the common good. This in turn should help to foster growth in religious freedom and greater social cohesion between members of different ethnic groups, which can only be conducive to the peace and well-being of the entire community."

[ Taken from Zenit ]

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The Christian life is neither purely by grace alone nor works alone. It is a tension, a dynamic of both being intertwined and perhaps not entirely separate from each other as people often make it out to be.

Surely, it is by grace that we are saved and not of our own works or capabilities. Had it not been for a God Who condescended by making Himself "slightly lower than the angels" so He could reach us, we would not have been able to reach Him on our own accord. No amount of revelation from on high would have been able to open our eyes, save for God coming to be one of us so that we could see Him and hear Him and touch Him.

But now that the means is given us to reach God because God has reached us, by grace, our faith needs to be worked out in order that we can arrive at the intended destination of becoming truly human the way God has intended for us to be. The graces that we so often receive through the sacraments are to be appropriated by the regenerated human will given through the Holy Spirit at our baptism and confirmation.

The lives of a countless many are hardly transformed even though they so frequently encounter Jesus the Word in the liturgy of the Church. Here is the reason: the grace received is not appropriated by the human will.

Just as works without faith is a vain form of behaviourism, faith without works is dead. Who said we had to choose either one?

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I heard someone sharing this message to a group of newly baptised and confirmed Christians (neophytes) tonight:

Be the sandals of Jesus.

That's all for now. This is reflection enough to keep me awake throughout the night.

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The Church is not wagging an accusing finger at its children. It is wounded with concern and fear for its children, even when its warnings are not heeded or misunderstood.

The Church can seem so hard to those who don't know her heart. They see the exterior which must be hard and firm (truthful) for all our sakes in order to protect the heart.

Joseph Quinn in "The Church's Food"

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Just a very brief reflection before I shut down for the day. I'm in the midst of teaching a course at a local parish. It's a course on the differences between the major Christian traditions. The course is well-attended with some 50 participants. I think we're having fun so far.

This evening, we had a brief moment of mid-course assessment and evaluation forms were handed out to the participants. When I returned home, I looked through the responses in the evaluation forms and came across something which I'm unlikely to forget anytime soon:

Question: Briefly share one major lesson you have learned from this course so far.

Response: How little I know.

To call this apophatic theology would be an understatement. It sounded to me like the cry of a heart that truly thirsts after the splendour of God's truth.

Lord, please make me humble like that. How little I know.

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Today we recall the Emaus experience, together with the lostness, despair, and helplessness which accompanied the friends of Jesus as they were walking away from Jerusalem in utter disappointment.

But then came a strangely unfamiliar face who performed a familiar action. Through the breaking of bread, they recognised who this person was as he held himself in his hands, as he lifted up the offering of the bread and wine:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

I wonder if we ever still recognise Jesus in the normalcy and monotony of life - even in disappointment and despair - anymore. I wonder if the experience of burning hearts at Christ's revelation of himself in the breaking of bread still holds true.

Lord, I'm not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

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So it's now post-Easter. We celebrate the triumph of the resurrected Christ, because the passion and the pain are over, right?

WRONG.

Who says the resurrected Christ never got persecuted again after that? He did, again and again. His friends still failed him. People who claimed to love him still abandoned him. And it's still happening.

It is probably untrue that most people in this world - most Christians, even - have strong convictions about their values and beliefs. It is also probably untrue that they have strong convictions about issues of faith and friendship. They just don’t feel so strongly about such things.

So when someone like that fails to stand up for faith or friendship, perhaps the only excuse attributable to that failure to protect the faith or friendship is “He’s just like that. He doesn’t feel strongly about things.” After all, some people just aren’t the sort who’d act on a conviction, or even have a conviction.

But might it not be also true that these very people who’re “just like that” are also the ones who’d quickly dismiss Christ’s demands towards those who claim to be His friends? Inasmuch as I try to imagine Jesus saying, “Don’t mind him, he’s just like that. He doesn’t have very much of a conviction”, I can’t. Because He seems very clear that friendship with Him involves very high stakes, and that one must be willing to suffer - even die - for that friendship. How would one be willing to work out such a friendship without feeling strongly about it?

The Early Church had a name for people like that - “traditors”. These were people who gave up the sacred writings of the Church to be burned by the anti-Christian authorities. They were Christians, and they loved Jesus, but probably never felt very strongly about the wrongs and the rights of life (as long as these wrongs or rights didn’t affect them personally).

Traditors are the ones who’d say “You’ve got to understand the situation. It was really tough. It wouldn’t have been wise to have gone against those authorities. After all, these are just sacred writings of the Church; there’s more where that came from. So why should I lose my life over such a thing?”

Traditors are number one excuse-mongers. They excuse and quickly absolve themselves for compromising faith and friendship. But for them, it doesn’t matter, because they just don’t feel strongly about these things. So long as they don’t have to suffer.

Happy post-Easter.

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With Christ...

Raised to life...

Received home...

Where I should have been years ago.

Lord, I am not worthy to receive You, but only say the word and I shall be healed.

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It is a dark day. It is a day when some Christian communities have their altars stripped bare. Some others cover the altars with dark cloth. (Of course, some other Christian communities simply do nothing and just enjoy a good day off, but that's besides the point.)

There's nothing very good about Good Friday, if we come to think about it. It's a day of darkness, mourning, and grief... and extreme guilt. Liturgies that are well-done properly place us in the position of those who betrayed Jesus, abandoned Him, and even demanded his assassination. It stings. It hurts.

But also, as I commemorate this day, one sentence that shines through this darkness and which keeps reverberating in my heart throughout the day is this:

SEE, I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW.

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Holy Week sounds deeply spiritual, doesn’t it? It sounds like a week characterised by tranquility, reflection, depth, ascetism and piety. For many religious Christians throughout the world, perhaps; but it wasn’t so for Jesus.

The Passion of Jesus was really the culmination of a season of crisis. It wasn’t merely a trivial crisis that he went through. It was a life crisis that put him and his friends to the test. Two of the main things that were tested throughout this crisis were friendship and loyalty.

Crisis truly has a way of testing us and bringing to light the deepest motivations of our hearts. The deepest forms of selfishness emerge in the face of a crisis. The strongest anger lashes out in the face of a crisis. The most lethal vengeance is executed in the face of a crisis. Crisis mercilessly leaves us with no way to hide the secrets of our hearts. If on a normal day we are able to camouflage ourselves with props which exhibit deep devotion towards God, loyalty towards friends, and selflessness towards humanity, the true state of our hearts comes to light when crisis hits.

And so it was with those people who called themselves friends of Jesus.

When crisis befell them, very quickly, betrayal and abandonment took over. They started scattering themselves away from him and denying that they ever knew him. Understandably, they needed to survive in a world where reputation and security mattered. And perhaps, if this Messiah wasn’t strong enough to come up against the diabolical powers ruling the land, if he was going to suffer a disgraceful fate, then they would be justified for moving on with life and acknowledging that they had placed their bets on the wrong horse.

So, yes… after the deeply moving episode of the washing of feet, the vows to remain faithful to him even unto death, and the partaking of his body and his blood, they conveniently failed him and themselves when a crisis hit soon after. So much for all the claims to friendship and undivided loyalty.

Holy Week is a week of crisis. It challenges us to confront ourselves with the deepest motivations of our hearts. If all throughout the year, we’ve been professing religious claims of loyalty, piety, service and sacrifice, Holy Week confronts us with what we are actually capable of doing to God, to one another, and to ourselves when a crisis hits.

May we not be too quick to submerge ourselves into the resurrection joy of Easter. Before any of us actually thinks we’re already Christian enough in God’s eyes, let the reality of the Holy Week confront us and linger a little longer - so that we may see the true state of our hearts.

And if there, we see and acknowledge the capacity for bitterness, for abandonment, for betrayal, and for self-motivation that lies within us, this may just be a definitive moment of conversion for some of us.

To friendship...

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For some, the the study of the Church Fathers is simply a dispassionate field of study which they call the Patristics. It's a science, a method upon which much historical criticism must be applied. It's a fascinating field of study, but nothing more. Even if something was to be got from the study of the Church Fathers, it is to be done with utmost selectivity.

For some others, the Church Fathers are not even worth paying attention to. In fact, the Christian era prior to the sixteenth century constituted religious corruption at its apex. Nothing is worth remembering about it. Everything prior to the sixteenth century constituted abominable corruption, abhorring abuse, crusading zealousness and everything else other than true Christianity. The age of the Church Fathers was just not as enlightened as it should have been... until the sixteenth century came.

This is where I beg to differ and have chosen an entirely different direction. I believe that no Christian can study theology with adequate honesty whilst choosing to study Scriptures and yet disregarding the Church Fathers as people who were the earliest passers down of paradosis (tradition). It is unfortunate that they should have been regarded as those who were merely trying to figure out what the Christian faith was all about and were gravely mistaken about much of the faith (unlike us, who know better).

I believe we are the ones who are lost in our search upon conceding to the folly of truncating Christian theology into something that begins in purity only from the sixteenth century. In thinking that searching the Scriptures for ourselves would help us derive infallible interpretations for our readings, we have discarded the readings of the Fathers of the Church who lived learning to interpret Scriptures the way Jesus had taught the Apostles.

No theologian who has studied the Church Fathers with utter seriousness can disregard that the Christian way of life for many today is much, much less than what it should be. People have come to assimilate into their life systems the bits and pieces of the Christian way of life that fascinate them, whilst disregarding the others. And their interpretations of the Scriptures do not rebuke or correct them anymore because the Church Fathers have been silenced; so hermeneutics in all shapes, sizes, and theological inclinations is free for the taking.

Without paying due regard to the Church Fathers, there cannot be a concrete embodiment of tradition. And without a concrete embodiment of tradition, they cannot point to anything except some concepts and texts whose interpretation is anybody's guess. But they'd just go ahead and think that their right to private interpretation is infallible anyway.

A faith claiming to have infallible Scriptures but not possessing infallible interpretations for those infallible Scriptures: that's the faith by which many live today. To each his own.

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The Church puts both palms and thorns together this Sunday, in commemoration of both Christ's triumphal entry on a donkey into Jerusalem and the suffering He had to endure a week later. It is both a Sunday of the Palm and a Sunday of the Passion.

It is one of those occasions in the Church when life makes less sense than it should. Many years ago, in the old liturgy of the Church, the Gospel reading on the Passion Sunday was greeted with profound silence. There would be no homily following the reading. In fact, even the acclamation after the reading ("The Gospel of the Lord") was omitted.

Because it is difficult to justify how life comes through death, deliverance through suffering, triumph through tragedy. Perhaps this paradox is best proclaimed through imagery than through eloquent speech.

So let us just place the palms and the thorns together, and in silence, contemplate the paschal mystery into which we are called.

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Jesus betrayed his disciples.

We often spend much of our time reflecting on how his disciples betrayed and abandoned him, and how someone like Peter made lofty promises which he failed to keep. But the truth is, just as they had betrayed Jesus, perhaps they too felt that Jesus had betrayed them.

If we really think about it, perhaps he really did. He betrayed them by failing to have met the expectations they had of him. They were simple people who had trusted him with their lives. They had entrusted their futures into his hands. And for all that they had given up just to be his companions in the final part of his earthly journey, they had a right to have expected better things from him.

But he failed to deliver. He had to get crucified, suffer humiliation unto death, and consequently abandoned those who had been faithful to him.

Don't be too quick to judge the disciples. Imagine how painfully lost they must have felt throughout that brief season following Jesus' death and burial. Try to internalise how abandoned and cheated - how foolish - they must have felt.

Part of the paschal mystery is that for as long as we are called to live in community and have expectations on relationships we build in community, we are bound to fail and betray one another. So yes, just as his disciples had betrayed him, Jesus had betrayed them too.

This thought must be disturbing for some of us who have a perfect image of Jesus. I know. It disturbs me too. But it also challenges me to think through again how I have spent much of my life trying to avoid betrayals. Maybe it's just a necessary part of the paschal mystery that needs to be realised in community.

Perhaps the paschal mystery is such that only in betrayal and abandonment can we find the resurrected Christ awaiting in the light of the dawn.

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Major shifts will be taking place in my life in the weeks and months to come.

It's not that life hasn't already been utterly dynamic for me or that there haven't been any sort of drastic changes taking place before. It's just that this time I'm not talking normal major. I'm talking major major.

In the face of changes, what should one do? Change presents the impending danger of being sucked into the torrent of dynamism and being overwhelmed by the possibilities it presents.

To avoid that, sustained and extended contemplation is required.

I'll be spending the next few days within the confines of a monastery, away from the familiar kind of civilisation that can be quite abusive to the soul. For contemplation, absolute silence, and solitude.

Since I will be living the eremetic life for a while, all lines will be down. I cannot be contacted.

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There are times when the Master bids us to go in a certain direction and we know not why. But we go, because obedience is born not of understanding but of love.

We obey God not simply because we understand him, for to claim to love him out of understanding insults who he is. We must obey him despite the shallowness of our understanding. For obedience is reflected in its fullness when one obeys in love rather than through understanding.

Obedience towards God is rendered even more difficult when God demands such obedience through an icon, a human figure. The human icon provokes our inclination to respond towards the call of obedience by saying “Tell me why first”, “I need to understand first before I obey you”, or “I need to trust you first”.

The same rule applies with both God and the icons he sends into our lives to provide direction for us.

The rule of obedience has nothing to do with understanding. It is the rule of love. For Jesus said, “If you love me, you will do what I say”, not “If you understand me, you will do what I say”.

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One of the many things that are difficult to understand about contemporary Christianity is how people desire to believe in Jesus, and even find his “rebellious” counter-cultural ways appealing, but have absolutely no desire to be the way he was.

In many ways, they try to communicate his revolutionary life in the third person, but never in the first person. It’s always Jesus who was the provocative one, the challenging one, the unsettling one. And ironically, all these messages about him are communicated in the most stable and secure environments - in seminaries, from pulpits, and in bible studies. Hardly in action or lifestyle.

The greatest of security-seeking Christians seem to be the ones talking about the counter-cultural and revolutionary Jesus. Those who occupy the highest chairs of structural positions are the ones talking about sacrificing one’s own reputation and position for the sake of justice and peace.

When confronted with the practical alternative of actually being provocative and revolutionary in lifestyle and choice, you hear a thousand and one excuses and reasons for why it’s impractical to do so:

“Jesus and his early believers suffered persecution because it was necessary for them. For us today, it’s not necessary.”

“The bible cannot be taken wholesale just like that. We must use our wisdom to discern what applies to today’s situations and what don’t apply any longer. We must be as innocent as doves and wise like serpents!”

“I’m already suffering for my faith! You see how much time I spend serving God in church? Who else devotes so much time like that?”

“Come on, by doing all these things, you’re just courting trouble unnecessarily. I have enough trouble in my life already. I’ve had enough, and don’t want anymore unnecessary trouble.”

Really, perhaps many of the things Jesus did was unnecessary after all. He was perhaps courting trouble in vain. From this rhyme of reasoning, maybe it was his own fault that he eventually went to the cross. Had he learned to behave himself properly, he might not have had to be crucified. But no, he had to go ahead and do the unnecessary things.

For we who are wise, stay clear. Stay out of trouble. Always speak of Jesus in the third person. Forget about embodying his gospel in the first person. Be wise. After all, all you need to get into heaven is to believe in Jesus’ saving power, and you’re saved.

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I knew his voice and his song first before I knew the man. When I first heard his song, something in the tone of the voice cut deep into my spirit. You could say it was a rather mystical experience.

But I never knew why there was a "soul" in his voice unlike other voices I'd heard before. Until I saw him on video.

His name is Tony Melendez. He's more complete than most people I've met.

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...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self.

Henri Nouwen

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Of course it's the Chinese New Year. But it's also the beginning of the Lenten season! It is a season of reflection, withdrawal, penitence, and of receiving the forgiveness of God. It is a call for us to return to the presence of God in response to his invitation of love.

So after all the New Year celebrations and the red packets and the Chinese festivities, today I've returned to the Lenten mode. This morning, I accompanied a minister to bring the Sacraments and the Word to a group of foreign people in a very interior area.

We walked in the blazing heat through this...

and this.

It was a two-kilometre walk, going through high and low, jungle and quarry, before we arrived and spent some two hours with these people:

It's the Chinese New Year, but don't forget, it's Lent. It's a good time to be honest with ourselves about our failings, and also a good time to come to terms with the love of God which conquers all human failings... if we care to receive it and to be embraced by this love.

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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

- Jesus, the Christ -

I was reminded through a homily this morning that the opposites of the peacemakers are not the peace-destroyers or the people who wage war against others. The anti-theses of the peacemakers are the peacekeepers.

What might the difference be between peacemakers and peacekeepers?

Peacemakers are those who acknowledge the necessity of conflict. But together with that, they seek to work things out amidst conflict in order that constructive solutions may be found. They understand that the world is not a perfect place and is fraught with conflict, and that sometimes (if not often) conflict can be a constructive instrument in order to bring positive change to the world and to society. Their sense of peace isn’t a myopic one; it’s a long-sighted peace. They desire to become instruments for ushering in a perpetual era of peace in the human order. The peace they are making isn’t to be found in the present.

Peacekeepers are those who want to avoid trouble at all costs because it brings too much inconvenience to them. They want to avoid rocking the boat and are fixated on maintaining the status quo. They are game for being “revolutionary” only to the extent that it doesn’t cause them trouble. When they sniff trouble from a mile away, they stop trying. The preoccupation of peacekeepers is staying out of trouble. Their desire for peace is self-motivated; they want peace for themselves. They don’t desire peace in the world order as much as they desire peace for themselves. Peacekeepers are selfish.

But peacekeepers have a way of defending themselves: "Such trouble isn't really necessary. Why invite such unnecessary trouble when it can be avoided?" Ironically, the more you observe them, the more you'll realise that peacekeepers almost never ever "invite trouble". Because when trouble is what a person wants to avoid, then no amount of trouble is ever necessary.

Churches comprise of too many peacekeepers and too few peacemakers. Peacekeepers often rise up to become very high-ranking leaders of Christian communities. They are well-loved because they don’t provoke people’s disfavour. They’re crafty communicators and skilful bureaucrats.

As for the peacemakers, Jesus called them “sons of God”. But he wasn’t about to let such ideals remain unscathed by realities of life. Immediately after calling the peacemakers “sons of God”, he talked about those who would be persecuted because of their desire to defend righteousness at all cost. The kingdom of heaven would be theirs - but at a price, obviously. He who came to preach peace himself said, “I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword”. Peacemakers are constantly having to reckon with this paradox of life.

It would seem from the Gospels that Jesus spent much of his effort throughout his public ministry exposing the motivations of the peacekeepers, segregating them from the peacemakers. He saw through the heart. He was such a strange rhetorist. Powerful but strange.

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I'm reminded today to not stop dreaming, regardless of what might have happened in life. Through disappointment, pain, loss and betrayal, the follower of Jesus is called to keep on dreaming.

Not small dreams about the self, but big dreams about others; about the world. Not to fall naively for the dreams sold by self-motivated dream merchants who may sometimes disguise themselves as religious leaders. Not to buy into the offers of dream merchants who sell dreams that appeal to our own carnal desires for existential significance...

...but to dream the dream of God.

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A thought that occurred in my mind over a conversation with a couple of friends about the spiritual life:

What breaks your heart reflects what captures it.

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Crossing over - into anything - is a hard decision to make. As you walk into a new life, a new sphere, a new unknown, you leave behind the wealth of the past together with all the familiarity and the control you have over it.

The question is, will you do it?

Even if you knew for a fact that crossing over would leave you in a state of utter nothingness, would you do it? If there was nothing to be got from crossing over, and all you could take along with you into the new unknown was a conscience and a conviction, would you do it?

To leave behind the beauty of recognition, fame, admiration - or maybe just acceptance - in search of a newly discovered something that may leave you with nothing except that something on which to cling - would you do it?

Walking into the dark with no sight of the future, embracing everything that is unknown and alien to you… does that not sound like the paschal mystery spoken of in your faith? So much for talking about it; now is the challenge to live it out.

But if you're afraid of trouble, don't do it!

Some people prefer to just linger by the wayside, waiting for you to give accounts of your adventures through the darkness. They enjoy listening to those stories - even being challenged by those stories - but would never walk a mile with you through those adventures. No siree... the stories alone are enough to keep their adrenalines pumping.

Really, you have got to be foolish enough to cross over. You have to choose to either be wise enough to withhold such a foolish decision, or to be foolish enough to follow the voice of the wise Spirit and cross over.

You’re invited all the same. It’s just a matter of whether you’re foolish enough to follow.

Coming?

Posted by SK at 1:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

1. Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.

Refrain:
Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.

2. Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has power to save us.
Make us your living voice.

3. Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.

4. Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others,
walls made of living stone.

5. Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come.

Posted by SK at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

The above are the words of Jesus. What a contradiction from the image of Jesus as the Prince of Peace. The very Lord who claims to be the restorer of all good things into perfect order here speaks of himself as being the source of division even in the most basic unit of society - biological families.

Surely, he does long for peace in the world; just not at the expense of truth. Surely, he desires for the restoration of order in the world; just not at the expense of his Kingship, and for some, his call in their lives to place him in a position of utmost importance such that they have to leave their families to obey his call.

Jesus is merely confronting us with the reality that obeying him creates disharmony even in the family. The intention to truly obey God's calling in totality can (and most often will) lead to misunderstanding, non-acceptance, and ultimately hostility.

This experience wasn't alien to the saints of the past. A young man had a bitter argument with his father and left his family naked. The local bishop had to bring him clothes. The young man was St Francis of Assisi.

And to think we expect things to turn out differently in our generation. How we always manage to fool ourselves. Excuses, excuses.

Posted by SK at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I have just been reminded by someone that suffering is a form of spirituality in which one identifies with the sufferings of Jesus. I take this teaching as it is, no questions asked. But the more I think about it, the more I feel that there's more reflection to be done on suffering.

I think there's one thing that might be even more challenging than suffering itself, and that is, journeying with the suffering. In a sense, a sufferer has no choice but to suffer. But a person journeying with a sufferer has to will himself into self-denial in order to journey with the suffering and to partake in that suffering together; to choose to suffer even when he doesn't have to.

When accompanying people who are suffering, our desire to be fellow sufferers wares off over time. Journeying with people who suffer is a very tiresome experience, especially when we cannot really understand how their predicament feels.

When journeying with sufferers, we are most often confronted with our own inability to empathise for extended seasons of time. We can empathise only for as long as our own patience permits. It’s not difficult to “help” a sufferer for a limited duration; it really doesn’t take very much out of us. The test comes when we have to share life with a sufferer.

The durability of our patience is a rather apt indication of the extent of our love for another person over our love for ourselves.

When the journey of accompaniment gets too wearisome, we turn away from the sufferer to ourselves and we throw in the towel. Instead of asking, “What about the sufferer?”, we begin asking, “What about me?”

Suffering is something spiritual. But to choose to suffer with the suffering is deep spirituality. It's for those who truly love.

Posted by SK at 2:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight, the voice of God speaks to my heart, asking:

"Did you really think that your pursuit of truth would've cost you nothing?"

"I am the Truth, and it has cost me everything to establish that in your midst.
What did you think it was going to cost you - nothing?"

Posted by SK at 3:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sometimes I forget, we do not live in a world of justice. Justice belongs to another kingdom, an unseen kingdom. In our pursuit of justice in this kingdom, we sometimes get crushed by the greater power of injustice.

Injustice is often bred by those in power, those who preach righteousness and mercy and love. But power and these virtues don't sit very well with each other. So in the final analysis, when they're made to choose between power and these virtues, the self gets in the way. Power wins.

At times like these, it is a challenge to remember the words of friends like these:

Justice often fails in our world and even in the church, but our God is just. Let us plod on; you have friends and loved ones who are journeying with you.

And it is a challenge to keep believing in righteousness and justice, mercy and love. Even if these virtues remain unseen for now.

Lord, I want to belief. Help my unbelief.

Posted by SK at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Text: Iona Community
Music: Trad. Scottish folk tune, KelvineGrove

Will you come and follow me
If I but call your name?
Will you go where you don’t know
and never be the same?
Will you let my love be shown
Will you let my name be known
Will you let my life be grown in you
and you in me ?

Will you leave yourself behind
If I but call your name?
Will you care for cruel and kind
And never be the same?
Will you risk the hostile stare
Should your life attract or scare?
Will you let me answer prayer in you
and you in me?

Will you let the blinded see
If I but call your name?
Will you set the prisoner free
And never be the same?
Will you kiss the leper clean,
and do such as this unseen,
And admit to what I mean in you
And you in me?

Will you love the “you” you hide
If I but call your name?
Will you quell the fear inside
And never be the same?
Will you use the faith you’ve found
To reshape the world around,
Through my sight and touch and sound in you
And you in me?

Christ, your summons echoes true
When you but call my name
Let me turn and follow you and never be the same.
In your company I’ll go
Where your love and footsteps show,
Thus I’ll move and live and grow in you
And you in me.

Posted by SK at 12:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The priest, as he was entering the church sanctuary, was greeted by a little boy. He asked the priest, “Father, what do you do?”

The priest was rather dumbfounded at that question and so he fumbled, “Err… I… err…”

The boy asked, “Are you married?”, to which the Reverend Father replied, “No”.

“So you have no children?” The priest said, “No, of course not!”

“Are you a lawyer?” The priest quickly replied, “Well I used to be. But not anymore, since I’m now a priest”.

“So then what do you do?” The priest remained silent. It was just a very difficult question to answer.

The boy then abruptly concluded, “So you’re not married, you have no children, and you’re not a lawyer anymore. So you’re a nobody?”

It suddenly, dawned on the priest that he was a nobody. He walked silently into his chambers after Mass and wrote in his journal:

I am a nobody. I’m an icon of Christ, the God who became a nobody. I’m of no relevance to the world and will always appear to contribute nothing to the scheme of the world. Because that’s what I’m called to be; a nobody. So that when others see me, they see Christ.

Posted by SK at 2:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

- Sr Elizabeth Segleau, SDS -

Religious life is not for wimps,
It is for those filled with courage.
Religious life is not for the lazy,
It is for those who have the fire within.

Religious life is not for those who thirst for wealth,
It is for those whose treasure is set and kept in God.
Religious life is not for those who are their own boss,
It is for those who are obedient in seeking God’s will.

Religious life is not for those who expect to be directed,
It is for those who trust and listen to the Holy Spirit.
Religious life is not for the loners,
It is for those who hope to grow in the company of others.

Religious life is not for those who have a single plan,
It is for those who are ready to help with many plans.
Religious life is not for the grumpy,
It is for those who already rejoice in God’s friendship.

Religious life is not for those who always need to be busy,
It is for those who can remain in the quiet and stay a while with God.
Religious life is not for the militant,
It is for those who are able to be flexible.

Posted by SK at 4:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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?

Posted by SK at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by SK at 1:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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.

Posted by SK at 7:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)