Connection between Glory and the Cross

Seventh Sunday of Easter - Year A

If you are a connoisseur of art, you would realise that the point of art and painting is not to represent things in the real world as how they should actually look. If this was the case, it would have been much easier to just a take a photograph. Representational art, when it is good, conveys to the viewer not just an idea of what the subject looked like, but some of the artists’ reflection or experience of seeing as well. At least this seems to be part of the reason why representational art has survived and is still valued, even in the age of the photograph, video cameras and of course, camera phones! Even though you may have several albums full of photos of your mother, nothing can substitute a good painting of her. This is because a good painting is not merely a representation of what someone or something looks like, but also a reaction to it. It says more about the subject than its appearance. It shares insights into the human meaning of what it represents.

These reflections on art have a certain relevance to the gospels, especially to the Gospel of John. Its purpose is not merely to give the story of Jesus, but to meditate on its meaning. Throughout the gospel, the historical Jesus is seen from the perspective of the resurrection and the giving of the Spirit. All of the gospels are more like paintings than like photographs, but especially John’s gospel. One might say that the Synoptics are more like Western Christian art form: certainly theological rather than merely biographical, but generally straightforward, realistic, narrative and historical. John’s Gospel, on the other hand, is more like Eastern or Byzantium iconography; stylised, with a complex set of symbols, consciously looking at things in the light of eternity, demanding deep personal engagement by the viewer.

Today’s gospel is a good example. The scene is once again the Last Supper, but it is portrayed poetically, not historically. Jesus, who has yet to meet his passion and experience the resurrection, speaks from eternity, from beyond the grave. In Jesus’ sacred, saving hour, a great liturgy of love emerges from the poetry of this prayer. Through his word and in the sacred bread of his body, all are drawn toward the Father to receive life and glory. A major biblical motif, “glory” (kabod) was used in the Old Testament to illustrate God’s goodness in providing for his people in the wilderness; for example God’s presence in the pillar of fire and cloud was called “glory”; God’s saving intervention was described in terms of manifesting his “glory,” and God’s presence as He alighted on the Tent of Meeting, also referred to his “glory.”

So, what did Jesus mean when he spoke of the hour of entering into his “glory”?  Such “glory” is certainly not equivalent to what man often desires - popularity, public acceptance, praises and a good name. Here lies the divine paradox of the gospel - when Jesus spoke of his own glory he was speaking about the cross. Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus and his ministry was portrayed as a progressive process of glorification, a process of preparation for the ultimate “sign” – the crucifixion, the culmination of God’s saving intervention in salvation history.

St. Peter must have finally understood the connection between glory and the cross after several failed attempts. At the time of his first letter, the early Christian communities were already experience persecution and suffering for their faith. The cross was no longer theoretical or symbolic, it was very real. And yet in today’s second reading, St Peter writes with great confidence and as a means of encouraging his fellow Christians: “If you can have some share in the sufferings of Christ, be glad, because you will enjoy a much greater gladness when his glory is revealed. It is a blessing for you when they insult you for bearing the name of Christ, because it means that you have the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God resting on you.”

The other radical twist introduced in today’s passage is that Jesus speaks of eternal life not as some future or eschatological reality, something which you experience only after death. On the contrary, one can experience eternal life in the here and now. According to Jesus, eternal life is “to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”. To know connotes the intimacy of an immediate experience rather than cognitive knowledge. Such as, my family knows the real me! Therefore, “to know” God, means to be called into an intimate relationship with the Father, like the one that Jesus the Son already enjoyed. This provides another beautiful layer to our understanding Jesus’ hour of glory. In other words, knowledge of and intimate participation with Jesus in his hour, in his glory, or in the words of St Peter, sharing in the sufferings of Christ, one can already taste eternal life here and now.

Thus, the cross and suffering for our faith, continues to be mark of every Christian, his glory, his path to intimacy with God, to eternal life. Of course, practising our faith today, may not be as dangerous as in antiquity (unless you are a Christian living in the Middle East, Northern Nigeria, Pakistan etc), yet remains challenging, perhaps more challenging than the past. Today, we face a greater danger from modern society – the danger of being ignored or even rejected by secular culture. Its moral values, forced to compete in a free market of ideas, frequently seem unattractive, outdated or simply irrelevant to present day lifestyles.  Many, thus, have given in to the temptation of allowing its core teachings and values to be reshaped and moulded into a more politically correct and socially acceptable version that is to the liking of modern tastes. Social tolerance and relativism has led to the suspicion and rejection of the particularity of the Christian faith and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Saviour. Ultimately, it has led to widespread moral decline, and with that the world suffers the loss of beauty, the good and the Truth.

Christian faith continues to present a different picture of glory, one which requires us to see the world, its trials and tribulations, through the lenses of eternity. It calls the world to transcendence, to appreciate once again the need for beauty, goodness, and truth. But if this message is to be heard, there must be Christians who are disciples that are willing to live out the message of today’s gospel. This means living a life in the world that already goes beyond it and resists being reduced to its conventions. And it is intrinsic to this way of life that it be lived not merely by isolated individuals, but by a community. Thus, the essential need for our BECs, our Basic Ecclesial Communities, or perhaps, our Catholic Students' Society (CSS), to bear witness to the gospel message. Where we reject community living, we in fact reject the gospel, and we become anti-witnesses of its message. Thus, community life should not only communicate a message of about communion and love, but also show its truth and beauty. In this sense, Christian life must be a work of art – it must be sacramental, it must be beautiful. For if the message of Christ’s triumph over death is to be convincing – even to ourselves – we must show in living it that it is beautiful, good and true, that the vision it shares is about what really is, and that apprehending it leads to fulfillment and joy.  

May all be ONE

Seventh Sunday of Easter - Year C

Common Malaysians are still reeling from the shock of communally divisive campaigning leading up to the recent Sarawak Election. Sentiments were fanned to intentionally pit one community against another. Ethnic and religious stereotypes were reinforced to instill fear among the various communities. What happened to the ideals of authentic national integration and inter-ethnic harmony? Many have grown skeptical.

Today's Gospel reading  is certainly a welcome breath of fresh air. Today’s gospel reading is certainly a welcome breath of fresh air. At last! Someone is truly serious about the issue of reconciliation and unity.  It’s none other than Jesus himself. The gospel is an excerpt of a longer prayer of Jesus found in Chapter 17 of the Gospel of John, which is traditionally called the “High Priestly Prayer”. Its name is derived from the action and words of Jesus who now intercedes with the Father in Heaven, as a High Priest, on behalf of his friends on earth. Although, it is composed of simple words, this is a potent prayer and Jesus meant every single word of it. It is not a declaration of what is, not a blueprint for oneness, but intercession for what shall be.

All of us are God’s children. All of us are recipients of the saving grace of Jesus. All of us are called to be that One family of God. There is no room for division and distinction in this one family of God. The poor will not be separated from the rich. The educated will not be separated from the uneducated. People of different languages and different cultures will not be separated and placed in different rooms. This is the prayer of Jesus during the last supper just before his death. He was concerned not only for his disciples, those that the Heavenly Father had given into his care, but also for the others – the unconverted, those who rejected him and would put him to death, his greatest enemies. And so Jesus prayed: “Holy Father, I pray not only for these, but for those also who through their words will believe in me. May they all be one. Father, may they be one in us as you are in me and I am in you.”

Where are we now as we hear the prayer of Jesus? What steps must we take for this to become a reality? Pondering these questions, it becomes clear that we must begin by becoming one within ourselves. The prayer of Jesus challenges us to look deep into ourselves. We must allow Jesus to restore the inner unity of our very soul, which so often has succumbed to sin. Our society is divided because our souls are splinted. It is easy for us to accuse others of being racist, but it takes great courage and self-honesty to recognise our own penchant for stereotyping, prejudice, ethnocentricism, and racism. No one readily acknowledges himself as a racist. But we see the tentacles of this evil spectre in the form of our preoccupation with our own self-interest and selfishness. Martin Luther King, perhaps the most socially transformative preacher of our time, once wrote that the redemption of a society trapped in racism “can come only through a humble acknowledgement of guilt and an honest knowledge of self”. Becoming at one within ourselves prepares us for the greater blessing of becoming one with God and Christ.

After having looked within ourselves, we must begin to look outwards, outside our petty little world. Too often we are tempted to allow our Christian lives to remain in air-tight compartments, limited only to Christian friends, in a sort of Christian hot-house, from the womb to the tomb. Our Beloved Pope Francis, who strongly champions a Church who is more evangelistic in its outlook, notes that “a Church that does not go out of itself, sooner or later, sickens from the stale air of closed rooms”. If we confine our discussion of unity within the ranks of the Church or just among Christians, we may suffer from the self-referentiality which the Pope condemns. Self-referentiality is unacceptable for the Church because its mission is love, and love seeks to reach beyond itself in generosity. Therefore, for the sake of a confused and sinful world which is facing enormously complex problems, Christians must not, dare not, isolate themselves from that world. No, the church exists in order to reach the world. The church is here to be God's instrument by which human life in every area and at every level is penetrated by the transforming gospel of Jesus Christ, that men may see that in Jesus Christ there is the authentic voice of God to men; that in him is the ultimate issue of human destiny, and in him we come face to face with all that is important in human affairs.

Finally, as we come to the end of the Easter season, the readings that the Church gives us directs our gaze upward. If our view is only confined to ourselves and others, we will most certainly find the drudgery of life unbearable. Our looking inwards and outwards only prepares us for this final viewing. The model that Christ gives us on the eve of his own death, as reflected in his priestly prayer at the Last Supper, shows us a man serene, charitable and intimately united to his Father. Union with the divine gives him the serenity and peace to face the suffering of the cross. In our first reading today, from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about the martyrdom of St. Stephen, and we hear that he “gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand”.  It is the same union with the divine that gave St Stephen the same serenity as Jesus possessed. Those of the world "covered their ears" at the mention of the Gospel message, but those of us who listen to Christ will find solace. St John, in concluding the Book of the Apocalypse, invites us to look up at Christ who is the morning star and pray, “Come, Lord Jesus.”  And in today’s Gospel reading, as he finishes the Last Supper, Jesus begins his prayer by “raised his eyes to heaven.” As we look up to heaven, what do we see? We see an embrace, a clasp of deepest friendship, a union of hearts and minds greater than the most satisfying earthly relationship could ever be. 

The prayer of Jesus that “may they all be one” still haunts as well as inspires. It is wearisome, deadly wearisome, to endure the tension, the conflicts, the hate speech and demonising that continues to plague our society. The blight of triumphalism, of power games, and the obsession with always being right still throw up huge, offensive roadblocks against Jesus’ prayer. Such sin drags us back to the Upper Room, to dull disciples among whom we now sit, to the grief of our Lord over our tearing apart the seamless robe of unifying love in which he would wrap us. Yet he comes to us with Easter’s treasure. Despite the sins which continue to splinter, to separate, and to divide, we are comforted to know that there is One who is not only praying for our unity, but who assures us that he is protecting “not only these, but also those”, and he does so in the Father’s name. The outcome of the prayer, “May the all be one”, will never be just left to us. It will always be in his strong hands. Thank God for that!

Love is the mark of Discipleship

Fifth Sunday of Easter - Year C

Love is a big word. But do we use the word “love” lightly and casually in our daily lives? Perhaps we bandy it around so carelessly that its meaning has become diluted? Truth be told, the idea of “love” has become very common in today’s modern vernacular. We might hear someone say, “I loved that movie” or “I loved that restaurant” or “I love my dog.” In many ways, our everyday use of the word “love” has trivialised its meaning. The culture of triviality downsizes everything. Nothing really matters anymore. Until now you have probably only experienced conditional love. We grow up thinking and believing that love needs to be earned. Such conditional love is based upon what you do. Perform well on the job, on the team, or in the relationship, and you are “loved.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus said “I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you must also love one another.” For many of us, the commandment of love has become so familiar to us that we may fail to recognize its ‘newness.’ What is so new about this commandment? The commandment to love found in the Gospel of John is very different from the commandment to love found in the other gospels. In the gospels according to Matthew, Mark and Luke, the gospel writers have Jesus repeat the core teaching of the Old Testament covenant that is to love of God and love our neighbor as ourselves. The standard or comparison made there is that our love for neighbor must correspond to our love for ourselves.

But in the gospel of John, we are commanded by Jesus to love one another as he, Jesus, has loved us. Self-love no longer becomes the criteria but Jesus’ love for us. In the first letter of St. John, where he speaks so much of love and where he names God as Love, we find these beautiful words “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10) Our weak, limited, imperfect and inadequate ‘love’ for ourselves no longer becomes the standard by which we should love others but rather Jesus’ love for us. Only God loves perfectly because God is LOVE himself! And this is the love of God – that he is prepared to become man, suffer and die for us. This is the love of God, that he is prepared to become one of us, to share our pains and sorrows, to experience our sufferings and give us hope and encouragement in the midst of all these. This is the love of God – that he will “wipe away all tears from (our) eyes”, destroy death and sadness. This is the love of God – that he will make all things new.

Love must therefore be the mark of our discipleship. “By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are (Christ’s) disciples.”

But we realize that we will always fall short of this high standard. We will never reach this perfect standard precisely because we are not God. And that is why we must continue to support, encourage and pray for each other. We must follow the examples of Paul and Barnabas, who in the first reading “put fresh hearts into the disciples.”

Catholic, Truly Christian

Fourth Sunday of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday) - Year C 

One of the most catchy tagline  “Malaysia Truly Asia” has become embedded in the public’s consciousness and proven to be our country’s most important tool in its tourism marketing campaign. Maybe it’s because of the frequency of the highly stylised commercials, or because it just rhymes so well, or the susceptibility of the mind to retain banal stuff, but whenever I hear the word “Malaysia” I feel like following up with “…truly Asia” right away. This is what appears on the home page of Tourism Malaysia: “There is only one place where all the colours, flavours, sounds and sights of Asia come together – Malaysia... Nowhere is there such exciting diversity of cultures, festivals, traditions and customs, offering myriad experiences. No other county is "Truly Asia" as Malaysia.”

The above review certainly conjures images of a tropical multicultural paradise, the crystallisation of the Utopian ideal. Of course, the average Malaysian would find this amusing. By swinging slogans such as “Malaysia, Truly Asia”, we seem to be declaring that we have successfully embraced our multicultural demographics. The smiling faces of the multi-ethnic models on our public service ads, however, are unable to conceal the deep wounds that form impassable chasms that separate one community from the other. Yes, we do live in a multicultural society, but it takes more than a juxtaposition of different culture. We are nowhere near celebrating it. Today, the so-called truly Asian melting pot of cultures is more divided than it could ever be. What we often do is to pay empty lip service. Just because different cultures live together does not mean that they multicultural.

Uniting people from different nations, tribes, peoples and languages is a formidable task. Some would admit from the outset that it is impossible. Others attempt to do so by denying differences, by insisting on assimilating everyone into a single culture and language. We have seen how such human experiments have failed with disastrous consequences. Both Yugoslavia and Iraq have descended into violent sectarian conflicts and fragmentation of society in the aftermath of the fall of the dictator that had kept its people ‘united’ solely by force. Maoist China attempted a Cultural revolution to stamp out any trace of cultural individuality so as to create an entirely new culture based on the ideals of the Red Book. Others, like Canada, have chosen the path of territorial and legal segregation, and divided its territories between the English-speaking and Franco-phone communities. Still others, like many cities in the United States, have managed the ‘problem’ through ‘red-lining’ neighbourhoods, where people naturally choose to reside in self-made ghettoes.

Many seem resigned to accepting sociologists’ pessimistic conclusion that multi-cultural societies are inevitably characterised by conflict and rivalry. So, what we hear in today's Second Reading  may seem to be an unattainable Utopian ideal, a dream conjured by the hopeless to fool themselves. St John the Seer in the second reading, taken from Chapter 7 of the Book of the Apocalypse, paints a spectacularly vivid picture of what we can anticipate at the very End. He sees a multitude from “every nation, race, people, and tongue” worshipping God. They will not experience hunger nor thirst, nor will they be plagued by the heat of the sun. This is no mere rhetoric or just some fancy marketing.

The vision of the New Jerusalem from the Book of the Apocalypse was inherited from Isaiah 65:17-25. It represents the longing of all humans since the beginning of time: when there will be no more tears and suffering, but only abundance and joy. To most people it seems just an impossible dream or something that we can only experience in heaven after death. For the early Christians it was a description of the world after being renewed and transformed by God. The New Jerusalem was something that many Christians expected in their own lifetimes — the frightening and violent world that they knew simply could not continue any longer.

How could this be possible? How could this materialise as concrete reality where other ideologies and ideologues have failed? The answer lies in knowing who stands at the very centre of this scene. It is the Lamb who has shed his blood for the multitudes, the Lamb who now shepherds them and leads them to springs of life-giving water.  

Each time when we reflect on Church unity and communal integrity, we ask this simple question, ‘What must we do to be build communion and unity?’ A whole array of answers is advanced in answer to this problem. Today, being Good Shepherd Sunday, we are reminded of the answer – an answer so simple, it often eludes us (it’s ironic how we often miss the simplest and most fundamental answers to faith by being distracted by innovation and creativity). The answer is that Christ must be at the centre. Jesus is the centre of our whole universe. He is the centre of our world. We date all the events of world history in terms of the day that he was born. More important to us, he is the centre of our lives. He is the centre of everything that matters. We obviously know that he is the centre, for as Christians we wear his name and wear it proudly.

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Obviously we believe in Christ as the centre of our lives. Even though we consider Christ as central in our lives I wonder if perhaps sometimes, even in religious activities in which we engage, we do not crowd Christ into the background of our thinking. We think so often in terms of our personal space, rights. We make demands of the Church and of each other. We often place our own individual concerns and ideas over everything else. We think so often in terms of groupings which distinguishes ‘us’ from ‘them.’ In other words, it’s either ‘I’ or the ‘world’ which is at the centre, not Christ. In the midst of all the details we forget that the Church is not our own construction. No one can possibly claim that they were responsible for building Church. That would be audacious. The Church belongs to Christ. It is founded on Christ. It is his Body. Thus, undeniably it him who must be at the centre.

Thus the vision of St John in the Book of the Apocalypse is a reality that can only be attained in one manner – conversion. Conversion means learning to listen to the voice of the Shepherd rather than to the many other voices which try to crowd out his presence. Conversion means that we must ultimately be prepared to die to our selfishness, and perhaps even shed blood, so that we may be washed clean and pure by the blood of the Lamb who shed his blood for us.

The Apocalypse assures us that there will be a time when Christians will be able to celebrate authentic multiculturalism or in the language of the Church, or ‘Catholicity’. The Lord Jesus Christ is building a Kingdom from every tongue, tribe, and nation of the world, and those distinctions will continue and be perfected in heaven. So where is the New Jerusalem? We see it already in the Church, the Body of Christ. But the eschatological dimension of the Church maintains that it is both ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ the New Jerusalem. The path that links the two is the path of conversion and sanctification. Whenever someone is baptised and becomes a Christian, he sheds his past identity. We receive a new one defined only by Christ who is now at the centre of his life. We become ‘Catholics, Truly Christians.” But Christ has not ceased his work at baptism: he continues to work in us renewing us. That is the key: when we truly live in Christ we begin to experience the newness of the world to come. Jesus begins the transformative work in us that will be completely fulfilled at the end of time.

The flame of our memories

Third Sunday of Easter - Year C

There is both truth and irony in knowing how the most painful memories are usually the ones that stick, no matter how much you try to forget them or suppress them. I agree with what Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the award winning novel ‘The Fight Club’, wrote in his Diary, “It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” But sometimes, as Jesus taught us in last week’s gospel, we do have scars to show for happiness, which also provides us a lesson on peace.

In today’s gospel, we see another encounter between the resurrected Lord and his disciples. Last week, Jesus met his disciples in the upper room behind locked doors. This week, the disciples have emerged into the open, in and around the Sea of Tiberias (or Galilee). In Chapter 20, the disciples were stricken with fear, they were frightened for their own lives, but in Chapter 21, we see a group of disciples who have grown despondent, who have forgotten their original mission, who have decided to return to the careers and preoccupations they held prior to meeting Jesus. It was as if Jesus had been written off the slate and the whole story of discipleship a mere dream. Right at the very centre of today’s lengthy gospel story is the story of Jesus sitting on the shore cooking and warming himself beside a charcoal fire.

Even if you are not a student of Biblical Greek, you may be interested to note that word use for that charcoal fire, anthrakia, only appears here and in another place in John’s gospel; John 18:18. This other scene takes place in the courtyard of the High Priest, precisely at the point where St Peter denied Jesus. Peter cozied up to Jesus’ captors to warm himself by the charcoal fire. But now in this Post-Easter scene, Peter drags himself up shivering on the beach and finds the same charcoal fire. If you were a director of a movie, imagine the camera zooming in and lingering on this shot – Charcoal fire – and another scene emerges from its flames.

The fire is a source of warmth in the chilly half-light, but it also illumines the darkness. The fire evokes once again the scene of denial in Chapter 18, the scene where Peter once stood by the fire and said, “I am not his disciple.” The past comes rushing back. Perhaps in the distance we can hear the cock crowing. There in the high priest's courtyard, surrounded by temple soldiers, Peter sits. If he is recognised as a disciple -- particularly, as the disciple who has drawn blood resisting them in the Garden -- he is likely to be arrested. It is a precarious place in which to be. On the one hand, we see a Peter who is courageous and bold -- he wants to be near his Lord in his hour of need. But Peter is terrified, also. He is in danger and knows it. And as he sits near the fire, he begins to wonder what might happen. As long shadows dance in the firelight, Peter's fears continue to grow. What if I'm recognised? How can I hide when it becomes light? What should I do if I'm identified by someone who was there? And so Peter's courage and bravado give way to fear.

So this dramatic scene at the end of the gospel turns out to be a story of memory and restoration. Many readers would recognise immediately the three fold question of Jesus to Peter offers Peter a way of retracing the steps of his earlier threefold denial. “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?” Three times, one for each knell of Peter’s denial, Jesus offers a corresponding invitation to Peter to confess his renewed love and loyalty. But this healing confession does not come without pain. In fact, it may reopen the scars which Peter has been desperately trying to conceal and exclude from memory. Confronting the Risen Jesus is not easy, especially for those who have betrayed him. Standing in the flickering light of the charcoal fire, Peter must first remember his failure and then own it. Rowan Williams, the former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, once preached “Simon has to recognise himself as a betrayer; that is part of the past that makes him who he is. If he is to be called again, if he can again become a true apostle, the ‘Peter’ that he is in the purpose of Jesus rather the Simon who runs back to a cozy obscurity of ‘ordinary life’, his failure must be assimilated, lived through again, and brought to good and not destructive issue.”

To exist without memory can be to live a life that is, in a sense, anaesthetised.  Our humanity is arguably defined by, and certainly enhanced by, our capacity to form and then transmit personal memories. I've learned over the years that guilt can be a terrible taskmaster. That may be the reason why we deliberately choose to suppress memories. By forgetting, we attempt to exile and banish the guilt that comes with that memory to the dark recesses of the mind. But guilt itself cannot help us conquer sin. Guilt is the burglar alarm of our conscience, and while it can ring incessantly, it cannot heal. Only the love of Jesus for us and our love for Jesus can heal us. This is what St John meant when he said, "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love" (1 John 4:18). But if we choose to bury our memory and the guilt that goes along with it, we may risk the danger of also burying the memory of Jesus’ love for us.

And so, we are invited to gaze deeply into the flames – we see in the flames not only a reflection of our worst failures but also future path of our redemption. Though tempted to look away, we must return our gaze to the fire that burns brightly before us. The fire may reveal the dross hidden in our hearts, but the fire also dispels the darkness of the night. In the burning flames of God’s love, we recognise both the wounds caused by our sinfulness, and the healing offered by Christ. As we look into the flames, we see Jesus looking back at us. In the flames, in the memories of our past faults and failures, we see Jesus forgiving our offenses, taking our penalty, healing our sin-damaged souls, and restoring us to communion with God. In the flames, we will discover our healing at the hands of Jesus.

It ain't over till Easter morning returns

Easter Vigil 2016

The American colloquial phrase - It ain’t over till the fat lady sings- has often been cited to indicate that one should not be in too much of a hurry to predict the outcome of some activity until it has actually finished. The final outcome may yet surprise us. Now you may be wondering what the fat lady has to do with this evening’s celebration? 

Those sitting through today’s unusually long liturgy for the first time, may also be wondering – when will it be all over. As Latin Rite Christians, we are often used to our almost painless not-more-than-one-hour services. Many Catholics are absolutely baffled at how their Eastern Orthodox counterparts can sit through a three to four hour service on a normal Sunday. Well, tonight’s liturgy comes close to matching that. In the Lectionary, seven Old Testament readings, one New Testament and the gospel have been selected for the Easter Vigil Service, not counting the lengthy Rite of Baptism that follows. You may be interested to know that before the liturgical reform there were twelve Old Testament readings and not just the present seven! Fortunately for you, we’ve narrowed it down to just three Old Testament texts. But in any event, the number and length of the readings are enough to test anyone’s patience. Why do you think the Church has set out all these readings tonight? I’ll let you in on a secret – the real purpose is to irritate the hell out of you – it’s a way the Church delivers a payback for your lack of observance and sacrifice during Lent. Ok! You know that that was just me kidding, right?

By proposing these readings to us, the Church wishes to offer us a panoramic view of the whole trajectory of salvation history, starting with creation, passing through the election and the liberation of Israel to the testimony of the prophets by which this entire history is directed ever more clearly towards Jesus Christ. The stories in fact link the Easter story to the story of mankind, to the story of the whole universe. In these stories, we see the Easter story being prefigured in the story of creation, the story of how God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt, the story of how God will place a new heart in us and pour his spirit into us. It’s a story that involves death, but more importantly it is a story that acclaims life! In all these stories, when everything seems to be at an end, marking tragedy and disaster for the protagonist, something amazing takes place. The hand of God intervenes and a new ending is written! Seen in this light, the story of Easter is a fitting climax.

I remarked to a quite a few people that I was astounded at the sight of the massive crowds at yesterday’s Good Friday services. Where did all these people come from? And where have they gone? As in previous years, the drop in numbers on Holy Saturday Easter Vigil services is remarkable. The modest turnout tonight may be an indication that most people just don’t have the patience to wait around ‘until the fat lady sings.’ They are contented with the story of Good Friday. Some believe their sins forgiven if they just turn up on that fateful day once a year. There are those who are feel overly beholden to Jesus Christ for having suffered so much for them on the cross. This is their repayment, or at least an instalment to the principal debt owed. Others feel drawn to the Good Friday service because it seems to resonate with their lives, lives filled with failures, pitfalls, disappointments, and loss. They fail, however, to recognise that Good Friday is not the ending, it is only a prelude to a much greater ending, perhaps the greatest ever known in history and all eternity. It’s quite sad to see that they don’t stick around to witness the stirring conclusion of the story – the story told tonight.

Perhaps, that seems to be oft drawn conclusion to the stories of our lives. We find ourselves in a maelstrom of trouble and disaster. We encounter a whole series of problems where we find no way of extricating ourselves. We experience being stuck in the mire of despair and hopelessness. We walk into alley ways only to find dead ends. We sometimes wonder whether there will be an end to the pain and suffering. We are disappointed with how our children or marriages turn out. The temptation would often be to throw in the towel. We try to run away. Or when that doesn’t work, we look for human solutions only to find ourselves deeper in the mud after a temporary reprieve. Whatever may be the outlet we have chosen for our predicament, we only wish that this would be the end to our troubles and problems. In fact, our misery often seems to be the end!

The story of Easter tells a different tale. With just a stroke of a pen, the Divine Author changes the entire conclusion. Good Friday will not be end. The story of salvation did not end on the cross. Hope did not die on Good Friday. If one were to consider the Good Fridays of our lives, the times we’ve struggled with the loneliness and uncertainties of the dark night, the times we’ve grappled with the problem of suffering, failure and pain, as the foregone conclusion to life, then we are mistaken. Know this, with the night of Good Friday, comes the dawn of Easter Sunday. After the death of the Son of Man, comes the resurrection of the Son of God! Just when you thought that all the odds were set against you, we have a freshly written ending to the story, an ending that will never cease to surprise us and bring us joy.

Tonight, the catechumens will celebrate the Easter mysteries of rebirth, rejuvenation and partake of the sacred meal of Christians where they will share in the One Bread, and One Cup, the One Body and Blood of Christ. It has been a long journey for most of them. For many of them, the journey began long before they decided to join the RCIA. I presume that there will be times; they too would have contemplated whether they would be able to complete this journey. Today, they have come to end of their journey of searching, inquiring, and learning as candidates for baptism, confirmation and Holy Eucharist, but it is only the beginning of their journey of faith as Christians. 

It ain’t over till the fat lady sings or in our present Easter version of the story of stories, it ain’t over till the women on Easter morning returns to tell the tale of their discovery, the story of the empty tomb, the story of the angels message, the story of fulfilled promises, the story of broken hopes and dreams healed and restored, the story of the resurrection which opens up an entirely new horizon. The empty tomb heralds that the chains and prison of death has been broken. Satan and his hold on us through sin have been defeated. The darkness of this night and every night is now brightened by the unquenchable flame of faith in Christ who is our Light. It ain’t over till they return and sing the great hymn of Easter: that soaring aria rising in crescendo, that beautiful hymn that makes the heart swell with joy and hope, the melody that lifts our spirits out of the doldrums of darkness into his unquenchable light, the words that will transform endings into beginnings: “Alleluia! Alleluia! He is Risen, Alleluia!”

Believing in Seeing

Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) - Year B

Today, we celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday and on the occasion of this special Feast day, we would like to remember the man responsible for dedicating the Second Sunday of Easter to the Divine Mercy – St. Pope John Paul II. This Pope epitomizes the theme of this Sunday’s gospel – Believing is Seeing. The association of St. Pope John Paul II and this Feast Day is more than just one of coincidence; he and St Faustina, the seer who first wrote about the Divine Mercy, are both Polish. In the year Great Jubilee Year of 2000, St . Pope John Paul II established this Sunday as Divine Mercy Sunday. On the same date, he canonized the Polish nun, St Faustina.

St. John Paul lived through the horrors of World War II where humanity descended to its worst possible expression. On a scale never before seen, millions died, not just on the battle fields but in those horrid concentration camps that made systematic murder of men, women and children more effective, along the lines of mass production assembly lines. St. Pope John Paul II studied in the seminary under these horrible circumstances and witnessed fellow seminarians, lecturers, priests being taken away and summarily executed. For all purposes, one would not be able to see reason or even the presence of a compassionate God in all of these experiences. These horrors beg the question: “Where is God in all this?” As Pope Benedict observed, people saw “the horrors of human history, especially of the most recent human history, as an irrefutable pretext for denying the existence of a good God.”

But against this impossible tide of skepticism and disbelief, St. John Paul was not merely able to hold the torch of faith throughout this period, but because of his firm believe in the merciful providence of God, continued to see the power of mercy at work in the midst of persons who have even begun to doubt their own humanity. With the end of the Second World War, the cruel face of Facism was replaced by the atheist regime of Communist totalitarianism. The anti-religion regime tried to crush the Church and its members under the weight of oppressive laws. But, St. Pope John Paul II continued to place his hope and faith in the mercy of God, in the belief that God will never abandon his people, and finally, it would be mercy that would have the final victory. Against a materialistic philosophy that viewed human in terms of economics, St. Pope John Paul II presented a different vision. It is a vision that recognized humanity as deeply flawed, sinful in fact. But his vision also draws us to this truth, a truth that cannot be proven just merely by empirical means, but one which is clear to those who have faith, it is the truth that we are not abandoned. God offers us something infinitely greater than our human cruelty. God offers us his mercy.

Many historians who have studied the fall of the communist bloc, will not be able to discount the role of the Polish Pope who continued to inspire his people and the world throughout the era of the subjugation of Eastern Europe and Russia under the yoke of communism. This Sunday, we see the Pope’s greatest weapon against this massive nuclear superpower. It was not condemnation; it was not political power, nor was it economic power and surely not through the show of nuclear armaments. The pope’s greatest weapon was the Divine Mercy.

Fifty years ago, no one living under the shadow of the sickle and hammer would have believed that there could be day they could taste the very air of freedom. They would scoff at your suggestion and perhaps add, “Seeing is believing.” But seeing what has taken place in these last few years, should be able to shake the confidence of skeptics in the impregnability of their skepticism and pessimism. But one man refused to stop believing even when others saw no reason to believe. And today, it is this man who can attest to the Truth of his beliefs rather than the skeptics who held otherwise. 

There are times and perhaps we are living in such times where we are weighed down by what we perceive with our senses. We see a no-win situation in our political climate and many have lost hope in the ability of our country’s leaders to remedy its ills (especially the recent implementation of GST). There are those who find that it is no longer possible to live with their spouses given the history of troubles, fights, infidelities and abuse. Some who have been hurt by the gossip, rumour mongering, slander and selfishness of others, may see no other way but to isolate themselves from the source of pain. But it the midst of all these troubles, the Risen Christ appears behind the closed doors, presenting us an answer. Peace comes not with the absence of trouble or conflict but with the possibility of forgiveness. Peace comes with the ability to believe. Peace comes when we choose to see through the eyes of faith. St. John Paul II believed in the Divine Mercy of his God, and he saw beyond the rubble, the chaos, the destruction, the hopelessness of his times, the cruelty and brokenness of humanity – He believed beyond seeing, and for that, he saw the sun rising long before the end of the long dark night of doubt.