We all know that happiness depends on living in a close relationship with God, as Adam and Eve did before the fall. It's the most basic truth of our catechism: separated from God, the human heart withers, like a plant that never gets sunshine.
But after the loss of grace through original sin, staying close to God became impossible. He is too bright for graceless, sin-damaged eyes to see; he is too far away for sin-weakened souls to find.
The emphasis of Lent season is that of repentance, sacrifice and conversion. The Gospel, therefore, gives three practices which must be done: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Jesus said: "when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites," "when you fast, do not look gloomy," "when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing" (Mt 6:5, 16, 3, respectively). In a most profound way, the three spiritual exercises identified by Jesus are directed toward the nurturing of relationships.
The first practice is prayer, our constant communication with God. This is of prime importance in our Christian life so that we can focus our direction and goal towards our heavenly destination.Prayer, that process of listening to and responding to God's daily call, sustains and nurtures our relationship with our triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Without prayer, personal and communal, this relationship is diminished, sometimes to the point of complete silence on our part. Every day the Spirit of Jesus invites us to enter into that serious conversion that leads to blessed communion.
And this is what the second practice is all about: fasting. It is a form of sacrifice so that we will learn to control our desires by the practice of self-denial. At the same time, fasting helps us feel the pain and the suffering of the poor and the hungry, thereby making us more compassionate and sensitive to their needs. Fasting, however, is not only abstaining from food, but also from any sinful activities and desires and all unhealthy forms of entertainment and harmful vices.
But prayer and fasting are not enough. In fact, God said through Isaiah that the fasting He desires is helping the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, granting liberty to captives and all other corporal acts of mercy. Fasting and prayer, therefore, become more pleasing in the eyes of God when we come to the aid of our needy brothers and sisters.
This is the third practice: almsgiving. It is not just giving alms. It is really about extending our helping hand to anybody who needs our help, especially the poor, the sick, the orphans and the destitute. To be a disciple of Christ means to live a life of charity. To be a disciple of Jesus is to live a life of stewardship, generously giving of our time, talent, and treasure.
At the heart of all penance is the call to conversion. Jesus' imperative "Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mk 1:15) makes explicit this connection between authentic discipleship and penitential discipline. Discipleship, our following of Jesus, embraces discipline, a firm commitment to do whatever is demanded in furthering God's kingdom. Viewed in this way, the virtue of penance is not optional, just as weeding a garden is not optional for a responsible caretaker. The gardener is concerned with a bountiful harvest; the disciple is concerned about greater conformity to the person of Jesus.
If we are serious about embracing the penitential discipline that is rooted in the call to discipleship, then we will identify specific times and places for prayer, penance, and works of charity. Growth in spiritual maturity demands a certain level of specificity, for it shows that we take seriously God's call to discipline and are willing to hold ourselves accountable. In our Catholic tradition we specify certain days and seasons for special works of penance: Fridays, on which we commemorate the death of the Lord, and Lent, our forty days of preparation for the Easter mysteries.
Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.
Let's ask ourselves a tough question today: Am I a better Christian now than I was a year ago? Am I holier? Am I more like Christ? Am I really becoming the saint that God created me to be?
It's uncomfortable to ask questions like that. That's good. Lent is a time for us to feel uncomfortable. Jesus loves us too much to let us be lazy. He is like a good coach, always encouraging us to grow, to improve.
Unfortunately, many of us aren't growing as quickly or as constantly as we should. Professionally we are moving up, maybe. Academically, athletically we are making progress, but as Christians? Not really. We're still stuck where we have always been. On a plateau. The same temptations, the same falls, the same sins. We're still mediocre Christians.
One of the reasons for this is that we don't go to the real roots of our selfishness.
We try to follow Christ more faithfully, but we don't do so intelligently.
We keep trying to cut off the branches of impatience, or greed, or lust, or dishonesty, but the roots are still intact, so the branches just keep growing back.
In Jesus' temptation in the desert, the devil makes the mistake of exposing the three roots of all our sins. In each one of us, one of these roots is bigger and stronger than the others (though we all have all three).
If we can identify which is our main root sin, we can direct our spiritual work more intelligently, and really start making progress as Christians.
Resisting Temptation
Getting to know our root sin and its most frequent manifestations arms us for spiritual battle. The better we know where we are weak, the better we will be able to resist temptation.
We are all tempted.
Every day we are invited to rebel against God in little things and big things. The patterns of behavior around us, our own self-centered tendencies, and the devil himself are always inviting us to trust more in our own flawed judgment than in God's wisdom.
But temptation is not sin. In fact, every temptation is a chance to exercise our trust in God, to reclaim territory for Christ's Kingdom, just as Jesus did when he was tempted. Because Jesus was tempted, he redeemed temptation. With his grace, his victory over sin can become our victory. That's why he came to earth in the first place!
The message Christ has for us today is a message of hope. We can conquer sin, in our lives and in the world around us. We just need to stay united to Christ. That's what the Eucharist is for - that's why God gave it to us. And that's also what the Bible is for. Jesus parries the Devil's attacks by quoting from the Scriptures, the inspired Word of God.
Today, let's renew our confidence in Christ and our determination to fight for the advance of his Kingdom, to cut back our root sin and make more room for his grace to grow in our lives.
One important way to grow in the Lord is to observe the penitential practices that strengthen us for resisting temptation, allow us to express our sorrow for the sins we have committed, and help to repair the tear caused by our sinning.
In the Catholic Church, the season of Lent is time for do the penance. Prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are forms of penance. Penance simply means the repentance of sins by taking some form of action in reparation for our sins. Just as we sinned by actually committing or omitting something we shouldn't have, so we should do penance by actually committing or omitting something to "make up" for it. And this is for our benefit. So Lent is a time for increased prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in preparation for the greatest feast on the Church calendar: Easter.
On ASH WEDNESDAY (March 2), the faithful may take part in the rite online and receive Holy Communion spiritually.
On Ash Wednesday the faithful are obliged to keep fast (for those who have reached the age of eighteen but not yet sixty) and/or abstinence (for those who have reached the age of fourteen or above). During Lent they are also obliged to pray more and to perform more acts of penance and charity, such as family prayers, rosary, meditation on the liturgical texts of daily Masses, performing the Way of the Cross and caring for the poor and others who have material or spiritual needs.
Today's readings remind us that if we truly want to recognize, do, and praise the good that we and others do we need Our Lord's help and the wisdom to not judge a book by its cover.
In today's First Reading, Sirach teaches us that the true worth of anyone, including ourselves, is when a trial by fire shakes us up and makes us show who we indeed are and how we live.
He focuses on a person's words being the accurate measurement of their faults or virtue. Appearances are not enough. He gives three examples of a process for evaluating the worth of a "fruit."
With the sieve, you sift out the undesirable, which remains in the sieve and lets the desirable pass through. With the firing of pottery, it adopts its definitive form and strength, or its definitive deformation and flaws. With cultivating a fruit tree, it's easy to see whether you're successful or not: good and abundant fruit or a withered tree with little to no fruit.
In all three of these processes, it is the result that matters. The process doesn't automatically produce a good outcome, just like we or others aren't automatically good or evil.
In today's Second Reading, Paul reminds us that it is thanks to Our Lord that this process of telling good from evil, even among the well-intentioned, is not in vain.
Our corruptibility and mortality due to Original Sin would lead to spiritual as well as physical death if left to their own devices. Original Sin disfigured us, but also disfigured our view of good and evil. We need help to correct it.
Paul encourages us to see that Our Lord will clothe that corruptibility with incorruptibility: the grace that transforms us and heals us from the wounds of Original Sin, although we still are subjected to weakness and temptation in this life, in eternity we will be purified of it, once and for all.
Our Lord clothes our mortality with immortality by sowing the seed of eternal life in us from the moment we believe and are baptized. His victory over death swallowed it up for himself and us. If we persevere in Christ, we will share in his victory over sin and death.
Our Lord in today's Gospel reminds us that we must try to see and live clearly before helping others, or it will be a case of the blind leading the blind. He also warns us that being a "bad boy," despite how culture today paints it, is never a good thing.
If a blind man were to offer to help you cross the street, you would either charitably decline, think he was crazy, or maybe convince yourself he had superpowers. We live in a society where people seek the virtuous thing to do, the logical thing to do, or the craziest thing to do, and are willing to get advice from or give advice to anyone.
We have to invest time, prayer, and reflection to determine the solid foundation on which to live and to be guided. We can't just invent this on our own: we need help from Our Lord, and we need help from dependable people and solid traditions.
If someone recognizes something to be evil, they avoid it; that is Ethics 101. That is why evil often tries to masquerade as good, to appear glamorous. Our Lord teaches us not to judge people, but he does teach us to judge actions: evil people do evil things, just as good people do good things.
A Potter's Furnace
Once the clay is prepared and shaped into pottery, it is placed into a furnace, a kiln, to harden and be complete. If there are any flaws in the shaping of the object, the furnace makes that deformation permanent. Only slight repairs are possible.
A kiln is a good metaphor for the trials by fire that we undergo in life. Trials define us for good or for ill. They never leave us the same. Trials are also the moment where we indeed show what we are made of. A trial can lead to growth or destruction. It all depends on the virtue and grace with which we face it.
Original Sin and our sins have defined us, but Paul reminds us today in the Second Reading that Our Lord, through his grace, works that brokenness into something that gradually takes shape from here to eternity: a saint.
Sift Your Words This Week
Sirach this week teaches us to sift the words of others and separate the good from the evil this week, but Our Lord teaches us that we should start by "sifting" our own words: the wooden beam in your eye impairs your vision in telling good from evil.
St. Paul in his Letter to the Ephesians teaches us: "No foul language should come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for needed edification, that it may impart grace to those who hear" (4:29).
Some people set up a "Swear Jar" and place some money in it whenever they use foul language, but this process is deeper. You can say uncharitable and unedifying things with perfect diction and "clean" language.
Set up a jar or keep track on a paper or app this week of how many times each day you said something unedifying. Once a day take stock of how edifying/unedifying your words were that day.
Start this new chapter of your life off right by inviting the Lord under your roof.
House Blessing is an opportunity to give thanks to God and put our lives here, and the people we welcome in, under his protection." The priest held the blessing ceremony of new house, and went room by room. "Attend, Lord, these your servants who, upon offering you their home today, humbly request your blessing …"
The "Spiritual Conversation Formation Gathering" (in English) by the Diocese will be hosted on Zoom platform on 20 Feb 2022 at 3:00 – 5:15 PM.
Please join this important part of the Synod of Bishops consultation work. If interested, please register before 05 Feb 2022 via email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Through baptism, we became members of the body of Christ, brothers and sisters of the Lord, and children of God. In our journey through life, we either stay faithful to that vocation and identity, or abandon it (sometimes we go back and forth).
In this Gospel passage, Christ gives us the sign that tells us whether we are living up to our vocation, the touchstone of the true Christian. It isn't vast theological knowledge, or personal charm, or professional success. Nor is it ecstasies in prayer or extreme penances.
Rather, the identifying mark of a Christian is treating others - all others - the way God does, the way God treats us. God is kind and merciful "even to the ungrateful and the wicked." If we are his children, his followers, we will be too.
We will be quick to forgive, to make excuses for others, to avoid judging and condemning them. We will think well of others, speak well of them, and treat them like the children of God that they truly are.
But Jesus doesn't just tell us what we're supposed to do in life, he also tells us why.
We are created in God's image, and God is love; his very divine nature is all about self-giving. So, the more we develop our capacity for love, for authentic, self-forgetful love, the more we will mature into what God created us to be.
And just as a mature, healthy apple tree bears abundant fruit, so a mature, healthy human soul overflows with the spiritual fruits of profound joy, peace, and enthusiasm. This is what Jesus means when he says, "give, and gifts will be given to you".
If we are true Christians, treating all others as we would like them to treat us, as God has treated us, we will be truly happy.
Mother Theresa Lights a Lamp
Blessed Mother Theresa of Calcutta was someone who learned this lesson perfectly. Once she was staying with her community of sisters who were working with the Aborigines in Australia.
While she was there, she visited an elderly man who lived in total isolation, ignored by everyone. His home was disordered and dirty.
She told him, "Please let me clean your house, wash your clothes and make your bed." He answered, "I'm OK like this. Let it be." She said, "You will be still better if you allow me to do it."
He finally agreed. So, she was able to clean his house and wash his clothes. While she was cleaning, she discovered a beautiful lamp, covered with dust. It looked like it hadn't been used in years.
She said to the man, "Don't you light that lamp? Don't you ever use it?" He answered, "No. No one comes to see me. I have no need to light it. Who would I do it for?" Mother Theresa asked, "Would you light it every night if the sisters came?" He replied, "Of course." From that day on, the sisters committed themselves to visiting him every evening.
Mother Theresa left Australia. Two years passed. She had completely forgotten about that man. Then she received a message from him: "Tell my friend that the light she lit in my life continues to shine still."
That's what it means to be a true Christian: to give, to forgive, to bless, to stop judging, to stop condemning, to stop complaining, and to start lighting lamps... In other words, to be like Christ. And that's what brings happiness to our lives and to the world.
[story adapted from Voices of the Saints by Bert Ghezzi]
Emotional Damage Control
It is hard for us to be true to Christ's standard. One reason it's so hard is because our culture gives so much emphasis to emotions. Our society tells us that whenever we feel a strong emotion, we are supposed to act on it.
When you're angry, express yourself. When you're sad, let it flow. When you're in the mood for fun, go with it. If you don't, the modern psychologists tell us, you will "repress your inner self".
On this point, the modern psychologists are flat out wrong. Emotions are blind. They come and go without our permission, like the weather. If we let them drive our lives, we will never have stability. We will never grow up; we'll be like babies forever.
We need to govern our lives by the principles of our faith.These don't change.They are true and dependable.Following them gives us stability, wisdom, and maturity.
Emotions are like the wind at sea. They can help or hinder the boat's progress. Principles are like the deep ocean currents: they drive us towards our destination no matter the weather.
Here are two ways to work on governing our emotions, so we can better follow Christ's command to treat others - all others - as we would have them treat us:
Let's ask Jesus to give us strength to govern our emotions, so that this week we can be better Christians, more authentic Christians, stable and constant in our kindness, patience, and generosity. That's what will make Jesus happy, it's what will make us happy, and it's what this world needs most.
For us Christians, blessings have taken on an even greater meaning through Christ who perfectly revealed to us the goodness and love of God. St. Paul wrote, "Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing." Jesus blessed those He encountered: the little children (Mark 10:13-16) and the apostles at the ascension (Luke 24:50-53). He blessed objects: the loaves used to feed the 5000 (Mark 6:34ff) and the bread at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26-30). Since Christ entrusted His saving ministry to the Church, it has instituted various blessings for people as well as objects to prompt the faithful to implore God's protection, divine assistance, mercy, faithfulness, and favor.
Who can do a blessing? The Catechism states, "Every baptized person is called to be a 'blessing,' and to bless. Hence lay people may preside at certain blessings; the more a blessing concerns ecclesial and sacramental life, the more is its administration reserved to the ordained ministry (bishops, priests, or deacons)" (#1669). Priests are the ordinary ministers of blessings, asking God's help for those people being blessed or dedicating something to a sacred service; the priest's blessing is imparted with the weight of the Church and therefore has great value in the eyes of God. The blessing of a layperson upon another, such as a parent blessing a child, is an act of goodwill whereby the person implores God's aid for the person; the value of this blessing in the eyes of God depends upon the person's individual sincerity and sanctity.
This is Jesus' first big sermon in the Gospel of Luke. His inaugural address. And it's shocking. The topic is happiness (being blessed), and in a total reversal of ordinary standards, Jesus links true happiness with struggle, hardship, suffering and opposition, not with the prosperity, popularity, and pleasure that we normally associate with happiness.
What does he mean by this? Jesus isn't saying that the good things of life are evil - not at all. They are God's gifts and we are meant to enjoy them. But he is saying that they cannot satisfy our desire for happiness. And so, if we put our trust in them, as Jeremiah says in the first reading, our lives will wither and harden, like tumbleweeds in the desert. No roots, and no fruits.
Rather, Jesus is teaching us that the true path to happiness in this fallen world is paved with life's challenges and hardships.
These remind us that this world is passing and imperfect, that the only dependable thing in life is our friendship with God. Hardships and challenges teach us to root our lives in the rich soil of knowing, loving, and serving him; then our lives will be like a flourishing tree, with strong roots and luscious fruits.
This lesson has to be re-learned continually. Because of our fallen nature, we always tend to think we can find heaven on earth by putting together just the right combination of possessions, praise, and power. But we can't, as our Lord makes perfectly clear.
We are members of the Church militant for as long as we journey here on earth, and that means we need to keep our armor on and our supply lines protected, lest we fall into the enemy's traps.
St Teresa of Avila Falls in the Mud (humorous)
St Luke tells us that a great crowd had gathered from all over Palestine. It must have been like the World Youth Day gatherings with the Pope: a whole stadium full of people: rich and poor, the suffering, the curious, the young, the old - all looking hopefully up at Jesus.
And Jesus "fixes his eyes on them", St Luke tells us. The eyes of God looking into the eyes of regular people just like you and me. What was in Jesus' heart? How glad he must have been that they were there to hear him!
And what is his message? Blessed are you who are poor, who are hungry, who weep... For to you belongs the Kingdom of heaven. He tells them that he is at work in the midst of their sufferings. That he knows about them, and that they have a purpose.
Every saint learns this lesson. St Theresa of Avila was the great reformer of Carmelite Order. She spent the last years of her life traveling extensively, as she laid the foundation for seventeen discalced Carmelite convents throughout sixteenth century Spain. On one of these trips, as she was getting out of a carriage after a long, tiring journey in the rain, she slipped and fell in a large mud puddle. Her nice clean habit was soaked and dripping with mire. Exasperated, she prayed, "Lord, why do you do these things to me when I'm only trying to help you?" Jesus answered her prayer, saying, "This is how I treat all my close friends." Teresa retorted, "Then it's no wonder you have so few!"
But it's true. Jesus loves us too much to let us deceive ourselves into thinking that we can have heaven on earth. He is always trying to remind us of our true destination.
Exercising Our Faith
It takes faith to accept this teaching of Christ. Faith is for our Christian lives what natural intelligence is for our natural lives.
We received natural intelligence when we were given life. It enables us to know, understand, and learn things about the world around us. It enables us to write poems and read books, unlike animals and plants, which don't have this kind of intelligence.
When we were baptized, God gave a new kind of intelligence - faith. This enables us to see things from God's perspective. Faith allows us to perceive God's love behind the beauty of a sunset, God's presence in the Eucharist, God's wisdom at work in suffering.
And just as we need to exercise our natural intelligence if we want it to grow and mature, we have to exercise this gift of faith too.
The hardships of every day are the best opportunities to exercise our faith. When things go our way, we don't have to exercise faith to accept them - natural intelligence is enough. When they don't go our way, then natural intelligence is not enough. We have to say: I don't know where you're taking me, Lord, but I know you're still in charge. [Here you can make reference to the illustration you used...]
Sickness, betrayal, accidents, money problems, rejection, being made fun of because of our Christian standards - these things make us blessed, because in them we can exercise our faith in Christ. They make us more like Christ, who saved us by suffering all these things himself.
Let's remind ourselves that earth is not heaven. Let's ask Jesus to teach us to live by this supernatural intelligence, so that it can be a sturdy lighthouse guiding us along this earthly road heaven. Lord, increase our faith!
Blessings come under the category of sacramentals. A sacramental is a special prayer, action, or object which, through the prayers of the Church, prepares a person to receive grace and to better cooperate with it. For example, we make the sign of the cross using Holy Water when entering a Church: That pious action and the Holy Water itself, which together remind us of our Baptism, awaken us to the presence of God and dispose us to receiving God's grace. Unlike a sacrament, a sacramental does not itself confer the grace of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, like a sacrament, a sacramental helps the faithful to sanctify each moment of life and to live in the Paschal mystery of our Lord.
Among the sacramentals, blessings would be foremost. In the decree publishing the Book of Blessings, Cardinal Mayer, then prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, wrote, "The celebration of blessings holds a privileged place among all the sacramentals created by the Church for the pastoral benefit of the people of God. As a liturgical action, the celebration leads the faithful to praise God and prepares them for the principal effect of the sacraments. By celebrating a blessing, the faithful can also sanctify various situations and events in their lives." Blessings are signs to the faithful of the spiritual benefits achieved through the Church's intercession.
Throughout Sacred Scripture, we find how God issued various blessings: In the Genesis account of creation, God blessed all the living creatures and especially Adam and Eve, telling them to be fertile, to multiply, and to fill the earth and subdue it (cf. Genesis 1:22, 28). After the flood, God blessed Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:1ff). The patriarchs administered blessings, particularly to the eldest son, signifying a bestowing of God's benevolence, peace, and protection. In a similar vein, the Lord spoke to Moses and commanded the following blessing for all the Israelites: "The Lord bless you and keep you! The Lord let His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you! The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!" (Numbers 6:22-27). The people also blessed God, praising His goodness shown through creation, as illustrated in the beautiful hymn of praise in the Book of Daniel (3:52-90). The Preface for Eucharistic Prayer IV captures well this understanding of a blessing: "Father in Heaven…, source of life and goodness, you have created all things, to fill your creatures with every blessing and lead all men to the joyful vision of your light."
Those who enter the church must take the following epidemic prevention measures:
In accordance with the latest instructions from both the government and the Diocese, the pastoral measures of the parish suspending public mass and minimizing physical gatherings will continue to be in effect until further notice.
The schedule of the Adoration in our church will be changed to --During Sunday's Adoration, Catholics can receive Holy Communion. On each occasion for giving Holy Communion, the faithful should be properly disposed by either attending a Mass online or paying a visit to the Blessed Sacrament beforehand. Anti-pandemic precautions must be observed, including the keeping of social-distancing. After the Holy Communion rite, the faithful should not continue to gather together.
We all know why Jesus came to earth. He came to redeem the fallen world, to pay the price for our sins, to lead every member of the human family back into friendship with God. We all know that, and we don't usually forget about it.
But we do sometimes forget that Jesus doesn't want to do all the work himself. As St Augustine used to say, although God created us without us, he won't save us without us.
In other words, he has chosen to accomplish his mission of salvation with our cooperation. Every one of us, since the moment of our baptism, has been called by God to be co-missionaries with Jesus Christ.
This is why, in today's First Reading, the prophet Isaiah hears God ask the question: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?" God wants us to participate in his mission of salvation. He gives us a chance to join him in building up the eternal Kingdom. All we have to do is say, with Isaiah, "Here I am! Send me!"
The encounter between Jesus and his first Apostles in today's Gospel gives us the same message. First, Jesus asks Peter to lend him his boat, so that he can have a better podium for addressing the huge crowds. That boat was Peter's livelihood, his life.
Jesus also wants to speak to the desperate, discouraged crowds of today's world from our boats, from the words, deeds, and example of our lives. And then, after the miraculous catch of fish, Jesus invites Peter to follow him and become "fishers of men," co-missionaries.
Christ's mission is to save the world, but he is no Lone Ranger; he has chosen to depend on a volunteer army of co-missionaries – Peter, James, John, and each and every one of us.
This is one of the reasons that we call the Church "apostolic" when we recite the creed.The word "apostle" comes from the Greek for "to be sent out." The first Twelve Apostles were sent out into the world as Jesus' co-missionaries. But they weren't the only ones; the whole Church, us included, is apostolic. Here's how the Catechism explains it:
863 The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: and in that she is "sent out" into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this mission, though in various ways. "The Christian vocation is, of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate as well." Indeed, we call an apostolate "every activity of the Mystical Body" that aims "to spread the Kingdom of Christ over all the earth."
Key Requirement for the Mission: Humility
Why did Jesus choose to require co-missionaries to save the world? Not because the job was too much for him; after all, as God he is all-powerful. Rather, because he knew that we needed a mission, a purpose in life that reaches behind the fleetingness of earthly life and plugs us into eternity.
He knows we need a transcendent meaning, because that's how he designed us when he created us "in his own image." We will only find fulfilment if we accept this invitation to be active co-missionaries in the service of Christ's eternal Kingdom. Most of us here today have already accepted the invitation. But we may not be as fully engaged in the mission as we should be. And if that's the case, we may not be experiencing to the full the meaning God wants us to experience.
What could be holding us back? It could be that the key ingredient for our calling to be Christ's co-missionaries is in low supply. That ingredient is humility.
Isaiah only heard God's call and received the grace to accept it after he recognized that by himself, he was unworthy to do so, that he was a man of "unclean lips."
Peter only understood Christ's call and received the courage to follow it after he discovered and admitted his own sinfulness: "Depart from me!" he told the Lord after the miraculous catch, "because I am a sinful man."
And in today's Second Reading, St Paul shows that he too had to learn the lesson of humility: "I am not fit to be called an apostle," he admitted, but then added "by the grace of God I am what I am."
That same grace of God will come to us in this Mass, and it can transform our lives too, in spite of all our limitations – if we are willing to let it.
We have just heard some of the most beautiful words in all of Sacred Scripture. God spoke to them to the prophet Jeremiah more than two thousand years ago, but that same God – our Lord – made sure that they weren't forgotten when Jeremiah died.
He inspired the sacred writer to record them for all time. He wanted to make sure that we would hear those same words spoken to us, twenty-five centuries later.
That's what the Bible is, remember: God's inspired and living word, meant to enlighten, encourage, and strengthen each one of us in every situation of our lives. And if we let these incredible words really penetrate our hearts today, that's exactly what will happen.
Which words am I referring to?
These: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born, I dedicated you."
Let us read them again, pausing after the word "you," so that each of us can insert there our first name, because that's how God wants us to hear these words: "Before I formed you [pause] in the womb I knew you [pause], before you [pause] were born I dedicated you [pause]."
None of us is here just by chance, as the Darwinists want us to believe. None of us is an unwanted mistake, as the pro-abortionists would like us to believe. None of us is a just a toy or experimental product manufactured by scientists, as the cloning-advocates and artificial reproduction companies seem to think.
Each one of us is a beloved, desired child of the living, eternal, all-wise, all-powerful God of the universe.
We have received our existence directly from him; if from all eternity he had not yearned for our friendship and envisioned a lasting purpose for each of us, we would not be here.
That is the dignity of human life – every human life, mine and yours included.
Spreading the Good News
This truth, that every human being is desired and loved by God for our own sake, that he yearns for the friendship of every person and has a transcendent purpose in mind for each human being, is at the very core of Christ's revelation.
But today's globalized world is in danger of losing sight of this truth because popular culture is no longer Christian. It tends to value human beings by externals: according to how much money they can make, or how athletic they are, or how beautiful they are.
Therefore, evils like abortion, euthanasia, and forced population control are not lessening, but spreading. The old law of the jungle is starting to re-emerge, and justice is being sacrifice – the strong, instead of helping the weak, are simply dominating them.
When a scientist in a laboratory creates, experiments on, and then disposes of the most vulnerable human beings, like tiny human embryos or babies in the womb, that's exactly what's happening.
Today, the Church is reminding us that we, the ones who do know the true source of human dignity, are called to do something about it.
We are like Jeremiah: God has sent us into this world not just to survive in it, but to transform it. "Stand up and tell them all that I command you," God said to Jeremiah, and he says the same thing to us.
With our example, our words, and our creative and active efforts to promote true human dignity, we can and must spread God's light and follow the "still more excellent way," as St Paul calls it in today's Second Reading, of Christ-like love.
It may be hard and uncomfortable at times, but God promises to guide us: "They will fight against you but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD."
This week, convinced that every human being matters eternally to God, let's give him a chance to put his money where his mouth is.
St. Anne's Church
1 Tung Tau Wan Road
Stanley, Hong Kong
Office Hours:
Sunday 8:30-1:30
Tue-Fri 9:00-12:00, 1:00-6:30
Closed on Statutory Holidays
Tel: +852 2813 0206
Fax: +852 2813 6908
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