St John points out that "Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus." And yet, in spite of his love, Jesus doesn't rush back to Jerusalem to heal Lazarus. Nor does he heal him from a distance, as he did with the Centurion's servant.

Jesus loves these friends, and yet he lets them suffer. He lets them experience their helplessness and weakness, the painful separation of death and the loss of a loved one.

Did he do it to punish them? Did he do it because he had no power to remedy the evil? No, he let them suffer precisely because he loved them.

If God protected us from all suffering, we would make the mistake of thinking that earth is heaven, that we could make ourselves truly happy just by our own efforts. But we live in a fallen world, a world in which suffering is inevitable.

And God allows us to experience that suffering as a way to remind us that life on earth is a journey towards heaven - it's the path, not the goal. The goal is heaven, and the resurrection of Lazarus is an appetizer of heaven.

What matters in life is not being perfectly comfortable: what matters in life is knowing, loving, and following Jesus Christ. Jesus uses our sufferings to help us to do that more and more.

Our sufferings remind us that we are not God; they make us turn to God. He uses them as opportunities to act in our lives in new ways, revealing himself to us more completely, just as he did with Martha, Mary, and Lazarus.

In this way, he shows that his Providence is more powerful than even life's greatest tragedies. Nothing is out of reach for Christ's redemption.

To say that God's Providence includes tragedies does not turn tragedies into comedies. Lazarus being raised from the dead didn't erase the experience of pain and loss that Martha and Mary went through during his sickness and after his death. Jesus rising from the dead on Easter Sunday didn't erase the indescribable pain and sorrow of Good Friday.

Just so, our sufferings and struggles really are sufferings and struggles. And we must never think that our faith in Jesus will make them go away. We will always have to suffer and struggle in this life.

But Jesus has given purpose to our sufferings and struggles. We know that he allows them for a reason, just as a good coach pushes his players beyond their comfort zone, no matter how much they complain. When we accept Christ's cross in our lives, even through our tears, we grow in wisdom and spiritual maturity - just like Martha in today's Gospel passage.

Having purpose in our suffering also makes it possible for us to have peace in our sufferings. Christ has proven that he will bring great things out of the greatest tragedies. And so, when storms of evil rock our boats, even while we struggle to keep afloat, in our hearts we can be at peace.

Jesus wants us to have confidence in him, to trust him no matter what. Today, let's grant him his wish. 

In our spiritual journey, we are not – and should not be – alone. As pilgrims, we travel together as members of one community, one family of God. We need one another; we are not meant to be independent, but interdependent. This particularly becomes evident when we fall into sin. Mortal sin cuts us off from the grace of God and from community life. We cannot rise up by our own power. We need the help of others, the Church, so that we can approach Jesus and regain our freedom and life. Similarly, we have to help others on the way to conversion.

This is clearly illustrated in the Gospel this Sunday. Lazarus was a close friend of Jesus. He died and was entombed for four days. When Jesus came, he raised him up from death by just calling out to him, "Lazarus, come out!" What is noteworthy is that afterwards, Jesus gave out an order to his disciples, "Untie him and let him go." Though raised from death, Lazarus could not move because of the burial cloths that bound his hands and feet. Someone had to untie him to free him from this bondage. Jesus sought the cooperation of his disciples in giving to Lazarus the fullness of his new life and freedom.

This Gospel event alludes to the sacrament of Confession. When we are in mortal sin, we are spiritually dead. Though God wants to forgive us and give us new life, He waits for our assent in freedom. Yet no matter how great is our desire to go back to God, we cannot move on our own for we are paralyzed by sin; we are spiritually shackled by the bonds of sin. This is where the Church, the community of believers, comes in. Through the ministry of the Church, in the sacrament of Penance, the priest cuts loose the oppressive bondage by the words of sacramental absolution.

As Christians, we are not without hope. In His unfathomable wisdom and boundless love for sinners, God has given us the sacrament of Penance. We are never alone in seeking His mercy and forgiveness. The Church, through the priest, works with Jesus in this sacrament to untie the bondage of sin and give us freedom.

We are now on the fifth week of Lent. Next Sunday, we will begin the Holy Week with the celebration of Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. If until now we have not yet availed of the sacrament of Confession, what are we still waiting for? We may be running out of time. We are serious about filing our income tax before the deadline, and we know when the deadline is. But in matters of the soul, nobody knows the deadline – it may come when we least expect it.

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.

For the Fourth Sunday of Lent, we recall Our Lord's healing of a blind man that brought many more things to light than just one man's eyesight. It teaches us how blind we can be to what's going on. The Lord wants to cure us of the worst blindness: a spiritual one. Through faith in the Son of man, we receive a deeper interior vision beyond our physical sight thanks to Christ, the light of the world.

In the Gospel, the Lord heals a blind man and helps to see with an entirely new level of light, the light of truth. This light shines on everyone involved in the story, and that light is Christ.

The man born blind not only received the gift of sight, but he also received an opportunity to see that Jesus had been sent by the Father and had the power of God to heal. He saw a miracle happen. The disciples thought his blindness was due to either his sin or the sin of his parents. Our Lord corrected them. His healing was to show God at work.

The man born blind wanted to get on with his life, but his neighbors insisted on taking him to the Pharisees because Jesus had healed him on the Sabbath. Our Lord had performed a miracle on the Sabbath. If God had not wanted to work miracles on the Sabbath, he would not have healed the blind man. Yet he did.

The Pharisees showed how blind they were to the will of God. They wanted to condemn Jesus as a sinner breaking the Sabbath because that was the way they saw the world. Their interpretation of the Law of Moses.

The man born blind could not deny what was right in front of his face. At this point, the Pharisees had decided to cast out anyone who said Jesus was the Messiah. He didn't claim Jesus was the Messiah, but when he presented irrefutable logic to the Pharisees: "We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him ... If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything."

His healing was to show God working, but the Pharisees couldn't accept that and cast him out. Jesus went looking for him and gave him the opportunity to believe in him as the Messiah, and he accepted wholeheartedly.

Our Lord had not just restored his sight; he'd given him the light to see salvation at his doorstep and the need to give witness to it. Christ showed the Pharisees that they weren't blind, a motive for innocence for their attitude. They chose not to accept what they saw. 

We all experience two kinds of thirst in life, and unless we understand the difference between them, we will always be frustrated.

The first kind of thirst is horizontal thirst. We thirst for, we desire, the good things of this earth: food, drink, companionship, fun, entertainment, a nice house, a good income, success at work or school.

It's part of our nature to desire these things; there's nothing wrong with them. But we also have another kind of thirst - vertical thirst.

This is a deeper thirst, a deeper desire. It's a desire for meaning and purpose. This desire is also built into our nature. There is nothing we can do to destroy it, just as there is nothing we can do to destroy our natural desires for food and water.

But unlike horizontal thirst, our vertical thirst cannot be satisfied by our own efforts. Only God himself can satisfy it. And he created us like that on purpose.

It's as if he put a homing device in the very core of our being, and it constantly draws us towards him, towards intimate, personal contact with his eternal, transcendent love.

This is why even when all of our horizontal thirsts are satisfied, when we have money, success, and pleasure, we are still restless.

Our deeper, vertical thirst can't be satisfied by things of this world. As the Catechism puts it: "Man is made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness" (#45).

The meaning and purpose which alone will give us true happiness comes from friendship with God in Christ, not from worldly success, pleasures, and human relationships.

When we forget that, when try to satisfy our vertical thirst with horizontal stuff, we put ourselves on the road to frustration, tragedy and disappointment.

​It is one way we commemorate the Passion and death of Our Savior Jesus Christ. But the question of "why meat?" It is precisely because meat is so good that we are asked to give it up at certain times. It wouldn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense if we offered something we considered bad as a sacrifice to God. More to the point, meat was singled out because it is associated with celebrations and feasts. On top of all of that, meat has often been a luxury in many cultures.

But what's included when we are asked to abstain from meat? Well, throughout the 2,000 year history of the Church, there have been varying definitions over what exactly constitutes abstinence from meat. In some regions of the world, Catholics abstained from all forms of meat and all animal products, while others made exceptions for food like fish.

So what about fish? The thing is, fish never really had the same status as the flesh of mammals and birds. In Pope Paul VI's aforementioned document, he uses a particular word, carnis, to indicate the type of food from which we are to abstain. In Latin carnis specifically refers to mammals and birds only. Fish was never considered as being on the same level.

The brilliant thing in all of this is that this is simply a discipline of the Church.

I don't even like meat, and I would rather eat fish! I like that statement, because it strikes at the heart of why we are doing this.

God doesn't need us to give up meat. God doesn't need us to have a filet-o-fish on Fridays. What does God want? For you to suffer? NO! The heart of holiness is love, and the way we express our love is through obedience. Abstaining from meat won't make a person closer to God. But having a posture of obedience to the Church that Christ established will. This happens to be what the Church asks us to do. If the Church changed the discipline and told us to eat meat on all Fridays during Lent, then obedience to that discipline would help us to grow. Why? Because we sinners like to take the rebellious pose. We like to do it our way. It is hard for us to be told what to do. But to submit is to place our lives in our Father's hands.

If you resent having to give up meat because you see it as pointless, look more deeply into what prompts you to think that way. Is it really the Spirit of Christ? Or a spirit of rebellion? One of those roads leads to God. The other leads in the opposite direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGDVRe65YU8

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.

Lent is about a week and a half underway, and readings on second Sunday of Lent remind us that everything we're commemorating during this season hinges on faith in Christ. He reveals to us the meaning of Lent, and he wants to be our light.

The First Reading from Genesis 12:1-4a reminds us that Abraham, our father in faith, set out based on a promise that was fulfilled through Christ.

Abram was promised to be the father of a great nation and a blessing to all nations. His name was destined to become renowned, and so it became.

He didn't receive many instructions, just to leave his kinsmen and set out. In the Letter to the Hebrews Abraham is described as our father in faith (cf. Catechism 145-146): "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was to go" (Hebrews 11:8).

The Second Reading, 2 Timothy 1:8b-10, St. Paul reminds us that Christ was always at the center of our Heavenly Father's plans, even before we became aware of it. In Christ, everything is revealed.

Abraham died in faith, but never saw the promise completely fulfilled. When facing hardship we are consoled by considering when it will end.

For a Christian the cynical expression "life is hard, then you die" holds no weight. Christ has revealed that "life is hard, and then you live happily ever after" if you have faith in him.

Through the Gospel of Matthew (17:1-9), the Lord's closest disciples receive a glimpse of his divinity and glory on the mountaintop to strengthen them for the trials to come. They see what the fulfillment of the Lord's promises will look like.

The Lord only took Peter, James, and John. They were his closest disciples and had the most need of encouragement. Peter would be entrusted with Christ's flock in a special way. James would be the first apostle martyred. John would write some of the most sublime words of Sacred Scripture.

Our Lord's face and clothes became as light. His face, like sunlight, represents his person and, at this moment, his divinity. Moses and Elijah converse with Jesus. Our Lord is at the center. The Law (represented by Moses) and the Prophets (represented by Elijah) point to him.

If a transfigured Christ flanked by the greatest exponents of the Law and the Prophets is not enough, a theophany occurs as well: God the Father identifies Jesus as his son, and how pleased he is with him.

During Lent, the Church asks us to prepare for Christ's passion and resurrection by making small sacrifices, traditionally in the form of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. But why do we sacrifice? What is a sacrifice, anyway?

St. Thomas Aquinas observes that "sacrifice" comes from Latin word: sacrificium. Sacrificium comes from sacer (holy) and facere (do or make). A sacrifice is a making-holy. Not only that, but St. Thomas' discussion of sacrifice reveals so much about our own nature and our relationship to God. He describes a sacrifice as a bodily act of offering to God a gift that is broken or transformed, so that we might return to God.

A bodily act

Sacrifice is fundamentally a religious act of offering a gift to God. But isn't this actually a bit strange? If God is all spirit, how could he possibly need our physical offerings?

St. Thomas explains that our physical offerings are not really for God's benefit, but for us. As a unity of body and soul, the human person experiences reality through the physical senses. Even God presents himself to us through the sensible things of creation. It is fitting, then, that we present ourselves to God through sensible things as well. Think of the Sacraments: all are visible signs of invisible grace. Lenten fasting and sacrifices are tiny sacramental signs of the true gift we give God: ourselves, body and soul.

A gift broken or transformed

However, a sacrifice is not just any gift. St. Thomas explains that an offering only becomes a sacrifice when it is changed: the goat is slaughtered, the bread is broken, the grain is consumed by fire. In being transformed, the offering is set apart and made holy. Christ himself, the consummate sacrifice, was mutilated, pierced and subjected to death.

But for these to be real sacrifices, something must be broken and transformed. Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving break little cracks in the brittle illusion of our own self-sufficiency. They invite us to acknowledge our own brokenness, susceptible as we all are to the corrupting effects of sin. And they invite God's grace to transform us and make us holy. "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (Psalm 51:17).

Return to God

Why, then, do we sacrifice? We do it to return to God, and this return happens in two distinct ways. First, through sacrifice we "return to God" in the sense of giving back what we owe him. Of course, we can't possibly repay God for his gifts with an equal return—he is the source of our very existence! We owe him everything. Nevertheless, we can do our part: our small personal sacrifices signal the return of self back to God. And thankfully, Christ lovingly repaid our dues in full through his perfect self-sacrifice, which we too can offer to God every time we participate in the Mass.

Second, through sacrifice we "return to God" in the sense of turning back towards him over and over again. Like the Israelites, we are constantly turning away from God and towards sin. As God called Israel to repentance through the prophets, he still calls us: "Return to me with all your heart" (Joel 2:12).

Lenten practices help us shed bad habits and self-love. St. Thomas says these religious acts purify us to orient ourselves more single-mindedly towards God. When we respond thus to the divine call—when we offer ourselves up, body and soul, to be broken and transformed by his merciful love—we are made holy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBPuuYFTJv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyjvdDdJWIg

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.

​If we only memorized one verse from the Bible, I would recommend the one that we heard this Sunday: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes forth from the mouth of God."

If we happened to live 1,000 years ago, I would probably recommend a different verse.

But we live now. And right now, the biggest obstacle to our happiness and holiness is our culture's commercialist mentality.

The commercialist mentality says that all our problems can be solved by stuff, by bread. The commercialist mentality is the attitude encouraged by the commercials, advertisements, and billboards that we run into a hundred times a day, every day. The commercialist mentality says that if we have the right bank account, the right house, the right vacation spot, the right outfits, the right software, and the right job, everything will be all right.

All of these material things, all these loaves of bread, are good. They are part of this wonderful creation that God has generously given to us.

But they are not enough. They are necessary, but insufficient. They cannot solve our most important problems.

Because the human soul is much greater than a machine. We need something much greater than fuel and axel grease to make our lives run smoothly. We need truth.

We need to know and follow the truth about who we are and what we were created for. We need to drink in the truth that we are loved by God, personally, and that we are called to love him in return, with all the power and creativity of our being.

The deepest part of our soul is hungering not for bread, but for the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who is himself incarnate Truth and Love.

​What is the point of Lent? What does the church say is the point of Lent?

The first prayer of the first mass of Lent goes like this: "Grant, o Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting this campaign of Christian service," like this military campaign. So that, as we take up the battle against spiritual evils, we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.

The Church says that Lent is a battle against my own flesh; those temptations in my life that move me away from God. The church says that Lent is a battle against the things of the world that take my attention off God. The church says that Lent is a battle against the devil and his angels, and the church in her wisdom knows that we cannot do it alone.

Refocus, recommit, repent. Every year the church gives us this season of Lent where we all, so to speak, come to the "gym" together, where we all, go out into the "desert" together. Some of us do more difficult penances than others; some of us do different penances than others. Some of us are weaker, some of us are stronger, but all of us are doing the penance together! And all of us are skipping meat on Fridays together, in the whole world! All of us are fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday together, in the whole world! All of us are praying for one another, cheering each other on that we might refocus, recommit, and repent.

And you know, all that is pretty much how Lent started. From the time of the apostles, we would fast; we as Christians would fast in preparation for the feast. We fast for Lent to prepare for Easter. Almost 1,500 years ago when people were wanting to come into the church to be baptized, they would enter into 40 days, more or less, of prayer and of fasting, to get ready. A long, long time ago, almost in the beginning of the church, when people were public sinners --murderers, adulterers, apostates, people who left the church, ---they would come at the beginning of Lent, put ashes on their heads, and repent and do penance, so as to be forgiven on Easter. And very soon other Christians said: I might already be a Christian, but I need to recommit to the commitment of my baptism. Pretty soon all the rest of the Christians said: I might not be a public sinner: I might not be a murderer or an adulterer or an apostate, someone who left the church, but I am a sinner! Even though not everybody can see my sin, even though my sin might not be mortal or grave, I am a sinner and I need to repent, too. I want to be in solidarity with my brothers and sisters. My brothers and sisters who are catechumens preparing to be baptized, my brothers and sisters who are penitents, who have done horrible public sins, but whom I love! Because they are Christians, too. And I am going to cheer them all by my penance and I am going to walk with them by my penance. And all of us are going to recommit, repent, and refocus together.

So this Lent, and every Lent, refocus, recommit, repent. Don't give up. Don't let the enemy drag you down. Persevere, suffer through! Engage with Lent and know, whatever your Lent is like, whatever your struggles are, that the whole church throughout the world, and throughout the centuries, is praying for you and is with you this Lent!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB5OcyHRvhM

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.

Although public masses on Sunday Mass and Daily Masses are suspended from 15^th - 28^th February 2020, our Church remains open from 07:00 am to 20:00 pm. Everyone is welcome to come and pray.

There will be an exposition of the Sacrament so that parishioner can make a personal adoration:

• Sunday : 09:30 am - 12:30 pm
• Tuesday - Friday : 09:30 am -10:30 am
  
  

• Please note that there will be no public Masses nor the blessing and distribution of ashes on Feb 26th, Ash Wednesday. (However, anyone with dry palms from last years' Palm Sunday may bring still them in to St. Anne's.)
• All faithful who have completed their 14^th year are to abstain from meat and those who have completed their 18^th year, but have not yet begun their 60^th year, are also obliged to fast.

Parking at St. Stephen's:Please note that parking at St. Stephen's is NOT available until further notice during this peak period of widespread CoV

The February Teenage Group meeting is cancelled in light of the ongoing CoV situation.

When Jesus says, "You have learnt how it was said," he is making a clear reference to the Old Covenant, the Law of Moses.

That Law gave the Jewish people their unique standing among all the nations of the world, because God himself had given it to them - God's finger had inscribed the tablets of the law.

For 1,500 years, Israel's prophets and rabbis had interpreted it, applied it to changing circumstances, and exhorted the people to live it out.

But never in those fifteen centuries had a faithful Israelite ever claimed authority over it. After all, the Law had come directly from the Lord, so who could possibly have authority over it?

So, when Jesus says, "… but I say to you…" implying an addition to the Law, his listeners are faced with something entirely new, someone who claims authority over the Law of Moses.

Jesus is requiring of them a new allegiance and making way for a New Covenant. The Sermon on the Mount was revolutionary not only in its ideas, but in the claims of the Lord who gave it.

And this claim, this implicit claim to have authority over divine law and therefore to actually be divine, has consequences. It means that his commands demand obedience.

In the ancient world, obedience to a ruler was a familiar concept. In today's world, dominated by political democracies, it has become less so. In fact, today's critical, self-sufficient, democratic mindset (so useful for politics) can even seep into the Church (where it's much less useful).

But the truth of Christ doesn't change with fashions and referendums. In our relationship with Jesus and his Church, humble obedience to legitimate authority is a virtue, not a vice.

Each and every single thing in mass has significance. Every single movement, posture, word spoken, and thing done means something. The more you understand about what is going on in a Mass, the more you are able to appreciate its beauty.

The Sitting | Sitting is a posture of listening. Catholics sit for the first reading, the Psalm, and the second reading. We also sit for the offering, and the homily. We sit, ready to hear and receive. We sit to listen.

The Standing | For Prayer: Standing has been a posture of prayer for Jewish people since before the time of Jesus. Standing during prayer is also seen throughout different parts of the Bible. So, as Catholics, we continue to utilize this posture for prayer today.

Some examples of when we stand during Mass for prayer: When we pray the opening prayer, the Prayers of the Faithful, and The Lord's Prayer.

For the Creed. We stand as we say in unison what Christians have believed from the earliest times. We stand to affirm our unity and our beliefs together as Christians.

For the Gospel: Standing is also a sign of respect. We have many readings from the Bible during Mass, but we stand for the Gospel out of particular respect, since these are the words and deeds of Jesus himself.

For the Procession: We stand at the beginning and end of Mass, also as a sign of respect as the celebrant.

The Kneeling | Kneeling is a posture of respect and adoration. Another time when we kneel is during the preparation for and before/after reception of the Eucharist. We kneel, again, because we believe Jesus is fully and truly present in Communion. If you believed you were literally in the presence of Christ himself, falling to your knees would be a natural thing to do.

The postures of Mass can, likewise, reflect your state of mind, or it can help put you in the right one.If you come into Mass and you genuflect towards the tabernacle, because you are humbly acknowledging Christ's presence there, and if you sit, intent on listening with your mind, body, and soul, and if you stand, heart focused on prayer, and if you kneel acknowledging the presence of your Savior, then, then, you've got something.

As in all of the structures within Mass, and within Catholicism as a whole, there are so many tools to help move your heart, mind, and soul closer in relationship with Jesus.

Fr. Antonius David Tristianto, O.Carm.