An Introduction to the Meditations on the Scriptural Stations of the Cross (for 2020)

Many, including myself, are feeling that we have been abandoned during this difficult time of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, I am sure that many of my parishioners feel abandoned by me as well as I have not done anything visibly significant during this time when public masses have been suspended. I knew of the Scriptural Stations of the Cross that were celebrated by Pope St. John Paul II. I had not ventured to meditate on them being content with the traditional stations. Just the other day, as I was thinking of how to do more for my parish in terms of prayer and sacrifice during this Lent, the Scriptural Stations came to mind. I have prayed them and would like to share my meditations with those who would not mind the reflections of a limited and sinful man trying to be a good pastor.

Starting tomorrow, I will post the meditations of two stations each day. On Good Friday, the meditations of the last two stations would be posted. Hopefully, it would give those who decide to read them something to reflect and meditate on.

God Keep us and Bless us during this difficult time.

Lent 2017

As many people would already know, I will be transferring to a new parish after Easter.  Many congratulate me but I am not sure what to make of it. I do not see being made a parish priest a promotion. I enjoy being a pastor but there are other responsibilities when being a parish priest in Singapore. I do prefer to be without those administrative responsibilities and concentrate on what I was called to do: to be a pastor after the heart of Jesus Christ. Yet before assuming office, I am already greatly stressed. I pray that the Lord would be able to continue helping me cope with the extra stresses.

As to this blog, I was working towards spending time communicating my thoughts and reflections but I cannot promise anything yet.  I have to get into the new parish and then reorientate everything I am used to now to see if I could contribute in the future.

God Bless!

Welcome 2017

I know it is a little late to welcome the year since it is already the second day of 2017 😊.  I still would like to welcome the new year.  Yesterday, being a Sunday, I was wishing everyone a “Happy New Year” but it did not feel like something new.  Happy, yes.  New?  Well ...

At this morning’s Mass, I was just concelebrating but the preacher said something that provoked me to thinking some more after the celebration.  He said that we needed faith to understand what God has in mind in allowing things to happen around us.

The newspapers these last few days were about hope.  2017 seemed bleak but if we girded ourselves up, we would be able to make it through; even with small bells and whistles!   The secular world brings hope to us, telling us that we just need to have faith in ourselves a little more.  We have to put in some effort to get things going.

As those who had been graced with the gift of faith, we need to put God into the equation. We know that God is the source of all good.  Hope is not simply a desire or yearning for the future to be well and good.  Hope is virtue that helps us to be confident in the promise of God.  As long as we cling to God, eternal life, i.e. living in the divine life of God, will occur.  The Christians in the first centuries were persecuted for their faith.  They were confident that no matter what happened to them, so long as they clung on the the Lord, the promise of God would be fulfilled: eternal life with Him.

I was reflecting over what my hope was.  Parishioners knew that I would be leaving them in some months and they wished me well.  Whilst excited over the new ministry, there is still some resistance in me.  Given a choice, I would be happy to remain where I am.  I could do without the extra responsibilities that came with the new ministry.  So, I chided myself.  Where was my hope?  God is calling me.  Why am I not hopeful?  Do I not have the confidence that God will see me through?  Then I felt ashamed.  I have not practised what I preached.  Buck up, I told myself.  God is always there.

A Hiatus

It is coming to July and the long awaited annual priests’ retreat will be conducted.  I have not posted anything of late because I have not been able to make good enough reflections on the Sunday readings.  I must admit and confess that I have been affected very much by many of the things in the the last few weeks.  Both overseas and locally, there have been several incidents that affected me.  As a catholic priest, I have subscribed to the principle of judging the act and not the person.  As I was preparing the scripts for my blog posts, I discovered that there were points I had written that was contrary to the principle above.  I realised that I had to take a little break to settle what was in me before posting.  Thus, I am taking a hiatus, at least until after the priests’ annual retreat.

10th Sunday in Ordinary Time: What makes a prophet?

Hans von Aachen [Public domain], Raising of the son of the widow of Nain, via Wikimedia Commons

When Jesus brought the widow’s son back to life, I am sure that the people were reminded of Elijah pleading for another widow’s son and how the Lord saved him from death’s door.  It is thus not surprising that the people considered Jesus a prophet. This distinction is important because of what a prophet is.  In the first reading, from the First Book of Kings, we hear the widow saying that she finally considered Elijah a man of God and “the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth itself.” (1 Kgs 17:24, Jerusalem Bible) 

We are often pressured by worldly standards of beauty and perfection, and other worldly values.  In this pressure, we often end up wearing masks, pretending to be perfect when we know we are not.  We fail to see the real beauty that God sees in us and pursue an external beauty that has no value in the eyes of God. We fear to let people see who we are for fear of not being accepted. Then we live lives where God’s truth is not valued.  Our use of words, our actions and our attitudes start to align themselves with what is worldly, straying away from the Lord. Our lives become burdened and shackled.  That is why Jesus would teach, “and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

When I consider that at my baptism, I was made priest, prophet and king, participating in the priestly, prophetic and kingly offices of Jesus: Son of God and Son of Man. I am baptised to utter the word of the Lord as a Christian.  This word has to be truth itself. In my sinfulness I have not been exemplary in being a prophet. The questions I must keep asking myself is: Is the word of the Lord an intrinsic part of my life? Is truth a part of my life as well? Do I utter the word of the Lord? Am I living in the truth because I am a prophet? Am I truly a prophet of the Lord?

Corpus Christi 2016

Picture by John Synder

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.”[Council of Trent (1551): DS 1651.] “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”[Paul VI, Mysterium Fidei 39]— from Catechism of the Catholic Church 1374

This is something that all Catholics are to believe.  We believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharistic species. I know that there are times when I give in to the temptation of ritualism and do not treat the Eucharistic sacrament with the honour and respect that it deserves. I am so caught up in making sure that the gestures at Mass are properly made and the prayers properly recited that I forget that the risen Jesus is really present. As a priest. if I truly believe that the risen Jesus is really present, then, I need to show it by the way the Mass is celebrated.

When the scriptures speak of the Eucharist as real food and real drink (John 6:47-58), it means that the Eucharist as Body and Blood of Christ gives us spiritual nourishment.  In the liturgy, the Word and the Eucharist provide us full spiritual nourishment.  To receive one without the other would lead to an ‘unbalanced meal.’ Yet I have observed that there are many who come in to Church just before the Sanctus is sung and leave almost immediately after receiving communion. Yet the precepts of the Church are as follows (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2042):

The first precept (“You shall attend Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation.”) requires the faithful to participate in the Eucharistic celebration when the Christian community gathers together on the day commemorating the Resurrection of the Lord. 

The second precept (“You shall confess your sins at least once a year.”) ensures preparation for the Eucharist by the reception of the sacrament of reconciliation, which continues Baptism's work of conversion and forgiveness. 

The third precept (“You shall humbly receive your Creator in Holy Communion at least during the Easter season.”) guarantees as a minimum the reception of the Lord's Body and Blood in connection with the Paschal feasts, the origin and center of the Christian liturgy.

Notice that the first precept speaks of attendance at Mass, (i.e. from its beginning to the end) and not the reception of Holy Communion on Sundays. While it is best to receive communion at the Mass one attends, the reception of communion without being present at the Mass does not satisfy the first precept.  Aha! Father, you might say, you are being Pharisaical; you are too legalistic.  Yes, I agree.  However, wanting to do the minimum just to satisfy the law can be seen as legalistic as well.  When we think that just receiving communion on a Sunday means that we have fulfilled the precept come  to Church on Sundays, are we not being legalistic as well? When we celebrate Mass as a community, the sign of communion becomes meaningful.  To receive communion just as food without giving any attention to community worship robs communion of its meaning.  In fact, when we bring communion to the housebound, it is seen as the extension of Mass.  Because they are not physically with us at Mass (for a very valid reason), they should be doing their best in prayer with an attitude of wanting to be with the community.  Communion given to them then becomes the sign that they are indeed one with the community at worship even when they cannot be physically present.  That argument cannot be used with the able bodied, especially when they do not have a valid reason for not being with the community in worship.

Corpus Christi is the celebration of the Body and Blood of Christ.  The sacramental Body and Blood of Christ becomes meaningful in the context of the Mystical Body of Christ (the Church present as community) at worship at Mass.  The Mystical Body of Christ receives the real Body of Christ in the Eucharist expressing the sign that they are indeed in communion as one body.

This week, as we celebrate Corpus Christi, I pray that we may all be able to reflect a little of how each of us is expressing the communion one has with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ.  Receiving communion is important in our Catholic life.  However, the communion we live in the community, the Church, is more important. Let us pray that we will be able to authentically express our communion with others in the Church by our actions in life so that when we receive the real Body of Christ at Mass this week, we give it the proper significance it has.

Trinity Sunday

The revelation of Christ that the one God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, must have caused many to scratch their heads in wonder.  How can one God be three at the same time?  I believe what Christ wanted us to focus on is not the ‘how’ but ‘why’. Why is God a Trinity? God is love and love demands relationships. If God is eternal, then within God there must be the dynamic of relationships between persons because God is love.  The ‘how’ we must consider is not how God is one and three, but how we can love the way God wants us to love. The love of God concerns three persons.  It is not a simple family of three but of three equals.  When I was very young, before I was baptised as a Catholic, I remember an older Catholic boy I knew telling me that the Trinity was Joseph, Mary and Jesus.  During my catechesis before baptism, I realised that he was wrong.  The Trinity is not analogous to a human family.  God is community.  That is why Christ had trained his apostles to live as community from the beginning.  The apostles knew what their master had taught them.  Thus, they began to live in community.  We see this in the Acts of the Apostles.  At the same time, the Christian community is not a inward-looking community. It is a community with a mission. Thus, we see how Paul moved with his companions from place to place, forming Christian communities.  How apt it is that after the feast of Pentecost, the first manifestation of the Christian community (the Church) in the world, we celebrate the feast of the model of community: the Holy Trinity.  Following this feast, we celebrate the means by which we sustain the community, the feast of the great Sacrament left us by Christ: His Body and Blood.  It is not incidental that when we receive Christ’s Body and Blood, we say we receive Holy Communion.  The sacrament is a sign to show that we are, together, the one Body of Christ.  Thus, holy communion is meant for us to sustain our community life.  Whatever spiritual nourishment we receive, it is not solely for the individual.  The spiritual nourishment is meant to fuel the love we have as we engage one another in the community.

Trinity Sunday: the Feast that is the foundation of the what we celebrate the week before it and the celebration after it. Let us thank God for gracing us with way we are to love as Christians.

Postscript:  I apologise for not posting for the last three Sundays.  Rather than posting something for the Sunday past, I thought it would be more appropriate to post a reflection for the Sunday to come so that when one enters the celebration of the Eucharist, there is something already being reflected in mind.