Are we only useful when we can physically do something in life?

 There is a common misconception about how we as human beings define usefulness and helpfulness in life.  Many, if not all of us, think that it is only when we can actually do something positive in our actions, or say something brilliant and good, that we are contributing to the goodness in the life of others, or to the world at large.

 

While this may be true in many ways, it makes us almost useless and even a bother in so many different situations in life.  We want to be seen as effective and clever by others, but isn’t it true that so often, when things go awry in the lives of so many people, we fall so far short of brilliance, usefulness and helpful.  Take the example of the demise of someone we know and love.  In the face of the pain and agony of their family and loved ones, there really is nothing we can say to them that can assuage the gaping hole of loss and torment that fills their hearts at that moment.  We put so much emphasis on our activity to present to others our elan and compassion, and we hardly think anything positive in our passivity.  But this is because we do not think that passivity has anything good in itself. 

 

We just have to look at the way that Jesus Christ lived his life during his three years of active ministry as a human being two thousand years ago.  True, while he was alive and in active ministry, he preached both by word and by example.  He healed the sick, exorcised those possessed by evil spirits, multiplied loaves and fish to feed thousands, and raised the dead to life.  St John is clear when he said that if every detail and teachings of Jesus were written down, the world could not contain the books that would be written.  This is found in John 21:25.

 

St John wasn’t just exaggerating something.  He was saying something so true, but so many do not grasp the essence of his words.  St John was really saying that there is an amazing positivity not just in Jesus’ activity, but also in his passivity. 

 

In my experience of a shepherd of souls in my priestly ministry, there are times when I find myself unable to say or do anything to positively show my parishioners that I care for them and their wellbeing.  So many times, I have been physically present at the death bed of the relative of my parishioners, and as they were literally at death’s doorstep, with the ECG machine hardly registering signs of a healthily beating heart, all I could do at that moment was just stand there and sometimes, reach out and hold their weak and cold hands in silence.  I wished I could do more, but at that moment, it was all that I could do.  Was I just being so passive in my silence?  Could I have done more?

 

The most powerful and life-contributing parts of Jesus’ life in Jerusalem was not only when he was talking and moving, and manifesting powerful and amazing miracles in front of his disciples and followers.  The last three days of Jesus’ life was when he was silent, arrested, tortured, handcuffed, put on trial, scourged and finally crucified.  There was no physical activity that was seen in Jesus.  Yet, all that was done to Jesus on those three days leading up to his gruesome death on Calvary were a manifestation of his passivity, and it was this passivity that finally brings the greatest power to the world mired in sin and selfishness – it was the power of life over the seeming unsurmountable power of death.

 

A married couple’s love for each other is beautifully conveyed when love letters are written, or when they say sweet and heartwarming words to one another.  While that is good, there is also the misunderstood power of mere presence to one another, with no words coming out from their mouths.  In times of great torment and agony in life, sometimes words just cannot convey what our hearts are emoting.  These are the times when our silent presence communicates that we care and love the people that we stand before.  Just showing up conveys so much.

 

In those times, it takes tremendous courage to just show up.  The courage of Jesus to show up at the trial and torment of the agony of the road up to Calvary is astounding.  It is to our detriment that we downplay so much in the power of our passivity in life.  We put too much emphasis on the activity of our lives, and when we do this, we miss the power and strength that comes from our passivity too. 

 

I listen to various genres of music, and sometimes, it is the depth of the simple words that strike me as both true and beautiful as well.  One of the songs that does this is the song written and made popular by Ronan Keating, entitled When You Say Nothing at All.  Summarized, the contents of the lyrics convey that there are times in life when we convey our deepest and heartfelt emotions and sentiments when we say nothing at all.  The opening lines are a great revelation of our passivity.  Ronan sings “It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart.  Without saying a word, you can light up the dark.”

 

It’s a nice precis of what this blog entry is trying to say.  We think that it is only by our activity that shows how powerful we are.  But sometimes, the opposite is true.  And in those times, we too say it best, when we say nothing at all. 

Our languages divide us on so many levels. What then, can unite us?

 The Church celebrated one of the greatest solemnities this past Sunday, on that is as great and solemn as the solemnities of Easter, Christmas and the Ascension of the Lord.  We celebrated the solemnity of Pentecost, and it can be said that it is also the real birthday of the Church.  Yet, in many ways, this truth is hardly appreciated, nor is it commonly preached in many Catholic churches in the world, and this is indeed a travesty. 

 

One of the common links of all the solemnities of the Church is that they are the celebrations of the great and important gifts given to us by God himself.  Christmas celebrates the gift of the Son of God given to humanity in the truly human form of Jesus Christ himself.  No Christmas gift that can be procured from anywhere can rival or match the immense magnitude of this gift from the greatest giver ever existed.  Comparable to that is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb after three days from his gruesome and tragic death on Good Friday, which shows that it is by God’s grace and divine love, that life’s seeming great insurmountable obstacle of death can be overcome!  Easter shows us that death may seem like an end, it is really surmounted and overcome by God himself.  And that gift is not just for Jesus, but for anyone who believes and accepts Jesus as the Son of God, and adheres to the teachings that Jesus came to proclaim to the world.  The gift of eternal life is for all believers in the Catholic Church. 

 

Pentecost is regarded so highly by the Church because it is also the celebration of a great gift given by God to all of humanity.  It is the gift of God himself, and this is God in the Holy Spirit, who is one person of the Trinitarian God himself, composed of God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. 

 

In dramatic form, on that first Pentecost day in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples (who were locked in a room for fear of the Jews), and the other believers gathered in the city.  Coming first in the form of a powerful wind, the Holy Spirit manifested itself in tongues of fire that rested upon the heads of the disciples in that locked room.  This gift of the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the hitherto unseen ability to speak to that gathering of the believers in the city who came from the different parts of the world in their own languages, about the Jesus, his death, resurrection and exaltation as the Messiah of the world.  The listeners were bewildered that all of them could hear and understand the disciples in their own languages, and it was a miracle that so many of the believers witnessed and partook in.

 

The Holy Bible is a revelation of the creation of the world, and one of the stories that it tells in chapter 11 of Genesis that the people of the world united in building a massive tower that would reach the heavens, and in constructing this tower, the people would make a name for themselves and also it would help to prevent the people from being scattered.  But God disrupted the construction of this tower by confusing the language of the workers such that they no longer understood one another.  The result was that this tower never reached completion, and the people were dispersed over the face of the earth, each speaking their own language.

 

Bible stories reveal not just an isolated event of the past, but also tells us of the reality of our own situation in life.  There is a rich prevalence of social media in our world today.  It has helped so many people to connect with their family members who live in different parts of the world, and that is a good thing.  But it has also led to a very fragmented world because social media has brought along with it different and diverse sets of values and truths, making real and deep conversations and understanding not just challenging, but also virtually impossible.  So, what gives?  Was the Pentecost event two thousand years ago just an isolated miracle, or is it trying to show that it really needs to happen in our world today?

 

One of the challenges facing any preacher of the Good News is that he is facing a world where there is a great fragmentation of truths because each of us has our own different sources of the truth that we adhere to.  

 

At that Pentecost event, everyone at that gathering understood everyone else in their own language.  In effect, all became on language. 

 

It was a manifestation of the truth that Jesus came to proclaim, and that Jesus spoke the language of charity, peace, forgiveness, humility, love, long-suffering, fidelity, faith and chastity.  Jesus came to show that it is only when we speak the language of all those truths that we will begin to understand each other.

 

If Jesus came to speak that language of God to save all of sinful humanity, may all of us believers also do the same, and through it, see the world slowly change and transform, and in that way, build an effective new tower of Babel that will eventually allow us to reach God and love and worship Him face to face. 

 

Happy and blessed Pentecost to everyone!

Should we pray only when we feel like praying?

There is a common but sad truth about prayer in so many people throughout the world.  Many people do not have the urge to pray, and unless they have some struggle in life that they are experiencing, they will not be regular in their prayer life.  It’s much like healthcare given by a doctor in a clinic.  Yes, they are astute and skilled in their jobs, and patients will only go to them if they are in some need of medical care or if they have some medically concerned problems.  Otherwise, the existence of the clinics are just there, but for the most part, they are there only for the few needy people.  No one goes to the doctor just to pop in their heads and say “hello doctor!”. 

 

I use this clinic experience to emphasize the point that for many people, unless there is a pressing spiritual problem that only God can help, they will not be praying with any regularity.  For many of the faithful, prayer is generally based on feelings or sentiments.  If I feel close to God, it will be good and rightful for me to pray.  Otherwise, I will be wasting my time and God’s time as well.  So, in this sense, many are saying that prayer has a utilitarian aspect.

 

This is only true if prayer is looked at with one main utilitarian purpose.  Prayer is man’s way of manifesting our love for God.  Our prayer demonstrates to God that we love him, and this love is one that has to be unconditional.  If we are happy and contented with life, we love God.  And if our lives are filled with anxieties and afflictions of all sorts, our love for God is not negatively affected.  And this is because God’s love for us in unconditional and unwavering.  Jesus Christ became man to show this in the most astounding way through His life, death and resurrection. 

 

Of course, our lives are not going to be great and wonderful every single day.  Inevitably, we will encounter things that will affect our peace and our contentment.  Our sustained prayer needs to be consistent and regular, because our love for God too, has to be consistent and regular.

 

When we understand this, then our prayer and its regularity will not be wavering and dependent on feelings or sentiments.  It has to be based on a decision to love.  And if this is true for God and our love for Him, it also has to be true for a married couple’s love for each other in the realm of married love.  A spouse’s love for the partner in marriage has to be a decision, and not something that is dependent of feelings, sentiments or emotions.  And it is because marital love is often based and dependent of feelings and sentiments, they begin to fall out of love for each other the moment those romantic feelings of courtship days become just a figment of one’s memory. 

 

And this is one of the reasons why the Catholic Church has a mandatory Mass attendance every Sunday.  Not all Catholics feel so holy and pious every Sunday that they bring themselves to Mass. 

 

Just showing up is our way of conveying our love and devotion to God.  If God wills it, he will shower His grace upon us when we are at the Eucharistic celebration on Sunday.  But even if He doesn’t, our faithful turning up at Mass on Sunday is itself a testimony of our unwavering love for Him. 

 

So, when it comes to prayer, let it not be dependent on our feelings and pious sentiments.  Just showing up regularly speaks for itself.

Why is the Mass called a celebration?

We human beings always celebrate when we have something to honour and remember with fondness.  Birthdays, graduations, weddings, baptisms and New Year’s Day are all events that we commonly celebrate.  They are occasions, and we gather.  There is joy in the air and a sense of festivity stems from our hearts. 

 

But in the Catholic Church, we celebrate the Eucharist every day, and every Sunday is a mandatory communal celebration of the Mass.  Missing one Mass on Sunday with no good reason is deemed not just a sin, but a mortal one, causing one to lose one’s state of grace, and requiring that catholic to head straight to the confessional, confess his sin, and be absolved of his error by the priest confessor, so that with his soul restored to the pristine state of grace, he can go up to the sanctuary at the next Mass, and receive the wonderful gift of Holy Communion.  Otherwise, if he still receives the Eucharist without the needed absolution of the priest, he will be adding yet another mortal sin to his soul.

 

But I am quite certain that the majority of Catholics have either forgotten this important catechesis, or have chosen to ignore this teaching of the Church, and this is indeed a travesty.  Each time I instruct the penitent about this in the confessional, I get a stunned look from the penitent, as if I am talking about some nonsense or fabrication that I made up.  And one of the reasons why children of catholic parents do not make confession a regular practice in their lives is principally because they hardly see their own parents making it sedulously in their faith life. 

 

Each time the Eucharist is celebrated, in the presence of the community is the gathering of the society of the baptized.  The Eucharist is a family meal, a time of bonding, much like the family dinner table, where each member of the family sits and enjoys the meal where each person sits shoulder to shoulder and it is a reminder that where one family is absent from the table, the family is lacking in its unity. 

 

 Before making Eve from the rib of Adam, God had in inkling that it was not good for man to be alone.  In the realm of nature, there is no singular aloneness in existence.  Down to the smallest molecule or atom, there is a relationship in everything.  Even a man or a woman is never alone.  Each human being is a composite make up of so many cells and organs.  Everything is meant to be in relationship, and the Eucharist is no different.

 

Look at the way families gather on a regular basis.  Whether there is an occasion or not, whether they are in a good or a bad mood, families will come together regularly and put aside their own individual preferences or tedium.  They recognize that family togetherness is about sharing, and their physical presence resets the mind to the fact that their bonding as a family is what makes like meaningful and beautiful.  If that is true for family life, it is also just as true for the Eucharist.

 

I wonder if it is because there is little emphasis on the word “celebration” by preachers at the ambo, that this sense of the importance of the weekly gathering is hardly appreciated by the congregation.  There needs to be a dynamic reinstallation of the deep meaning of celebration so that we as a congregation never lose the importance of a regular and weekly coming together in the church for the Mass. 

 

It is my hope that every person who reads this reflection will have a fresh appreciation for every Eucharistic celebration from now on.