Dear readers and friends
The blog entry that you read posted just before this one (scroll down please) marks the 100th blog entry in this endeavour that I started on October 8 2009. "One entry every Monday morning" - that was my aim. It is with God's grace that I have kept that up with a modicum of regularity . No, it was not about me. I wrote it to keep the Catholic mind thinking, and to invite readers to grow in their search for meaning and for God, a search that never really ends. It just gets deeper.
Thank you, dear readers, for making this both a joy and a challenge to me. There were great moments of insight and grace, comments of support and love, and I must admit, in the past few weeks, some abuse as well (for various reasons, I could not post those that were out rightly abusive and threatening) that was unbecoming of true Catholicism and rather upsetting. I must say that I had never thought it possible that a priest blogger who tries to be as gentle as possible with words in the blog can be vilified and targeted for abuse.
And no, I will not allow the use this blog to be a means to communicate to other readers any messages of hate and threat and violence of whose god is better or stronger than whose. We are not in kindergarten anymore. I simply will not post any comments that are seditious and inflammatory in nature. As most of you know, there are laws against this.
But if you are interested to adult dialogue, please give me your contact email, or identify yourselves, and I will be most pleased to communicate with you. Your identity will not be revealed in my blog. It is far too easy to hide behind anonymity in the cyber-world when one wants to throw stones. This blog space is not a place for violence of any nature. I hope you respect this. Yesterday morning’s Gospel text at Mass reminded me how to treat such persons – like tax collectors and Pharisees. Well, Jesus loved tax collectors, and called them to grace. Matthew himself was a converted one. This I believe I must do - imitate Jesus as far as possible.
But on to happier things - I had the intention of doing some sort of celebration gathering for the 100th blog anniversary, but alas, I had to be moved from Singapore and could not possibly hold any gathering with my readers. But I do hope that you will continue with your journey with me and come to re-appreciate in deeper and better ways a journey that takes us to God’s heart – a heart beating with love for us all.
Thank you once more for your kind and faithful readership. This is not my celebration. It is ours, and God love you all!
Happy 100th everyone!
Fr Luke
Monday, September 5, 2011
Communication - is it our stumbling block to God?
The 13th century Persian poet Mevlana, or more commonly known as Rumi, has a poem called Unseen Rain, where one of the stanzas reads “What I most want is to spring out of this personality, then to sit apart from that leaping. I’ve lived too long where I can be reached”. I do often wonder if we too, have lived too long where we can be reached.
When I came across this line, I felt my attention frozen somewhat, because I do personally feel that this is one of the greatest problems that affects all of us living in the era of the super-fast mass communication, aided by the advent and incessant use of the internet and the communication highways that we are on daily. Even if we are aware of its apparent drawbacks and negative impact to our soul, we are almost too deep into it to pull ourselves away from it to, as it were, recover from being too easily reached and to really rediscover our selves.
But I must begin by saying that there is a wonderful and positive side to the communication ease. In fact, this very blog that your eyes are reading through your computers or android phones is possible because of this information highway. Without it, there would be no blog, and nothing I have had to say would be read by people living halfway across the globe. The information superhighway has enabled us to gain so much more in terms of knowledge and to do research that hitherto would have taken a far longer time to complete. It allows us to communicate with ease and great economy with friends, loved ones and family who live thousands of miles away. It is so inexpensive to call my family members who live in Singapore from where I live in Washington DC that I can even call them just to check in on them daily, and to reassure them of my well being, and to get assurance of theirs, at the rate of about 2 cents a minute. It does make the world a much smaller place.
But having said that, I also believe that being too easily reached, as Rumi wrote, does have its downside, which we hardly reflect on. What amazes me is that Rumi wrote that in the 13th century, way before then advent of any form of advanced communication. He was not bewailing the speed of communication. What he was bemoaning was the fact that we human beings have a tendency to want to run or escape from things that give us depth, especially when we know that depth comes when one removes oneself from the noise and distraction that the world gives, whether one is immersed in the modern day helter-skelter world of gadgets and gizmos, or living in 13th century Persia. We have a certain allergy and hesitancy to reach our centre, and to come to love what is deepest inside of us.
I am currently reading a fascinating book entitled Poustinia – Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer by Catherine Doherty, the founder of the Madonna House Apostolate. It tells of the humble beginnings of this movement which tries to cater to the need for people to “stand still and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away like the worn-out, dusty cloak that it is”. No, she was neither a hater of modernity, nor an advocate against the cyber-age. But she was given a grace to see that we human beings share a certain yen for the search for God within, which the world without can easily block or remove from our consciousness.
In my Thomistic Seminar course that I am currently ploughing through, I am reminded once again that the aim of our moral and spiritual lives, which is not at all separated and distinct from our daily physical lives, is the final participation in God’s wisdom, where contemplation is reached. We forget this, and this is made even more easily forgotten when we only think that our world is about our work, our health, our families or our achievements. A whole lot of 'do, do, do', but very little 'be'. Not that these are bad in themselves, but our involvement in them need to lead us to appreciate where their geneses were from, and what they are leading us to. If God is not the reason and the answer for our 'doing', we may be in danger of losing our origins or our way back.
True, not many preachers speak convincingly of this enough. Perhaps it is because it necessarily means that the preacher himself is convinced of this, and it is a hard task – both to live and to witness to it. But if done well and celebrated well, the Liturgy of the Church itself speaks volumes about the need to displace ourselves from the centre of the universe. The very fact that we show up and participate despite our wanting to stay in bed; despite mouthing prayers that don’t particularly mean much to us personally that morning; praying for people who we don’t really know; bringing to our attention the “universal” church which is something that I can’t even wrap my mind around, in some ways, “forces” me to think outside of myself and make me a less selfish and self-centered person. I am not at Liturgy for myself. I am there for the ‘other’ that I cannot see, and this experience trains me to meet the great Other that I will one day see.
So, even if it is for a moment, or even an hour a day, it would be more than wise to go into ‘silent mode’, and appreciate God within, to, as Rumi said, go to where you cannot be reached. In that place, it is ultimately God who reaches us.
When I came across this line, I felt my attention frozen somewhat, because I do personally feel that this is one of the greatest problems that affects all of us living in the era of the super-fast mass communication, aided by the advent and incessant use of the internet and the communication highways that we are on daily. Even if we are aware of its apparent drawbacks and negative impact to our soul, we are almost too deep into it to pull ourselves away from it to, as it were, recover from being too easily reached and to really rediscover our selves.
But I must begin by saying that there is a wonderful and positive side to the communication ease. In fact, this very blog that your eyes are reading through your computers or android phones is possible because of this information highway. Without it, there would be no blog, and nothing I have had to say would be read by people living halfway across the globe. The information superhighway has enabled us to gain so much more in terms of knowledge and to do research that hitherto would have taken a far longer time to complete. It allows us to communicate with ease and great economy with friends, loved ones and family who live thousands of miles away. It is so inexpensive to call my family members who live in Singapore from where I live in Washington DC that I can even call them just to check in on them daily, and to reassure them of my well being, and to get assurance of theirs, at the rate of about 2 cents a minute. It does make the world a much smaller place.
But having said that, I also believe that being too easily reached, as Rumi wrote, does have its downside, which we hardly reflect on. What amazes me is that Rumi wrote that in the 13th century, way before then advent of any form of advanced communication. He was not bewailing the speed of communication. What he was bemoaning was the fact that we human beings have a tendency to want to run or escape from things that give us depth, especially when we know that depth comes when one removes oneself from the noise and distraction that the world gives, whether one is immersed in the modern day helter-skelter world of gadgets and gizmos, or living in 13th century Persia. We have a certain allergy and hesitancy to reach our centre, and to come to love what is deepest inside of us.
I am currently reading a fascinating book entitled Poustinia – Encountering God in Silence, Solitude and Prayer by Catherine Doherty, the founder of the Madonna House Apostolate. It tells of the humble beginnings of this movement which tries to cater to the need for people to “stand still and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away like the worn-out, dusty cloak that it is”. No, she was neither a hater of modernity, nor an advocate against the cyber-age. But she was given a grace to see that we human beings share a certain yen for the search for God within, which the world without can easily block or remove from our consciousness.
In my Thomistic Seminar course that I am currently ploughing through, I am reminded once again that the aim of our moral and spiritual lives, which is not at all separated and distinct from our daily physical lives, is the final participation in God’s wisdom, where contemplation is reached. We forget this, and this is made even more easily forgotten when we only think that our world is about our work, our health, our families or our achievements. A whole lot of 'do, do, do', but very little 'be'. Not that these are bad in themselves, but our involvement in them need to lead us to appreciate where their geneses were from, and what they are leading us to. If God is not the reason and the answer for our 'doing', we may be in danger of losing our origins or our way back.
True, not many preachers speak convincingly of this enough. Perhaps it is because it necessarily means that the preacher himself is convinced of this, and it is a hard task – both to live and to witness to it. But if done well and celebrated well, the Liturgy of the Church itself speaks volumes about the need to displace ourselves from the centre of the universe. The very fact that we show up and participate despite our wanting to stay in bed; despite mouthing prayers that don’t particularly mean much to us personally that morning; praying for people who we don’t really know; bringing to our attention the “universal” church which is something that I can’t even wrap my mind around, in some ways, “forces” me to think outside of myself and make me a less selfish and self-centered person. I am not at Liturgy for myself. I am there for the ‘other’ that I cannot see, and this experience trains me to meet the great Other that I will one day see.
So, even if it is for a moment, or even an hour a day, it would be more than wise to go into ‘silent mode’, and appreciate God within, to, as Rumi said, go to where you cannot be reached. In that place, it is ultimately God who reaches us.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Are we Christian disciples or would Jesus call us Satan?
As I was reflecting on yesterday’s gospel passage, it was the fact that Jesus called Simon Peter ‘Satan’ that seemed become a point of prolonged contemplation. Jesus, we know, had a real soft spot for Simon Peter, but at the same time, when it was clear to Jesus that he really missed the point of what Jesus was all about, Jesus did not hesitate to say it as it was, even to the extent of calling him ‘Satan’. It’s not that Peter was satanic by a long shot, but it was precisely that he missed the point of Jesus’ very purpose, which was to usher in the kingdom of God.
Peter had his own take on what the kingdom of God was about. For him, it was something that could not, should not and must not entail suffering of any kind, let alone being killed in the most gruesome and cruel way.
But I think this was not just Peter’s problem alone. In fact, there are a lot of Peter’s in the world. We are Peters whenever we want a plain sailing Christian life, and have a notion that the Christian life is one in which suffering and pain and anything that reminds us of the cross should be vanquished from our lives the moment we become baptized.
When I was in Singapore ministering as a priest, I often encountered many converts to Catholicism from the Taoist or Ancestral Worship background, and often, it was clear to me that though they had gone through the RCIA journey and had received the sacraments of initiation and were sacramentally living the Catholic life, in hidden reality, their view of God was still rather Taoist or steeped in Ancestral Worship categories.
It is most convenient to have God at our beck and call, and to have him answer all of our human needs. Perhaps the background that some had come from gave the idea that God will always answer prayers, especially if one were to ‘jump the hoops’ or do whatever one was instructed to do to appease the gods. When insufficiently catechized, the convert to Catholicism may be totally unaware that they have brought those categories of how god operates, and as it were, simply changed the face of their former deity to now have a Jewish appearance of Jesus, albeit with some Palestinian facial images, as would be expected of someone coming from Jewish stock.
This then becomes problematic when as a convert, God does not seem to answer prayers as ‘powerfully’ as when one was in one’s former religious belief. And I can fully appreciate the confusion and perhaps even disappointment one can experience when in the throes of suffering and pain and seeming hopelessness, one looks at the heavens and with fists clenched in rage, shout out “you are not as powerful as I thought you were, Jesus!” Indeed, in some of the responses to last week’s blog, there were some rather disappointed and pained Catholic converts who came to that conclusion that being Catholic turned out to be a disappointment that they had never anticipated.
In the gospel text of yesterday’s liturgy, Simon Peter clearly didn’t get it. For many of us, the process of catechesis and formation tries to help us to get it, to fully embrace the reality that God’s kingdom is really a process that involves a necessary struggle and a training, as some spiritual masters have put it. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well known for coining the phrase ‘cheap grace’, when he reminds us that the grace of God requires a sort of a suffering on our part. This must be the cross that Jesus is speaking of. But we, unfortunately, want cheap grace.
In almost all areas of our lives, there is suffering and a carrying of some cross in some form. Think of the mother who sacrifices much for her family, or the artist who goes through blocks and blocks of marble to come to that block that finally enables him to carve out the perfect image in his mind; or the athlete who goes through months and months of rigorous training, enduring mind-numbing pain to be able to at the Olympics break a record and have that opportunity to stand at the top podium of the Gold Medalist; or the student who goes through the daily grind of study discipline and diligent work to finally make that breakthrough in understanding tough Theological arguments and concepts in order to make them real and relevant for the laity. These are sufferings, and it would be tempting to want to have them cheap.
I believe that many may want baptism to be the key to the magic door that makes everything smooth and easy, and all things to come our way. But when we think this way, unfortunately, Satan may be our hidden middle name.
Peter had his own take on what the kingdom of God was about. For him, it was something that could not, should not and must not entail suffering of any kind, let alone being killed in the most gruesome and cruel way.
But I think this was not just Peter’s problem alone. In fact, there are a lot of Peter’s in the world. We are Peters whenever we want a plain sailing Christian life, and have a notion that the Christian life is one in which suffering and pain and anything that reminds us of the cross should be vanquished from our lives the moment we become baptized.
When I was in Singapore ministering as a priest, I often encountered many converts to Catholicism from the Taoist or Ancestral Worship background, and often, it was clear to me that though they had gone through the RCIA journey and had received the sacraments of initiation and were sacramentally living the Catholic life, in hidden reality, their view of God was still rather Taoist or steeped in Ancestral Worship categories.
It is most convenient to have God at our beck and call, and to have him answer all of our human needs. Perhaps the background that some had come from gave the idea that God will always answer prayers, especially if one were to ‘jump the hoops’ or do whatever one was instructed to do to appease the gods. When insufficiently catechized, the convert to Catholicism may be totally unaware that they have brought those categories of how god operates, and as it were, simply changed the face of their former deity to now have a Jewish appearance of Jesus, albeit with some Palestinian facial images, as would be expected of someone coming from Jewish stock.
This then becomes problematic when as a convert, God does not seem to answer prayers as ‘powerfully’ as when one was in one’s former religious belief. And I can fully appreciate the confusion and perhaps even disappointment one can experience when in the throes of suffering and pain and seeming hopelessness, one looks at the heavens and with fists clenched in rage, shout out “you are not as powerful as I thought you were, Jesus!” Indeed, in some of the responses to last week’s blog, there were some rather disappointed and pained Catholic converts who came to that conclusion that being Catholic turned out to be a disappointment that they had never anticipated.
In the gospel text of yesterday’s liturgy, Simon Peter clearly didn’t get it. For many of us, the process of catechesis and formation tries to help us to get it, to fully embrace the reality that God’s kingdom is really a process that involves a necessary struggle and a training, as some spiritual masters have put it. German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is well known for coining the phrase ‘cheap grace’, when he reminds us that the grace of God requires a sort of a suffering on our part. This must be the cross that Jesus is speaking of. But we, unfortunately, want cheap grace.
In almost all areas of our lives, there is suffering and a carrying of some cross in some form. Think of the mother who sacrifices much for her family, or the artist who goes through blocks and blocks of marble to come to that block that finally enables him to carve out the perfect image in his mind; or the athlete who goes through months and months of rigorous training, enduring mind-numbing pain to be able to at the Olympics break a record and have that opportunity to stand at the top podium of the Gold Medalist; or the student who goes through the daily grind of study discipline and diligent work to finally make that breakthrough in understanding tough Theological arguments and concepts in order to make them real and relevant for the laity. These are sufferings, and it would be tempting to want to have them cheap.
I believe that many may want baptism to be the key to the magic door that makes everything smooth and easy, and all things to come our way. But when we think this way, unfortunately, Satan may be our hidden middle name.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Remembering Christ in the Caesarea Philipi’s of our lives
Invariably, our steadfastness in being true to our declaration that Jesus is the Christ becomes tested and tried not so much in times of plenty and joy, but rather, in times of trial and tribulations. This is a truism that cannot be easily denied. It is always easy to be true to our Christian values and demands when the going is smooth, the bank account is healthy, the larder is full, and our kids are on the straight path in life. After all, these are easy signs that God is indeed blessing us, and our natural response would be to continue walking on our path in Christ’s footsteps.
However, there will come a time when this path seems to veer into the side roads, where undergrowth becomes daunting to clear, and where our faith becomes tested and tried. I believe that these are the times when we have to make that deliberate choice to stay close to our Christian convictions and not ‘sell away’ our Christian identity too easily.
In yesterday’s gospel text, this was graphically put across to us by the seemingly innocent mention of the geographical area of Caesarea Philippi as the place where that conversation between Jesus and Peter took place. Scripture is rich with depth and meaning, and there are no wasted words in the Bible. Although it seems to be something merely mentioned in passing, there is really a deep theological and spiritual significance regarding Caesarea Philippi.
Notice that they were not in Jerusalem, the great and beloved city when this conversation took place. Jerusalem was considered to be God’s chosen city. It was the place of high religious office, the place of the temple, and the city of light. But not Caesarea Philippi. This is a place up north called the Golan Heights. And it was also a place which was where the pagan god of Pan was especially honoured. Strange, you’d think, that Jesus would choose a place like this to ask Peter if his allegiance to Christ was going to be steadfast.
I think we all have our Caesarea Philippi moments in life. These are the times when we are somewhat far from where it is easy to be close to God’s temple, where the structures of faith and our familiar pillars of society are constantly reminding us to walk the walk of faith. I guess, in the Jerusalems of our lives, it is easy to declare Jesus as the Christ of our lives. At least, it would be far easier in comparison to when we are at our Caesarea Philippi’s of our lives where God seems to be somewhat distant, or at best, on vacation for whatever reason.
This is when compromise can easily be what we choose, and take the path ‘most’ travelled.
I was leafing through the iPad version of the Straits Times from my home Singapore just this morning, and was dismayed to read that there are more and more couples who have headed abroad to places like Thailand, Belgium, Israel, and the United States to choose the gender of their baby through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In short, this is really playing God in an extreme way, where not only is the embryo dabbled with humanly manipulated, it is also ‘engineered’ to ensure the chosen and preferred gender of the baby will be ‘made’. As if the IVF choice was not intrinsically evil in itself, this adds an even deeper layer of evil which is easily masked by the seeming ‘good’ that can come out of it, because after all, a ‘boy’ child would be for the good of the family line. Obviously, the fact that life is a gift from the true and unique giver of life is overlooked and ignored, making the couple’s choice and intentions far more important God’s.
My compassionate side reminds me to try to see things from the couples’ viewpoint. Of course, being Chinese, a son would be wonderful, and I can empathise with couples who are barren and who would love to have children of their own. But barrenness can really be a hallmark of faithfulness if only couples could carry this as a mark of sacrificial or redemptive suffering for so many other reasons, the reparation of souls being a very good one. Sure, it could well be that none of these couples are Catholics and who have been well grounded in good Catholic moral education and formation, and that is why they choose this option of life selection. But this is a very clear example of being in a Caesarea Philippi region of life, where other ‘gods’ are worshipped and one is far from the heart of Jerusalem, the ‘true pole’ of the earth.
I can easily think of other forms of Caesarea Philipis – the temptation to stray from fidelity to one’s spouse; the lure of lucre through illicit means that are so easy and attractive; the walking out from responsibilities of family, society and even nation; or the giving up of life altogether.
What made Peter so remarkable in his response to Jesus was that he declared so pointedly that Jesus was the Christ – meaning the ‘saviour, the anointed one’ in that situation, and in the very next moment, which we will see next weekend, Peter gets it wrong and gets called Satan. Well, that’s us too.
But this is where we need to model ourselves after Peter, because in the end, it was the mercy of Christ that he clung on to that really made him the ‘rock’ that had firm foundations.
However, there will come a time when this path seems to veer into the side roads, where undergrowth becomes daunting to clear, and where our faith becomes tested and tried. I believe that these are the times when we have to make that deliberate choice to stay close to our Christian convictions and not ‘sell away’ our Christian identity too easily.
In yesterday’s gospel text, this was graphically put across to us by the seemingly innocent mention of the geographical area of Caesarea Philippi as the place where that conversation between Jesus and Peter took place. Scripture is rich with depth and meaning, and there are no wasted words in the Bible. Although it seems to be something merely mentioned in passing, there is really a deep theological and spiritual significance regarding Caesarea Philippi.
Notice that they were not in Jerusalem, the great and beloved city when this conversation took place. Jerusalem was considered to be God’s chosen city. It was the place of high religious office, the place of the temple, and the city of light. But not Caesarea Philippi. This is a place up north called the Golan Heights. And it was also a place which was where the pagan god of Pan was especially honoured. Strange, you’d think, that Jesus would choose a place like this to ask Peter if his allegiance to Christ was going to be steadfast.
I think we all have our Caesarea Philippi moments in life. These are the times when we are somewhat far from where it is easy to be close to God’s temple, where the structures of faith and our familiar pillars of society are constantly reminding us to walk the walk of faith. I guess, in the Jerusalems of our lives, it is easy to declare Jesus as the Christ of our lives. At least, it would be far easier in comparison to when we are at our Caesarea Philippi’s of our lives where God seems to be somewhat distant, or at best, on vacation for whatever reason.
This is when compromise can easily be what we choose, and take the path ‘most’ travelled.
I was leafing through the iPad version of the Straits Times from my home Singapore just this morning, and was dismayed to read that there are more and more couples who have headed abroad to places like Thailand, Belgium, Israel, and the United States to choose the gender of their baby through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). In short, this is really playing God in an extreme way, where not only is the embryo dabbled with humanly manipulated, it is also ‘engineered’ to ensure the chosen and preferred gender of the baby will be ‘made’. As if the IVF choice was not intrinsically evil in itself, this adds an even deeper layer of evil which is easily masked by the seeming ‘good’ that can come out of it, because after all, a ‘boy’ child would be for the good of the family line. Obviously, the fact that life is a gift from the true and unique giver of life is overlooked and ignored, making the couple’s choice and intentions far more important God’s.
My compassionate side reminds me to try to see things from the couples’ viewpoint. Of course, being Chinese, a son would be wonderful, and I can empathise with couples who are barren and who would love to have children of their own. But barrenness can really be a hallmark of faithfulness if only couples could carry this as a mark of sacrificial or redemptive suffering for so many other reasons, the reparation of souls being a very good one. Sure, it could well be that none of these couples are Catholics and who have been well grounded in good Catholic moral education and formation, and that is why they choose this option of life selection. But this is a very clear example of being in a Caesarea Philippi region of life, where other ‘gods’ are worshipped and one is far from the heart of Jerusalem, the ‘true pole’ of the earth.
I can easily think of other forms of Caesarea Philipis – the temptation to stray from fidelity to one’s spouse; the lure of lucre through illicit means that are so easy and attractive; the walking out from responsibilities of family, society and even nation; or the giving up of life altogether.
What made Peter so remarkable in his response to Jesus was that he declared so pointedly that Jesus was the Christ – meaning the ‘saviour, the anointed one’ in that situation, and in the very next moment, which we will see next weekend, Peter gets it wrong and gets called Satan. Well, that’s us too.
But this is where we need to model ourselves after Peter, because in the end, it was the mercy of Christ that he clung on to that really made him the ‘rock’ that had firm foundations.
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