Life is Worth Living

Next Monday is All Souls Day: a day set aside in the Christian calendar for special remembrance of all souls. It is a day that brings back certain memories that may momentarily put us in a sorrowful mood. As usual, such occasions, such memories should help us ask ourselves one more time what death is to us. How do we perceive death? I am sure a lot of us (if not all of us) will say that death is our greatest enemy. Is death actually what we think of it? Is it actually the last sleep? Is it actually the total end of our existence? Instead of thinking of death as an enemy, I see it as an expected friend: a friend who opens up the entrance unto eternity. Instead of thinking of death as the last sleep, I see it as the final awakening. Instead of seeing death as the total end of my existence, I see it as a passage to my new and everlasting existence. At death, the light of time and earthly existence is turned off and then the dawn of eternity takes over. And that is why St Paul in today’s f...

We have begun to read St Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. The opening section of the letter (cf. Phil. 1:1-11) is Paul’s very passionate prayer for the Christian people of Philippi. A sentiment that runs through that prayer is that of joy for the good work God is doing in and through the people of Philippi. The prayer itself suggests that some missionary work had been done in Philippi and that the gospel had been preached to them in the past. And so, it was a thing of joy for Paul to remember that the gospel preached to the Philippians was not empty words but words with power which transformed them into a community of love. That is why he further prayed that “their love may abound more and more”.  In the gospel (cf. Luke 14:1-6), we have the Pharisees who refused to be touched by the message and acts of love which Jesus preached and performed. On a Sabbath day, Jesus went to dine at the house of one of them. The Pharisees who came were watching Jesus to know whether He would heal ...

We come to the end of St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. Softly but very persuasively he says to them, “Finally, brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (cf. Eph. 6:10-20). And he goes further to use certain terms to describe how they can be strong in the Lord: take the WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD; fasten the BELT OF TRUTH; put on the BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS; shoe your feet with the EQUIPMENT OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE; take the SHIELD OF FAITH; take the HELMET OF SALVATION and the SWORD OF THE SPIRIT which is the Word of God. These items (“armor”, “belt”, “breastplate”, “shoe”, “shield”, “helmet” and “sword”) are all military equipment: they are items that every soldier must have before he goes to a battleground.  In all these, St Paul reminds the Ephesians that Christian life is real warfare; a real battle. In fact, every Christian ought to know that he or she is already in a battleground. This warfare is more sophisticated because we are not fighting against fl...

This portion of the Letter of St Paul to Ephesians (Eph. 2:19-22) is mostly read whenever we celebrate the feast of an apostle or apostles as the case may be. The message of St Paul to the Ephesians here is that their being founded or established on the faith and testimonies of the apostles has conferred upon them a new status of being fellow citizens with saints and members of God’s household. Interesting! Who are these apostles? The apostles were only twelve in number as the gospel reading (Luke 6: 12-19) recounts. We can remember few names of the apostles, maybe because of the prominence of what they did. Sometimes, the few that some of us can remember are Peter, James and John, Matthew and Judas Iscariot. But these few are not just the apostles that Jesus chose before His earthly ministry. We tend to forget others maybe because physically they did not do much, as much as we know. But Ephesians tells us that they all form part of the foundation stone of our faith in Christ. We may h...

The Psalmist says that HAPPY ARE ALL WHO FEAR THE LORD (Psalm 128:1a). Other translations have it as: “Blessed are all who fear the Lord”. In fact, I wonder how there will be happiness in this world if there is no fear of God. If the fear of God is not in any way at the basis of our actions, thoughts and inactions, I am very sure that this world will be more terrible than it currently is. If there is no fear of God in society, crime will escalate; and people will be at the mercy of others. When fear of God vanishes from relationships, selfishness takes over. When fear of God is lacking in a marriage or family, love becomes a burden and the family becomes a battle ground. St Paul writes to the Ephesians (cf. Eph. 5:21-33) to tell them that marriage is not just an idea that should be subject to individual’s whims and caprices. No one should get into marriage to do whatever he or she likes. Marriage is instituted to visibly reflect the love in the Godhead, the love between Christ and the ...

Yesterday, the gospel passage was all about love. I am sure many priests must have said a lot of things about the theme of love. When we talk about “loving our neighbours”, what we generally think about are: helping them in whichever way we can when they are in need; feeding them when they are hungry; not oppressing them in any way; and so on. In fact, the first reading (cf. Exo. 22:21-27) yesterday was very emphatic on that: you shall NOT OPPRESS, AFFLICT or WRONG a stranger, an orphan and a widow; you shall NOT EXACT INTEREST when you lend money to any person; and so on”. Our general idea of love is all about how not to offend and how to offer some material help to people if the need arises. If we understand a neighbour as anyone in need, the “need” must not only be a material one. It could even be a need for moral guidance. Therefore, love does not end in offering material support. It also includes instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful and admonishing sinners. In fact, a...

As we come to the end of the liturgical year, the gospel passages of these last Sundays report to us what transpired during the last days of Jesus in Jerusalem before His suffering and death. It was a very trying moment for Jesus; a big opportunity for his adversaries (mostly, the Jewish religious leaders) to rally around, unite and do away with Him. Last Sunday, we learnt from Matthew 22:15-21 that two Jewish groups – Pharisees and Herodians – went to Jesus and presented a difficult question (about paying of taxes) to Him, in order to entrap Him in His words. Jesus used it as an opportunity to teach. In verse 22, we are told that “when they heard Jesus’ response, they were amazed; they left Him and went away”. From verses 23-32, another Jewish group – the Sadducees – went to Jesus with another difficult question about the resurrection. Again, it was another opportunity for Jesus to teach. In verse 33, we are told that “the crowd was astounded at his teaching”. In the gospel text (cf. ...

I consider farming as one of those professions or occupations that require a great deal of patience. Farmers already know the approximate number of years required for seeds to germinate, grow into trees and bear fruits. But when trees fail to produce fruits as expected, worry sets in; and the farmer has no option than to bring them down.  In the gospel reading (cf. Luke 123:1-9), you can imagine the frustration the owner of the vineyard had having waited for three years for his fig tree to bring forth fruits, but to no avail. Out of frustration and anger, he requested that it should be cut down. By the intervention of the vinedresser, it was not cut down. One more year was given the fig tree to bear fruit. If not, it will be brought down. There is a statement I normally come across in a brochure or hear people use on the occasion of one’s priestly ordination or anniversary: “…as you work in God’s Vineyard”. What is this vine? And where is the vineyard? And who is the owner of the v...

Psalm 24 is one of those psalms that provide a lot of things to reflect upon. The second stanza of that Psalm asks some questions and answers them: Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord? Who shall ascend to His holy place? The man with clean hands and pure heart, whose soul is not set on vain things! I am particularly interested in the second part of that answer, “who soul is not set on vain things”. A lot of things have been said about vanity especially when we reflect on the Book of Ecclesiastes, where the preacher (who had thoroughly experienced and reflected upon life) emphatically remarked that “vanity of vanities, all is vanity”. It should not be too hard for us to understand that anything that does not follow us to heaven is a vanity. Anything that cannot go beyond the limits of time and space is a puff of air. I hope we will forever be conscious of this undeniable fact. My physical body, my beauty or my intelligence is not going with me to the world beyond. Our pride is not ...

In his prayer for the Ephesians (cf. Eph. 3:14-21)), St Paul asks that the Ephesians may be ROOTED and GROUNDED (take note of the emphatic nature of these action words) in love that they may have power to comprehend (or understand) with all the saints what is the BREADTH and LENGTH and HEIGHT and DEPTH of the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge so that they may be filled with all the fullness of God. In the gospel, this Christ, whose love St Paul beautifully described in the first reading, makes a very strong statement that he has come to cast fire on earth (cf. Luke 12:49-50). We may now ask, “What fire?” And which baptism is he talking about? The fire of love! The baptism of sacrifice!  I am sure many of us have profusely read about love; severally heard about it; watched documentaries about it; and so on. But all these amount to nothing if love does not take flesh in us. Until we live it out, we cannot talk of being filled with the fullness of God, we cannot talk about ...

At one time or the other, it is either we are afraid of what may naturally or unexpectedly happen to us or afraid of what some person(s) may do to us. A parent is afraid of what may happen to her children or what her children may cause him/her, and so on. An employee is afraid of what the employer can possibly do to him or her at any given time. A business man is afraid of what may happen to his business, afraid of bankruptcy, afraid of losses and damages, and so on. Sometimes, we either live or work or co-exist in fear. This becomes more disturbing when our “fear” mentality begins to badly affect our relationship with our loving heavenly Father.  In the gospel reading, a story was told of a servant/steward who went gaga, drinking, eating and beating up other servants because the master was not around. If his master was around, he would not have misbehaved. Out of fear, he would have behaved well. Many of us have chosen to live righteously, not out of their love for God, but becaus...

To travel from Africa to Europe or from Europe to America no longer seems to be as far as it used to be in the past. Before the invention of aircraft, to crisscross from continent to continent was a journey of months. But with the help of aircraft, it can now be made within a space of hours or days. Now, it is not as if the miles separating the continents have been reduced. No! They are still the same but the means of travelling from one continent to another have improved; and the degree of difficulty tremendously reduced because of the invention of aircraft. Countries which seemed to be far apart from each other are now much closer, thanks to the modern means of transportation – aircraft. In a related sense, St Paul tells the Ephesians and us that all of us who used to be far away from God and from each other have now been brought close to God and to ourselves through the means of Christ’s blood (cf. Eph. 2:12-22). In the “Old Dispensation”, there was hostility between the Jews and th...

In his exhortation to the people of Ephesus, St Paul makes a remark worthy to be reflected upon – “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God – not because of works, lest any man should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). What St Paul was merely trying to achieve in this portion of the letter to the Ephesians is to make the Ephesians become more grace-conscious in their thinking, actions and inactions so that nobody would think that it was ONLY by His power or efforts that he or she became what he or she became.  Grace is a supernatural gift of God. It is that power of God acting on and through our weakness and limitations. Whatever we are, whatever we have become is by grace, not just our own doing. If I am making progress in my moral life, it is not just by my own doing. It is because of the special intervention of God which we call GRACE. However, my efforts (my cooperation) are needed for that “special intervention” to be much more fruitf...

The event of our gospel text (cf. Matt. 22:15-21) happened during the last week of Jesus before His passion and death. Jesus was already in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. In Jerusalem, the Pharisees, the chief priests, the Sadducees, the Scribes, the elders, the Herodians and the likes were present for the feast. These were people of different ideologies, different beliefs, and different political leanings and so on. But one thing united them all: Their hatred for Jesus! Jesus being in Jerusalem was a big opportunity for them to team up and destroy Him. The carcass has arrived and the vultures have assembled. In today’s gospel reading, we have to note that the two groups of people (Pharisees and the Herodians), who came to Jesus to ask a question about payment of taxes, actually came not just to learn but to entangle Jesus in his talk, to put Him in a difficult situation. It is not as if they did not know the truth; they knew the truth. They knew the right thing to be done as reg...

In a marketplace, sellers strive to present their wares as the best in order to lure customers or prospective buyers. This is what we do when we advertise our goods and services. There was a time I was looking for soap and products that will help remove the pimples I had. I came across some soap with a picture of a lady with a beautiful and spotless face. The seller made it impressively clear to me that that was how my face would look like if I use the soap. On the basis of what he said, I was moved to buy it. What he did? He injected some hope in me, and this spurred me to patronize his goods. His words of mouth made me to believe what he said about the soap. Remember that the letter to the Ephesians was written to make the Christians in Ephesus to have the consciousness that they belong to God. In the first reading (cf. Eph. 1:15-23), St Paul continued to advertise the Christian faith which the Ephesians have willingly embraced. And he prayed that they may receive the spirit of wisdo...

Everyone wants to have a certain sense or feeling of belonging in a group he or she finds himself or herself. And once people realize that they really belong, they will be more confident to immerse themselves into the life of the group. They will seek to promote the ideals of the group, to work with others towards actualizing the objectives of the group, and to defend the group against attacks, and so on. In his letter to the Ephesians (which we have begun to read), St Paul draws the attention of the Christian people of Ephesus to the fact that they have received a special mark of ownership, that they have been sealed with the Holy Spirit; and thus have now been chosen in Christ as God’s heritage. The Psalmist sings that happy or blessed are those the Lord has chosen as His heritage, as His own (cf. Psa. 33:12). The people of Ephesus, just like us, were really blessed. But it seemed they were not aware of that. Now, it is important that St Paul made it very clear to them so that they w...

We begin St Paul’s letter to the Church in Ephesus. As a good pastor and shepherd, St Paul took it upon himself to write to the individual churches which he established or visited in order to strengthen their faith, revive their hope and fire up their zeal and love for God and for the Church. It is like some of us who have spiritual directors: sometimes, we go to them or they come to us in order to make sure that we are in the right track. Again, one of the major reasons why St Paul wrote to churches is to correct some anomalies, false teachings and wrong practices within those churches. The church in Ephesus was planted in the Greek culture where too many people claimed to know. The Greeks were famous for their intellectual prowess. In fact, philosophy (love of wisdom) began in Greece. Many ancient philosophers (lovers of wisdom) came from Greece. Greece was a citadel of learning in the ancient world.  The Church in Ephesus was badly influenced by the Greek culture of knowledge or...

In the preceding sections of the letter to Galatians, a lot of theological thinking has gone on: theological clarifications about the law, about faith, and so on. As St Paul rounded off his discourse, it was now time for practical application. In practical terms, how can the Galatians benefit from all that he had said? What should they do and not do? I think that is what today’s portion (cf. Gal. 5:18-25) of that letter is all about. For St Paul, all the vices that he mentioned found their way into the Galatian community because people lived according to the promptings of the flesh. When St Paul talks about “the flesh”, he is making reference to concupiscence and unruly desires. The flesh is unruly; the flesh is wild; the flesh is dictatorial; the flesh is rebellious. Sometimes, what we do not want to do, we see ourselves doing it. Why? Because human beings are burdened by the demands of the flesh. And the works of the flesh are evident: envy, strife, dissension, immorality, selfishnes...

Good essays, letters or academic writings are often structured in such a way that there must be a beginning (or introduction), the body of the essay or letter and then an end (conclusion). At the beginning of such a write-up, few introductory remarks are made. In the body, strong arguments or points are marshaled out in favor or against the subject matter. In the conclusion, a brief summary of the points and a submission are made. In other words, in the concluding section of any essay, the writer makes his or her position clearer, more direct and distinct. St Paul’s letter to the Galatians, just like every good essay, had followed the above pattern. He had clearly made his arguments; he had strongly marshaled out his points. As we gradually come to the end of the letter, we now see St Paul making his position clearer, more direct and distinct. As we have learnt, the bone of contention in his argument has been circumcision, a work of the law: because of which there was serious discrimin...

In our time, there have been more agitations for freedom than ever. Agitating for freedom is one thing; understanding what freedom really means is another thing. Sometimes, people agitate for bondage thinking that they are agitating for freedom. When you visit those in prison, you will understand the value of freedom. The point is that no one wants to be in bondage. People want to be free. But there are people who live in bondage without even knowing it. As we have seen for some time now since we began to read St Paul’s letter to Galatians, there was a group of people called Judaizers in the Galatian Christian community. The Judaizers were the Jewish Christians who were fanatically attached to the law. A problem arose in that community: there was division; there was discrimination. Those Judaizers discriminated against Gentile converts insisting that they (the Gentile converts) must submit to the law of circumcision before they can be regarded as bona-fide members of that Christian com...

The responsorial psalm of today’s celebration is Psalm 23. It is one of those very popular psalms or passages in the Bible. Many, if not all, of us know and can easily say or sing the psalm. For some persons, it is part of their daily dose of prayers – usually said in the morning before stepping out for the business of the day. Whenever we hear “The Lord is my Shepherd,” we respond with excitement, “…there is nothing I shall want”. And the part that we say more frequently and convincingly is the last verse: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives. And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and forever!”  Let us quickly note that for “goodness and mercy to follow us”, we must accept the Lord as our shepherd. And accepting the Lord as our shepherd is not and should not just be a verbal hypocritical profession of faith. It must be seen in real followership. In the pastoral practice of the Middle East, a sheep can’t and shouldn’t expect fresh and g...

We have been listening to St Paul’s arguments against the fanatical reliance on the law on the part of the Jewish Christians, which caused serious problems (divisions) in the Galatian Christian community. Paul came up with arguments as to why circumcision (a work of law) should not be the requirement or the decisive factor for entrance into the new covenant, and he arrived at a point (as the reading of today has it – cf. Gal. 3:22-29) that “whether circumcised or not, Jew or Gentile, male or female, we all are one in Christ Jesus”. Presenting Abraham as an icon of faith, St Paul argues further that if Abraham believed before the law came to be, why should the Gentiles be forced to take the path of the law before they can be regarded as fellow brothers and sisters in the same Christian family? And so, Abraham should be a model or a paragon of faith for them and for every other person. Abraham believed in God (who asked him to leave his father’s land, in God who asked him to sacrifice hi...

For the past few days, the argument of Paul has been revolving around faith and works of law. Amongst other things, the epistles especially those of Paul were written to address certain issues in some Christian communities. From the foregoing, we have seen that the overarching problem that Paul wanted to solve in the Galatian Christian Community was the problem of division or discrimination brought about by insistence on circumcision as a requirement for membership in the early Church. In the Council of Jerusalem (the First Council of the Church), it was unanimously agreed that circumcision should no longer be a requirement for admission into the Christian faith. But a group of people called the Judaizers (i.e. Jewish Christians who wanted the Gentiles to be subjected to the Jewish practice of circumcision before they can become Christians) were still insisting that the requirement should be followed. And their insistence clearly communicated something about their theology: for them th...

Our relationship with God is a relationship of faith. It is a relationship that is hinged on faith because we can’t physically or literally hear or see or touch God. On the basis of this fact, prayer becomes absolutely meaningless and fruitless if faith is lacking. But to have and sustain faith is not as easy as it is being talked about. When challenges come, that is when we will know whether we have faith or not.  In Luke 11:1-4, we have an account of Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray; how to communicate with God the Father, a Being that they can’t literally see or touch or hear. Now, to help the disciples nurture and build the faith needed for an efficient communication and interaction with God through prayer, He came up with three analogies in today’s gospel (cf. Luke 11:5-13). First, He says that asking God for something is like a friend calling a friend for some loaves of bread to serve a visitor who just arrived on a journey at midnight. No matter how unwilling the fri...