Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of John 1: 47-51

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on John 1: 47-51 

(25th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Hiding your heart from God? Don't even tryyy!

In today’s Gospel, Nathanael asks the question, with great amazement,

“how do you know me?”

He is surprised because without a word spoken from his mouth, Jesus knew who he was - not just by name but also his true character. What does this say about Jesus’s own abilities? As God, Jesus is all powerful, capable of creating all things from nothing. However, also in his ability to create all things, he is capable of knowing the hearts of men. As this is the case, then no matter how hard we try to hide or deny how we feel or what we think of ourselves from others, the lesson from this passage teaches that we are unable to hide those thoughts from God, because he knows our hearts even if we choose not to reveal it to him.

Jesus’s power to read a man’s heart is insightful. We might be able to hide our hearts desires, and sometimes our feelings from others, but with God this is impossible. He can tell from a mile away what we are thinking. Again, in this passage, Jesus saw Nathanael from a distance sitting under a fig tree, and when he saw him he knew him. Jesus only needs to gaze at us, even from a distance, to know who we really are. God isn’t limited to an encounter in order to judge the interior of our hearts.

It doesn’t take a textbook or one skilled in rocket science to realise we have a desire to know God, but maybe for some we are not sure if God can really know what occupies our hearts and thoughts, and so sometimes we feel so abandoned and alone because we have no one to whom we can open up.

Here, this Gospel reveals to us that God, although we can think of him as being the big ol’ guy up somewhere in the sky looking down at us, actually looks into us. He looks and makes an assessment: “there is an Israelite who deserves the name, incapable of deceit, “ as this Gospel tells it. Jesus is able to assess and know who we truly are. There is no hiding from God even if we try.

If you have something on your heart, and have no one to turn to, seek God and share those things with him, for he genuinely concerned about our wellbeing. 1 Samuel 16: 7 says God does not judge by appearances as people do, but looks at the heart.

As Christians, we are called to pray often to God, somethings and always through the intercession of the saints. When we pray, we should pray with more than just words but with all our heart. In other words, be frank with the Lord. This kind of prayer is sincere and properly desired by the Lord. God already knows what is in there, however he wants us to give to him from the heart in prayer. When we pray with a heartfelt prayer, we to go to God as we are.

The whole point of prayer is to put us into contact with God and give him the opportunity to mould our thinking and bend our hearts to his will. A person who is occupied in head and heart in the concerns of God is a person devoted to Godly things, to an honest living in the truth. Any man who lives this way is promised those treasures which God has promised to give them. This treasure is much more than just heaven, it includes God and knowledge of himself, a knowledge that can’t be excavated from the pits but freely given to us from the one who reigns in heaven: “you will see heaven laid open and, above the Son of Man, the angels ascending and defending.”

Despite where we are on the spectrum of holiness, pray and live honestly. Let’s be like the apostle Nathanael and be people who are incapable of deceit. While it is nice to know that an honest life is rewarded with the best gift of heaven: God. It’s also a nice term of endearment to die with. An honest person is always worth remembering. 

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Luke 8: 1-3

 

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Luke 8: 1-3 

(24th Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

In serving one finds freedom and happiness

When I was in the seminary, I remember trying to make sense of the world from within a clerical point of view. A seminarian is no cleric but since so much of his life is consumed with liturgical and pastoral matters, aspects of one’s life resembled that of cleric, albeit set apart from the world, at least for the seven years in formation.

From other clerics and seminarians, often I heard that society is self-centred and materialistically driven. Pope Francis often referred to the modern world as the throw away culture. We buy one thing and quickly replace it, absorbed in getting the latest gadget or trying new experiences with impulse. Although I didn’t see much of this since my time was spent mainly reading theological and philosophical literature, as a seminarian’s life is consumed with study, I caught a glimpse of this plaguing my family when I took annual leave. My siblings were absorbed with material and dull leisurely experiences such as wanting to constantly travel and have different food experiences at different venues. I don’t think they gave much attention or their resources to the poor, like most un-practicing Catholics. I do however acknowledge that there are many people who are not practicing Catholics who do good work with their resources.

Even today, now that I live outside the walls of the seminary and no longer in formation for the priesthood, the narrative is the same: travel, food, and material dominates their thinking; it’s about me, not them. Even I can get caught being consumed by the me culture despite my past seminary formation for a clerical career. Sometimes, I intentionally have my heart and intellect fixated on my next pay cheque, consider how I can make use of it all personally, saving what I can, doubting I can give two percent to charity.

The heart of the Gospel message is not self-centred but other centred. Jesus in his earthly ministry preached a message that God is love and his love is unconditional, to the point of death. In other words, love does not count the cost, it gives selflessly until it can’t give anymore.

In today’s Gospel reading, Luke invites us to reflect on the preaching ministry of Jesus. At the heart of this message, Jesus is out preaching and proclaiming the Kingdom of God, accompanied by the 12 apostles and ministered by some of the women he had healed. The imagery surrounding this passage show the people of God, who are clerics and lay in the Church, gathered around their teacher, Jesus, sharing their lives and possessions. In actual fact, this is the vocation of the Christian community. While we share our gifts, talents, and time with friends and family, the reality is that a large portion of the people of God is poor, and to pick them up from the pits they find themselves, requires conscious giving that is done selflessly from whatever resources we have.

The morale behind sharing resources has psychological and emotional ramifications on the giver too. Indeed, sharing whatever we have especially to those in most need is good and can make us feel purposeful, but in actual fact to share generously our resources makes us happier people. I don’t have the scientific data before me that correlates giving with happiness, although I am told that it is scientifically proven that people with four children or more are happier families. A family with more children is able to give more I suppose and as a result receive more love in return. However, looking at this Gospel, we get a sense that giving or focusing our resources on others indeed works towards benefiting a happier self. This is realised in the women who ministered to Jesus.

Mary Magdalene, one of Jesus’s women disciples, was cured of evil spirits. There isn’t much information on the other two women who feature in this passage, but we could presume they may have led similar lives to Mary. According to tradition, Mary of Magdalene was a prostitute. A prostitute is someone who has sex with another person for money; it’s not a one off nor a mistake, but a coordinated act that is ongoing. Sometimes women and men turn to prostitution not for the thrill of it, but because they have no other means to earn a living. Mary in this regard was a habitual sinner fornicating with other men and as a result was plagued by the devil.

Whether you believe in the existence of the devil or not, the Church recognises this creature to be more than an abstract idea. The devil is a real being who pursues us until our death, hoping we reject God and die in our sins. Whenever we sin, we invite the devil into our lives, and depending on the severity of our sins will depend on the degrees of possession we are afflicted with: oppression, obsession or possession. Turning back to Mary, who was possessed by the devil, was cured by Jesus. It is obvious too that Mary’s life took a turn. She left her self-centred life, portrayed by tradition as her being a prostitute, which made her also sad and a sick individual, now centres her life on others, primary the work of Jesus.

The message for us is that sin, which hurts our relationship God and invites unwanted spiritual guests such as the devil and his foul and festering demon comrades, can be overcome when we stop looking inwardly and instead focus our attention, effort and resources on those who needs it most in the community. Who are those in need most? The poor, the downtrodden. However, clerics too. Our priests need our support to help them in their ministry so that they can proclaim the kingdom of God. Remember, Mary Magdalene and Susanna and Joanna from this passage ministered to Jesus, the high priest, so that he may fulfil his ministry given to him by the Father.

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of John 19: 25-27

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

 Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on John 19: 25-27 

(23rd Friday of Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

Mary's role in our lives: mother of us all

There is this saying that goes along the lines of “home is where the heart is.” If you’re unfamiliar with its meaning, rest assure, I had to look this one up myself too. This proverb basically means that where our heart/ desires lies, there we find our deepest affection. Whatever your affections are, whether it might be for blueberry sorbet, Pokémon cards or company with good friends, there is where we find our hearts resting place.

One of our greatest hearts desires is to know who God is. Every human being - at least a plethora amount of times - question his/her existence and whether God is with him/her.. While I can testify to this existential phenomenon for myself, St Augustine once famously said “my heart is restless until it rests in you.” If you are in doubt that you question God ever enters your mind, at least Augustine testifies for all those who lived in his and before his time that God is something that troubles our hearts.

God, who is constantly at beck and call on our hearts, gently troubles our hearts to get our attention, so that when he has it, freely, we might keep our gaze constantly focused on him. This is what God wants from us, to gaze with total affection for him.

We can show this affection by praying to him, we show this affection too by observing his commandments which is to love God with all our mind and heart and to one another as he loved us.

Loving God with our whole mind and heart sounds pretty abstract. How does one do that in a concrete way? In today’s Gospel reading, God has included in our vocation to love him with everything we have by being a community that loves together. Our love for God and for each other should be united in the same manner as a family loves its nucleus community. A love that isolates back and forth, not just simply a stoic kind of love.

We say this for two reasons. The first is grounded in what Church doctrine teaches about who God is: he is a relationship of persons together in love. In God, there is a community of persons - three of them to be exact- that love each other, who love each other as a community of persons. Secondly, in the Gospel, Jesus shows us that to love God is a responsibility of the gathering of believers, whose love for each other should be communitarian in nature, with his statement: "Woman, this is your son... This is your mother.”

The beloved disciple in this instance, as biblical scholarship tells it, represents the gentile community being embraced and loved by God, while Mary the mother of Jesus, representing the Jewish community overcoming their cross of ever accepting gentiles in their fold as a chosen race of people.

So, we have it here: knowing, loving and serving God is home to our hearts; being gathered together as followers of Jesus that loves each other in community flows out of God’s desire for us, which means that being united as a community of believers who love each other in a communitarian way is a true human desire that seeks to be fulfilled.

There is also something else special about this Gospel reading. After Jesus charges the beloved disciple to accept Mary the mother of Jesus as his own, the text then says the disciple took Mary into his home. On the surface, this looks like Jesus is taking care of Mary’s social and financial business as he is dying on the cross. Of course, our Lord in his humanity was concerned for his mother and her welfare, however the text does not suggest this. Instead, this passage affirms Mary’s motherly role in this new family of Jesus which he established at the cross. She leads the community as mother of our pack.

We can speculate this special role of Mary as mother of the pack of Jesus because of our relationship to him. Through baptism we are born into a new life in Christ as God’s adopted children of the Father and also through this adoption as adopted brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. Mary’s relationship to Jesus however is not sisterly as ours are. She is Jesus’s mother and eternally enjoys her company with him as mother. Without her, Jesus, the divine second person of the Trinity would not have become a child, nor grown to be a man in human form, and without her we would not have been redeemed through his sacrifice on the Cross, meriting us with the gift to be called children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ.

Indeed, anything is possible with God, he did not need to have sent his son into the world to save us, however, as Aquinas suggests it somewhere in the Summa, that it was the most fitting way for God to save the human race from their sins, by becoming one of us, and dying for us on the Cross. Since Mary remains as the mother of Jesus for all eternity and we become Jesus’s brothers and sisters through baptism, Mary by virtue of the Sacrament then relates to us as mother. Therefore, we can call upon her as Jesus did when as a child, and seek her counsel, her guidance and her affectionate love us. Indeed, she loves us with the same motherly love she has for the Lord because she knows in the divine scheme of things that she has become the mother of us all.

If you don’t have much affection for Mary and would like to begin a loving childlike relationship towards her as Jesus loved and continues to love her, we can start by learning to prayer to her. Like Jesus in his youth, and perhaps in his adult years too, who in his earthly life would have required tenderly motherly love, as all humans do, just a natural fact, can call for her intercession, asking for whatever our needs are. A helpful prayer that is useful for fostering this relationship might be as simple as one where we pray intently to her through spontaneity. Another way is to develop a devotion to saying the rosary, and over time learn to offer the rosary for our needs and the needs of others.

Jesus has given us his mother because he knows that as adopted children of God, en route towards heaven, we need nurture and comfort which a mother can only give. Indeed, Mary does not save us, only by God’s grace we are saved. Thanks to Mary our mother and God’s own mother we can be called God’s adopted children and in some way we owe her thanks and our love for her for trusting God to be the bearer of Christ which our adoption a reality.

Home is where the heart is. Ideally home for us is satisfying our desire to know and love and serve God. God loves his mother and wills that we might return the same affection he has for her. For any affection shown to her is affection properly owed, since Mary after all reigns with her son as queen of all. 

Friday Gospel Recharge: A reflection on the Gospel of Matthew 25: 1-13

Friday Gospel Recharge Series

Friday Gospel Recharge

A Reflection on Matthew 25: 1-13 

(21st Friday in Ordinary Time, Year A of the Liturgical Calendar, 2023)

"Stay awake:" faith and good works

From my observation, sometimes it can seem that in our Catholic Church, we can divide it into three factions: those who over emphasise prayer who do very little good works; those who don’t pray or pray less and over emphasise works; and those in the middle, whose life is balanced with prayer and good works. As Catholics we are called to live a life of prayer and good works.

Outside of our Church communion, there is an ecclesial community not in communion with us Catholics, who seem terribly fixated on the mantra of being saved through faith alone and not good works. In my opinion, this community of believers over emphasise this not only because they are interested in making this truth of theirs known, but to make a misconstrued point that the Catholic Church does not believe one is saved through faith. This mantra or doctrine really, is true, the church ascribes to it, that faith in Jesus saves a man from condemnation. However, our faith in Jesus should move us to action. This Catholic perspective on faith and good works come from the scripture. It says in the Letter of St James 2:17" faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead." St James goes on further to say in this same chapter that "a man is justified by works and not faith alone" (2:24). One who loves Jesus therefore will act in his name to show that love in their personhood. After all Jesus did the very same, expressing his love for our Heavenly Father and offered his own life for our redemption. He did this out of love for us too and as a result we owe it to God, to love him in return with our entire life.

In today’s Gospel, there are many themes which can be found in it, although it is primarily revolved around Jesus, the bridegroom, and the Church’s belief with respect of his second coming. One day, Jesus will return again, and separate the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats. What this means is that God’s plan for all of humanity will eventually end, like all good things, and when that time comes, those around to witness this spectacular event will see the Lord and know him and realise their relationship to him: Some will be saved due to their faith that works, and others not whose dead faith produced no good works.

While this Gospel is preoccupied with Jesus’s second coming, it has a stark message: “stay awake” until the bridegroom returns. For the majority of us, the second coming of Christ will be experienced at our death. His second coming will be met most likely upstairs in heaven or somewhere nearby there where and have our judgement handed down individually, then and there. However, those who will live in the end times, the second coming of Christ for them is when Jesus meets them here on earth, coming down from heaven on a cloud in all his glory with his angels. That day will be sad and treacherous for many who will not be saved, while glad and full of rejoicing for Christ’s faithful.

How one is faithful to Christ or not is reflected in today’s gospel in the parable of the bridesmaids. In this Gospel, we read that each bridesmaid had with them a lit lantern, however some had with them a reserve of oil and others not, to fuel their lit lanterns. When the bridegroom had returned, it was the bridesmaid with the reserve of oil who entered the wedding hall with Jesus. The others who had no oil, ran out of fuel, and had the doors shut before them.

Light and oil are important biblical symbols. As for light or lamp, it is the image of Christ as our light and our way to God; his message, his actions are our guide to the Father’s heart. Oil with respect to light can mean many things. It can mean presence of God, it can symbolise strength, it can also mean a blessing from God, a popular image in the Old Testament (OT), however in some New Testament (NT) passages, it can mean repentance. A person who is repentant has a change of heart and changes his ways, he turns away from sin and looks to God as his guide and as a result finds blessing in their lives, so blessing and repentance speak to each other.

In other words, oil is used to mean good works.  As for Christ’s faithful they are preoccupied in the good works of the Lord, making him present and known in his or her own actions. These people put their money where their mouth is, or if I could use another idiom, walk the talk, even in difficult times, who like the bridesmaid with the reserve of oil who fell tired and weary at times, kept their lantern alit.

So while faith alone saves us, obedience to Christ can never be substituted for a mindless coziness with the Lord and feelings of warm devotion toward him, which the bridesmaid who had the doors shut on them exemplified: “Lord, Lord.” Our job as Christians is to make the kingdom of God present in the world. This requires work, effort, and perseverance in the work of Christ. Jesus compares us to bridesmaids, and the role of the bridesmaid is to attend to the need of the bride, the Church. Being a bridesmaid isn’t exactly a mere honorary title, it a privilege to serve and so as Christians we serve Christ until Christ is ready to claim his bride, the Church.

Many ecclesial communities have calculated the coming of Jesus and predicted it wrong every time. I have a friend who ascribes to the principles of a Baptist Christian telling me that Jesus is coming soon, and she says this every time with the greatest cheer, as though she knows something which the Church doesn’t. I suspect she does this to spark interest in people so to initiate a conversation about Jesus, and this is noble of her. However, it’s not our place to predict Jesus’s return. In fact, Jesus himself says: "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36). Our place is to trust who Jesus says he is and put this trust in action. Like the birth of Jesus, he will come later than expected, when we are least expecting it, so it’s best not to calculate the second coming of Jesus because we will probably be wrong. Instead, we ought to pursue holiness as this text of scripture teaches us. Near expectations only proves an over alert of his coming, making us look stupid and embarrassed although a distant expectation is equally dangerous as it makes a man secular, forgetting God’s concern in human affairs.

The moral of this parable is this: Jesus wants us in relationship with him, to be holy while he is away so that upon his second return he will find us ready to meet him and his bride, the church. Holiness entails not only a lip service to faith in Christ, but a faith that is lived out in obedience to his commandments to the very end. Jesus will judge us on our obedience to faith in his commandments, this judgement comes at death or upon his return, not because we say “Lord, Lord.”