Passion kind of love

It has been a special Holy Week for me as I prepared for a family vacation in Taipei. For it will be the first time in decades that all my brothers and I will gather together in another country with my mother (sadly without my father, but with the wonderful addition of my sister-in-law) on vacation. The last time the entire family was together was probably when I was a teenager.

Amidst the joy of preparing for such a rare celebration of life, the 80 years that my mother will have spent on this earth, come Easter Sunday, I have been trying to prepare my heart for the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, His death on the cross.

Through the week I have, by chance, met friends and neighbours who each shared their personal stories. What has struck me in their sharing is their great faith that is sustaining them through such difficult times. That even though they live so closely within the shadow of death, the joy of living has not been diminished and their lives have become acts of love and faithfulness.

It reminded me again of what Father Arro had shared with us during his talk on the Stations of the Cross - that amidst all the horrific suffering and humiliation of the Passion, the leifmotif and coda of the whole story is about love.

Love indeed conquers all, including death, and leads us to the new life of the resurrection. That is the reason why love is so sought after by everyone, for it is potent, an elixir of life.

We each crave the love of one special person in our lives, a person who will indeed die for us as they live for us in the good times. This kind of love is one that is not truly found in the peaks of the romantic honeymoon moments, but is mostly forged in the flat prairies of humdrum, everyday life and the rocky valleys of discord, illness, suffering and loss.

Jesus Himself shows us what love is truly about. That love is not just extravagant (having one's feet anointed with costly perfume) or exulting (receiving the affirmation of palm-waving crowds), but excruciating and humiliating as well, as evidenced by the Passion. He did not run away even though He knew what was in store for Him.

True love will require us to sweat blood out of anguish and fear, and yet, if we deem it a worthwhile endeavour, then we will be given the ability to live out the Gethsemane moments of our lives with fortitude and deep hope; to live out our Passion experiences with grace. P and L were proof of that when they spoke to me.

As I spend this Good Friday with my family in Taipei, I would like to pray this psalm, and hope that I will reflect the love of Jesus in some small measure this triduum, even as I can never match the depth of His love for me. I know I can never die for Him as He has died for me:  

In you, O LORD, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
In your justice rescue me.
Into your hands I commend my spirit; 

The greatness of loss

Earlier this week, my iPad winked out on and refused to come to life anymore. When I visited the service centre and had to surrender it in order to arrange for a replacement, it was literally a heart-wrenching moment.

My iPad had been an extension of me. It was a repository of books, photos, videos, notes, manuals, uke tabs... things that are of great relevance and meaning to my life, and I, of course, did not back up... hence my anguish. Hours and hours of note-taking and work gone - in a blink. I could cry a month of Sundays.

It has been difficult for me to feel grateful that I am getting my replacement iPad for free, being within the last two weeks of the warranty period. Not even knowing that nothing I really valued and lost could not be re-created could stop me from mourning.

In the scheme of life, the demise of my iPad is inconsequential. And yet, losses, even small ones, can be keenly felt. But because I know it is my fault for not backing up, I am bearing it with a serves-you-right stoicism.

Being messy and disorganized, I tend to lose things all the time. The standing joke at home is that Saint Anthony is my favourite saint as I seek his intercession frequently.

Loss is part of life (of course, in my case, it could be reduced significantly if I were more neat and organized). While never welcome, loss can be cleansing and healing, a catalyst for growth. If allowed to be a movement towards new possibilities, it can be an ever-bubbling source of creativity, leading to new discoveries, especially self-discovery.

Loss tests and celebrates the resilience of the human spirit, spring-boarding us to new heights and fresh accomplishments. The trick, though, is to soldier on out of mourning, transforming bitter seeds of sorrow and regret into courage, and a tensile resolve to venture into unknown and strange territory, armed mainly with faith.

Even in my darkest hour of catastrophic loss, my faith has been a lighthouse of hope, guiding me to safe and unimagined new passages. I knew that I was not alone, and that I would never be alone. Jesus was present: in the loving concern of family and friends, the spiritually nourishing and edifying Eucharist, and the mostly unacknowledged beauty of each successive sunrise.

The silent, desolate plains of loneliness were an invitation to go deep into my pain, walk around in it reflectively, then surrender it to the Almighty, and in the process, begin to perceive the upwelling of inner strength that have lain dormant thus far.

My epic losses have evolved into rivers of wisdom and compassion that allow me to bring refreshment to others as they stumble in the wastelands of their grief and anger. How great is that, even as I am humbled that I can be of help?

Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet says this of joy and sorrow:

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain...
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall
find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall
see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

I find this to be profoundly true for the losses in my life had given me an increased capacity for gratitude and joy.

In the final analysis, loss can be a great thing for it can propel us to greatness; as it can manifest as lightning rods of clarity and epiphany in the torrential downpours of life.

There are three things I learned from the death of my iPad:

1)  Do not get overly attached to material things. Brilliant as an iPad is, it is only a tool and an enabler. It is not an entity, a sentient being.

2)  Nothing is truly ever lost for the transience of life demands constant change. Hence the creative genius in each of us leads us to recover from loss in ways both inventive and marvellous. This is the great hope and mother of all payoffs.

3)  Be prepared always, like a wise bridesmaid. To live well (for me it is to be more organized and orderly), ready at any time to travel forward without any luggage. I am a pilgrim, and my journey here on earth is but a small step towards eternity, and a lifetime of perfect joy, with no loss.

 

Servant kingship

Among the many things Pope Francis did on his first day as pope was to drop by the place he was staying at previously to collect his belongings and pay his bill personally.

This is one of the many little ways in which he has already shown us what true leadership is all about, that leaders are people who must walk humbly by living, breathing and walking both their inner and external talk. Just as Christ did. And as followers of Christ, each of us would do well to follow in His footsteps.

The positions of power that are entrusted to us are not meant for self glorification, or merely a validation of one's abilities and capabilities, but are meant for us to step up to the plate, and exercise honour and responsibility in whatever we do.

Jesus was the ultimate servant king, a king who loved and cared for his people to the point of laying down his life. In baptism, we are each given that same mission of love, and as Monsignor Vaz shared last Thursday evening, us ordinary folk are not spared from this kingly office.

There are two aspects of kingship that belong uniquely to us, the laity: family life and temporal order. 

Within our families, we should edify and help each other grow in holiness by living out Christian principles. Parents, especially, demonstrate family governance (in cooperation with the Holy Spirit) by raising their children to be loving and giving men and women, walking in Christ's footsteps.

As for the rest of the time, we should engage in temporal affairs, directing them according to God's will. This means using our talents and working towards the right governance and ordering of society according to Gospel principles and the Social Teaching of the Church.

We need to embody everything that is good and beautiful about Christian virtue and put it into action in our daily living.

We need to fight the culture of death, so prevalent in the world today, by being the voice of the unborn, sick, elderly, displaced, poor, marginalized and the dying.

It is a gargantuan task, but as Father Arro said in his homily today, difficult does not mean impossible, especially if we walk with the Lord by our side.

In his first homily, Pope Francis echoed the primacy of Christ as we take on the role of co-workers and co-builders of the Kingdom:

"We can journey as much as we want, we can build many things, but if we do not confess Jesus Christ, the thing does not work. We will become a welfare NGO but not the Church, the Bride of Christ. When we do not journey, we stop. When we do not build upon the stones, what happens? Everything collapses, loses its consistency, like the sandcastles that children build on the beach. When we do not confess Jesus Christ, I am reminded of the words of Léon Bloy: “Whoever does not pray to the Lord, prays to the devil.” When we do not confess Jesus Christ, we confess the worldliness of the devil, the worldliness of the demon.

"When we journey without the cross, when we build without the cross and when we confess a Christ without the cross, we are not disciples of the Lord: we are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, popes, but not disciples of the Lord.

I would like for us all, after these days of grace, to have courage, precisely the courage, to walk in the Lord’s presence, with the cross of the Lord; to build the Church upon the blood of the Lord, which was poured out on the cross; and to confess the only glory there is: Christ crucified. And in this way the Church will go forward."

To add one last thought to the words of Pope Francis which comes from Father Arro's talk on the Stations of the Cross this afternoon, rather than just focus on Christ's suffering in His Passion, we should reflect more on the love He showed us, right to the very end.

The immensity of that love is the glory of God perfected in our world of sin and imperfection. As disciples of the Servant King, we can but strive for that perfection.

Habemus Papam

We have a new pope! Pope Francis, who is a Jesuit and formerly Archbishop of Buenos Aires. I am elated by the news for I have, like millions around the world, been praying for our next shepherd these last two weeks.

That he is named for Francis of Assisi, a saint I admire for his radicality in embracing poverty is encouraging. By all accounts, Pope Francis lives out this virtue of humility daily, to the point of taking the bus to work.

I look forward to how our newly minted pontiff will guide us through the waters of change. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI pointed out when he stepped down, Christ has not left the boat and the Holy Spirit will continue to be the wind the steers the Church forward even in vastly troubled times.

We are reminded, more than ever, as we approach the end of Lent and begin meditating on the Passion, that our beliefs can lead to crucifixion for we believe in the crucified Christ. Thus the question of What is truth is fundamental to how we live out our faith.

Is there truth in our beliefs? Or do we let relativism colour our thoughts, words and actions?

The Woman to Woman Ministry is reflecting on Pilate this Friday and how Pilate asked that question of Jesus, without making a full-hearted attempt at pursuing truth to the end.

Here is a man who obviously knew that Jesus had not committed any crime that required Him to be put to death. And yet, he allowed the fear of revolt and political chaos guide him to sacrifice the life of one innocent man.

Are we like Pilate, swayed by the lay of the land, the zeitgeist of our social, professional and political worlds, to make decisions that have no truth in them? Or do we live according to what our conscience dictates, with no fear of persecution or hate?

Pope Francis will, no doubt, face future criticism for pushing the agenda of truth in a world whose beliefs are tainted by growing secularism and crumbling morality, thus my prayer for him is for continued good health, supernatural courage and abundant humility in the months and years ahead.

Viva il Papa.

Laetare Sunday musings

I just returned from Bali where Mum and I met our family from Australia there last week. R, who just turned 40, was treated to a surprise birthday celebration in Bali where her family, her father (my maternal uncle), her brother and his family and a couple of good friends had gathered. When I first heard about it, I decided to gate crash the party.

 

It was good fun. R was completely surprised when we turned up and we really enjoyed hanging with everyone. I even came home with gifts from the girls, I and J. So I couldn't ask for more, although I did.

 

Being typically Singaporean, I found the service lacked efficiency (the waiter forgot to serve us our coffee and tea once, and he brought an extra coffee another time).

 

I picked on little things that were not perfect (no towel rails in our otherwise pretty spa villa).

 

And when I did not get what I expected, I could not enjoy what I did get, even though it was good in its own way (I wanted a Balinese massage and instead got a combination Swedish-Balinese one which I found a complete waste of time and actually made my stiff neck worse).

 

The cab drivers are dishonest...complain, complain. Just like the older son in today's Gospel story of the prodigal son, what is it about us that we do not appreciate the blessings we receive?

 

Instead we focus on the things that displease us while completely overlooking the things that are good for we have come to expect and demand those.

 

We forget that everything is ours by grace, and if we take the trouble to acknowledge our blessings, they are actually there, in abundance.

 

Like the sweetness and efficiency of our butler who was super duper attentive and arranged free transport to a restaurant one evening, and also arranged for our villa to be decorated as a birthday treat for my mum.

 

Or the honesty of the housekeeper who did not go through my opened suitcase and take the hundreds of dollars and our passports inside that I had forgotten to put into safekeeping.

 

What about our driver and the many others we met who were genuinely hospitable and friendly.

 

My utilitarian bent is hard to break, where I expect value for money and hone in automatically on places where standards are lacking, so much so that I forget to give thanks for all those moments where I received so much more than I paid for.

 

In my critical moments, I forget the practice of charity and mercy and I lose out on gratitude and its attendant joy. I choose to get grumpy and whiny instead. How foolish is that? For I miss, in those moments, the opportunity to meet Jesus' eyes and smile in delight. To taste and see that the Lord is indeed good.

 

Perhaps this will be another worthwhile Lenten project for the rest of the season: to focus on the joy of Lent as the readings of this Laetare (Rejoice) Sunday have elucidated, and fast from being critical and complaining.

 

I thank the Lord for a wonderful time in Bali and I rejoice that Mum and I had a lovely family vacation, together with our rellies from Melb.   

 

Laudate

I woke up this morning to this brilliant oeuvre from Pope Benedict XVI that explains what I wanted to say about rules and morality in my last post, Speaking truth, but in a much more eloquent and erudite fashion.

It comes from a two-minute daily meditation by St Luke Productions, linked through Laudate*, my favourite application of all time and in it the Pope Emeritus says:

Moral obligation is our dignity
Moral obligation is not man's prison from which he must liberate himself in order finally to be able to do what he wants. It is moral obligation that constitutes his dignity and he does not become more free if he discards it. On the contrary, he takes a step backward to the level of a machine, of a mere thing. If there is no longer any obligation to which he can and must respond in freedom, then there is no longer any realm of freedom at all. 

The recognition of morality is the real substance of human dignity. Morality is not man's prison but rather the divine element in him for nature is not as is asserted by a totalitarian scientism, some assemblage built up by chance and its rules of play, but is rather a creation - a creation in which the Creator Spiritus expresses Himself. 

Creation itself teaches us how we can be human in the right way: the Christian faith which helps us to recognize creation as creation that does not paralyze reason. It gives practical reason the life sphere in which it can unfold. 

The morality that the Church teaches is not some special burden for Christians. It is the defense of man against the attempt to abolish him. If morality, as we have seen, is not the enslavement of man but his liberation, then the Christian faith is the advanced post of human freedom.

Meditate and enjoy.

* Laudate is an app that every Catholic should access for it has everything needed for a rich prayer life and spiritual growth. It has, in various languages: 

Daily Mass Readings, Order of Mass, Liturgy of Hours, New American Bible, Rosary and Latin Rosary, Chaplet of Divine Mercy (on Rosary screen), Stations of the Cross, Saint of the Day, Catechism of Catholic Church, Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession), Daily Examination of Conscience, various prayers and prayers in Latin with English translation. Podcast for Rosary and Stations. Daily Meditations. Podcasts of Daily Readings and meditations. 

Speaking truth

I met F at the bus-stop not long ago and we had an interesting conversation on our bus ride to town about rules and what is right and wrong. What should we do when we see that someone is engaging in what we perceive as wrong behaviour, and to what extent do we go in attempting to speak truth in this person's life?

She was faced with a situation where someone was resisting her persistent correction and avoiding her, and she was wondering if sterner measures should be taken?

This is a tough one for there is a fine line between offering the truth in humility and being intrusively self-righteous. Even if we are right, it may not be judicious to insist too much for it may have the opposite result and drive people away.

And yet, we must also not shrink from speaking the truth if indeed someone is bent on the path of destruction, even as we know the message may not be well received as soon as the words leave our mouth.

So how does one preach the truth without being preachy? How does one one speak the truth without judging the other?

There are no blanket or fail-proof answers for every situation is nuanced by different personalities, histories and motivations. However, we can be guided by God's law of love which stresses respect for the dignity of the other, so that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves.

In order that we ourselves can live upright and honest lives, we must first grasp the spirit behind the commandments or rules for expert knowledge of the rules alone is inadequate. We would only be like children engaged in rote learning, parroting truths without understanding, until we ourselves break them without much provocation.

Or we adhere to the rules but experience no joy in living a circumscribed life born out of duty alone. And because we have such joyless souls, we perpetuate a prevailing view of Christianity: institutionalized religion is for killjoy, moralistic, guilt ridden prudes who are unable to enjoy life.

That could not be further from the truth of the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God made incarnate in His Son, Jesus, who gifted us with the Holy Spirit.

He wants us to have life to the full, something we can only know and experience if we listen and talk to Him frequently, in tender, intimate relationship. And when we are fully alive, then others around us can be dazzled by His glory and therefore attracted to Him through us, His ambassadors. They will be drawn to the abundance of joy, love and peace that radiates from our personalities. And that, folks, is how we become legitimate fishers of men and women.

True moral choices come from an adult, incisive understanding of self and an educated, well-developed conscience that has digested the philosophy behind the rules, especially Divine-inspired ones for they breathe truth, goodness and beauty into our lives, being rules of love.

But knowing right from wrong does not mean we point fingers or judge others. For we are also called to live lives of virtue, what Aristotle defined as excellence at being human. Thus the virtues of wisdom and compassion would qualify as knowing when, what and how to say something.

To speak truth with the right words, at the right time and in the right place for the right reasons so that it can be received openly, and in the same spirit of love as it was given. This requires both humility and courage.

I like what Father Timothy Radcliffe says in the Afterword, Beyond silence, in his book Seven Last Words:

The courage to speak is ultimately founded on the courage to listen. Do we dare to listen to the young with their doubts and questions...to people who have other theological opinions than ours...to people who feel alienated from the Church...to those whose lives may appear to place them on the edge, because they are divorced and remarried or gay or living with partners? We will not have the courage to do so unless we have listened in silence to the most disturbing voice of all, that of our God. If we can be silent before God and hear his Word which rose from the dead, then silence will no longer imprison us in any tomb.

His words echo what my SD told me last week. It is more often enough that we are available to people and listen, for that listening ear may just be what is needed to give truth the space to emerge and coalesce into a concrete reality.

Lenten sacrifice

I was, not long ago, party to an exchange of email where there were a series of miscommunication errors and it was threatening to escalate to a point of no return.

I had every justification to feel aggrieved (so I say) and get nasty but I decided that was not a path I would choose for there is no upside to non-resolution once I got over my initial anger.

As Aileen O'Donoghue wrote in Living Faith, we either practise being right or we practise being kind. And it is in forgiveness, we practise kindness in hope of kindness being given to us in 'good measure' (Luke 6:37).

So I picked up the phone and called, and talked, and listened. We both put down the phone feeling better for we agreed to wipe the slate clean and start over. Even if I had to eat humble pie initially, it was worth it. 

My lesson from all this is there's no point being right if it causes negative reactions and hurt feelings with no viable solution.

And nothing like prayer to give perspective, regain objectivity and not hold onto anger or ego; to be the one who first seeks reconciliation and thereafter engage in a win-win situation.

Recently, a couple of close friends have had skirmishes with a respective parent and both sets of people experienced deep hurt. The relationships were badly affected and in one instance, the existing rift is, at present, unbridged.

When resentment causes us to explode in anger, we often say and do things we do not really mean, even if in that moment our intent is murderous. Because we ourselves did not escape unscathed by the heated exchange of words, we refuse to yield or consider the other's position, for pride traps us in indignation and self-righteousness.

So we eschew forgiveness and reconciliation. We seek only justice and redress, not realizing when we dig our heels in, rooting in pain and anger, we face losing something more precious than our so-called dignity - our humanity.

We forget all the good times, where the other was there for us or showered us with sacrificial love. Instead, the words that hurt us wield power to keep us fixated on only the bad times, and what the other did not do for us, or did very badly.

These words take on a life of their own in our imaginations, roaming free to create chaos and bitterness in our internal landscapes, withering the delicate seedling of empathy and true understanding.

Being right is cold comfort when the possibilities of love are silenced by hurt and anger. When I look back on life what I regret most are the harsh words and/or unloving acts my pride and ego had spawned.

I regret times I was too stubborn to admit I was partially wrong (although I may have been partially right) and let a situation go from bad to worse.

I especially regret that I could not overcome years of hurt that silenced the words of love I wished to express to my late father until it was too late.

Loving is not easy for there will be times we will hurt those we love deeply, especially those in our families. But as today's Gospel from Luke chapter 13 remind us, we never know when death will come and we do not want to be caught unawares when it does.

We would want to go in state of grace, which means we should take to heart the advice that Paul proffered the Ephesians: to not let anger cause us to sin and give the devil an opportunity to mar our relationships with dissension and unforgiveness.

What Paul goes on to say is a fitting reminder this Lent:

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.

                                                                      

                                                                                                        Ephesians 4:31-32     

 

When it comes to relationships gone bad or situations fraught with tension, kindness and forgiveness would be the best Lenten sacrifice we could ever offer up. Not just as a sign of love to God, but for our own good as well (as we get rid of past baggage). 

 

And should we go tomorrow, there would be no regrets, no loss. Just pure grace.