Owning the Last Supper

These last weeks my sense of justice has been hugely challenged. I have felt misunderstood, wrongly accused, and even slandered. I have also felt used and abused, the way the older son who lived with his father felt when on returning home after a hard day's work was confronted with a celebratory feast given for his ne'er-do-well younger brother who had frittered away his portion of the inheritance and has now come home with his tail between his legs.

Where is the justice in all this? All I do is strive for the good of the other. I seek to be kind and generous. I live by truth and love as best I can. How did I become this vile enemy? So how do I respond with grace when faced with my own bewildered anger and frustration, my bitterness? How do I continue to love and forgive those who hurt, anger and sadden me?

Reading the Archie's homily for today, Maundy Thursday, entitled The Capacity to Love*, pulled together all the lessons I have been trying to absorb this Lenten season. He first asks us to focus on the right thing: the emphasis is on Christ loving us first, so that in turn we can love one another. If our service is not rooted in His love for us, we end up doing what the Lord has done for us, but using our own strength. This is where we either become self-righteous, arrogant and proud, or we become discouraged,  lacking confidence and disgusted with our own selfishness.

Yes, yes, yes! Root, root, root! I have spent time on my knees, weeping at the feet of Jesus, attempting to root my identity in Him. Only His perfect love for me has saved me and allowed me to see through His eyes so that I can get a better handle on all the situations at hand and strive to act as He would have. By my own strength it is impossible to be magnanimous and gracious. In God alone I find my strength. He is my fortress, my stronghold, my shield and my song. This has been my constant cry through this season.

Tonight's mass celebrating the Last Supper of Jesus Christ speaks of Christ's self-emptying humility, the depths of His love for us as the servant king who forgives us our sins and takes on our sins by giving up His own life. He is love and mercy personified. Monsignor William Goh further reminds me that as a lover and follower of Jesus, I, too, am called to act as He did, emptying myself for others, and to "make the sacrifice of Christ at the mass" my "own sacrifice". The ways I can live out this mass is:

Firstly, we must offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us as Jesus offered His forgiveness to His apostles who would betray Him later... If we desire to receive God’s forgiveness, then we must be ready to forgive completely those who have offended us. Otherwise, the forgiveness of God would be thwarted as it is only one-sided, that is, on the side of God.  

Secondly, we must offer our lives in service from the love that the Lord has given to us. We serve not with our own strength and merits but by the grace of His love. We are called to empty ourselves in humble service to our fellowmen. It is not enough to serve our fellowmen, but we must serve with humility, compassion and unconditionally. Only humble service can touch the hearts of our fellowmen. Unless we empty ourselves of our pride, we cannot be true servants of the Lord.

Finally, we must be ready to suffer for others, especially innocent suffering... When we suffer innocently for others, because we have been wrongly judged, slandered, misunderstood and ridiculed, then we could truly say that we have made the sacrificial death of Jesus our own. When we suffer for others, helping them and alleviating their sufferings, then we too proclaim His death and most of all, by our sufferings for them, we bring about healing and reconciliation.

When we get down to brass tacks, the answer is to simply be loved and to love, love through the hurt, the sorrow, the anger, the pain, the injustice, the hatred, the bitterness, and the loss, and only then can it be said:

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:35   

Thank you, Your Grace, for giving me fresh hope, and zeal for Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.

* To read the entire awesome homily, please go to https://www.catholic.sg/29-march-2018-maundy-thursday/

New and unending mercies

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon last and we were there to say goodbye to my aunt, my mother's youngest sister. Thanking God for allowing us that last Divine-appointed meeting, a final afternoon to laugh and cry, and say a proper goodbye. She waited for us, kept us entertained, her delight infectious and palpable. Apple juice, green jelly and afternoon tea - what a celebration! My heart aches, and yet, it was the best possible outcome given the circumstances. She had run a crazy good race and was ready to go home to Jesus. Thank you for living life on your own terms, with honesty, and with no excuses. What grace to die on Wednesday at 3:00pm, the hour of Divine Mercy, to the strains of prayer muttered by loved ones and friends the world over.

As I process my grief the chorus from the hymn As We Gather that originates from Lamentations 3:22-23 comes to my mind, a suitable refrain:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;*
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning, new every morning,
Great is Thy faithfulness, O Lord,
Great is Thy faithfulness.

Rest in peace dear Aunty R. Thank you for everything!

War baby, wild child
You always looked at life 

Just a little differently

From the rest of us

The grass was greener 

In the far yonder

Where sunshine beckoned

Promising new life

One filled with song

Ancient hymns delighted 

Soothing your soul 

Inspired, you ran free.

God's special child

Funny with an acerbic wit

Generous and concerned

Loving those who needed kindness

You made a difference 

Where it counted, saved lives.

And now we weep

For missed opportunities

Another chance to see you smile

But glad that Divine Mercy

Brought you home in peace.

Rest well, among the favoured

In our Father's arms.

Understanding marriage as created by God

Is marriage difficult? That's a definite yes. It is difficult in the sense that there are more complexities, fiendish algorithms to consider and juggle, and one has much less control over one's life than if one were to remain single. There are also great, sometimes heartrending, sacrifices to be made, much courage is needed to fearlessly tread where even angels do not venture, and one needs oceans of faith to persevere especially when all one can see is the uphill climb to the towering peak.

As Father Anthony reminded me today, it is important to have an intellectual framework to guide me forward, especially when I falter, or when my emotions or moods may tell me to give up. Of course he was talking in relation to faith and how, as people, we are quite fickle when it comes to remembering how much we are loved by God, but it is equally important to apply this to one's chosen vocation. Therefore to know how, why and what (and all the other questions in between) made me choose marriage is important to help me maintain my focus and vision.

Father Raniero Cantalamessa wrote in his Lenten homily (fourth Sunday)* two years ago that marriage is where man and woman begin to live out a radical form of humility:

To open oneself to the opposite sex is the first step in opening oneself to the other who is a neighbor until we reach the Other, with a capital letter, God. Marriage begins with a mark of humility: it is the recognition of dependency and thus of one’s own condition as a creature. To fall in love with a woman or a man is to make the most radical act of humility. It is to make oneself a beggar and say to the other, “I am not enough in myself; I need you too.” If, as Friedrich Schleiermacher believed, the essence of religion consists in the sentiment of dependence on God (Abhängigkeitsgefühl), then we can say that human sexuality is the first school of religion.

Marriage is the icon or "reflection of the covenant between God and his people" because it is meant to "characterize God’s attitude toward Israel" and stresses the "value of mutual love, faithfulness, and indissolubility." In Father Cantalamessa's words, marriage mirrors the covenant God made with each one of us, and if we are married, then we get to live out this covenant with God through our daily interactions with our better half. Given how different we are as man and woman, oodles of humility are required to live out the reality of marriage.

It was through my asking the Lord how do I love you more intimately and serve you better that I met and married P. Thus, always coming to a deeper understanding of marriage as God created it to be is necessary for me to live out my marital vows in an improved manner all the time, making all the necessary hard choices, and discarding any precious sensitivities along the way. Marriage calls for me to dig deeper and give more all the time, without ceasing.

When two people love each other—and the strongest example is the love of a man and a woman in marriage—they reproduce something of what occurs in the Trinity. In the Trinity two persons, the Father and the Son, in loving each other produce (“breathe”) the Spirit who is the love that unites them. Someone has defined the Holy Spirit as the divine “We,” that is, not as “the third person of the Trinity” but as the first person plural. It is precisely in this way that the human couple is the image of God. Husband and wife are in fact one flesh, one heart, one soul but are diverse in sex and personality. Unity and diversity are thus reconciled in the couple. In this light we discover the profound meaning of the prophets’ message about human marriage: it is a symbol and a reflection of another love, that of God for his people. This symbolism was not meant to overload a purely earthly reality with a mystical significance. On the other hand, it is not merely symbolic but instead reveals the true face and ultimate purpose of the creation of man as male and female.

I was struck when I read the description above of how the divine can be imbued into our very humanity, our earthly union, and I have to concur that this does happen (I can only give thanks that I have sailed though marriage thus far, knowing it is not by my might but purely by His alone) if we continue to love and honour Father and Son with all our hearts, minds, and strength. And our collective love for God has yielded an amazing love for each other. P and I have been blessed with some kind of wonderful in our marriage.

Whenever my very human fears touch me and I feel so insecure such that I grasp greedily for love; whenever I find myself struggling to accept love from P although it is precisely what I want and need from him; whenever I experience deep hurt and wish to retaliate in kind; whenever I feel weary and disheartened to the point of giving up, whenever I find it hard to forgive or to let go of contentions; whenever I come up empty or am at a dead loss; whenever pride rears its stubborn head and I insist on my way and my independence; it is at these junctures that Jesus, my perfect Bridegroom, comes to transform my human foibles and failings into something quite beautiful, most mysteriously, if I but surrender to Him.

All that He asks of me is to dare to be vulnerable and open, and to live authentically who I am, as He has taught me to live these last 15 years. Nothing changes even though I am now married. And although I love P with all my heart, I must remember that: We were not created to live in an eternal relationship as a couple but to live in an eternal relationship with God, with the Absolute.

What I now have with P is but a "certain foretaste of infinite love", a reminder of where I come from and where I am headed. What we have is good is because it speaks of God's love in so many ways, drawing as we do from the Spirit's inspiration. So P and I must keep relying on the gift of the Holy Spirit who gives us the graces and the capacity to keep making a gift of oneself to the other. It is from the Spirit that "generosity" is constantly born, and the capacity for "self-forgetfulness and service to life" is rekindled.

Thank you, Father Cantalamessa, for such a beautiful reflection on marriage and family. May God's Spirit continue to guide P and myself, today and every day.

* To read the entire homily, go to: https://zenit.org/articles/father-cantalamessas-4th-lent-homily-2016/

Open your heart

Yesterday at mass Father Sam reminded us that we are mid-way through Lent and he asked us to reflect on how our Lenten season has been going thus far. Are we on track, or have we already deviated from what we set out to do at the beginning of Lent?

For this year, I only had one thought, and that was to be open to God speaking in my life, to listen and to respond in such a way I would come out of Lent more entrenched in God's love, and consequently be more able to act in ways that are truly His ways.I want to know exactly what to say and do at any moment in time so that integrated in thought, word and deed, my life becomes His light to the world. It is a lofty aspiration and calls for much divine grace. But this is precisely what Lent is all about, to return to Him so that I can be more and more like Him. The prescribed ways of prayer, fasting and giving alms have actually helped me.

Although I haven't been so religious about fasting from food, I have tried to maintain a fast from apathy. Given that I am constantly physically tired which makes me edgy and more self-centred as self-preservation mode kicks in very strongly, I wanted to come out of myself and be there for others. I would say I have been quite sensitive to the needs of others and in bringing His love to others. However, it also comes, at times, with a huge price.

Opening one's heart to God and others requires humility, the humility of a humble(d), contrite heart. It calls for the ability to see where I am wrong in my thinking and change my ways. It calls for me to come out of my comfort zone and stretch spiritually. It calls for me to recognize and acknowledge my own poverty, my limitations, weaknesses and sins, and to rely totally on Jesus to get me where I need to go so as to align myself completely with Him. Imago dei.

This upcoming Sunday's Gospel talks about how God has planted His law into our hearts and we no longer need people around us to teach us. A well-formed conscience is one of the gifts of loving and following Jesus. I would say I know pretty much immediately what is right and wrong, what I ought to do and what I ought not to do. However whether I do what I ought to do with good grace is another matter altogether.

During these last weeks I have had to struggle and wrestle with doing the right thing. I have had to come face to face with my poverty, my uncharitable thoughts and emotions, my meanness, and I have had to ask Jesus to purify them so that I can do the right thing exactly as a Pharisee would do it with precise and practical actions, and to do it with the right heart and motive, exactly how Jesus would do it purely out of love and compassion, and with great sensitivity. The purification process has largely been through my increased prayer life, where I have received insight and moral strength.

So Lent has been quite a tumultuous journey emotionally thus far. It has also been a great journey for I have seen changes in myself. I have been able to take on the words of others - even though I argue as if I am right, I do listen as if I am wrong - and applied the necessary humbling changes to self. What's been nice is that others have corroborated the changes. Encouraging.

So I celebrate my Lenten journey and I exult as yesterday's psalm exhorts me to do. God is good and He made me to be like Him, good. In the coming days I will continue to open my heart to Him and let Him mould me as He wills.

Pondering the mysteries of marriage

I was just sharing with my SD that men and women have such different points of view and, sometimes, we don't seem to understand each other very well no matter how hard we try. Having said that, I am perfectly fine that P and I may, from time to time, agree to disagree. I also accept that some of his actions may be baffling to me, and vice versa, but I am happy to live with the mystery.

Because I know who P is, and I know he would never knowingly hurt me, that he loves me with a generous, caring and compassionate love, these little things, although irksome, deeply vexing on occasion, are par for the course. Let the frustrations go, it is not worth holding on to any one for the good things are really, really good, and we should, instead, hold on to those things.

Men and women are hardwired differently and we each have our own strengths and weaknesses that can be quite gender specific. Plus, there are times when what matters a lot to me does not seem to matter to him, and what he deems as important may not have the same priority with me. As my SD said, there is no answer to the question why, and we each simply have to trust - trust that we each have each other's back, and trust that we each desire the good of the other in a selfless way.

Here is where the complementarity of the sexes comes into play if we allow humility to fertilize the marriage. We each bring different things to the table, and we can help each other parlay our weaknesses and limitations into strengths. When we are open to new things and new ways, we may discover richer ways of doing things together. We can help each other moderate our excesses, and we can smoothen out the rough edges of each other's personalities.

All this can happen only if we are sensitive*, loving, caring, trusting, forgiving, and when we don't stop attempting to give the best of ourselves to each other. To quote the words of Pope Francis, we should daily build bridges of understanding, not walls. And when there is no understanding, the bridge is simply made strong by the mystery of a committed, empathetic and persevering love.

While I know I am still in the honeymoon stage of my marriage, I don't believe it has to end. My prayer is that I will never lose my sense of delight and wonder when I gaze at P for I want to look at him with the same brand of tenderness 20, 30 years down the road. Perhaps I am a romantic but I do believe it is possible as long as if I gaze at him with the magic eye as Brother Dominic calls looking through the eyes of Jesus.

I am not suggesting that all this takes place without sacrifice and pain, challenging times, or sustained effort. As I told P over last weekend, marriage is my cross, but I said it with joy for it is a cross I bear with reverence and pride, knowing it is a priceless gift from my Heavenly Father.  Marriage is my path to holiness and P will lead me to heaven. Likewise, I hope to do the same for him. In the meantime, we must be content with experiencing heaven on earth. As of now, I could not ask for anything more.

*  My SD says we need to hunt for the treasures of knowing what the other needs and wants and fulfil those needs and wants.

Mining the Wisdom of the Cross

Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort offered 14 rules in taking up our cross daily in a letter he wrote to the Friends of the Cross community that has since been published as a little booklet entitled Friends of the Cross. He exhorted the community to suffer and bear their crosses in the footsteps of Jesus, that is, to live in a Christ-like fashion. Here are the 14 rules which Brother Dominic shared with all Friends of the Cross retreatants that I feel bear repeating:

1.  Do not deliberately cause crosses by one's own fault. Watch how you behave lest you create crosses for yourself inadvertently.

2.   Be aware of one's neighbour's good. Consider how your actions may scandalize others so out of love for them, refrain from any action that may cause a negative reaction.

3.   Admire the sublime virtue of the saints without pretending to attain it. Be humble and see yourself as just a beginner (fledglings and cubs) in carrying your crosses.
 4.   Ask God for the wisdom of the Cross.  Desire, seek and relish the cross. Ask for the wisdom of the cross with hard toil, profound humiliation and fervent prayer.

5.   Humble oneself for one's faults, without worrying. Should you blunder into a cross, humble yourself interiorly under the mighty hand of God, but do not worry at it, trying to right the wrong by covering it up.

6.   God humbles us to purify us. God leads His saints to humility and holiness. Remember the thorn in the flesh of Saint Paul's, that God did not remove to keep him from getting too proud - which was a good thing.

7.   Avoid the trap of pride in one's crosses. Beware of spiritual pride. Always purify your motive in carrying your cross. Be aware of subtle resistances and look out for 'endless inventive excuses'.

8.   Profit by little sufferings rather than great ones. Take advantage of your sufferings, more so of the small ones than of the great. God considers not so much what we suffer as how we suffer. To suffer much or little for the sake of God is to suffer like saints.

9.   Love crosses, not with an emotional love, but with rational and supernatural love. The love you have for the Cross is not sensible love, for this would be impossible for human nature.

10.  Suffer all sorts of crosses, without exception, and without choice. Be resolved to suffer every kind of cross without exception. Be ready to be forsaken by men and angels and, seemingly, by God Himself.

11.  Four considerations for suffering well:-
       a) The eye of God. Ask yourself what does God look out for and try to look at things                 through His eyes?
       b) The hand of God. Allow God's hands to fashion us. Be open.
       c) The wounds and sufferings of Christ crucified. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus crucified.
       d) Heaven above, hell below. Lift up your eyes, behold the crown that awaits you in                  Heaven if you carry your cross as you should.

12.  Never complain against creatures. Never murmur or deliberately complain about any created thing that God may use to afflict you. There are three kinds of complaints: natural and involuntary, rational, and sinful.

13.  Accept the cross only with gratitude. Whenever you are given a cross, be sure to embrace it with humility and gratitude.

14.  Take up some voluntary crosses. If you wish to be worthy of the best crosses, those that are not of your choice, then, with the help of a prudent director, take on some that are voluntary.

If you are truly Friends of the Cross, then, without your knowing it, love, which is ever ingenious, will discover thousands of little crosses to enrich you.

What Montfort said so many years ago still holds true today. And I give thanks for my thousands of little crosses for they have enriched me and made my life so much more meaningful. As I continue to follow Jesus, I am happy to carry my own cross for I know He is with me every step of the way, and that is grace sufficient.

Friends of the Cross

P and I just went for a weekend retreat at the Montfort Centre entitled Friends of the Cross that encourages us to embrace the cross, and teaches us how we can deal with all the crosses in our lives. The teachings are based on a letter Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort wrote to a community called Friends of the Cross, who adopted Montfort's brand of spirituality.

It was an inspiring weekend and a really good way to enrich my Lenten season. A big thank you to Brothers Dominic and John, and all the Monfortian Associates who made the weekend such a rich one. I hope to take the lessons I have learned and apply them to my life. As Father Martin reminded all of us who were present, there must be follow through coming out of a retreat, real and concrete change, if not, it is wasted. To help us, we need only rely on the graces of God. He will help us.

He said:

You will find that your cross fits you well.

Like the yoke of Christ, it is easy going

Light, no more that you can bear.

So get familiar with its heft and form 

Caress the grain, handle it daily

Choose to take it up, carry it, walk with it!

It may be heavy, even painful at times,

But it is worth the effort, even the tears.

Following Jesus is life's sweet sorrow

For the way of the cross is suffering

But it doesn't have to weigh you down

Instead it can build you up and help you grow

To become bread broken for the world.

There is deep joy in that, and divine peace.

With Jesus I can conquer fear, even death.

Just as He saw Easter in the cross

I need to see the plant in the seed.

The cross is God's plan for my life

Not only can I get to heaven, but on the way 

Find happiness and satisfaction, 

Become the me who lives in greatest freedom

I just need to die to self, 

Deny my selfish inclinations.

The cross is infinite wisdom and God's power.

All this can be mine. All I need do is carry it,

Befriend my cross and follow Him.