What a wonderful promise the Lord holds out to us! He wants to reassure us of His abundant love and provision. There is really no need to become anxious about anything. Jesus wants us to come to know our Father’s love as He did. As we do, we see that we can count on the Lord to meet our needs. Sure, there are always challenges – both great and small – but Jesus shows us that nothing is more important than walking in the presence of our loving Father.

How certain is the Father’s love for us? As certain as the sacrifice of His Son 2,000 years ago. As certain as the abiding, faithful presence of the Holy Spirit. More certain than food to feed our bodily hunger, or clothing to warm our bodies. The Lord tells us, “I will not … be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant” (Psalm 89:33-34). “Do not be anxious about your life” (Matthew 6:25). There is nothing of greater importance than the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

So, let’s feed ourselves with God’s word. Let’s clothe ourselves with His love. Let’s seek Him above all things and allow Him to guide our steps. The greatest challenge before us is not in dealing with the concerns of this earthly life. Rather, take on the full armor of God and walk in His presence each day – that is the real challenge set before each one of us. Our loving Father is waiting to bless all of us abundantly. God never stops caring for us. We can rely on Him to lead us each day.

Sisters and Brothers, let us surrender our concerns to our heavenly Father and let Him care for each of us. He has us in the palm of His hand and will never forsake us – He died for us. Let us trust Him in all things, great and small, and cast anxiety and worry aside. Let us take hold of His hand and let Him be our Guide. In every situation we encounter, it is good to know that our loving Father stands beside us ready to show us the way. We are His creation and He cares for each and every one of us.

Jakarta, 21 June 2014

If we really want to touch God’s heart in our prayers, Jesus has this tip for each and every one of us: “Be confident that your heavenly Father already knows what’s on your heart. Knowing that even a sparrow does not fall to the ground without God’s knowledge, you can be assured that your heavenly Father knows what you need even before you ask for it” (see Matthew 6:25-34).

God enjoys it when we come to Him with such a confidence and trust. Remember Jesus’ amazement at the faith of the centurion? (Matthew 8:10). Jesus was impressed that this man trusted Him so much that He didn’t need Jesus to come to his house to perform a miracle. Because God loves to provide for us and has planned good things for us, He delights when we come to Him already trusting that He is looking out for us.

Do we sincerely believe that God wants to do more than meet our needs? He wants to have a relationship with each of us. That is why He created us in the first place – to know Him. God is not like an automatic teller machine, where we go to make a withdrawal when we need something. God sent His Son to redeem each of us and bring us into a living and dynamic relationship with Him. He gave you His Spirit to lift us up to his throne every time we pray.

Let us remember the lengths to which our Father in heaven will go to draw us near Him. It’s not uncommon for families to use cell phones to keep in touch with each other during the day. But God gave us His only Son and sent the Holy Spirit so that we can talk to Him more easily than dialing a telephone. When we know God personally, as our Father and Friend, we start to long for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done in our lives. Let us try new ways of prayer that open the door to a relationship with Him. Let us go to Him in honesty and in trust, as His children and as His friends, and ask to know Him more deeply.

Jakarta, 19 June 2014

“Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 6:1).

Acts of piety are not to be performed for people to admire but must be genuine, and addressed to the heavenly Father alone. An insistence on simplicity and honesty appeared in the previous section when Jesus warned against devious speech (Matthew 5:33-37).

The same genuineness is now demanded regarding almsgiving (Matthew 6:1-4), prayer (Matthew 6:5-8), and fasting (Matthew 6:16-18). Ostentatious acts of “mercy” and pious posing for the sake of an audience are not worthy of the disciple. If one acts in order to win human approval rather than God’s, there will be no reward with our heavenly Father

The reference to rewards and punishments in this section – and elsewhere in the sermon – is not in terms of motivation but of consequence. The disciple is urged to be honest and single-hearted not in order to get a reward, but he is assured that our heavenly Father will, in fact, reward true righteousness.

These verses, which are peculiar to Matthew’s Gospel, are timeless in their scorching indictment of vanity and hypocrisy. Once again, today’s Gospel reading is indeed a compelling illustration of what discipleship means flashes before the Christian’s eyes. A veneer of religiosity or well publicized acts of “charity” or asceticism do not define the true follower or disciple of Jesus. Steadfast, unassuming fidelity does.

Jakarta, 18 June 2014

The Old Testament law of “an eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth” may seem brutal to us (Exodus 21:23-24). Even at the time of Jesus, however, it was common practice that an injury could be made up for by the payment of a sum of money. But this law was intended to restrict the amount of vengeance that a person could exact when injured. This law prevented excessive punishment and limited retaliation to just one eye for one eye?

Jesus taught and personally witnessed to a new way which still fulfills the law (Matthew 5:17-18); He said that we should not respond to evil or insult with violence (Matthew 5:39-40). This is the way of love which Jesus Himself lived out during His passion. He was struck on the cheek but did not respond in kind (Matthew 26:67); He was subjected to a heinous and painful death, but instead of hating His persecutors, He asked forgiveness for them (Luke 23:34). Jesus didn’t just fulfill the old way by what He said, He also lived it out practically, showing us what it means truly to love God and to love one’s neighbor.

It is clear today that violence in our societies is a great problem. Revenge is often proportional to the harm done, and it is rare that we see instances of people turning the other cheek; reports of murders and assaults crowd the newspapers. What if people were in practice what Jesus taught and respond to violence as He did? Imagine if people did turn the other cheek – didn’t get angry when offended! What if patience and kindness became the norm for relationships? This would have a radical effect on the cycle of violence that is destroying individuals, families and societies.

Only in Jesus are we given the grace to live as He lived and to respond to others in love, rather than with violence. The Holy Spirit in us brings about the great power of Jesus to enable us to live this new way; without this, on our own, we cannot respond to others in love.

Jakarta, 16 June 2014

(A biblical reflection on the Solemnity of THE MOST HOLY TRINITY- Sunday, 15 June 2014)

In his brilliant series The Ascent of Man, author Jacob Bronowski devotes an episode to mathematics under the title “The Music of the Spheres.” He shows historically how man’s ascent in civilization was marked by an increasing understanding of mathematical patterns which he saw reflected in the harmonies of music, for example, or in the motion of the spheres around the sun.

One of the most fascinating geometric discoveries by the early Greeks was the fact that three fixed points, not all on the same line, determine uniquely one and only one triangle, one and only one plane, and one only one circle. Why this should be, we don’t know. All we can do is observe it as a fact and apply it to the real world in art, architecture, engineering and science.

Even more mysterious is our belief that there are three Persons, yet one and only one God. Why this should be, we don’t know. All we can do is accept it as a revealed fact and apply it to our Christian life.

Today’s readings are part of this Trinitarian revelation. In Exodus we read about God announcing His name to Moses as YHWH, and then giving us the meaning of that name as a God who is merciful and gracious. In the second reading, St. Paul concluded his letter to the Corinthians with a Trinitarian farewell: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all” (2Corinthians 13:13).

Finally, in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Nicodemus that God has Father so loved the world that He sent His only Son. Recall that last Sunday on Pentecost we also read in John’s Gospel that Jesus breathed on His disciples and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

In his book The Theology of the Trinity, Laurence Cantwell devotes a chapter to interpreting the Trinity in the light of the universal religious sense of mankind.

This sense of religion makes itself felt first in a feeling of awe at finding ourselves in a world we did not make. We see evidence of God’s hand in creation, but we don’t see God Himself. Our awe expresses itself in worship.

Second, a religious sense is felt by an insight into God’s presence at the heart of the world. Poetry, music, art and human love awaken in us an awareness of divine presence in our very midst. We perceive that human activity has a divine dimension.

If the first religious sense can be characterized asvertical, pointing beyond the world, then the second way can be characterized ashorizontal, pointing the way within the world. In the first way we look at God as that mysterious source from which creation came – the Father as we would say. In the second way, we see God as a presence within creation – the Son as we would say.

There is a third dimension to the ways a religious sense is felt, a depth dimension whereby we detect a presence within ourselves. Great artists, for example, testify to an inspiration from within their very being which moves them to creative activity. This divine spark within us we call the Holy Spirit.

No matter where we look, then – up into the universe, out into this world, or inside our own hearts – we sense the presence of a mysterious God who is three, yet one.

In every dimension of our existence God reveals Himself to us in order to surround us with His light, share with us His life and draw us into His love. May we always praise the Father for creating us, the Son for redeeming us and the Holy Spirit for sanctifying us.

Jakarta, 15 June 2014

(A biblical reflection on the Solemnity of THE MOST HOLY TRINITY- Sunday, 15 June 2014)

Gospel Reading: John 3:16-18

First Reading: Exodus 34:4b-6,8-9; Psalms: Daniel 3:52-56; Second Reading: 2Corinthians 13:11-13

Our faith teaches us that in God there are three persons. We call the first person “Father.” When we speak of Goad as “Father” we could just as easily say “Mother” or, better still, “Parent,” for in God there is no sex. Nonetheless, when you say the word “father,” you necessarily imply the existence of another person, the child. Fatherhood is a quality which is then added to his person. A father is a man, a person, long before he becomes a father.

God is a Father, and this name necessarily implies another person, the Son. But God did not become a Father. In fact, there was no time when He was not Father, for fatherhood is not a quality which is added to God. God the Father is fatherhood personified. Remember that being a father means giving life to another. From all eternity God the Father gives life to His Son, and the only thing that makes Him a distinct person is the fact that He gives life to His Son. God the Father does not have a relationship to His Son. He is the relationship itself.

God is also a Son, a Child. A child is one who receives life from another. We are children of our parents, but being a child does not exhaust our personhood. We are persons in our own right, which we can see from the fact that when our parents die we continue to exist. But the only thing that makes God the Son a person is the fact that He receives life from His Father. God the Son does not have a relationship to the Father. He is that relationship.

Between parents and their children, in a good home, there is a bond which we call “love.” Love is difficult to describe. It is a warmth, and affection, a feeling – and most important of all it is a bond which unites people. Love is many things, but the only thing that love is not, in our experience, is a person. In God love is a person. Between God the Father and God the Son there is a bond of union, uniting them in love. In God this bond is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not give a relationship of love to Father and Son. He is love personified.

The truth of the Trinity has an important bearing on how we should live. Some people wonder why in church, where we come to worship God, we hear so much about how we are to treat people. But think about if for a moment. We believe that we are made in the image and likeness of God. We are called to become like God Himself. The Trinity shows us three person, each of whom is entirely unselfish and each of whom is a real person only in relationship to another. The Father gives Himself completely to His Son. The Son in concerned only with looking to the first person as His Father. The Spirit exist only to unite Father and Son in an eternal embrace of love.

Our fulfilment as human beings comes about only in our relationships with God and other people, and not in being turned inward upon ourselves. Our greatest happiness comes from being generous and unselfish. Reflect on people who think only of themselves – people who are so wealthy; for example, that their whole lives are taken jup with pleasure and play. We may be tempted to envy such people until we hear that their marriage has ended in divorce, or that they have turned to drugs in an attempt to alleviate boredom, or worse still that in complete despair they have taken their own lives. On the other hand, the happiest and most fulfilled human beings are the saints, men like Saint Vincent de Paul [1581-1660] who devoted himself to the salvation of the destitute people of France, and women like Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta [1910-1997], who dedicated her life the poorest of the poor in India and many other places in the world.

After serious reflection we can see that our own greatest happiness has come when we have tried to get out of ourselves, when we have made the effort to be unselfish and generous toward someone else, whether a member of our family or otherwise. God’s revelation of Himself as three persons tells us that we find fulfilment not as rugged individuals but in relationships to other people, and that we come to happiness not in selfishness but in genuine concern and love for those around us. In being generous and loving we begin to match the image according to which we are made, a God in whom there are three persons whose whole being consists in unselfishness.

PRAYER: Almighty, eternal, just and merciful God, grant us in our misery that we may do for your sake alone what we know you want us to do, and always want what pleases You; so that, cleansed and enlightened interiorly and fired with the ardour of the Holy Spirit, we may be able to follow in the footsteps of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and so make our way to You, Most High, by Your grace alone, You who live and reign in perfect Trinity and simple Unity, and are glorified, God all-powerful, for ever and ever. Amen. (A prayer of SaintFrancis of Assisi [1224] at the close of his Letter to a General Chapter).