Saturday, January 13, 2007

Through him, with him and in him

“Everything old is new again”. From fashion accessories to vintage inspired cars and movie remakes, nostalgia seems to have a talent for reawakening our senses. Just last week, I stumbled upon my old cache of comic books from over thirty years ago and found myself transported back to a time of unrestrained pleasure. My favourite superheroes leapt from the dusty pages of my childhood like they were printed only yesterday. And suddenly, time stood still for a delightful moment.

I had the same feeling of inexplicable joy watching some children at play the other day. Somehow when I think about heaven, my thoughts often travel back to the innocence and pure joy of my childhood. I imagine there are others who feel the same.

St. Augustine reminds us that “God is younger than all else”. He remains forever young, younger than all of us who have grown old because hope expresses his eternal youth. For this reason the gospel is old and yet ever new, because Jesus himself is eternally relevant to our hearts.

Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. No amount of time will diminish his relevance to our lives, because human nature itself remains unchanged throughout history. We suffer the same temptations, pine for the same basic desires, and struggle with the same sins over and over again. We will always need our saviour, but like an easily distracted child, we forget the good counsel and warnings of Jesus at the first sign of pleasure.

Most of all, we forget our Christian dignity in Christ.

So many of us go through our days like paupers because we disregard our royal vocation as sons and daughters of God. It shows in the way we behave, talk, entertain and make choices. We wallow in the spiritual amnesia of princes who live by the castle gates begging for crumbs instead of taking our rightful places in the royal courts of our King and Father.

Over time, we become strangers to our own divine heritage, believing instead that we are little more than beasts and beggars. And so believing, we live and act like animals.

Dear friends, this must stop. As you read this, make a choice to reclaim your princely character in Christ. To help us do that, allow me to share some reflections on what it means to be a child of God.

As Catholic Christians we receive so much from our Lord and saviour, but we’re also such forgetful disciples. As a result, we never truly unleash the power of grace that Christ died to give us on Calvary.

A Spanish friend laughingly confessed how he sometimes queued at the long foreign immigration lines when he returned from overseas missions, only to realize a few moments later that as a Singapore permanent resident, he could’ve easily passed through the local passport counters without any delay. In the same way, many of us spend our entire lives waiting in the wrong lane.

Do we really understand our awesome dignity as co-heirs of Jesus Christ? As Christians we use this phrase so loosely that it sometimes takes on an almost “Barney” or “Sesame Street” triviality when we talk about being children of God. But the apostle Peter reminds us that we are a “chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” set apart. This is truly something special.

We forget that through our baptism, we are born again into a new and vibrant supernatural life; a life that even now gives us a foretaste of the supreme happiness that awaits us in eternity.

Everyday our God descends from the highest heavens to share the Eucharistic meal with us, just as a father gathers to break bread with his children at the family table, and everyday he gives his own lifeblood for the nourishment and health of his sons and daughters.

It’s no coincidence that the pelican is often used as an image of the Eucharistic Lord, since this curious bird is often known to peck at its own breast for morsels of flesh and blood to feed its young in a famine. Such is the self-sacrificing love of our Father and God.

We’re often told that through Christ, we have been adopted into the family of God. But we’re much more than that! God the Father doesn’t just adopt us, he makes us truly his own by giving us His only begotten Son Jesus to be our brother and redeemer, so that through the blood of our saviour we are born again into a new reality.

In a very mysterious way, we are truly children of the Most High. We know of many people who chase after worldly titles of nobility in order to rise in the eyes of their fellow men. But what can be more noble and dignified than being a child of God? What worldly obligations of membership are more sacred and privileged than the paramount vows of our baptism?

Do we truly realize the power, dignity and authority within ourselves as Catholic Christians?

At every Holy Communion, the Body and Blood of Christ flow through our veins. His life, his DNA, his power and breath are given to us for our divine inheritance. As such, our mortal blood carries the life of the immortal; our lives on earth bear the imprint of the resurrection. Through Him, with Him and in Him, we inherit the majesty and power of the eternal Son of God. All that is needed is the faith to unleash a life that can change the world.

Think about it. From Adam & Eve we received our human and mortal bloodline, but from Jesus and Mary, we have been reborn in baptism and the Eucharist as a new race.

When Christ redeemed us, he gave birth to us as it were by giving us a royal bloodline in himself. In taking upon himself our humanity, he sanctified our nature and shared with us his divinity. And since Christ received his human nature entirely from Mary, we too bear her blood and DNA when we receive Our Lord in the Eucharist. After all, it was her blood, her flesh and her bones that gave human form to the Son of God. Consequently, Mary isn’t just our spiritual mother, she is our corporal mother as well. Reflect on this the next time you read the dying words of our Lord on the cross; “Behold your mother.”

As a result, every Catholic isn’t just bonded in a fraternity of faith and creed with each other; we are bonded and related through the blood of Christ, making us truly siblings with one another. And our baptism must set us apart from the world we live in.

If there is no difference in the way pagans and Christians live, then what is the point of our witness? Instead, the saints tell us that we can change the world if we live holy and faithful lives, sanctifying our days and offering our most mundane and ordinary tasks with the greatest love and hope because as children of God, what we do and how we live can affect the cosmic battle between good and evil.

Christ in redeeming us calls us to be co-redeemers of the times we live in, and indeed, to save our societies and our families from the terror, injustice and afflictions that define the world today.

This seems like an impossible challenge but the solution is really quite simple. We can turn the tide against terrorism, abortions, broken marriages, poverty and corruption and all the darkness of our times, by simply being faithful to our Christian vocations.

We must learn to look at our lives through the veil of eternity. What we do as Christians have supernatural effects that influence the world we live in. Behind the ordinary drama of our human history is a larger landscape of spiritual realities. And as Christians we have the power to make a real difference, even if what we do seems trivial and modest.

Mother Teresa spoke of this when she urged everyone to “do small things with great love”, because love multiplies everything. And when we offer it to our Lord as a prayer and oblation, we join our humble efforts to the great redemption of Christ for the world. This is the great battle cry against Satan; that the humble, ordinary struggles of a Christian life hold the power and means of sanctity to defeat him.

This is why St John Bosco exhorted his boys to simply be good boys, why St John the Baptist told soldiers and tax collectors to be honest in their work, why St. Josemaria Escriva encouraged Christians to do their professional work with holiness and fidelity, and why the Church continually exhorts us to be faithful to our daily struggles to love God and neighbour. Our prayer, our sacrifices, our sufferings and patience with all that life brings can be offered up to God with much love and hope for the salvation of the world. This is the great secret of our Christian solidarity; that through Christ we can intercede with God for one another.

After all as Archbishop Fulton Sheen once said, if it is possible for doctors to transfuse blood from a healthy person to save a dying man, why is it not possible to transfuse suffering? If surgeons can graft healthy skin from one part of the body to restore goodness in another, why is it not possible to graft sacrifice and prayer? Small things done with great love and fidelity to God can shake the very foundation of the world.

Is this some new doctrine? No. There is nothing new in what the saints tell us. The genius of the saints lies in the way they imbue old truths with new enthusiasm. But the fact is, every individual action is magnified by the dignity of the person doing it, and the actions of Christians for better or worse are supernaturally magnified by their supreme dignity as children of God.

I’m sure you recall the old adage: “Evil succeeds where good men do nothing”. In the same way, darkness will reign where Christians forget their real dignity in Christ. We are the sons and daughters of the new Adam and Eve. If Dan Brown and other conspiracy writers really wanted to trace the bloodline of Jesus, they merely have to look into the face of every Catholic Christian. Therefore, we should live well and love well since we hold in our lives the power to win the world for God.

Remember this and it will help you live your Christian dignity as a prince and not as a pauper.

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