3rd Sunday Ordinary C - Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, achieves the impossible

A store has just opened in New York City that offered free husbands. When women go to choose a husband, they have to follow the instructions at the entrance:

“You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are 6 floors to choose from. You may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you CANNOT go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the store to find a husband. On the 1st floor the sign on the door reads: These men Have Jobs

The 2nd floor sign reads: These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

The 3rd floor sign reads: These men Have Jobs, Love Kids and are extremely Good Looking.

“Wow,” she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going. She goes to the 4th floor and sign reads:

These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.

“Oh, mercy me!” she exclaims. “I can hardly stand it!” Still, she goes to the 5th floor and sign reads:

These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, help with Housework and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the 6th floor and the Sign reads:

Floor 6 - There are no men on this floor. This floor exists as proof that you are impossible to please.  There is no such thing as perfect.Thank you for shopping with us.

Actually the morale of the story is: HOPE.  Hope is what made the woman to climb on…. to want to find something better each time. You see that woman believes that: 

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, achieves the impossible.

Today we read from the book of Ezra. This priest wrote about the hope of the Jews and its fulfilment. Around 600 BCE, the Jews were defeated by the Babylonians. These victors destroyed the temple of Solomon and brought the Jews to Babylon as captives for around 50 years. Until fortunately the Babylonians were conquered by the Persians. But these new conquerors released them only after around 30 years and allowed them to go back to Jerusalem and finally rebuild their temple. The book of Ezra was about hope… for around 80 years the Jews cried, prayed, longed and hoped to be able to go back and worship their God in their temple. And God did not forget them. And as Ezra and the people embark on that journey back home, he says: "This day of our return is holy to the Lord; do not mourn or weep.Go now on your way for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”  Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, achieves the impossible.

in the gospel story: Jesus has seen the misery and the suffering and the despair of his people.  So he begins his ministry of healing and teaching to assuage their fears and their sorrows and their ignorance and of giving hope to those in despair. But today we see him coming back to his hometown in Nazareth and he stands before the people in the synagogue proclaiming his message of hope: 

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and mercy.”

Jesus has come to bring hope. Yet we know that many will be annoyed by this message and will start the plan of bringing Jesus down to squash the hopes of those who still have its flicker.

But we shall see also in the succeeding episodes of his life that for those who put their hope in Jesus, they will see the invisible, they will feel the intangible, they will achieve what is impossible.

In the border of Cambodia and Thailand, there are many streetchildren who beg the tourists who pass the border for food or money. One day one Jesuit priest saw a little girl of around 5 who had crooked legs begging seated on a mat together with her mother. The priest had pity on the girl. He however was hopeful that if treated this girl could have a different future.  And so the priest talked with the mother and offered to have the girl be brought in a hospital and have her legs operated and straightened so that she could walk. When the girl heard this her eyes shimmered with the hope - the possibility of being able to walk again. Until her dreams were squashed when the mother refused her treatment. The mother replied: “If she could walk then she would not be able to beg and would not be able anymore to earn this good amount of money we get everyday.”

How does one hope when every time we do, those dreams, those hopes are squashed by people around us? Simple. When the world says: "Give up!," hope whispers: "Try it one more time."

Let us remember that: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today we affirm that Jesus is our hope and at the end we too will see what is invisible, we will feel what is intangible, and we will achieve what is impossible.

2nd Sunday Ordinary C - Why wrap a gift?

One interesting thing about gifts we give and receive- they are wrapped. A few weeks ago from St. Luke we hear: ”And Mary...wrapped the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes.'' These are precious words. They can be felt best by a mother who has felt what Mary felt. But now we all know there is more wrapped up in those swaddling clothes than just a little baby. Underneath that wrapping is a precious gift to humanity.

In the inspirational movie “Woodlawn” about how High school football and faith in Jesus go together, the preacher asked:”If someone gives you a gift, why do you have it wrapped up?”  (Answer: "to free that which is trapped inside")  So why do we wrap gifts? Why did Mary wrap Jesus and render him unrecognizable from everyone at first? “My hour has not yet come.” Jesus is often wont to say. We have to wait for the right time. That is why there is advent before Christmas and soon there will be the season of lent before Easter. Christmas and Easter- two beautiful gifts but first they have to be wrapped up and we have to wait.

In 1992, there was an experiment done in a university where 45 students were asked to evaluate some products and in exchange they would receive a free gift.  Little did they know that the purpose of the experiment was to evaluate the gift rather than product. So when they gave them the free gift, half of them received the gift wrapped in blue and white paper with a matching ribbon and bow.  The others received the same gift in a plastic bag. Those test subjects who received the gift wrapped gave it a higher overall approval than those who received it in a plastic bag. So that’s why we wrap the gift

Today in the gospel we find Mary finally unwrapping that precious gift for all of us. At a wedding in Cana, when the wine ran out, Mary tells Jesus: “They have no more wine.”  Jesus answers with: “What concern is that to you and to me?” But Mary simply addresses the servants with a smile: “Do whatever Jesus tells you.”  And we have the first miracle - water turns into wine.

Once there was this priest who was a wine expert. So during the Christmas season, he got so used to parishioners giving him wine wrapped in wine boxes. He was so good that he could tell what kind of wine or spirit was inside the wrapped wine box just by its weight. Until there was this little child who gave him a wrapped gift box which he could not guess. As he held it up he found it leaking. He touched a drop with his finger and tasted it. Hmmm, is it champagne?  No. He touched another drop with his finger and guessed. Is it brandy? No. Is it whiskey? No. Ok I give up what is it? It’s a puppy?

All of us are like gifts all wrapped up. Somehow, somewhere, someday that gift has to be unwrapped to free that which is trapped inside. In life we should unwrap the gifts God has given us, our talents, our resources, and share it with others. 

Today’s second reading tells us: “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Sprit; there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. “

If God has given you something, you have the duty to unwrap it and use it and share it. Hans Urs von Balthasar so nicely puts it: “What you are is God's gift to you, what you become is your gift to God.”

A song - poem says its too beautifully: 

Persons are gifts of God to me. 

That come all wrapped so differently.

Some so loosely, others so tightly; 

But remember that wrappings are not the gifts.

We are all persons, we are all gifts. 

So let's make a grand exchange of gifts.

Today’s responsorial psalm invites us: “Declare the marvellous gifts of the Lord to all the peoples.”

Ok I’ll unwrap the final gift of Jesus ministry: If today you hear he turns the water into wine, later he will turn the wine into blood- the Eucharist.

Baptism of Our Lord (C) - Like a Revenant: "I'm right here."

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus. 

Do you know what happens when a person is baptized? (1) All of us are born with original sin. In baptism that sin is removed, erased, disappears; and with it all other sins. (2) Baptism makes us adopted children of God. (3) We become members of a family which we call the Church.   Now why do you think Jesus had to be baptized? (1) He has no sin (2) He is already the Son of God (3) He is the head of the Church.

Once there was a drunk who was walking home. Then he fell into a big and deep hole. So he shouts for help. Finally another man hears him. But instead of helping him up, this man jumps into the hole. And lo and behold, both are there together stuck in the hole. The drunk person was confused, and asked: Are you stupid. I was shouting up there for help. Instead of getting help for me, you jump down here where you can do nothing to help me. You must be crazy!

The man answered: No, I’m not crazy. Can’t you see by jumping down here two of us can now shout for help louder than before.

It seems a rather foolish story but remember: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:25). Could you imagine what Christmas season was all about. When man after losing his privileges of paradise because of the fall and of his sin realizes his foolishness and implores God for help, God in his infinite mercy could have just said: OK I forgive you, now here’s a ladder and climb up here to paradise again. A single word from Him could have transported all of us up there in a blink of an eye like in Star Trek movies. So little effort on the part of God and such a huge magic the world has ever known if he brings us up from this miserable world in a flick of his finger. But God would have none of that.  

He chose the more difficult way like that guy in our story who called just have gotten a rope and brought the drunk up. God chose to have his only beloved Son come down and be with us. "And the word was made flesh and now dwells together with us". Jesus Christ in his most comfortable throne chose to jump from above to be with us in this hole where we need to be saved. And when this Jesus who is Almighty God comes to our hole, to our frustration, he does not fly us into heaven... instead he tells us: Now, both of us can now shout louder. Both of us can now pray together. Now both of us can now storm heaven with our shouts of joy and praise and with our cries of sorrow and repentance. Jesus is now one with us in calling to our Beloved Father. 

And when the Father opens up the heavens like in the Gospel of today, He too will tell us: “You are my beloved child also of whom I am well pleased.”  This my dear friends is why Jesus chose to be baptized, not because he needed it, but because in his baptism we are joined with Him through our own baptism.

But that is not all, when Jesus immersed himself in the baptismal waters of Jordan, he sanctified the water thereby sanctifying all the water of the world that shall be used to baptise from that time onwards – so that when it was our turn to be baptized, we shared in Christ’s sanctifying action and sanctifying graces. This is shown to us during that Easter night when you see the priest putting the big Easter Candle into the water to be used for baptism three times. And this symbolizes Jesus sanctifying the water which in turn sanctifies the one to be baptized making that person one in Christ.  There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.…(Eph. 4:4)  

When you see that big baptismal candle with a small flickering flame, you would think that its light would not last, but then you look at the candle’s trunk, and you know it will outlive the dark.

A revenant is a visible ghost that was believed to return from the grave to show themselves to their relatives for a specific purpose. There is this movie “The Revenant” which featured this experienced frontiersman and fur trapper named Hugh Glass (Leonardo di Caprio). He was a whiteman who lived and settled among the Pawnee Indians.  There he married and had a child.  But then certain tragedies would make him outlive them.  In that film there were many times when Leonardo di Caprio was almost at the brink of death. He would be attacked by a bear, he would be buried alive, he would fall with his horse in a deep ravine.  In those times he would be lying on the ground about to die, he would meet the revenant or ghost of his wife, or his child and they would remind him of what he himself used to tell them when they were alive and themselves at the brink of death…. “As long as you are still breathe, you fight. Remember who you are. I’m right here. When there is a storm, and you are standing in front of a tree, if you look at its branches, you swear it will fall. But if you watch the trunk, you will see its stability.”

Dear friends, let us not forget who we are... We might seem frail or weak amidst the storms of life.  But as long as the Holy Spirit breathes in each of us we will fight. We are like that tree in front of a storm, our branches and leaves may fall, but we will not because our stability is now rooted in Jesus. Through our baptism God forever reminds us: “This is my beloved child whom I am well pleased.” And I will not let any harm come to this child. Even amidst the storm, I will not let this tree fall to the ground.