1st Last Word of Jesus - Father forgive them...

"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing"
Lk 23:34

The first Last Word that Jesus spoke was to ask for forgiveness on our behalf. Not only was he asking for our forgiveness, but he was giving us the reason/excuse that we should be forgiven - because we do not know what we are doing. Jesus could say that about the soldiers nailing him to the cross, because they did not know him as the Son of God. But how does this apply to us. Don't we know him as the Son of God, as our Saviour, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Thus when we sin, can we say we do not know what we are doing?

Yesterday we had the penitential service at CTK, and I found myself wondering whether the priest were hearing new terms for the sins being confessed. Such as:

Being economical with the truth
Deliberately misleading
Withholding information

These were the words being used to describe the actions of Lewis Hamilton and the McLaren Team in the Formula One race in Melbourne last weekend. When asked if they instructed Hamilton to slow down for the Toyota car to pass him, they said that they did not, despite having done so.

The many fanciful terms being thrown around to describe an act which is basically lying is in fact one of the ways that we try to bluff ourselves that our actions were really not that bad. In the past few weeks, the topic of confessions and sin has occurred a few times at the retreats and conversations with various people. Some have mentioned that they have no sin, no big sin or always the same sins.

I've been there and done that, and thus I can't fault them. We like to forget the bad that we have done, or more likely, we are not even aware of the many sins that we have and are committing. Like I shared earlier on the parable of the wicked servant I don't really know what my full debt/sin is.

Fulton Sheen calls it the ignorance of evil, and it is because of this ignorance that Jesus is asking the Father for our forgiveness. Often we are not aware of our sin, or we are deceived into thinking that we have not sinned, or we water it down by making it sound not as serious. There are other times that I'm not aware of the consequences of my sin, thus if I don't see the consequences, how can it be wrong? Jesus always criticised the Pharisees for exploiting the loopholes in the Law, and we too do that, by using our intellect and reason to worm our way out of our dirty deeds.

Talking about dirt, yesterday a priest shared a story of a wedding he attended, where the bride was eating Kueh Ko Swee, and as she bit into it, the brown sugar burst out onto her white gown. What a shock that might have been. Imagine if that had happen when you were wearing an old t-shirt that you use for painting the house. It wouldn't be much of a bother since the t-shirt would probably be dirty already. Fulton Sheen says that people living in dirt don't realise how dirty dirt is, similarly people living in sin don't recognise sin for what it is. It is only when we try to become clean, then the sin becomes more apparant. Like if I'm wearing a white shirt and eating laksa, I will definitely be more careful about not getting laksa sauce on my shirt. Just like after going for confession, there is the grace that makes me not want to sin and dirty myself. Thats why regular confession not only makes us reflect and aware of our sins, but helps us not to sin.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. - 1 John 1:8-10

The 2nd Word for tomorrow's reflection is

"Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise."
Lk 23:43

Seven Last Words of Jesus

Dying Jesus, let us ponder
Your last seven words, and wonder
At the love of God made Man.

This is the verse that we always sing at the Twelfth Station - Jesus Dies on the Cross. As a young boy, as far as I can remember, I wondered what these Last Seven Words of Jesus were that we were supposed to ponder. One day when I saw in the reflection passage for the twelfth station the line that says.

Jesus cried out in a loud voice, saying,
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
Lk 23:46

So the Jesus' last seven words must have been "into your hands I commit my spirit" I was quite proud of myself for "figuring out" those last seven words. (of course that was in the days before the internet, and before I ever bothered to do any research on church stuff)

But I could never ponder and understand why those last seven words were so important. Until I saw the book "The Seven Last Words" by Fulton Sheen. Only then did I realise that the "Words" were actually "Sentences" said by Jesus. A person's lasts words are normally what he feels really important to tell others. Such as "I love you" or "please forgive me". You can imagine Jesus in his agony on the cross, must have really used up his strength to leave us with these seven "words" to ponder on. So my Lenten project starting from tomorrow, will be to reflect, ponder and hopefully blog on one "Word" per day up to Good Friday. I invite you to join me, and send me a link to your blog if you decide to blog about it too.

The 1st Word for tomorrow's reflection is

"Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing"
Lk 23:34

Florida Court Sets Atheist Holy Day

In Florida, an atheist created a case against the upcoming Easter and Passover holy days. He hired an attorney to bring a discrimination case against Christians, Jews and observances of their holy days. The argument was that it was unfair that atheists had no such recognized days.

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, "Case dismissed!"

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, "Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my Client and all other atheists have no such holidays."

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, "But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant."

The lawyer said, "Your Honor, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists."

The judge said, "The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned."

Happy April Fools!

True Story

One day, a man went to visit a church..

He got there early, parked his car, and got out.

Another car pulled up and the driver got out and said,

'I always park there! You took my place!'

The visitor went inside for Sunday School,

found an empty seat and sat down.

A young lady from the church

approached him and stated,

'That's my seat! You took my place!'

The visitor was somewhat distressed

by this rude welcome, but said nothing.

After Sunday School, the visitor went

into the sanctuary and sat down.

Another member walked up to him and said,

'That's where I always sit! You took my place!'

The visitor was even more troubled by this

treatment, but still He said nothing.

Later as the congregation was praying

for Christ to dwell among them,

the visitor stood up, and his appearance began to change.

Horrible scars became visible on

his hands and on his sandaled feet.

Someone from the congregation

noticed him and called out, 'What happened to you?'

The visitor replied, as his hat

became a crown of thorns, and a tear fell from his eye,

'I took your place.'

Solving one problem with another

Some of the news that I've read today brought about a small enlightenment and a wonderful analogy to explain the controversy over the use of condoms to prevent AIDS. Today's Today Newspaper had an article entitled "Texas considers allowing guns on campuses". Apparently some politicians are trying to pass a bill in Texas to allow students to carry concealed guns on campus, to prevent another Virgina Tech incident from happening. In the article, the VP of the campus puts it so gently that "permitting guns would introduce a new set of potential challenges to campus safety" at the Waco university, "and therefore we don’t believe guns on our campus are a good idea generally." In another article, faculty staff members were considering the situation of "passin out Fs and Ds with somebody in the classroom having a gun".

"It’s basically just allowing the people who have concealed weapons to protect themselves wherever they go" - Joe Driver who is championing the bill.

The logic here astounds me. He is recommending that because there is a danger of someone bringing a concealed weapon into the school, others should be allowed to bring concealed weapons to protect themselves. The logical solution would be to ban guns (which kill people) so that I do not need to be afraid of someone bringing a gun to school. My self-protection would be my fist, because all the other person has is his fist. But of course that is the thinking of someone who comes from a society that has not allowed private ownership of guns. But in the USA where owning a gun is a constitutional right, gun control has been a big controversial issue with parties lobbying on both sides. So the best solution they can offer, would to be create an environment of danger where anyone can carry a gun on campus. Luckily the smarter people are on faculty and not in politics and realise that this bill would allow teenagers who get drunk and rowdy, and not fully in control of their passions to carry arms, which may result in more harm than good.

To me, this proposal was similar to the approach towards trying to control the spread of AIDS through the use of condoms. Instead of Safe Sex, lets promote a Safe School where everyone has "protection", just that the protection here is a gun instead of a condom.

But one thing that I realise from the gun control issue is the US, applies to the condom/AIDS issue, is that both sides have different views of what is a Right. For some carrying a gun is a Right. For some to have sex with anyone they want is a Right. So if I think that having sex is a Right, I can't propose to another person that the best solution to preventing AIDS is not to have casual sex, because I will be denying that person his/her Right. All I can do is make it as safe as possible. A Harvard Researcher which agreed with the Pope used the term Risk Compensation, where if through the use of technology the risks can be lowered, people are willing to take a higher risk, which erases the benefits.

Problem is the solution is to promote a value - abstinence. In this day, values are the hardest thing to try to teach or to get people to live out. So the easy way out would be to allow sin to corrupt people and say that there is nothing we can do about, so lets make it as harmless as possible, thus promoting immorality. So instead of helping people be in control of their animal passions, we deem them as animals unable to control themselves and give them "protection".

I probably am naive about the situation in Africa, and all that the health workers are trying to do. But I am actually referring to the state of the "western/liberalised" society that has given up its values and embraced a hedonistic life. Something which the Harvard Researcher article mentioned about showed that maybe the western aid they are giving is doing more harm. By promoting condoms, they were promoting their liberalised mindset towards sex. As Nike's famous tagline - "Just do it".

Just like the gun issue, if everybody was carrying "protection", doesn't it increase the likelihood that the protection will be used. If they can see that allowing students to carry guns would result in more harm, why can't they see that promoting condoms is going to encourage casual sex, the very thing that is causing the spread of AIDS. But then again, not everyone sees casual sex as wrong.

Crying in the Chapel

I always amaze myself that I can listen to songs and not notice what the lyrics are. So even for songs that I like, I'm quite clueless of the lyrics and meaning of the song.

Today I saw the lyrics of an old Elvis song "Crying in the Chapel", and I finally realised what he was singing about. All this while I thought it was some love song or heartbreak song. Makes me wanna go to the chapel ;Þ



Crying In The Chapel

You saw me crying in the chapel
The tears I shed were tears of joy
I know the meaning of contentment
Now I'm happy with the Lord

Just a plain and simple chapel
Where humble people go to pray
I pray the Lord that I'll grow stronger
As I live from day to day

I searched and I searched
But I couldn't find
No way on earth to gain peace of mind

Now I'm happy in the chapel
Where people are of one accord
Yes we gather in the chapel
Just to sing and praise the Lord

You'll search and you'll search
But you'll never find
No way on earth to gain peace of mind

Take your troubles to the chapel
Get down on your knees and pray
Then your burdens will be lighter
And you'll surely find the way

How much do I owe?

As I was reflecting on tuesday's Gospel passage on the parable of the unforgiving servant (Mt 18:21-35), the words "ten thousand talents" struck me. Looking at the footnote in the NRSV bible, it said that 1 talent was worth more than 15 years of wages. This sparked off the mathematician in me, to compare the amount the wicked servant owed the master with the amount his fellow servant owed him.

Checking the Bible Dictionary, I found that 1 talent = 6000 denarii.
This meant that the wicked servant owed the master
6,000 x 10,000 = 60,000,000 or 60 Million Denarii,
meaning he owed 600,000 times what was owed to him.

Now that the difference has been put into perspective, it basically means that it was a huge debt. This idea of debt brought to mind the conversation we had at the breakfast table, when we saw the front page of the Life section - Travel Now Pay Later. My first reaction was this was how people accumulate debts. We live in a culture of credit spending.


I was quite surprised when I typed in "travel now" into google, the autocomplete immediately brought up "travel now pay later" with 7 million websites. No wonder we are the financial state that we are in. Companies encouraging us to spend first and pay later with their 0% interest monthly instalments. Credit card companies tempting us with their freebies. And the one that bugs me the most, telemarketers calling me up to offer me ready cash up to 4 times my monthly salary. Mr Brown recently posted a video on his blog explaining how credit and greed brought about this whole recession.

Back to my reflection on the passage. The credit spending lifestlye we have accumulates big financial debts before we realise it. Similarly in my life I have also a credit sinning lifestyle. Since there is always confessions, I can sin now and confess later. Thus not realising the enourmous debt that I have accumulated. The NAB version says that the servant owed a "huge amount". I know that I owe God a huge amount, but I don't really know how huge that huge amount is. If I did, I think I would be like that servant begging for God's mercy.

This probably the wonder of Lent, through the readings, fasting and prayer, we realise our nothingness, our sinfulness, our indebtedness to God and realise that in our lifetime we will never be able to "pay back" his love for us and forgiveness. We can only pray that we may have the grace to be mindful of what we owe when we consider what others owe/hurt us and forgive.