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Celebrate Good Friday in song! The strongest will bow!

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May our hearts be like the manger in which the Lord Jesus will lay His head.
May our hearts tenderly carry the Lord Jesus,
just like the lowly manger carried the Saviour.

Wishing you a Merry and Blessed Christmas.
With God’s Blessings,
Rev Msgr Stephen Yim & Rev Fr Adrian Danker SJ

JESUS’ FAREWELL GIFT

6th Sunday of Easter Year A

Do you like giving gifts? I think it is especially hard to find a parting gift for a friend you truly value in your life. What could you possibly give that could represent all that the person means to you and all that you want and wish for the person’s future?

Before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave a farewell gift to his disciples and friends. Well, actually, it was his second gift. The first was his mother, at the foot of the cross.

“I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever,” Jesus says in today’s Gospel. He was talking about the Holy Spirit. This was his farewell gift to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

Who is the Holy Spirit? Why is He so important, that Jesus would make that the final parting gift to his disciples and to his church, to us?

There are various terms with which the church describes the Holy Spirit: permanent companion and intimate friend, the love of God in person, wisdom itself, teacher of life, reminder of Jesus love and presence, spirit of witness and truth, witness of right and wrong, of sin and judgement, formator of the Christ’s witnesses, leader, guide, revealer of future things, etc.

But apart from being able to define Him, the Church invites us to experience the Holy Spirit through the effects of the sacraments.

The readings today speak about 3 C’s that may help us to experience the gift of the Spirit: Confirmation, Commandments and Confession.

Confirmation is one of the most powerful sacraments in the Christian life. It happens once in a lifetime, often at the stage of adolescence, when the child becomes an individual who freely confirms the value of his or her faith in Christ in their lives and opens themselves up to the Gift and Person of the Spirit to be with them forever. It is not only a requirement for Catholic marriage! It is to open our lives and our future to God’s gift.

But, sadly or not, the effect of this power can only be felt when one tries to practice Christ’s commandments. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” and again “the one who keeps my commandments is the one who loves me.” Jesus repeats in today’s Gospel.

When we sincerely try to love Jesus by keeping God’s commandments and realize how important but challenging they are to live a blessed and fruitful life, we begin to realize the great help that the Spirit is for us!

There are times we might feel that these commandments are so hard to keep, and the Spirit tries to pick us up again to continue the struggle to live that quality-life in God. (Just think of all the commandments…how bad can their practice make the life of a person who takes them seriously!)

But here is where the sacrament of confession comes in. It is one of the most beautiful sacraments because it helps you to realize that God is truly a personal companion and friend on the journey of life.

There is a story (and probably so many others) of a man who went to Lourdes and made a confession to a priest there. A year later, he went back and did the same as a pilgrimage, and to his surprise, the priest said, “say, I think you were here before. How is your mom?” This gave the man an experience that God never forgets and remembers and accompanies what you are going through.

Another story: a young priest who was having some personal issues was approached by a man who said he felt called to come talk with him. It happened to be another priest who seemed to understand all that was happening in the life of the young priest, who could empathize and understand his own process of faith and the ministry. Through this sacrament, he felt that God personally cares, and we are all called to experience that as well.

There are so many other stories, perhaps our own. In the Holy Spirit, God is Person-Gift. He does is not only energy or power. He helps us experience God as Someone who walks closely with us. This is why the church advises us to regular confession too.

Confirmation – Commandments - Confession. Three C’s through which the Church reminds us today that these are ways in which we can come to know the Holy Spirit and experience God’s Gift through Him. He is the best gift that Jesus could give us and the greatest representation of His love today.

Fr. Michael Cheong - VerbumDei Missionaries

THE BLESSING OF LENT

(2nd Sunday of Lent Year A)

The Second Sunday of Lent is marked by God’s promise of blessing to Abraham:

"I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
and curse those who curse you.
All the communities of the earth
shall find blessing in you."

God did not only promise to bless Abraham for his obedience to His calling. He promised to make him a blessing for others.

Why does the Church choose this as the first reading for the second Sunday of Lent? Because Lent is about recalling God’s promise to bless those who are faithful to God’s covenant with them. It is not only about sin or penance. It is about recalling God’s desire to bless. Believe it or not, God still wants to bless this world! And He wants to bless it through faithful and believing Christians like you and me.

There are moments in life that it may be hard for us to recognize that God is actually blessing us. Certainly, being blessed is more than just being successful in the eyes of men and women. Being blessed is an experience. It is a kind of deep acceptance of the beauty and goodness of life in the midst of apparent imperfection or even unnecessary suffering.

The Gospel today presents Jesus bringing Peter, James and John up the mountain to pray after announcing the prophecy of his own passion, death and resurrection. The disciples were scandalized by the impending suffering of their Messiah, and more so, because it was a destiny that came from God. They could not understand the need for suffering and the shame.

And before them, He was transfigured. They saw His divine glory with Moses and Elijah, conversing precisely about the passion He would have to go through. The Transfiguration is a biblical sign of the encouragement the disciples needed to understand the purpose of the cross.

God wants to bless you and to make you a blessing for others. He wants others to bless themselves by you. In simple terms, He wants you to follow Him in the power and wisdom of the cross like the Saints, who blessed the world by the Gospel-lives they led, becoming salt and giving light with their ordinary lives but with the extraordinary love of Jesus.

The world often cannot understand the love of Christians. Think about the love of enemies, constant forgiveness, unconditional charity, patience in suffering, compassion for sinners, kindness towards strangers, the nourishment of prayer, spiritual joys, blessing of persecutors, seeking God’s justice, protecting the weak, etc. Yet, these are things that silently preserve the life of the world and give it taste and light.

Have you recently experienced the ‘transfiguring power’ of such ways of Christ in the midst of the crosses you may carry?

If the First Sunday of Lent focused on the trials and temptations of Jesus and those who choose to follow Him, the Second Sunday shows us that we need the power of the Transfiguration through prayer to emerge from them with God’s blessing.

The Transfiguration reminds us of our heavenly calling in Jesus as Christians, and not to remain myopic or to remain focused only on this earth in our vision of life. Peter, James and John represent the Church that continues to witness to that eternal and heavenly perspective amidst the realities of life.

We need the Church in order not to lose focus on God and heaven. It is our compass through life’s journey. It may be imperfect, like the first disciples of Jesus, but it is still Christ’s chosen witness.

In a certain way, the Transfiguration represents the sacraments of the Church. When we participate in them, we have a foretaste of heaven here on earth, and step into a ‘window’ of God’s glory in the midst of our ‘daily grind’.

For example, going to mass every Sunday or even daily nourishes something so deep in us that the benefits difficult to summarize with words. It gives us joy, it gives us peace, it gives us security and companionship for life. It gives us meaning and purpose in love. It gives us God.

The sacraments work beyond the worthiness of the one who administers it. As priests, for example, we are all sinners and are never worthy of celebrating the sacraments in ourselves. But it is not us who makes the sacrament God’s continual action in the world. It is Christ Himself who is present and who acts, who loves, educates, nourishes, heals and forgives.

“This is my own son, the beloved, listen to him.”

The Gospel reminds us that we need to continue listening to God’s Word, even daily, as a way to develop the blessing of God in our lives and the blessing that we are through our Christian living. It is a continual adventure that is excitingly, always new!

The mass or the Eucharist is a great place to listen to God’s Word. While rediscovering the place of the bible in our Christian lives, we should not forget the great treasure and sense of the sacraments that Christ has left to his Church till today.

For Jesus did not only leave us some books regarding his own life here on earth. What the Catholic Church believes is that Christ is not only a historical figure of the past but continues to be truly present and to act in the world today and to bless it, and the sacraments witness to that.

This Second week of Lent, let us ask these questions:

Today, did you wake up feeling blessed? At this point in your life, how is God preparing you to be a blessing for others? Like Abraham, can you imagine how others could be blessing themselves by who you are for them?

Fr. Michael Cheong - Verbum Dei Missionaries

THE CROSS: HUMBLE POWER OF GOD IN TEMPTATION
1st Sunday of Lent Year A
Lent is a time to turn and to look at the cross.
The cross means so much for us as Christians. It is the key to our salvation, the doorway to heaven, the hidden fountain of life’s source, the most eloquent expression of the mystery of God’s love.
The cross is about life, not death. It is an invitation to go beyond what meets the eye, to see what lies behind, what goes beyond. Known at its time as an instrument of punishment, it has become for us a path, a model, a way of life.
“If anyone wishes to be a follower of mine, let him deny himself, pick up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9: 23) Jesus calls each person who believes in Him to make the cross a daily practice.
But what is the cross? What is the cross that you are carrying? Why?
Lent is a season where we are invited as believers to take time to ponder these questions. To contemplate the cross and to renew its meaning in our lives.
But first of all, we need to know that everyone has crosses, not only Christians. The only difference here is that Christians are asked to be aware of them, to learn to find meaning in them and to carry them with love.
Have you watched Mel Gibson’s movie, the Passion of the Christ? In the scene where Jesus began to carry his cross, did you notice how it was depicted that, at one point, Jesus began to embrace it?
Strange spirituality, yeah! “Strange person”, they must have thought! This man, Jesus, saw something beyond that cross, though they couldn’t.
So why are we talking about the cross on this first Sunday of Lent, where we are brought by the Church to review the temptations of Jesus?
Because overcoming our trials and temptations with humility is the first practice of our daily cross. Everyone has to bear their own cross. We cannot run from them! But it makes a lot of difference to carry them humbly, like Jesus and with Jesus.
Jesus was tempted by the Devil with three things: First, to satisfy his desire for pleasure in an exclusively material way – to turn stones into bread.
It is human to desire pleasure. There is nothing wrong with it because that is how God made us! If we did not desire pleasure in food, for example, we wouldn’t eat! But the temptation there is to eat the wrong things, in unhealthy proportions, or to make physical pleasure our only source of satisfaction!
Jesus reminds us by rebuking the Devil that we are not only material beings, but spiritual as well! We need a pleasure that comes from another kind of bread, like the “manna” that feel from heaven in the desert for God’s people. There is a satisfaction that comes from prayer and listening to “every word that comes from the mouth of God”, taking up the bible to read it, understand it, and let it be what gives deeper meaning in life.
After all, pleasure is not only felt on the body, but more so in the mind. Pleasure is also found in having a purpose, of meaning in what we do, in what we live; and to go on with life without spending time to pray and ponder over the place of God in all of this is a temptation that we easily fall into.
There are days that we are so overworked that we have no time to pray. And when we have a moment to rest, we’d rather relax in an ‘easier’ way like watch Netflix or YouTube videos that somehow tease our senses a bit more to draw out minds away from our daily grind.
Again, they do help to destress is a little! There is nothing wrong there! But they do not give more meaning and satisfaction to what we are living, especially when we have to wake up in the morning again to face the day, the real cross of life itself that await us.
Prayer is simple. It is to talk to God about life: to live profoundly with Someone, not alone. It is so simple that it is often a way of satisfaction that is overlooked! To talk to God about life, it’s enjoyment and to live each present moment we have as fully and as satisfactorily as possible. And to accept that there are things that have to be left for tomorrow, and to be aware of living today. That is a way to carry the cross too!
If I would skip to the last temptation today, we can see that it relates directly to the first of the Ten commandments. Satan asks Jesus to worship him, falsely promising that he could give Jesus all the possessions and riches of the earth to satisfy his heart. That is why we call him the Father of Lies! They are not his to give, first of all! And secondly, only God can deeply satisfy!
There are many false promises of happiness in our world today. For example, we often feel happy when we buy something, or go somewhere, or do something special. Again, there is nothing wrong in all these things. Sometimes, it is even healthy to do so! Probably, there is a sense of satisfaction for fulfilling a purpose in getting or doing those things.
But the Devil is subtle. Like the joke where a woman goes home and tells her husband: “Honey! I did not want to buy this dress, but the temptation was too strong!” And the husband said religiously, “you should have said, ‘Get behind me Satan!’” Replying, she said, “I did! But he said, ‘it looks great from the back too!’”
The only way we can discern the deceptions of false promises of happiness are through the practice of God’s commandments. Worshiping God, being respectful regarding God and holy things, keeping the Sabbath holy through prayer, honoring parents and legitimate authorities, not killing or bearing rage, not committing adultery even in our minds or hearts, not being dishonest or lazy, gossiping or maligning, desiring the things or persons that belong to others.
The problem with Eve in the first reading today was that she entertained the serpent in conversation. Jesus in the Gospel today did not. There are better persons to entertain and talk to, real persons: God and your significant others.
Perhaps, Matthew wanted to emphasize that in his version of the temptations, to place the setting of the Ten Commandments at the end. But the second is equally important.
Simply put, the second temptation is this: to ignore the reality of sin and temptation. Because if we do, we will simply fall into them, and that happens in a world that does not stop to think about what they are doing. It is a temptation towards complacency with the human reality of life.
“Throw yourself down from the parapet…you will be okay because God loves you and will protect you.” And Jesus says, “Hey! God helps those who help themselves. You place yourself in that spot? You will fall down badly.”
We need to do our part, to take up our cross in overcoming temptation. Yet we do not struggle alone. The Church helps us through community and the sacraments of the Eucharist and confession. The more we grow in prayer with the Word, the stronger we become. The more we practice the Ten Commandments, the wiser we will be to discern what is real satisfaction and what is not.
Jesus went into the desert to affirm that the Devil is real, sin and temptation are real, and we see how they can destroy all that is precious to us. But His main purpose in the desert is to show us that we can overcome them, with confidence, together with Him and with the help of the Church – one that is not perfect, but with all the graces that embrace the human struggles of the cross.

Fr. Michael Cheong Verbum Dei Missionaries

LENT 2023: Ash Wednesday.

CHRISTIAN DISCIPLESHIP: THE ENLIGHTENED AND OPEN MIND

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A

The common theme of this week’s readings is that of light and liberation, but the newness that Jesus brings to the meaning of liberation is that he focuses on the liberation of the mind, i.e., from the interior, and not exterior, oppression.

The Gospel this 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time presents Jesus calling his first followers. But the overall context was that of the fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah regarding the coming of God’s salvation to save the humiliated people of God, as represented by the regions of Naphtali and Zebulun.

“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light; on those who dwelt in a land of gloom, a light has shone.”

Jesus’ message was quite a contrast to this concept of liberating Israel from their humiliating oppression by others: “Repent.” In fact, that was his message, “for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Shouldn’t the message be: “Take courage! Your messiah is coming to save you!” Or “look up with confidence at your enemies and take back what is yours!”

Instead of focusing on the enemies outside, Jesus invited the people of God to look inside their own hearts – at the condition of their own souls. Oftentimes, the ones sitting in darkness are our own minds.

Repent, or ‘metanoia’ in Greek, means to change the way of thinking. Jesus comes as light to enlighten our minds, to free it, not to restrict it. In fact, the enemy of Christian thinking is not knowing too much but knowing too little – to hold onto our own limited ideas and remain closed or ignorant to what Christ truly comes to offer.

For example: “Life is hard”, “the world is dying”, “the future is bleak”, “let’s just survive”… These are some ways of thinking that may condition and limit the way we look at life this year!

Perhaps, a more open outlook, a new mindset, a new worldview is what we need in a time of uncertainty: “How has life been recently? What is life for you going to be like this year? What are you looking forward to?”

Christian thinking is realistic, but open: Faithful to the things that matter, and ready to let go of attitudes and behaviors that don’t.

For me, the great value of Christ is that he teaches us to distinguish the things that will not and cannot change from the other things that can and should change. That is what light is about! It shines in a room so that we can see what is valuable and meant to be kept and what needs to be thrown out. Praying with God’s Word sheds light in our hearts to see what we would want to keep this year and what we prefer to throw out of them!

In a way, repentance is about being open to change. Change is not a bad thing. In fact, it may usher in the newness that we naturally look for in our daily lives! It may not only be getting a new hair-cut or a new computer. It does not necessarily imply a new job or investing in new relationships, though these are not necessarily wrong.

But change begins with mindset. Christianity is about possibility and newness because we believe we can change, that things can change, even to turn threats into opportunities, seemingly bad events to reconciling paths to move forward.

“What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind of man has ever imagined, all that God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Corinthians 2:9) “We are well aware that God works with those who love him, those who have been called according to his purpose, and turns everything to their good.” (Romans 8: 28)

How does Christ free us to think?

He expands our capacity to take risks and to trust by believing in a God who loves us and who holds the world in his hands. He encourages us to be curious about life and its possibilities because of faith in a Son who has redeemed the world and offers a new life and hope to every person. Jesus teaches us to be open to circumstances and seek new opportunities because of faith in the Holy Spirit who dwells in each human heart and continues inspiring initiatives of love in the world. He shows us that God has a will and purpose with which we can seek and to unite our efforts with to guarantee the future fruit of our lives. Most of all, he presents himself as a master and teacher of life who we can constantly learn and grow from in every situation or place we find ourselves in.

Christ comes as light precisely to enlighten our minds and liberate them from ignorance and darkness so that our imagination and creativity could be set free for the limitless possibilities of love.

Jesus calls us to be his disciples in freedom, to think our faith and to free the world from limited and false ideas about life and human existence. It is from this context of interior and personal repentance that Jesus called his first disciples to follow him.

What do we need to ‘repent’ from this year? What needs to change in your way of thinking? In other words, what could be some attitudes that Jesus is trying to free us from so that we may regain that fervor and creativity of love and Christian living this 2023?

Fr. Michael Cheong, Verbum Dei Missionaries

GongXiFaCai from CatholicsSG

https://youtu.be/650W3dptkwU

"Say to those whose hearts are frightened: Be strong" ZOW / December 7, 2022 (Wednesday) Guidelines given by Fr Michael Cheong, FMVD, for Zoom of the Word (ZOW) on December 7, 2022 (Wednesday) for the Third Sunday of Advent. Third Sunday of Adven...

VISIONARIES OF GOD WHO LISTEN AND NOT ONLY SEE

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

Today’s readings call us to be visionaries of God in our ordinary Christian lives, through our prayer.

“Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets,
so that one can read it readily.
For the vision still has its time,
presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint;
if it delays, wait for it,
it will surely come, it will not be late.”

This reading begins with the prophet complaining to God that all he saw was destruction, suffering and violence. He could not see God being close or acting in the world!

But he heard God’s voice telling him to believe in the vision that could not yet be seen, to believe in it, even if he could not see. Some say that ‘seeing is believing’, but Jesus told Thomas in the Gospel,
: “blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe.” (John 20: 29)

As Christians, is it more important to see God or to listen to him?

Both! You might say. But in the bible, the sequence seems quite clear. It begins with listening in the Old Testament; and with the coming of Jesus, the world began to see God.

This is somehow a reflection of how our process of faith is, and it is what the church proposes as our process of daily prayer: listen to him first each day, and then you will see him.

This means that we only begin to truly know God when we start to listen to Him. When we have a God whom we only ‘look at’, God is there and we are there, but there seems to be no connection or growth in relationship.

It is like a relationship between two people. I can look at you and you can look at me, but until we begin to talk to each other and listen to one another, the relationship does not grow. It just stays as it is.

Listening to God brings us to a closer or more intimate relationship with God. Sometimes, we are amazed at the experience of the Saints. How did they get to feel God so close in their lives?

Think of another analogy. Let us compare the senses of hearing and of seeing again. What would the difference be in terms of interpersonal relationships?

In order to see someone, for example, that person does not have to be nearby. Near enough for our eyesight, of course! But compare it to listening to someone. To do that, the person has to be close enough.

Listening to God requires closeness to Him. We cannot keep our distance, but we’d have to draw close. In fact, it is God who has been the first to draw close to us so that we could hear Him.

As the experience of the people of God reminds us: “And indeed, what great nation has its gods as near as Yahweh our God is to us whenever we call to him?” (Deuteronomy 4: 7) And as Christians, we take this up in our faith too: “He is very near to you; in your mouth and in your heart, that is, the word of faith, the faith which we preach.” (Deuteronomy 30: 14; Romans 10: 😎

I believe that this is the difference that the Saints teach us. In order to experience the closeness of God, we need to listen first, to listen to His Word. God always listens to us, but we need to learn to listen to Him too.

“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

That is the response in our psalm today. It seems to say, if you hear God’s voice in your heart, listen further to what it means.

There was a story of a man who had gone entirely bankrupt. He was understandably depressed by what he ‘saw’ coming: poverty, shame, abandonment by others, by partners and friends. He could not see how he could have a good end to his life.

Then by some miracle, he began to listen, to listen to God, to listen to God’s Word through the bible. Somehow that listening gave him a different vision. Listening to God began to give him hope. It helped him to understand his situation better, that it was not the end, and that he could work things out again. He basically heard the voice saying, “don’t be afraid, let’s work it out again.”

God gives us an ‘inner vision’ when we pray to Him, an ‘inner voice’ that keeps us going in faith, in hope and in love. It is a kind of vision that is not yet fulfilled, and is sometimes delayed, but somehow making us believe in goodness, in kindness, in the love that he wants to build up in the world around us. It is a vision of His Kingdom in our lives.

This is somehow a challenge to our prophetic mission as Christians. If you look around you and sometimes do not see good things, stop for awhile, and start to listen instead. In a fast-paced life, it is easy to remain in what we see, without a deeper listening to what it means for us and for God.

In a world that is somehow tired of listening and perhaps tired of calling out to God because they see neither God’s presence nor action, how can we be signs that God is still working out his vision and bringing it to fulfilment for their lives? Learning to listen.

The disciples asked Jesus in the Gospel today, “Increase our faith.” Increase our faith so that we may still believe in the vision of the Kingdom of God. We may not see it, but we can still believe it when we learn to listen. The readings today show us: to increase our faith, spend time to listen, especially listening to God’s Word.

Fr. Michael Cheong- Verbum Dei Missionaries.

COMPLACENT IN CHARITY

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C

The Gospel of Luke is rather sensitive to the Christian obligation to charity for the poor. If you remember Matthew’s version of the Beatitudes, he speaks about the ‘poor in spirit’; but it is clear in Luke’s version that he refers to the blessed as those who are poor in fact.

The first reading today speaks of those who have become complacent in their being wealthy. It is easy to forget the plight of the poor when we are comfortable, and that goes for all of us, unless we have ways to remind ourselves.

Direct contact with the poor is the best reminder. The contact with the poor and those who are less fortunate than us help us physically realize that there are people who truly suffer more than us. On the one hand, it rescues us from our self-centeredness and potential depression because of isolation from others; on the other, it reminds us that charity to others is a constant Christian effort.

Let me explain.

Depression often happens to the rich. Certainly, it happens to the poor as well; but more often than not, they have no time to get there. Suffering helps us to remember that pleasure and achievement have limits. The ‘good life’ is not infinite, and we can rest sometimes in our feeling limited, knowing that we don’t need to ‘get there’! Isn’t that the deep meaning of the Sabbath?

It is as if God was reminding us: “take a break from your expectations! You don’t need to achieve everything, have everything, please everyone and make everything perfect for you and others. Poverty exists. Poverty is human reality. Sometimes, we just need to get in touch with it and accept it.”

At the same time, Christian life reminds us to make life a bit better for others too. Sometimes, the best Sabbath rest is not to take ‘me time’, but to be with others, to rest ‘with others’ and not alone.

This is the magic of reaching out to the poor and getting involved in their lives. It gives us perspective. It makes us realize that there is more to life, and that human connection amidst imperfection can be true riches. It makes us realize that our imperfect lives is not that bad after all.

No one gets ‘used to’ charity. Charity always has a cost, and it disturbs us and interferes with our plans and lives. Yet, when things become so smooth and there seem to be no more disturbances in life, the Gospel today tells us that we may have forgotten that there are others who need us, and that we need to reach out to them.

The rich man in today’s parable may have heard about Lazarus and may even have been aware of his plight, but he did not make the effort to have any contact with him. The unfortunate result of that is not to receive that needed connection from the very one who needed him.

“Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established
to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go
from our side to yours or from your side to ours.”

Abraham’s words may sound harsh, but it helps to read it in the spirit of the readings, and to understand how seriously we should take this matter, gradually, but surely in our Christian lives.

Truly, growth in charity is gradual and constant. It entails realizing one day that real human connection is more important that having a perfect life. It entails trying it out and testing it. It entails finding pleasure in it and embracing it gradually as a way of life.

Let us not take charity as a religious obligation or a thoughtless gesture. Let us not be complacent about our own charity to others, and spend some time today to truly consider how we can help ourselves and our families to grow in charity.

Think about it: making that special effort has always done something for you and others. Why stop it and let that something good slip away?

FR. Michael Cheong Verbum Dei Missionaries