How to Inspire Confidence in Others? 如何讓人有信心?

Pentecost Sunday, Year B
Theme: How to Inspire Confidence in Others? 如何讓人有信心?

Perhaps I have spent too much time and energy working as a permanent deacon. My family members find that my performance in other areas are below their expectations and that I am not able to take care of myself properly like other adults are. In their eyes, I tend to finish leftovers on the dishes most of the time. I should not be doing this in view of my diabetic conditions. Probably, this was how I was raised up in my generation. We were taught to finish all the food, whether we liked it or not. Take into consideration that my parents were living during war times; they could not afford to waste a single crumb of it. Time has changed but old habits die-hard.

Recently, my health is going downwards more quickly. My doctor starts prescribing aspirin as a proactive measure because my heartbeats are becoming irregular. As a result, my wounds will take longer to heal! I don't know when or how I have sustained one such wound on my right foot and it does not heal for at least three months. Another incident happened on May 1, a public holiday. My younger brother and I enjoyed a drinking spree over global politics that evening. In the end, I took a cross-harbour tunnel bus as usual from Chai Wan where my younger brother lives and changed to another bus in Mongkok to come home. I was able to get off at the correct stop and managed to enter my flat. My wife found a lot of vomit stuff all over me. She managed to bathe and cleanse me but I kept vomiting so much so that my blood sugar level had crossed a critical threshold. She immediately dialled 999 and I was admitted to A&E, hospitalized for one-and-a-half day! This incident puts her in a confidence-crisis. The root of this crisis is the love of me instead of blaming me for not taking proper care of myself. When we got married, we vowed to love and take care of each other for the rest of our lives. We have entered a covenant in which even until death we don’t part! Nevertheless, that ageing has attenuated my health, physically as well as mentally, is a rock solid reality!

Take a look at another covenant, one between the risen Lord and His spouse, the Church. Jesus Christ had not chosen an immaculately perfect bride but one with spots and wrinkles. “Christ loved the Church and handed Himself over for her to sanctify her, cleans her by the bath of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the Church in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25b-27). The Church has been glorious, heroic and noble throughout the ages but not without corruptions or scandals. You will be able to find many videos on Youtube that showcase evil popes in the history of the Catholic Church. Moreover, the performance of individual clergy during the 2019 social unrests in Hong Kong made many parishioners disappointed and lose faith in the Church. They claim to love Christ but not the Church because she is only a social institution and her clergy are mere men! Yes, these parishioners are suffering from a confidence-crisis! Though in her glorious days during the Roman Empire and the Middle Ages she had been a Perfect Society, the Catholic Church has struggled hard to catch up with changes in the modern world. Not infrequently did she canonize saints to brush up her self-image and cheer up the morale of her faithful. Yet, her performance as a whole has been below expectations for many. Still, she manages to survive for more than two millennia. We need to see deeper into this so-called “social institution” to understand how she manages to do so. The answer lies in the workings of the Holy Spirit. Today, we celebrate His descent on the Church as narrated in the first reading. The significance of this text is a resolution of the divisions among humanity as recorded in the story the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. Plurality of cultures is not something to dread with but to celebrate. When the Holy Spirit descended, differences in language were no longer obstacles to human communications. Humanity do not need to speak the same language because love, especially divine love, is a universal language.

In the gospel reading today, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to the apostles to empower them on a reconciliation mission to the world. “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained’” (John 20:22-23). God is almighty not in His power to work earth-shaking miracles but in His mercy to forgive all sins past, present and future. Now, Jesus commissions the Church to forgive sins like what He did on the cross (Luke 23:34). St. Paul puts it in a similar manner, “God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20). The Church has been following Jesus’ teaching to love and care for the hungry, the homeless and the sick etc. To a certain extent, she has been rectifying the wrongs and cleaning up the mess the powerful and the wealthy have done against the underprivileged. Nowadays, in her social teachings and actions, the Church has been more vocal in advocating for the exploited and the poor. In suffering with the needy and awaking the powerful and the wealthy, the Church is trying to reconcile the world to God. The Holy Spirit is the driving force behind all her efforts.

In order to measure how successful the Church has been, we can look up the indicators enumerated in, again St. Paul’s teachings. He says in the second reading of today, “In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23a). Alas! We should bear in mind that the Church is made up of sinners who put their self-interests before others. They have not shown sufficient love towards the others. Many have been impatient to see “improvements” done according to their own standards. More are lenient to themselves but demanding towards others etc….

Beloved brethren! Before we lose confidence in the Church, let us go to the root: sinners make up the Church. Let us invoke the Holy Spirit to reinvigorate the seven gifts Church members received in the Sacrament of Confirmation. May wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and the fear of God (Isaiah 11:2-3) revitalize our spiritual life so that together we may be able to renew the face of the earth (Psalms 104:30). Amen.
God bless!

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Picture Credit: stcosman.com.au