Third Ordinary Sunday, Year A
Theme: Be Patient To Be Light Of The World 成為世界的光要忍耐
I’m not a prophet in the sense of being capable of foretelling what would happen in the future. Instead, I posted this reflection after five weeks it’s supposed to have posted. I was frustrated because it seemed to me that God’s inspiration had tried up. My hands were full in those weeks trying to output articles whose deadlines were near. But frankly, I had not made good use of my time, tarrying here and there doing irrelevant things probably because my brain was badly in need of convalescence from COVID infection. “Enough is enough” does not describe my present mood because deep in my heart, I trust that God is teaching me a lesson. Yahweh be praised!
“The people who walked/sit in darkness have seen a great light” (Isaiah 9:1, Matthew 4:16) caught my attention the first time when I mediated on the weekly gospel. What does it feel to walk, sit or live in darkness? The first thing which comes to mind is fear. When I studied psychology in my college days, I learnt that in order to brush away fear, our ego develops a defence mechanism called “identification”. Sigmund Freud hypothesized an “Oedipus Complex” to explain “like father like son”. It works like this: when we walk in darkness, say walking home along a dark alley at night, uncontrollably we fantasize being stalked by ghosts. Walking in a fast pace is not sufficient to ward off the fear, but keep telling ourselves that we ARE ghosts is. What a relief when we first see; and finally reach brightness at the other end of the dark alley! Identification also explains well why some prison inmates or resistance fighters betray their comrades. Since not everyone has a will of steel to overcome fear, some would crack under pressure when they saw how brutally their comrades were tortured! To overcome this overwhelming fear, they identify themselves with the torturers and turn against their comrades, even torturing their own brothers with their own hands!
After all, fear is not a bad thing because it is an essential emotion for our survival. Confronted by overwhelming life-threatening situations, we either fight or flight. Evolution shows favour to fear because most fighters would hardly remain in the end. Heroically they sacrifice themselves to buy time so that the others might survive to pass on their genes. Yahweh be praised! After all, isn’t the “Fear of the Lord” one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:3)? Nowadays, with the advancement in physical sciences and the development of powerful technology, fear in our hearts is in short supply. Without fear in general, we might not survive the next disaster. Morally speaking, we despise people who do good out of a fear of God’s punishment. But without the fear of the Lord, we fail to genuinely identify with our Creator God!
Let’s mediate on another dimension of darkness. In darkness, our sight fails to function and we have to rely on our other senses. But when there’s no sound, warmth or any nearby objects, the enveloping dark space is homogeneous. This emptiness is a great void. Worst of all, this emptiness might be created by us. When a man turns his back to God, not only is a great emptiness left within him, but his world is also getting dimmer. So he works hard to find God-substitutions to fill up the void and to brighten up his life. For example, he starts creating idols and tells himself that they are his gods. The golden calf in Exodus when Moses left the Israelites for forty days on Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments immediately comes to mind. But idols exist in many different forms. For example, rational people will tease people who worship golden-calf as superstitious because it is unscientific whereas scientific researches are objective and real. Alas! Scientific researches cannot be objective because they are funded by lucrative industries and motivated by money-making! Once, a medical professor lamented that these days most medical students chose cosmetic surgery over geriatrics! There is yet another motive behind scientific researches which is embellished by a noble aphorism, “Knowledge is power”. With greater power, man is able to command more resources, thus becoming richer! When one becomes richer, one has more resources to unearth more knowledge and attain even greater power. So money-gods and warrior-gods are twin partners! But will those twin partners be able to satiate the insatiable void which only God can satisfy?
For the last five weeks, I wasn’t able to sit down and write properly about it until news about two elderly women being pulled out from Turkey earthquake rubbles more than two hundred hours after the quake came to my ears. Yes, this miraculous rescue defies scientific explanation but the merciful Lord Jesus Christ is truly the light of the world. He brought hope, light and salvation to the people. “He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness among the people” (Matthew 4:23). Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ!
Brethren! When we celebrated the Feast of Epiphany in which the Magi, led by the Bethlehem Star, found the Holy Infant, we pledge once more our commitment to evangelize. Like the Star of Bethlehem, let our flickering lights bring people to the Holy Infant. Today, when we meditate on how when Jesus started His public ministry, He chose the first apostles to build up the Church to continue His ministry (4:18-22). So, like Jesus Christ, let us bring hope, light and salvation to this world, reassuring people that the Father is merciful. Nothing will be impossible for Him (Luke 1:37). Amen.
2020 Reflection
Photo Credit:nypost.com
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