Cantonese translation of homily

Homily translation by Mr. Louis Kong

Homily 6th SUNDAY (A) 2011-02-13



Homily 7th SUNDAY (A) 2011-02-20




Lent

Homily First Sunday of Lent (A) 2011-03-13



Homily Second Sunday of Lent (A) 2011-03-20

2nd SUNDAY OF LENT (A) 20 March 2011

Cantonese translation of the homily

Of all the seasons in the Church’s year Lent is probably the one that we engage in most energetically. Perhaps it is because there are often very concrete things to do in Lent. Most of us, I suppose, have already decided on what our Lenten penance will be this year. Traditionally, people gave up something that they enjoyed eating. During the week I met someone and offered him a cup of coffee, but he told me that he had given up coffee for Lent. The week before I was having a meal with a group of people and a couple of them didn’t drink any wine. They had obviously given it up for Lent. I know other people who decide that during Lent they will spend additional time in prayer. Maybe it might be going to the church for a devotion like the Stations of the Cross, maybe it is reading a passage from one of the gospels each day. There are also many people who use Project Compassion as the main way they undertake their Lenten penance. This can combine the three traditional forms of penance: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The money that they would have spent on themselves they put into Project Compassion, where it will be distributed to the poor and needy. They also remember these poor and needy people in their prayers during Lent.

Despite the fact that Lenten observance goes back to the earliest days of the church, it can be easy to forget why we practise some form of penance during Lent. In some way or other it has to connect us with the purpose of Lent. I think the best way to think of Lent is to see it as a journey that is leading us to the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus at Easter. So Lent is a time to keep our gaze fixed on Jesus and to learn what he is about. It is a time to deepen our commitment to being one of his disciples. This, of course, is the point of the other thing that happens for each of us at the end of Lent, namely that we renew our baptism – or some might be preparing for baptism.

In a very concrete and practical way Lent is about renewing our identity as followers of Jesus. There are so many ways we can express this, and each of them gives a certain perspective on Lent. We could say that Lent has to do with our identity as the children of God, or as people made in the image of God. We could say that it has to do with our lives as the inheritors of God’s promise or as the people of God. However we describe it, it takes us right back to the fact that each one of us has recognised a call from God and a gift from God. Lent is an opportunity to open out ears to hear that call in a new and fresh way, and to see that gift a something that is still offered to us.

The story of Abraham in the first reading is relevant here and has something to teach us. I imagine that his experience of God calling him was both dramatic and frightening. It would have seemed impossible that he could become the father of a great nation. During his life there were times when it did seem impossible, and other times when he was tested. But he and his descendants regularly remembered that original call and were able to focus their lives so that they allowed God’s promise to unfold among them.

In a not unrelated way the three disciples who saw Jesus transfigured saw something that must have looked totally unreal. They saw Jesus in a new light and this had an impact on the way they saw their own lives. What they were seeing was a glimpse of the future – not just Jesus’ future, but also their own. God was revealing something to them, namely that Jesus is God’s son and that he is doing the Father’s will. They didn’t understand Jesus’ teaching that he had to suffer and die, but their experience that day was a guarantee that God’s promise would be fulfilled. The voice from the cloud tells them to listen to Jesus: he is the way to God’s future.

I’m sure I would be right in saying that none of us has an experience of God as intense as that of Abraham or of the three disciples on the mountain with Jesus. However, all of us have very real experiences of God. The problem can be that we sometimes don’t recognise them – we don’t see and we don’t hear. I think the point of our Lenten penance is that we do something that will help us to see and hear the revelation of God. Another way of putting this is to say that our Lenten penance should make space in our lives for God. Sometimes it is not until we get well into Lent that we realise how crowded our lives can become and how unresponsive we have become to what is happening around us. Peter, James and John had to go to a high mountain away from the normal daily activities before they were ready to see Jesus as they had never seen him before.

I came across an article in the newspaper last week about a Year 12 girl in a Sydney school who had decided to give up Facebook for Lent. Already she was noticing that she had more space in her life for a different type of engagement with her friends. I think she might have worked out the meaning of Lent. This is the task for each of us: to let Lent lead us once more into the promise of God and thus help us receive his gracious gifts.

Fr. Gerard Kelly

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