OXYGEN

01 Dec – Monday in the First Week of Advent

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Isaiah 2:1-5

The vision of Isaiah son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In the days to come
the mountain of the Temple of the Lord
shall tower above the mountains
and be lifted higher than the hills.
All the nations will stream to it,
peoples without number will come to it; and they will say:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the Temple of the God of Jacob
that he may teach us his ways
so that we may walk in his paths;
since the Law will go out from Zion,
and the oracle of the Lord from Jerusalem.’

He will wield authority over the nations
and adjudicate between many peoples;
these will hammer their swords into ploughshares,
their spears into sickles.
Nation will not lift sword against nation,
there will be no more training for war.

O House of Jacob, come,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.

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Matthew 8:5-11

When Jesus went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him. ‘Sir,’ he said ‘my servant is lying at home paralysed, and in great pain.’ ‘I will come myself and cure him’ said Jesus. The centurion replied, ‘Sir, I am not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself, and have soldiers under me; and I say to one man: Go, and he goes; to another: Come here, and he comes; to my servant: Do this, and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, ‘I tell you solemnly, nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this. And I tell you that many will come from east and west to take their places with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven.’

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He will wield authority over the nations

A good friend, who works as a teacher, was telling me about the time when he had to take over a class from a teacher who was absent. There was a row of boys in the back of the class who were making a lot of noise and distracting the other students who were trying to concentrate on the lesson. So my friend called up one of the boys to the board to solve a problem. “What is your name?” he asked the boy. The boy replied, “Good mood.” So my friend got ‘Good Mood’ to do the problem. The second boy that my friend called to the board was also asked for his name, and the boy told the teacher, “My name is ‘Bad Mood’.” My friend sighed as he related this story to me, recalling that when we were students, we were a lot more obedient to our teachers than this new generation of children. We recognized authority and we obeyed. I’m sure our parents thought (or think) the same way about us.

Obedience to authority is no longer a common thing found in our world today. Some time in the 1950s and 1960s, authority fell out of favour and people began to rebel against authoritative figures and institutions. This has caused problems all over the world as age-old institutions tried to cope with the changes. Some chose to retreat away from the world. Some, like the Catholic Church, opened its doors to the world. However, what is striking is that despite the Catholic Church having updated itself, it maintains that obedience to authority is of paramount importance. Indeed obedience to authority is central to our Christian faith, for it is because of Jesus’ obedience to His Father’s will that we are here today as Christians.

The centurion in the gospel reading knew all about obedience. He was a soldier, and an officer of the Roman army. Media representations have captured the essence of what a soldier is – one who follows orders of his superior… even if he doesn’t agree with them or understand why his superior orders it. Soldiers do it because they know that their officers can see a bigger perspective than them, and know how best to place each soldier to accomplish the objective needed. They also know that their officers care for their welfare.

If we love God and His Church, we would have no problem obeying their authority, because who better than God would have the biggest perspective of not only our lives, but of the whole cosmos? And who loves us and want what is best for us more than God? So, my brothers and sisters, we obey God and His Church because of love, not just that we love God and His Church, but more because God and His Church loves us.

(Today’s OXYGEN by Daniel Tay)
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Prayer: We pray for all Christians who are struggling to obey God and His Church, may they come to realize that God and His Church has the biggest perspective over all that matters in life, and that they want only what is best for us and the world. Amen.

Thanksgiving: We give thanks to the Lord for loving us and showing us that there is life beyond death through His obedience to the Father.

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Upcoming Readings:

Tue 02 Dec – Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72; Luke 10:21-24
Wed 03 Dec – 1 Cor 9:16-19; 22-23, Psalm 116, Mark 16:15-20; St Francis Xavier, priest, missionary OR Isaiah 25:6-10a; Psalm 23; Matthew 15:29-37
Thu 04 Dec – Isaiah 26:1-6; Psalm 118; Matthew 7:21. 24-27
Fri 05 Dec – Isaiah 29:17-24; Psalm 27; Matthew 9:27-31
Sat 06 Dec – Isaiah 30:19-21; Psalm 147; Matthew 9:35-10:1. 5a. 6-8, St Nicholas Bishop
Sun 07 Dec – Isaiah 40:1-5. 9-11; Psalm 85, 2 Peter 3:8-14, Mark 1:1-8; Second Sunday of Advent