22 July 2023 – 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A) (Sunset Mass) | 3rd World Day for Grandparents & Elderly

by Fr Oliver Tham

If we do take time and think, good and bad, they go hand in hand.

Now all of us have always got good intentions because we were taught by our parents to do good. We were taught by our catechism teachers to do good. And we were taught by Jesus to do good as well.

But when something goes wrong during that course of time while we are doing good, then our bad intentions begin to sprout as well. Maybe I will give you an example. In your working place, you are giving so much good to your company. And suddenly one of the person got promoted. So you get very disheartened. So bad intention, bad thoughts come out. So that is very natural that we go through in life.

So we are here today in this church because we have all become members of the church. And many of us are involved in ministries that probably we love and we are attached to it for so long. But if you do realise in the ministries that we get involved in, there is always a negativity and positivity. There is always these two that comes in.

For example that people that you work with in the ministry, people have got their own opinions. They have their own way of making decisions. Each individual are different. So when decisions can’t be made, what do you do?

If you go back to the Second Reading, what Saint Paul tells us is the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness. When we can’t decide anything. So it is good to call on the Holy Spirit to help us to make proper decisions so that the ministry can go forward and the church can go forward and all of us can go forward.

Let put is this way that the church is never perfect. Yeah. Because we want it to be perfect but it is just not possible in many ways. But we always strive to go into the direction for the betterment of the church and for ourselves.

Now the church needs maintenance. Of course, I am not talking about the maintenance of the electricity or the building. We are talking about all of us. We are the church. We need maintenance. What do you mean by maintenance? Healing comes in. Renewal comes in for each one of us.

The church is like a hospital where the physician, which is God himself, is treating all of us in our good and bad intentions. Just as what in the First Reading it says, there is no God other than You who cares for everything.

So we lose nothing if we allow God to intervene in our lives. Because if we don’t allow God to intervene, things will not happen. The church will not move. So we are here today as one community to find ways on how best we can serve the church. Putting aside all negativity but making positivity as the best we can.

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