Day 3: Relativism vs True Happiness

Homily

Fr. Dom began his homily with the following illustration:

Mary, a good Catholic goes for mass without fail and serves as an altar server.  At the age of 18, she leaves to pursue her studies away from home. There she gradually slips away from her faith and is greatly influenced by her friends. Soon, she cohabits and gets pregnant. She aborts her baby and one day the boyfriend leaves her. She is all alone. She returns home to be with her mother.

What happened to Mary? A good Catholic but lost her faith along the way.

Fr. Dom explained that here we have the pressures of ‘peer-ism and conformism’ seen as true happiness by the world. Mary succumbed to the pressures of her peers and conformed to their way of life. He reiterated the words of Pope Francis that “ours are times of rampant relativism that undermines the edifice of faith and strips of meaning the very idea of Christian fidelity. The relativism we see here is the ‘peer-ism and conform-ism’ which is “ a superficial culture that exalts the possession of material goods, promising happiness through dangerous shortcuts, you do not fail to stimulate young people to temper the spirit and to form a mature personality, capable of strength but also of tenderness”(Pope Francis, 31 Aug 2018). The first reading today, Deuteronomy 4: 1-2, 6-8  “listen to the laws and customs which I am teaching you today”, “keep them and put them into practice” invites us to keep the law and walk in the way of the Lord.

He further explained that in relativism, there is no absolute truth. In the 2^nd reading, James 1: 17-18 , 21-22,27 we are urged to accept the word that been planted in us to save us from this threat.

The other threat is Pharisee-ism where the Pharisees were more occupied in keeping their tradition and not responding to the will of God (Gospel of Mark 7: 1-8, 14-15, 21-23).

He then presented on how to overcome these threats:

1. To realise that true happiness is in keeping God’s commandments
2. Submit to the cross – we can only be saved thru God’s love and mercy and thus look to Jesus because He is the way, the truth and the life
3. Stand firm in truth- be of pure heart with no external-ism

Religion or relationship, it has everything to do with the heart. In this novena journey, he urged all to look at our Lady- a woman of truth, influenced only by God as seen in Lk 2: 19, “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart“. In Jn 2:5, she tells the servants at the wedding in Cana, “do whatever he tells you”.

Fr. Dom reiterated that relativism is a real threat and is very much linked to our circle of friends and so we must always focus on Christ for the truth.

Blessing of the migrants

Fr. Dom prayed over the migrants and blessed them.