If you are the business-minded type and you’re thinking of setting up your own business, what business would you want to go into?
Maybe it will depend on what skills and talents you have.
So if you are a good cook, then you may want to set up a shop in the food court or hawker centre to start your food business.
If sewing and designing clothes are your kind of thing, then you might consider the tailoring line.
But if I were to go into business, can you guess what kind of business I will venture into?
Well to begin with, I don’t have any specialized skills to start a business enterprise.
And I can’t hire out my priestly services; it’s a free service.
But if I were to start a business, I think I will rent a small little shop in a big shopping centre like Plaza Sing, and I will sell DVDs. Yes, I think I will sell DVDs of movies.
Sell movie DVDs? Will that be a good business?
After all there is already the TV, cable TV, the cinemas and movies on the internet.
Why would people buy a copy of a movie when they could watch it on YouTube, or for that matter of fact, when they have already watched it in the cinema?
Other than watching the movie again at one’s convenience, is there any other reason for buying DVDs?
Well I have to admit that I too have a collection of movies on DVDs.
By and large, all these movies I have already watched before at the cinemas.
So why am I keeping a copy of a movie that I have already watched before?
Maybe just for memories, and for old times' sake.
But there is also another reason. Most of us want to see and hear a story in which we know how it is going to end.
Yes, we want to see a movie in which we already know how it is going to end.
And why is it so? Simply because our present reality is filled with unpredictability and uncertainty.
For eg. this year’s haze was bad. How would it be next year?
And we don’t like this unpredictability, this uncertainty; it’s a rather scary feeling.
So we console ourselves with something that we have control over; like watching the movies in which we know how the ending will be.
All this points to one of our strongest human urgings.
And that is, when we are going through an anxious, stressed-up and difficult time, we want to know when it will end, and how it will end.
For example, when students are having their examinations. Their anxieties won’t be over when their examinations are over.
It will be over when their results are out, and with that, the time of reckoning.
In today’s gospel, Jesus talked about a time of reckoning.
Preceding this time of reckoning is a time of distress when even the heavens will be shaken.
And then Jesus will come up with great power and glory to gather His chosen ones.
What Jesus said in today’s gospel, gives us a clarity in the direction of our lives.
Jesus was clear enough in telling us that there will be distress in our lives.
We can’t avoid it, and consulting horoscopes and palm-readers can’t prevent it; in fact doing this only adds to our anxiety.
But we would like to understand and comprehend the contradictions and tragedies of life. Because if everything happens for a reason, then we would like to know the reason.
There is this story about a monastery in the outskirts of a village.
News came that invading troops were plundering the other nearby villages.
The abbot and his monks urged the villagers to flee to the mountains to save their lives.
But the villagers wanted to stay and fight the enemy.
The abbot and the monks had no choice but to leave and take refuge in the safety of the nearby mountains.
From there, they watched the enemy troops coming and plundering the village.
As they watched the carnage that was happening, the abbot said: I wish I were God.
His monks asked: So that you can stop that tragedy?
The abbot replied: No, so that I know why that is happening. So that I can understand.
When we meet with unfaithfulness in marriage, grave illnesses, family problems, work difficulties and those things that we cannot understand or comprehend why it is happening, what will be our Christian response?
Do we still dare to walk on in faith and look forward in hope?
Faith in what? Hope in what? Let me share with you this poem about the “Folded Page”:
“Up in the attic of an old house,
as raindrops pattered down on the roof,
I sat paging through my old schoolbook.
“I came to a page that was folded down.
Across it was written in my own childish hand:
‘The teacher says we should leave this for now.
It’s too hard to understand.’
“I unfolded the page and read it.
Then I smiled and nodded my head and said,
‘The teacher was right; now I understand.’
“There are many pages in the book of life
that are hard to understand.
All we can do is fold them down and write:
‘The Master says to leave this for now.
It’s too hard to understand.’
“Then, someday in heaven,
we’ll unfold the pages, reread them, and say,
‘The Master was right; now I truly understand.’
Yes, one day we will understand why what is happening is happening.
Things happen not just for a reason; they happen because there is a meaning, just like all the scenes in a good movie have a connection and a meaning.
In a way we are like still watching the movie of our lives. But this is one movie that we are assured of a glorious ending.
Jesus promised us that it will be a glorious ending. We have His word for it. And His word will not pass away.