What Are You Worth?

 

August 31, 2026

I did not know my worth. But I was blessed with good bosses (small mercies) who knew my worth. I was a fledgling Client Service Executive at a leading advertising agency in the early 80s (I betray my age). We had a presentation to the Mahindra & Mahindra Group, which consisted of three businesses - trucks, tractors, and the famous Willy’s Jeep.

Only in my mid-twenties, with just one year of advertising experience, I was asked (was it instructed?) by my boss, Farhad Gimi, to make the Annual Strategy Plans presentation to the management of the group – including the Chairman of the Group, Keshab Mahindra. I froze at the thought. My boss looked at me and asked, “Is there a problem?”

As at different times in my life, I said, “Problem? No problem,” like the Japanese. In their culture, they are known to say “Yes” to their bosses because of the culture they work and live within. At that moment, they may not have a clue how to solve the problem, but they put their shoulder to the grind or their mind to the task and get started.

What my boss Farhad Gimi did for me when I was in my mid-twenties shaped me forever. Since then, I have never said no to anything my bosses asked me. I also said (or left it unsaid) that if it is to be done by me, then I am in charge. I will do it my way, keeping the boss in confidence. Neither of us wanted to fail, so cooperation and coordination were key. If I still failed, my boss would take the fall with his boss.

Jesus took the fall for us. His Father wished it so. ‘And He went a little farther, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.” (Mt 26:39).

He knew our worth. We were worth his life – and not just that, but also the suffering that preceded it. His resurrection redeems us.

Peter's worth went up when he proclaimed Jesus as Messiah. (Mt 16:16) Then it went up a notch further when Jesus proclaimed Peter as the rock on which the Church will be built. (Mt 16:18) Then Peter's worth came crashing down when Jesus called him a 'stumbling block' and rebuked Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan'. (Mt 16:23) Then it went up incalculably when Jesus forced an apology from Peter by asking Peter three times whether Peter loved him. (John 21:15-17) Peter, now humbled, took on the task, with fire in his belly, anointing in his hands, and spouting wisdom from his mouth, knowing and accepting the prophecy of his death akin to Jesus – only worse – upside down.

“Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!” (John 21: 18-19).

Peter was a stumbling block that became the rock on which the Church was built. In our day-to-day engagement, we perceive some people as stumbling blocks. Largely misconstrued because we have ‘legendary’ expectations from them. The same stumbling blocks become a source of blessing to us by their patience and humility – not competing to score on a scale of rudeness, but winning over with grace.

Fr Mike Schmitz, host of Ascension Presents, in one of his Sunday Homilies (22^nd Sunday in Ordinary Times), shares a folk parable:

A son wanted to know what he is worth. He went and asked his father. The father pulled out a gem from his pocket and told his son to take it to a shopkeeper and ask how much he would pay for it. But not to hand over the gem to the shopkeeper. When the shopkeeper asks how much is expected, the father instructs his son to show two fingers (like the peace sign). The son returns home with the gem and tells his father that the shopkeeper said $2.  The father then sends his son to an antique dealer with the same modus operandi. The antique dealer says $200.  The father then asks his son to do the routine with a jeweller. The jeweller says $200,000.

The moral of the parable – the father tells the son – don’t let others tell you your worth.

Jesus had gone to Nazareth – his home town. He visited the synagogue on the Sabbath day. Jesus stood up to read the scroll of the prophet Isaiah handed to him. (Lk 4:16-17) Jesus read the scroll, sat down and declared, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Lk 4:21). “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked. (Lk 4:22) With a note of derision and disbelief. They signalled to Jesus his worth to them.

They could not reconcile the quiet and possibly introverted Joseph who chiselled wood into furniture with an eloquent Jesus who produced miracles that all the prophets of the Old Testament put together would have testified that Jesus was the Messiah, as Zachariah and Isaiah clearly indicated with their prophecies.  

How often we too judged prematurely and resisted engaging with some people. Then one day we discover the person’s true worth when he turns up as a chief guest at a function and is lauded for his meritorious service to the nation and the success that followed him. We had written off the person. Now we want to rub shoulders with him.

To Jesus, his fellow men did worse.

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way. (Lk 4:28-30)

What got them so furious? Jesus was showing a mirror to their cussedness. Even Elijah and Elisha had to find prospects outside Judah to work their amazing miracles. “Truly I tell you,” He continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years, and there was a severe famine throughout the land. ²⁶ Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.” (Lk 4:24-27)

There are times we engage with people and frown that they are distracted and scatter-brained. I formed such an opinion of a person who was trying to be helpful – but little short of my expectations. I learnt later that her 21-year-old son had died just a few days after my interaction with her. In hindsight, I hope I hid my irritation well. I am devastated by the news. I am a work in progress. I pray Jesus melt me, mould me, and make me what you want me to be.

-        Mathew Anthony

On What Do We Stake Our Happiness?

 

When we can differentiate between happiness and joy, we gain wisdom

August 30, 2026

George Herbert Leigh-Mallory (18 June 1886 – 9 June 1924) was an English mountaineer who participated in the first three British Mount Everest expeditions from the early to mid-1920s. He and his climbing partner Andrew “Sandy” Irvine were last seen ascending near Everest’s summit during the 1924 expedition, prompting speculation as to whether they reached it before they died.

Famously, when asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, Mallory purportedly replied, “Because it’s there.”

Claire is there, for a bit. Claire, a newborn, is a source of great joy to every member of the family. Claire unifies the family of very diverse adults, who have varied interests and some commonalities – football & gym for the boys and spirituality & fashion for the girls – and food is perhaps the other unifying factor, with each missing out on their real calling to be a food critic.

However, when Claire is around, all else becomes mundane. She is the centre of all attention and the world to them.

Like all sources of happiness, one day Claire will move to her own home, after the traditional 90 days at the grandparents’ home for rest, recuperation, and care a child needs (in fact, a village is needed to raise a child, as is said). And the same happens to parents when their children have to bid goodbye to form their own nuclear family units. It is Biblical: The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” (Gen 12:1)

Happiness is transient when the source is another person. Joy is different from happiness. It is purposeful with no dependencies.

God’s prophets and saints symbolise this pain-filled joy that is not to be partaken here and now. The prophets in the Old Testament had to call people to repentance before God’s wrath is unleashed on them. A thankless, joyless task. I don’t say it. Prophet Jeremiah did, complaining:

“⁷ You deceived me, Lord, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. ⁸ Whenever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So, the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long.” (Jer 20:7-8)

On the other hand, Peter did not think he was called to a “thankless, joyless” life. But a life where he would reign beside Jesus.

¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Mt 16:18-19)

Just imagine that “keys of the kingdom of heaven” – all for proclaiming “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Mt 16:16). Was Peter even listening when Jesus said, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.” Or did Peter interpret what Jesus was saying to mean that God was now speaking to Peter directly?

It would stand to reason that Peter thought exactly that. When Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. What did Peter do? Was God speaking to him directly again? ²² Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Jesus lost it (in a loving sense) and singed Peter. ²³ Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” ²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Jeremiah, while ruing it, was carrying the cross. Peter, in his charged hubris of self-importance, was carrying images of being the Supreme Leader. If he says come, they will come. If he says go, they will go. Said with pride and not with the humility of the centurion.

⁸ But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (Mt 8:8-9)

From an imagined princely status, momentarily, Peter became a stumbling block. Driven by unhindered motivations.

Jeremiah’s motivation was only one – doing the will of God – whatever the price to be paid. In fact, Jeremiah was not even in control of his motivations. ⁹ But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.” (Jer 20:7)

In the Book of Acts, Peter too becomes a Jeremiah. He became a rock. He built the Catholic Church. The gates of Hades have shaken it often but could not overcome it. Why? Because Jesus said so. The power of the Word of God. What the Word can do for us if we truly and unflinchingly embrace it. “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous. (Joshua 1:8)

Edmund Hillary and fellow mountaineer Tenzing Norgay were the first two people to reach the summit of the tallest peak on Earth, Mount Everest, in 1953. The gruelling expedition required extensive planning, and the climbers displayed remarkable self-control during the ascent. Hillary reportedly summarised the lesson of the adventure with this eloquent quotation: It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Jeremiah had a mountain of rebuke and physical harm he had to bear. Peter, after his transformation, likewise. They became a living sacrifice as Paul did – living his words for Christ. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Rom 12:1-2)

On what do we stake our happiness? What is transient? Or what is eternal?

- Mathew Anthony

Where is Claire?

A clatter of feet on the steps, hands open, darting eyes scanning the room – and then the question repeated several times a day in a family of seven living under one roof in a duplex villa. Where is Claire? Baby Claire is the latest addition to our family, born to our daughter. Nothing unifies a family like a newborn in the home. The same is repeated over meals when the family is chattering away, and then the quiet sound of a baby stirring from her sleep – and then – when unheeded, it could be a wartime siren emanating – all from a pair of tiny lungs.

The chatter comes to an abrupt halt; there is complete silence. The fittest and the fastest around the table are off the block to get to the baby first, to hold her for just a bit, before handing over the baton – literally so – not to win a race – but for that delight of a cherubic smile – a baby in complete wonderment at the utter gibberish being hurled at her - adults – unschooled in baby talk but trying nevertheless.  

It would be facetious to say the silence we are about to speak of was anything in comparison. But, like the baby, it did create a stir.

The baby was John the Baptist, who stirred in Elizabeth's womb when her cousin Mary entered the door of her house after an arduous journey over hills and valleys carrying Jesus in her womb. Mary travelled about 100 miles from Nazareth to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country. ³⁹ At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, ⁴⁰ where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leapt in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. (Lk 1:39-41) 

The Gospel of Luke (1:45) states she went “with haste,” showing her urgency. This journey signifies Mary’s commitment and underscores the importance of their familial bond during this significant period. (As ours with Baby Claire). Also of significance: John the Baptist was the last Prophet to call the people of Israel to repentance. He was killed for speaking truth to power. To Herod Antipas, who married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, when he was still alive; this was clearly a sinful act. 

Herod imprisoned John the Baptist because Herodias wanted it, and possibly because Herod wanted to have a private audience with John whenever he desired. While ‘perplexed’ by what John had to say, Herod was all ears when John did speak. Herodias hated John for intruding on their marital alliance, and exploited Salome, her daughter, to snag the head of John the Baptist. A reckless promise, a cruel request, and an unshaken faith brought John’s mission to a dramatic end.

The book of Malachi is the last of the written word in the Old Testament before we get to the letters and Gospels of the New Testament. Malachi sums up the themes of the Old Testament, brings correction and challenge, and God gives His people hope for reconciliation, restoration, and a future.

⁴ “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel. ⁵ “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. ⁶ He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” (Malachi 4:4-6)

John the Baptist burst on the scene after 400 years during which time God had gone silent. John came to awaken Israel from spiritual sleep and prepare the people to recognise the long-awaited Messiah.

One thought that has always stayed with me … until now … was the absence of communication between John the Baptist and his cousin Jesus. John speaks of his cousin Jesus as a stranger. Cousins who never met after their ‘stirring’ encounter in their mother’s wombs.

Then I heard a bit of John's growing years, and I figured that answers the question of why there was zero contact between John and Jesus until Jesus showed up for His baptism, creating an awkward moment for John. John felt he was the sinner baptising the sinless. As John grew older, he had embraced a life of prayer, simplicity, and self-denial. He withdrew into the wilderness where silence stripped away distraction and taught him to depend completely upon God. His rough clothing and simple food reflected a heart detached from comfort. In that lonely landscape, far from palaces and crowded streets, God was forming a prophet whose voice would soon shake consciences throughout Israel.

When the proper time came, John stepped out of the wilderness with a message that was simple, urgent, and impossible to ignore. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven was near. He called people to turn away from sin and return sincerely to God. His words could be severe, yet they carried hope. John was not condemning people to despair. He was calling them to begin again before the Lord.

Crowds soon gathered along the Jordan River. Men and women came from different regions, confessing their sins and receiving from John a baptism of repentance. His preaching touched something deep within them because they recognised the voice of a true prophet. Yet John never presented his baptism as the final answer. It was a preparation, an outward sign that people were ready to change and welcome the one soon to come.

As John's influence grew, some wondered whether he himself might be the promised Messiah. He rejected the suggestion immediately. John understood both the greatness and the limits of his calling. He was the servant, not the Saviour. He openly announced that someone far greater was coming after him, one before whom he considered himself unworthy.

John refused to let admiration distract him from the one he had been sent to proclaim. Everything in John's life served one purpose, preparing the way of the Lord. His preaching, baptism, life in the wilderness, and call to repentance all pointed beyond himself. He did not seek to create a movement centred on his personality. He wanted Israel to awaken, purify its heart, and be ready when God's promised one finally appeared among his people. That mission gave unity to John's entire life. Whether alone in the desert, surrounded by crowds at the Jordan, or later standing before powerful rulers, he remained a witness to the truth. John lived so that others might recognise Christ. Such fidelity would eventually lead him into suffering, imprisonment, and death. Yet from beginning to end, the faithful forerunner never abandoned the mission God had placed in his hands.

John the Baptist is calling us to repentance through those who have made Jesus their principal reason for existence. They are pointing us to Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. Are we Herod Antipas of our times – doing our own thing – full of hubris and pride – and sinful indulgences? Who are the Herodias and Salome in our lives that are leading us to eternal perdition?

When the family looks at baby Claire, they see innocence. Innocence that we have lost growing up. But God has not given up on us. He is quietly, silently waiting.

-        Mathew Anthony

“Are we too saying 'Not yet’?”

The Catholic Church accords a salutary position to Saint Augustine, setting aside a day on the Church Calendar to commemorate the Saint, an esteemed Bishop and Doctor of the Church. The Readings are so arranged that Sundays and feast days present the more important biblical passages. The Readings at Mass are not accidental:

“In general, following the Vatican II call for a ‘ressourcement’ or taking people back to the scriptural sources of our faith, the framers of the Lectionary wished to impart to the faithful a richer fare of readings from the various books of the Bible,” he said. “There is therefore a greater selection of readings than with the selection for the Mass before 1969.” The Vatican II Constitution on the Liturgy ordered that “in sacred celebrations there is to be more reading from holy Scripture and it is to be more varied and apposite”. (n.35.1) “The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that a richer share in God’s word may be provided for the faithful”. (n.51)

For the Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, the following Readings have been chosen: 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 - ‘Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom’; the Responsorial Psalm 33:1-2,4-5,10-11; Luke 21:36 for the ‘Alleluia’; and the Gospel Reading Matthew 25:1-13

The reflection that follows shows why that would be the case.

There appear to be parallels between 1 Corinthians 1:17-25 (written in 53-54 AD in the 1^st Century) and St. Augustine's Life. St. Augustine of Hippo was born nearly 300 years later in 354 AD and lived into the 5^th century (died 430 AD). St. Paul was addressing immediate divisions within the local church at Corinth, contrasting worldly philosophy and rhetorical human wisdom with the "folly" of the Cross and the power of God.  While Paul was not speaking of Augustine, Augustine’s life is one of the most vivid historical realisations of Paul's message in 1 Corinthians 1:17-25:

1. Human Eloquence vs. The Power of the Cross (v. 17): Augustine was a master of Roman rhetoric and prized worldly eloquence. In his youth, he found Scripture crude compared to Cicero. However, his intellect and rhetorical mastery could not heal his heart—only the simple grace of the Gospel transformed him.
2. "Where is the Wise Person? Where is the Teacher of the Law?" (v. 20): Augustine spent over nine years adhering to Manichaeism and studying Neoplatonism, seeking truth through human wisdom. Yet, secular philosophy and elite systems failed to bring him inner peace or moral liberation.
3. The Folly and Power of God (v. 23-25): God's grace humbled Augustine's pride, proving that human wisdom is foolishness compared to God's wisdom.

Summary of Saint Augustine of Hippo: Why Could Nothing Satisfy His Restless Heart?

Augustine was born in 354 AD in Tagaste, Roman North Africa. His mother, St. Monica, was a devout Christian who prayed unceasingly for him and taught him about Christ. His father, Patricius, was a pagan who cared primarily for Augustine's career and worldly advancement. Augustine was extremely gifted in rhetoric, literature, and persuasion. He pursued worldly pleasures, ambition, and intellectual status in Carthage. He took a concubine with whom he had a son, Adeodatus. He joined the Manichaean sect for nine years searching for truth, but grew disillusioned.

Then he moved to Milan as a rhetoric professor, where he heard Bishop Ambrose preach. Ambrose showed him the intellectual and spiritual depth of Scripture. Augustine struggled with a divided will and sensuality, praying his famous phrase: "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet." In a Milan Garden, weeping under a fig tree, he heard a child’s voice chanting "Tolle, lege" ("Take up and read").  Opening St. Paul's letters to Romans 13:13-14, the light of certainty filled his heart, ending his hesitation.

He was called to Sainthood and to Vocation. Augustine was baptised by Bishop Ambrose during the Easter Vigil in 387 AD alongside his son Adeodatus and friend Alypius. After his mother, Monica, died in Ostia, he returned to Africa to live a monastic life of prayer and study, was ordained a priest and later became the Bishop of Hippo. Augustine authored monumental works including Confessions and The City of God. He died on August 28, 430 AD, leaving a legacy as one of the Catholic Church’s greatest Doctors of the Church.

We also see parallels to Matthew 25:1-13 (The Parable of the Ten Virgins): The Parable of the Ten Virgins warns of spiritual readiness, lifelong vigilance, and keeping the "oil" of faith, grace, and good deeds in our lamps for the bridegroom’s arrival. For much of his early life, Augustine lived like the foolish virgins—unprepared, wasting time, and delaying his spiritual commitment ("not yet"). His conversion was a shift from squandering grace to filling his lamp with prayer, penance, and total devotion to God. And the ultimate reckoning: Augustine learned that human ambition and physical life are fleeting, and only a heart prepared with divine love is ready when the Lord calls.

Where are we on the journey to spiritual maturity? Do we feel the ‘restlessness’ that St. Augustine felt? He had achieved so much and was slated for greater renown. Yet he was not happy, confronted, as he was, by two conflicting wills:

1.     The Will of Habit (The Old Will): The pull of past sinful attachments, sensual desires, worldly ambition, and comfort. It resisted surrendering control and kept pulling him backwards, saying "Not yet" to God.

2. The Will of Grace (The New Will): The desire for divine truth, holiness, purity, and spiritual obedience. It called him forward to surrender completely to Christ

Augustine experienced this conflict as a divided heart—his intellect recognised God's truth, his ingrained habits and fears of losing pleasure kept him bound until grace broke the impasse in the garden.

We too must examine our hearts and ask the hard question, “Are we too saying 'Not yet’?” Are we fearful of losing what gives us gratification, but not fulfilment, necessarily? Do we shy away from prayer because we feel prayer only brings a life of abstinence? Have we experienced what it is to abstain and be free from what holds us shackled to ingrained habits that persist? For those who have broken free, life is truly divine.

-        Mathew Anthony

To Resolve, Lean into the Conflict

It is important to add a qualification to the title of this reflection. To Resolve Lean into the Conflict – in Love. As spouses or religious living together, if we think we have problems with the other half, St Monica and Priya Parker, a Conflict Resolution Facilitator, have something to teach us.

Priya Parker says, “When I work with organisations, with churches, one of the things that I tell leaders is to find and cultivate that relational longing, that residual desire to want to be in community with each other.” She says she is still physically conflict-averse. “When I am in a tense situation with somebody that I love — my husband, my children, my friends — my palms get super sweaty, my heart starts palpitating. Sometimes, in a really good fight, I’ll feel slightly faint. And I have come to realise that all fighting is physical. The physicality of what actually happens in our bodies deeply affects our ability to fight or stay. As a facilitator, and in my own life, I have simple practices to notice that it is happening, to breathe, and not to exit.

Parker’s advice on how to mentally and cognitively deal with conflict aversion is not to flee but to have a productive conflict. It’s to reframe conflict as an investment in the person. She says when she and her husband start arguing, and if the children happen to be in the room, she will look at them and say: “It’s OK that we’re fighting. We’re arguing because we love each other. This is an important conversation for us. She is saying it as much to them as to herself. She says, “We tend to think of conflict as antagonistic, but conflict can actually be incredibly prosocial. So, very simply, it’s checking in and saying, Do I care about this relationship? And counterintuitively, if I do, let me get in there.”

She continues, “When conflict arises, organisations and friend groups basically oscillate between unhealthy peace — conflict aversion, avoidance, pretending everything’s fine — and unhealthy conflict, which is escalation or domination or abuse. She wrote “The Art of Fighting” to say: Look, this is a deeply, deeply important part of all group life, of all of our relationships, and we’re not taught how to do it well. It’s not immoral, it’s not toxic. Conflict is the way we figure out who we are and how we negotiate to be part of common life together.

St Monica, the mother of St Augustine, and wife of Patricius, is possibly the best example of conflict resolution with love. She did it divinely well. In the days and weeks after her marriage to Patricius, she became increasingly and painfully aware of the abyss that lay between her and her husband. He was annoyed by her prayers; he found her charity excessive; he could not understand her desire to visit the sick; he could not fathom her love for slaves. At every step in her Christian Walk, Monica met with countless hindrances. Her case was far from unique and is well described by Tertullian in his treatise, “To His Wife,” wherein he speaks of the difficulties a Christian wife endures at the hands of an unbelieving husband:

“When it is time to go to church, the husband takes his wife to the baths; if there are fasts to be observed, the husband arranges for a banquet; if she wishes to visit the poor, no servants are available to accompany her. And will such a husband allow her to be absent all night long for the paschal solemnities? Or permit her to attend the Lord's Supper, which they disavow?”

Her husband, although he loved her in his own way, was a stranger, not a soul-mate; and her cantankerous mother-in-law, who lived with them, only reinforced his fits of anger with her own. Even more grievous was Patricius' infidelity, for what wife, especially one raised, as Monica was, with high standards of chastity and marital devotion, can countenance the defilement of her marriage bed?

Monica knew that reproaches were counter-productive, and she tamed her husband's violent temper by her meekness and devotion. Other women, who endured blows from their husbands, asked Monica how it was that Patricius, whom they knew to be irascible, did not once strike her. Monica replied that instead of blaming their husbands they should blame their tongues, for “she had learnt not to resist an angry husband, not in deed only, but not even in word” (IX:9).

Prayer was Monica's strength, and the joys of motherhood further mitigated the bitterness of her circumstances. She bore two sons and a daughter, whom she nurtured in the faith with great diligence — and ultimate success. As a boy, writes Blessed Augustine, “I already believed, and my mother and the whole household, except for my father. Yet he did not prevail over the power of my mother's piety in me, that as he did not believe, so neither should I. For it was her earnest care that Thou, my God, rather than he, shouldst be my father” (I:11). To Monica's great sorrow, Patricius would not have the children baptised. When Augustine began to show promise of intellectual brilliance, Patricius sent him for higher education to Carthage, where the youth gradually fell prey to youthful passions.

Regardless of Patricius' religious indifference and often unchristian behaviour, Monica was very attentive towards him, “whom she, the better obeyed, therein also obeying [God] Who hast so commanded” (I:11). Compelled at times to contradict him and to go against his will in what concerned the Faith, she was all the meeker and more submissive to him in other matters. And although superior to her husband in education and moral qualities, she made every effort not to reveal her advantage. She firmly believed that if the light of the Gospel was reflected in all her actions, then Patricius would eventually be persuaded of its power and its truth and would submit to it more readily than if she attempted to persuade him with rational arguments. Indeed, her Christian conduct acted like a soothing balm on Patricius' soul, and, without his realising it, drew him gradually closer to the Faith. As Saint John Chrysostom wrote half a century later in his homily, On Virginity, the believing wife “will be able to save her husband by putting the Gospel into practice.” This is precisely what Saint Monica did, winning over not only her husband but also her mother-in-law.

This fruit of her prayers, of her long-suffering, and of her steadfast application of the Gospel precepts took a long time to mature. It was only after sixteen years that Patricius was baptised. Nor did Monica enjoy her husband's company for long at the Lord's Supper, for he died only a year later, in 371. Nevertheless, she had aimed to sanctify her husband for eternal life, and, by the Grace of God, she achieved it. It remained for her to extricate her wayward son from the delusion of the passions and from the Manichean heresy. This required another fourteen years of persistent prayer. When at last his heart, too, was converted, her joy was complete.

⁷ Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. ⁸ He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (1Cor 1:7-9).

-        Mathew Anthony

P.S. Much of the reflection paraphrases reporting I have read on Saint Monica and the Conflict Resolution Facilitator, Priya Parker.

What is Sin?

Ms Clancy, 36, who was raised Catholic, does not deny strangling her children — Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months — at her home in Duxbury, Mass., an affluent suburb of Boston, in January 2023. 

When you read the reporting, it would have stirred something deep within you.

If you are a woman diagnosed with postpartum psychosis, you may empathise with Lindsay Clancy despite her actions. Postpartum psychosis is a condition that affects a mother after the delivery of the child – from the strain of the delivery and the sleepless nights thereafter for a length of time, depending on the baby’s health condition. Lindsay Clancy suffered from such a condition and had sought help repeatedly, but was not certified as such to receive the help.

Lindsay Clancy, a former labour and delivery nurse from Duxbury, Massachusetts, is currently on trial in Plymouth Superior Court for three counts of first-degree murder in the January 2023 strangulation deaths of her three children. Following the incident, Clancy attempted suicide by leaping from a second-story window, which left her paralysed from the waist down.

Key Case Facts

• The Incident: On January 24, 2023, while her husband was out running an errand, Clancy strangled each of her three children with exercise resistance bands in the basement before jumping out a window. She does not deny committing the acts, but has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
• Mental Health Background: Before the incident, Clancy had sought extensive medical help for severe depression, anxiety, insomnia, and mental health struggles. She had checked herself into a psychiatric facility the week prior and had been prescribed multiple psychiatric medications.
• Defence Argument: The defence maintains she was suffering from acute postpartum psychosis. Expert witnesses for the defence, including forensic psychiatrist Dr Phillip Resnick, testified that Clancy was "clearly psychotic," felt as though an external force controlled her actions, and lacked the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.
• Prosecution Argument: State prosecutors contend the killings were planned. Rebuttal expert witnesses for the prosecution argued she suffered from mental illness, but insisted she was criminally responsible, retained an awareness of the illegality of her actions, and acted out of "altruistic filicide"—intending to take her own life and not wanting to leave her children behind.

As a practising Catholic, there are a host of questions this tragic incident raises; the principal question being how God would judge Lindsay Clancy.  We serve a God who delivers justice, who is slow to anger, and quick to forgive, who is the culmination of both justice and mercy in Christ Jesus. In Matthew 23:29-32, Jesus excoriates the teachers of the law and Pharisees, calling them hypocrites, passing judgment on them and making a prophetic statement about his own death at their hands:  ²⁹ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. ³⁰ And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ ³¹ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. ³² Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!”

What would Jesus say about Lindsay Clancy and her action of strangling her children to death with exercise resistance bands? Would she be forgiven in the Court of God’s Justice and Mercy? 

Jesus forgave prostitutes who surrendered their bodies to the depravity of men, and tax collectors who exploited to their advantage the circumstances of their fellowmen. We can be blasé about it, saying someone had to do it.

Lindsay Clancy sought help with her psychosis, but she did not receive help. Women with postpartum psychosis are a difficult-to-understand condition among family members of the affected who are focused on the child being fed, cleaned up, and put to sleep, whatever the hour, rather than the health of the mother.

Evolved men help care for the newborn baby, intrinsically understanding that their partner cannot handle it on their own. The most helpful person is the child’s grandmother. She can truly empathise, having gone through the process herself, facing pressure from all sides when, in the initial days, the mother appears to be failing the baby when not able to produce enough milk or the baby is not able to suckle sufficiently.

We don’t know whether Patrick Clancy, Lindsay’s husband, was such an ‘evolved’ person who understood what Lindsay was going through and provided the support needed, given there was barely a two-year difference between each of the three babies. Seems there was a gap in their understanding, or their relationship was on the rocks, with one partner wanting babies while the other, with every birth, was getting worse. A communication breakdown is a real possibility that did not allow sharing of deep feelings of a woman-centric crisis.

Add to this argument, in a society that ‘scorns’ having babies, but is ok with pre-marital sex and abortion – the killing of the baby in the womb – Lindsay and Patrick chose to have babies, most unusual in itself. Remember Lindsay Clancy was a former Labour and Delivery nurse. She handled babies all the time, notwithstanding the punishing hours those working in gynaecology have to endure.  

She was a good Catholic. Living in a society that was not Catholic. Given her condition, she did not choose to abandon her children and run away. She chose to kill herself by jumping off the balcony – as most people who are mentally challenged do. Lindsay would have agonised over what would happen to the babies when she was gone and chose to do the unpardonable, at least in the eyes of the righteous who believe they can tell right from wrong when they have never been in that situation. Never been a prostitute to know what it feels like to be one.

God knows. He created men and women. He provided for them as the Word of God says. He also gave them free will, which our first parents misused. The consequences continue to this day. Lindsay Clancy is fallen in the eyes of some, and to some she, now paralysed from waist down, is an unfortunate victim of her circumstances.

The court of law will rule, and the punishment will be for this lifetime. Finally, God will rule. And the reprieve or punishment will be for eternity.

-        Mathew Anthony

 

Father, What Should I Achieve This Day?

A religious Sister in a convent got up early in the morning – her usual time – and got dressed to go for Holy Mass. It was the crowning glory of her day. As she was leaving her quarters, the Mother Superior spotted her. The Superior needed help with an elderly person on a chore. The excitement drained from the religious sister’s face. She would now be late for Mass. The Superior sensed her discomfort and redirected the request to another sister in the convent.

The religious sister returned from Mass, deflated. The Mother Superior noticed her new disposition – from excitement to deflation. She enquired if all was good with her. She said not really. “I rushed to be with Jesus because that’s what I thought He wanted of me, but what Jesus really wanted was for me to be with Him, helping you with the elderly.”

“For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings”. (Hosea 6:6). The prophet Micah asked, "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8)

Are we excited when we wake up every morning? Do we start our day with an engaging vocation? For the religious sister, it was going for Mass. For Mother Superior, it was the comfort of those entrusted to her. For the young, wanting to conquer the world, it could be an early morning jog or hitting the gym to be primed and sweaty. For others, the young ready for school - preparing breakfast and their lunchbox - and rushing them to the school bus or dropping them off at school.

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle: when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.

Yes, some wake up and wonder if they will survive the day. And that is sad. Just as sad is to wake up to: “Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?” (Mt 6:25) What do you wake up to every morning? Are you charged up about the day? Do you have things to do? Or do you wake up and say, ‘What do I do today?

There is a Malayalam movie in which the megastar Mohanlal, or Lal sir, reminisces, “If only I could get a job, I can apply for leave”.  Those in high offices in the corporate world or government who want every day to count, before retiring for the night, run a checklist of what they need to achieve the next day. Before planning for the next day, they cross out what they achieved that day (hopefully everything); if not, the leftovers get added to the next day. It is logical to say that if ‘leftovers’ are overwhelming, then there is no way to plan for the next day.  

Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. (Mk 1:35) As believers and followers of Christ, should we not imitate the Master? Get up early in the morning and find a quiet place to pray? What did Jesus pray? Did Jesus pray, “Father, what should I achieve this day”, or did He pray, “Father, what do you want to achieve this day?

What do we do – those who keep checklists - the previous night? Tally up our to-do list? Or do we do what the Master did: At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” (Mt 11:25).

We the ‘babes’ are blessed with directions on what He would like us to do the next day. Can you imagine having the gift where God plans the day for us? Akin to, though a bit facetious: As a regular churchgoer, I open the dog-eared hymn book to a page and bingo! The choir leader has chosen a hymn on that page. We (choir master included) are creatures of our habits. Low entropy seeking. Of course, there are exceptions. 

How gracious it would be, like early mornings, at late night before retiring, we prostrate by our bedside, idolised in Bible story books, and thank the Father for the day. ⁹ This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: “I have not lost one of those you gave me.” (Jn 18:9). Who did we lose that day? The religious sister lost the elderly that day. Who did we ignore that day? Did we achieve what we were rushing out to get done, instead? Did you pause to ask why the day was a poor show? Did you ask the Father, “What should I achieve this day”

What do we hope to achieve when we go for daily or Sunday Mass? Do we go to Mass to give attendance, “Lord, I have not forgotten you, please don’t forget me.” Or to attend to what the Father wants us to achieve this day? What is our intent in going to Mass? Do we go with petitions? But God the Father already knows our needs.

²⁵ “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? (Mt 6:25-27)

²¹ “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” ²⁵ The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” ²⁶ Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” (John 4:21-26)

We are the Samaritan woman at the bedside, at the Church. Jesus is saying I am the Messiah. He is speaking to us. “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” Abraham tasked his senior servant, Eliezer: “not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.” What did Eliezer do when he reached the ‘country’?

¹² Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.” (Gen 24:12-14)

Let us too do our Master’s bidding, and not our own, by asking, “Father, what should I achieve this day”?

-        Mathew Anthony