Surprising Grace

In the past weeks, I have often felt as if I was living in two worlds. When on the phone with family and friends in Singapore, while listening to international news, or joining in various prayer events against COVID-19, I am in a world where anxiety over the COVID pandemic is front and center, with its grievous toll of thousands dying alone, overburdened health systems, and the valiant sufferings of frontliners. This is a world of masks, hand-washing, daily case number updates, and - thankfully - inspiring acts of kindness between people. Some of the people around me in Metro Manila, though, live in another kind of world. I became acutely aware of this on the first day that we were locked down. Jose (not his real name), a homeless man whom we knew, rang the bell. I had never seen him so terrified. The local officials were asking him to get off the street or be arrested. But where could he go? The street was where he lived and collected recyclables for a living. He needed rent mone...

Two acquaintances of mine are going to set aside all other commitments this year to spend six months living with a small group of people from different countries, whom they don’t yet know. With this little international community, they will practice living simply, do some studying, and then go out to share their faith with other people. I was surprised to hear of their plans, and even more to hear that in recent years more young Catholics in Singapore have been showing interest in similar ventures. “It was really the idea of community that drew me to this,” one of them explained to me. Funnily enough, the other friend had the opposite perspective: “What made me doubtful about this was whether I could accept living in community,” she said. “I like living on my own and having my own space.” Despite their seemingly different viewpoints, I think they were both united in realising the centrality of community in the work they were going to undertake. They could see that community li...