Luke 2: 16-21, Solemnity of Mary, Holy Mother of God

Today, the first day of the New Year, reminds me of this young Singaporean doctor. His name was Dr Richard Teo. By the age of 30, he already had everything he wanted in terms of money, material riches, professional success and achievements.

Initially, he was an eye doctor (an ophthalmologist  and a very good one). However, he decided to shift and become a surgeon, a cosmetic surgeon specializing in aesthetic medicine; that is, enhancing people’s appearances. And why so? Well, he said “because there is no money in being an eye doctor.” According to him, the money (more like “tons of money”) is in doing cosmetic aesthetic surgery since people are willing to pay more (much more) for such procedures.

His “formula for happiness” was clear & simple: work hard, train hard, achieve, be successful then buy whatever you want (since you worked for it anyway). Do not hesitate to splurge and spoil yourself whenever you feel like it. Following this “formula for happiness”, Dr. Richard had several obsessions.One of them was sports cars and that is why he had a whole fleet of them.

Then, out of nowhere, BANG! Tragedy struck. It all started with a back pain that would not go away. He had himself examined.

March 11, 2011 – that was the day he would never forget. That was the day his doctors told him that he had cancer. Stage 4 lung cancer and that it had already spread to his brain and spine. He lived 19 more months and died in October 2012.

Prior to his death, Dr. Richard underwent what we can call a “spiritual conversion.” He realized that his “formula for joy and happiness” was all wrong and defective. He started to think of others and not just of himself and his needs. He started to be humble and generous, reaching out to others – in particular, to other cancer patients, struggling medical students and single mothers. Faith in God started coming more and more into his consciousness and in the end, his personal relationship with the Lord even became THE primary top value of his life. Before he died, he declared one of his most famous lines, saying: “It is only when we learn how to die that we can learn how to live.”

My dear friends, it was Helen Keller who once said, “Happiness (true happiness) is never attained through self-gratification. It is attained ONLY through faithfulness to a worthy purpose.” No doubt we live in a culture where the “self” or the “ego” has been given so much emphasis and importance. And this is the paradox of our time. Never before has human science and technology served us so well, offering us so many choices, endless choices in fact, in working, shopping, eating, drinking, watching movies, traveling. AND yet people continue to be dissatisfied, discouraged (if not depressed) and (thus) unhappy.

And so what do people do? We continue to search and search for authentic happiness, trying to find the right “formula” that will bring joy and happiness to us in this life. And yet, the truth of the matter is this – we do not (so much) seek and find true happiness. It is the other way around – it is happiness that seeks and finds us. And the best way for happiness to seek and find us is for us to seek and find our true sense of purpose and meaning of our lives; in short,  the “WHY“, the very “WHY” of our lives. WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO. WHY WE PURSUE WHAT WE PURSUE. WHY WE VALUE WHAT WE VALUE. And once we find it , we try to be faithful and constant to it.

My dear friends, how often we mix up and confuse these two realities – happiness, on the one hand, and purpose, on the other. And of course,  given these two realities, many of us FIRST proactively seek and prioritize happiness over purpose, NOT realizing that the ultimate fruit, the ultimate byproduct, of purpose is precisely happiness. And when we do this (prioritizing happiness over purpose), we are actually “putting the cart before the horse.”

In this way, when we FIRST go out of our way to seek happiness (and thus  de-prioritizing purpose), we often fall into the temptation of accumulating things (like money, material possessions, achievements, even power), falsely thinking that all this accumulating and hoarding – will make us happy.

But the fact of the matter is, the MORE we accumulate and hoard, the MORE we feel empty and dissatisfied, wanting more and more of what we accumulate. And all this can become addictive and the cycle of greed and acquisitiveness never stops.Yes indeed, “Happiness (true happiness) is never attained through self-gratification. It is attained only through faithfulness to a worthy purpose.”

And I believe we can apply all these points on happiness and purpose to the case of Mary, whose Solemnity as Mother of God we celebrate today. Called to be the Mother of God -this was her primary purpose in life, the very WHY of her living and loving).

In Christianity, we call this reality “vocation. This was what pushed her, motivated her, ignited her heart (her immaculate heart) to pursue what she needed to pursue, making the choices she needed to make. And in the end, it was this profound sense of purpose and calling that made her truly happy, so happy, that she could sing her Magnificat, her song/prayer of joy and celebration. And that is why, if we can learn much from the mistake of Dr Richard, from his “defective” formula of happiness which emphasized money and success, so too can we learn much from the wisdom of Mary given her “formula for happiness” which highlights purpose and vocation.

And so,  as we begin another new year, let us greet one another, not just by saying “Have a HAPPY NEW YEAR.” Instead, let us greet one another by saying “Have a PURPOSEFUL & MEANINGFUL NEW YEAR” and together with that, we can start the New Year by focusing NOT on “MY” needs, “MY” concerns, “MY” convenience BUT on the needs, concerns, and convenience of OTHERS. Let us think MORE in terms of giving, sharing and serving instead of receiving, accumulating and dominating.

To conclude, my prayer for all of us is this: “With our Lord Jesus and our Mother Mary, may true, genuine happiness seek and find us in this year of 2026 and all the days of our lives.”

*image from the Internet