Day: May 8, 2013

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Saturday, 27 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 14 : 7-14

“If you know Me, you will know the Father also; indeed you know Him, and you have seen Him.”

Philip asked Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that is enough.” Jesus said to him, “What! I have been with you so long and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever sees Me sees the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?”

“All that I say to you, I do not say of Myself. The Father who dwells in Me is doing His own work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; at least believe it on the evidence of these works that I do.”

“Truly, I say to you, the one who believes in Me will do the same works that I do; and he will even do greater than these, for I am going to the Father. Everything you ask in My Name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. Indeed, anything you ask, calling upon My Name, I will do.”

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Saturday, 27 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.

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Saturday, 27 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 13 : 44-52

The following Sabbath almost the entire city gathered to listen to Paul, who spoke a fairly long time about the Lord. But the presence of such a crowd made the Jews jealous. So they began to oppose with insults whatever Paul said.

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out firmly, saying, “It was necessary that God’s word be first proclaimed to you, but since you now reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we turn to non-Jewish people. For thus we were commanded by the Lord : ‘I have set you as a light to the pagan nations, so that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.’

Those who were not Jews rejoiced when they heard this and praised the message of the Lord, and all those destined for everlasting life believed in it. Thus the Word spread throughout the whole region.

Some of the Jews, however, incited God-fearing women of the upper class and the leading men of the city, as well, and stirred up an intense persecution against Paul and Barnabas. Finally they had them expelled from their region.

The apostles shook the dust from their feet in protest against this people and went to Iconium, leaving the disciples filled with joy and Holy Spirit.

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Behold Jesus, our Risen Lord and God! He is the Son of God, the Messiah, who was rejected and tortured and suffered a humiliating death, abandoned by those near to Him and those who were dear to Him, just as prophesied by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah has spoken much about the Messiah who is about to come, and in Jesus that prophecy is perfectly fulfilled.

In Christ lies our salvation, and in Him is all hope, because the Lord has given to Him authority over all. He has been given the authority to rule all the nations, with an iron rule of justice and love. Through Christ we have a new way towards the Lord, and if we keep God’s commandment and do His will, Jesus will prepare rooms for us in His Father’s kingdom, just as Jesus had promised to the disciples.

Christ had to endure death to achieve His mission, that through His suffering on the way to Calvary, Christ justified us by the outpouring of His blood from His holy wounds. His wounds are our sins, past, present and future, all our faults and rebellions against God, and all our unworthiness that Christ bear unto Himself, that all who believe in Him may not die, but enjoy everlasting life, through Him.

For Christ in His death had destroyed our own deaths, our fate for having abandoned God and His commandments, that we inherited from our forefathers in their stubbornness against God’s will and God’s words through the prophets. He restored us then to life, when He rose again in a new life of glory, on Easter day, when He is risen from the dead.

Christ our Lord is truly the Lord of life, the living God, just as the Father is God of the living, that death has no more power over us, and therefore, Satan, who first instigated mankind in rebellion against God’s will, has no more power over us. For Satan and his evil advocates and allies controlled us and enthralled us through the agents of sin, which they propagated through worldly temptations.

This Easter season is a holy season, a good season indeed for the renewal of our faith and our dedication to God our Lord. We should make best use of this opportunity and let it not go to waste, by embracing our faith in the Lord ever more intimately and strongly, and embrace God’s love ever more within our hearts.

Do not harden our hearts and do not turn a deaf ear against the Lord’s will and words that He spoke to us, not by loud proclamations, but by simple and soft whispers in the depths of our hearts. If we remain faithful to Him, and keep our hearts, minds, and soul attuned to Him, we will be able to listen to Him speaking to us in our hearts, in silence, the words of truth, of life, and salvation.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, despite all our busy schedules and occupancies, we should always try to set aside some time for the Lord, spent in quiet contemplation, that we will be able to follow Him ever more, and take His message of eternal life into our own being. Let us never forget the greatness of His love and the sacrifice He had endured on Calvary, so that all of us may live, and not die, in eternal life. Amen.

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 14 : 1-6

“Do not be troubled! Trust in God and trust in Me! In My Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to Me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet, you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Psalm 2 : 6-7, 8-9, 10-11

“Behold the King I have installed, in Zion, upon My holy hill!” I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to Me : “You are My Son. This day I have begotten You.”

Ask of Me and I will give You, the nations for Your inheritance, the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall rule them with iron sceptre and shatter them as a potter’s vase.

Now therefore, learn wisdom, o Kings; be warned, o rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and fall at His feet; lest He be angry and you perish when His anger suddenly flares. Blessed are all  who take refuge in Him!

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 13 : 26-33

Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham, and you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognise Jesus. Yet in condemning Him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath, but not understood.

Even though they found no charge against Him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days thereafter He showed Himself to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become His witnesses before the people. We ourselves announce to you this Good News : All that God promised our ancestors, He has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm : ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’

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Thursday, 25 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter, Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we commemorate the feast day of one of the greatest pillars of our Church and our faith. For without him, we would be missing one of the four Gospels, that is the Gospel of Mark. St. Mark was not part of the Twelve originally chosen by Christ, but he was mentored by the apostles, especially St. Paul, and later on wrote one of the four Gospels inspired by the Holy Spirit.

St. Mark established the Church in Alexandria, then capital of Egypt, and from there the faith blossomed in Egypt and throughout the eastern Mediterranean, establishing the strong base from which much of the Church was born from. He became the first bishop of Alexandria, and from him, came a long series of bishops and later Patriarchs of Alexandria, the most important descendant of which is what we today know as the Coptic Orthodox Church, our brethren in faith.

The Gospel of St. Mark, although at sixteen chapters may be the shortest of the four Gospels, but was full with fundamental truths about the mission of Christ and His nature as our Messiah and our Lord. It is also the earliest written Gospel of the four. Mark concentrated on the nature of Christ as the Messiah who suffer, who suffer persecution and later death, and yet was raised again in glory for the salvation of mankind.

In today’s Gospel reading taken from the last chapter of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus commanded His disciples to go make disciples of all the nations, to spread the Good News to all mankind, to the ends of the earth. He gave this mission to the disciples, to spread all the teachings He had given and said to the apostles during His life on this world, and through the Gospels, all the nations would hear the Good News of the Lord, and believe in the One whom God the Father had sent.

Jesus’ mission is still relevant to us today. Even though the faith in our Lord had been indeed spread throughout the world to the ends of earth, but today, there is an even greater need for more people to take up the mission to become evangelisers of the Lord’s message. Let us take up that mission and follow the example of the Evangelists like St. Mark. And just like St. Mark, who wrote the Gospel, and also preached the Good News with his fellow brethren at the time, there are just many ways to evangelise to other people.

Evangelisation does not just mean speeches, speeches, and talks. Yes, words of mouth are important, and people do tend to listen to speeches and words, but remember that not everyone is endowed with good ability of speech. Yes, the Holy Spirit would provide and would give us the strength and courage indeed to tell the people of the Good News, but evangelisation can also be done through action, through simple gestures and works, and we will not even need to venture far to evangelise.

Simply look around us, at our own family, our parents, our siblings, and our children. Even among our friends, there are bound to be ample opportunities for evangelisation to occur. There are many even among those who are faithful to God, who had been lax in their faith, and who became ‘Sunday Catholics’. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we have the power given to us by the Holy Spirit, to make a difference in the lives of our fellow men. Let us not let it go to waste, and utilise the gift of the Holy Spirit which the Lord has passed down to the Apostles, and from them, through our priests, to us.

We are called to be the messenger of the Lord’s message, and as disciples and servants of our God. Let us go forth and bring forth the light of Christ in this darkened world of ours. Beginning from those near to us, to all the nations till the ends of the earth. St. Mark the Evangelist, and the holy Apostles and saints of God, pray for us. Amen.