Day: June 4, 2015

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Saturday, 6 June 2015 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops and Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Mark 12 : 38-44

At that time, as Jesus was teaching, He also said to the people, “Beware of those teachers of the Law, who enjoy walking around in long robes and being greeted in the marketplace, and who like to occupy reserved seats in the synagogues, and the first places at feasts. They even devour the widow’s and the orphan’s goods while making a show of long prayers. How severe a sentence they will receive!”

Jesus sat down opposite the Temple treasury, and watched the people dropping money into the treasury box; and many rich people put in large offerings, but a poor widow also came and dropped in two small coins. Then Jesus called His disciples and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all those who gave offerings. For all of them gave from their plenty, but she gave from her poverty, and put in everything she had, her very living.”

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Saturday, 6 June 2015 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops and Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Tobit 13 : 2cdef, 6fghi, 6klmn

It is God who punishes and He who has mercy; who makes people go down to hell and rise up again. No one can escape His hand.

If you turn back to Him with all your heart and soul, and live justly before Him, then He will turn back to you and will no longer hide His face from you.

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Saturday, 6 June 2015 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops and Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Tobit 12 : 1, 5-15, 20

When the wedding feast was over, Tobit called Tobias, his son, and said to him, “Be sure you give the wages to the man who accompanied you, and we should add something extra.”

Then Tobias called the angel and said to him, “Please take half of all that you have brought.” The angel took Tobit and Tobias to one side and said to them, “Bless God, return thanks to Him, proclaim His glory and render Him thanks before all the living for all He has done for you. It is good to praise God and to exalt His Name, by making known in a worthy manner the story of God’s deeds.”

“Do not be slow in giving Him thanks. It is good to hide the secrets of kings but to make known publicly the works of God. Do the works of God. Do good, and evil will not harm you. It is a good thing to accompany prayer with fasting, almsgiving and justice. It is better to do a little with honour than much with injustice. It is better to give alms than to treasure up gold.”

“Almsgiving preserves from death; it purifies from all sin. Those people who give alms and act justly will have a long life, but sinners only harm themselves. I will hide nothing from you. Yes, I have said that it is good to keep the secrets of kings but to make known publicly the glorious works of God.”

“Tobit, when you and your daughter-in-law Sara prayed, I kept the remembrance of your prayer before the Holy One; when you, Tobit, buried the dead, I was with you in the same way; and when you did not hesitate to rise up and leave your meal in order to hide the dead man, your good deed did not go unnoticed because I was with you.”

“Well, God sent me to cure you and also to cure Sara, your daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels who present the prayers of holy people and who stand before the glory of God. Now bless and give thanks to God, because I am returning to the One who sent me. Write down in a book all that has happened.”

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Friday, 5 June 2015 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Boniface, Bishop and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the healing of Tobit, who had long suffered from blindness. The Lord had mercy on him and blessed him through His agent, the Archangel Raphael. He sent Raphael to bring about healing to both Sara who was afflicted by the demon Asmodeus who killed her seven husbands, and to Tobit, to open his eyes so that he might see again.

Just as in the story of Job, the suffering but faithful servant of God, this shows that God is ever faithful and ever loving, and He always cares for us and loves us all tenderly. He will never leave behind all those who are faithful to Him. His gift and grace will be ours if we are able to faithfully cling to Him and devote ourselves to His ways. And He showed this by the promise which He had made to His people and which He fulfilled through Jesus, His Son, whom He sent into the world.

The Gospel reading which we heard today does not mean that Jesus repudiated or rejected the fact that He is the Heir of David and the One whom God had revealed to the world as the promised Messiah. It rather shows that because the people associate the Messiah with merely human terms of power and kingship, that He would rule in the kingdom of His ancestor David, and nothing more.

They thought that He would renew the kingdom of Israel, again in earthly and worldly terms, but the Lord Jesus our Messiah is much more than that, for just as He is Man, the Son of David, Heir to the kingdom which His ancestor had established and made firm, thus He is also the Son of God, the One who was to come into the world in order to save it.

Thus, Jesus would make it clear to the people, that His nature is both Man and Divine. This is what we believe in our faith as well. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Word of God made Flesh, had incarnated Himself as one of us while at the same time retaining His full divinity. This is important to be taken note of, especially considering what our Lord Jesus has done for our sake.

For what Christ had done is by suffering in our place, the suffering which all of us should have suffered from, that is the just punishment for our sins. We should have suffered death for our rebellion and disobedience against God, but through Christ who died for us, we will indeed die as a mortal being, but while once death had been the gateway to eternal darkness and suffering, now death is the new beginning of a new life in God, and it is not something that we should fear any longer.

This is because Jesus our Lord, Son of Man and Son of God, had shown us that He has the key to break free from the hold of death, that by His resurrection after His death, He showed us all how there is life to come after death for the faithful. Thus, all of us who keep our faith in God have nothing to fear, since if we continue to be faithful, God will remember our faith in Him and bless us richly.

If Christ is only Man, then His sacrifice would be in vain since no amount of mortal blood and sacrifice is going to be enough to redeem the fullness of mankind’s sins and faults. It is because of the great Divinity who chose to lay down His life that the whole human race may be healed and forgiven from their sins, since He assumed the very flesh of our beings, that by His death and resurrection, we too may follow in His ways.

Today we also celebrate the feast of St. Boniface, who was a bishop in what is now Germany, renowned for his many works in advancing the faith, preaching it and teaching it to many people. He was also renowned for his enforcement for the true practices of the faith against the evils of the world that had encroached even against the Church and the faithful at the time.

He was involved in many preaching and evangelisation missions, which brought him to many lands still inhabitant by pagan peoples and nations. He preached to all these people and hearkened them to listen to the word of God, repent and change their ways. And even when the people refused to turn their hearts to God, he kept trying and continued to persuade the people by his teachings, until one day when he was ambushed by armed robbers who struck at him and his followers.

Until the end of his life, he remained truly faithful to God, forgiving his assailants and telling his followers not to engage in violence to fight against violence. His example, together with the example of many other saints and holy people of God, highlighted the glory and rewards which God will give all those who have devoted themselves to Him. They are now in the glory of heaven because of their fatihful devotion to the Lord who have loved them first.

Let us all therefore devote ourselves completely to the Lord our God, throwing aside all distractions and distortions of the evil one, inspired by the examples of the holy saints, particularly that of St. Boniface whose examples and memory we celebrate on this day. May God be with us always, and may He bless us and heal us from all of our afflictions. Amen.