Day: May 4, 2016

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Wednesday, 4 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are presented with the very interesting account of how St. Paul spoke to the Athenians about their religious beliefs at the common forum known as the Areopagus, where all peoples were free to utter their thoughts and share them with everyone. St. Paul preached about the Saviour of the world in that occasion, revealing to them the truth about what they ought to believe in.

The Athenians, as were the Greeks at the time, including many others such as the Romans and other peoples embracing pagan beliefs, they all believed in the multitude and variety of divine beings whom they referred to as gods. They associated natural phenomena and other strange and unexplainable observations as divine interventions and as signs of the presence of the divines themselves.

Therefore, that was why if we looked at the pagan gods, the pantheons of the Greek pagans and other forms of paganisms in the other cultures, we can see how those gods were associated with those natural phenomena, which those people were incapable of fully explaining or understanding. They personified the power of lightning and the skies in Zeus, the king of the Greek gods, and with similar thunder gods in the other pantheons. There were myriads, countless other examples as well.

But ultimately, all of these were mankind’s futile attempts in trying to comprehend the wonders of creation, the greatness of the cosmos and the amazing things that surround them and are present from time to time, which intrigued their attention and interest. They feared and revered those things they did not understand, and in the process they became entangled in the worship of the false gods and idols.

It was all of these things which St. Paul wanted to make clear by his preaching to them of the word of God and of the truth which God had revealed to the world through him. He asked the Athenians about the monument which they had established for the unknown God, as a penchant and clear indication of the folly that they had followed thus far.

They did not know the true God, the Creator of all, and yet what they were following and worshipping, was merely the creations of the Creator. They worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars, the wind, thunder, lightning and the seas, and all these because they were awed by their greatness and majesty, but they failed to see that all these simply bring even greater glory and majesty to the one who created all of them.

The words of St. Paul revealed to all of them the truth about God, the Lord and Creator of all. The Lord Himself in the Gospel today reminded His disciples of the promise which He frequently made, especially at the end of His earthly ministry, of the coming of the Spirit of truth which would reveal to them all of the truth which He had spoken but they were then yet incapable of fully understanding the meaning.

And that Spirit of truth is none other than the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that God has sent to all those whom He had chosen and deemed to be worthy of His presence. And through that same Spirit, the Spirit inflamed the hearts of the Apostles and the disciples of Christ, giving them the strength and the courage to carry out the mission which our Lord had entrusted them, bringing the truth of God to many peoples of various nations.

If they had not been so courageous in proclaiming the faith, they would not have brought many people who would not have been saved otherwise. Because of what St. Paul had spoken at the Areopagus, some of the people there believed in them, even though many people there refused to believe and even ridiculed St. Paul and his teachings. The people who believed there would become the foundations of the Church in that area and brought the salvation to more people.

In this time and era, there are still many people who are in need of the truth, for many people have lived in darkness and in ignorance for long enough. If we do not play our part to bring the word of God to them, by our words and actions, then we may be dooming many souls to eternal damnation, and if God sees our lack of action that had made these fallen into the darkness, what do you think will He do to us? We will be held liable for not helping these brethren of ours when we could have helped them.

Let us all thus commit ourselves anew to the Lord and His cause. Let us all do all things that we can in order to show God’s truth to our fellow brethren. Let us commit ourselves to bring the salvation of God to ever more and more people. May His Holy Spirit strengthen us and be our inspiration always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 4 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 16 : 12-15

At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. When He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into the whole truth.”

“He has nothing to say of Himself, but He will speak of what He hears, and He will tell you of the things to come. He will take what is Mine and make it known to you; in doing this, He will glorify Me. All that the Father has is Mine; because of this, I have just told you that the Spirit will take what is Mine, and make it known to you.”

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Wednesday, 4 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 148 : 1-2, 11-12, 13, 14

Alleluia! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heavenly heights. Praise Him, all His Angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts.

Kings of the earth and nations, princes and all rulers of the world, young men and maidens, old and young together.

Let them praise the Name of the Lord. For His Name alone is exalted; His majesty is above earth and heaven.

He has given His people glory; He has given a praise to His faithful, to Israel, the people close to Him. Alleluia.

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Wednesday, 4 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 17 : 15, 22 – Acts 18 : 1

Paul was taken as far as Athens by his escort, who then returned to Beroea with instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible.

Then Paul stood up in the Areopagus hall and said, “Athenian citizens, I note that in every way you are very religious. As I walked around looking at your shrines, I even discovered an altar with this inscription : To an unknown God. Now, what you worship as unknown, I intend to make known to you.”

“God, Who made the world and all that is in it, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, being as He is Lord of heaven and earth. Nor does His worship depend on anything made by human hands, as if He were in need. Rather it is He Who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone.”

“From one stock He created the whole human race to live throughout all the earth, and He fixed the time and the boundaries of each nation. He wanted them to seek Him by themselves, even if it were only by groping for Him, succeed in finding Him.”

“Yet He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your poets have said : ‘for we too are His offspring.’ If we are indeed God’s offspring, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a statue of gold or silver or stone, a product of human art and imagination.”

“But now God prefers to overlook this time of ignorance and He calls on all people to change their ways. He has already set a day on which He will judge the world with justice through a Man He has appointed. And, so that all may believe it, He has just given a sign by raising this Man from the dead.”

When they heard Paul speak of a resurrection from death, some made fun of him, while others said, “We must hear you on this topic some other time.” At that point Paul left. But a few did join him and believed. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus court, a woman named Damaris, and some others.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

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Tuesday, 3 May 2016 : Feast of St. Philip and St. James, Apostles (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is indeed a great day, the day when we celebrate the feast of not just one, but two of Christ’s Twelve Apostles, His principal and the greatest of His disciples. We celebrate on this day the feast of the Apostles St. Philip and St. James. Both of them worked hard for the sake of the people of God, and as the other Apostles had done, they spread the Good News to many during their missions.

St. Philip was also known as Nathanael, a learnt and wise man of Israel, who was told to be fluent in Greek, and thus eventually he went on to preach the Lord and His truth in the regions of Greece and Roman Asia at the time, going from cities to cities, preaching to the masses and gaining for the Church many new converts and members. He went about the Greek communities and gaining many new faithful from among them.

In the end, in one account, St. Philip even managed to convert the wife of the proconsul of a region where he ministered in through his miracles and preaching. The proconsul was enraged and ordered St. Philip to be arrested, and he together with the other Apostle, St. Bartholomew, and other disciples were crucified upside down by the order of the proconsul. And it was told how St. Philip preached to the crowd gathering there from the cross, such that they wanted to release him, but this was not allowed by St. Philip himself.

Meanwhile, St. James the Greater was the brother of St. John the Apostle, once a fisherman along the Lake of Galilee, whom Jesus called together with His other Apostles, St. Peter, St. Andrew and St. John his brother. St. James the Greater played an important role during the early Church, spreading the Good News of God’s salvation after Christ’s resurrection and ascension into heaven.

It was told that St. James went to preach the Good News to the faraway regions such as the province of Iberia in what is today Spain, spreading the Gospel to the people there and helped to establish the Church in faraway regions from its origins in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. And he was therefore today renowned especially in the region known as Santiago de Compostela, where his body lay buried, because it was there where he apparently did his works of evangelisation.

And it was told that, as written in the Acts of the Apostles, how king Herod arrested St. James when he returned to the Holy Land, and in order to please the Jewish authorities, the Pharisees and the chief priests, he executed him. Thus, St. James was among the first of the Apostles to meet his end in martyrdom, but certainly, his works and legacies could still be felt even many years after his death.

Through his tireless works and commitment to the cause of the salvation of mankind, St. James and St. Philip the two Apostles of our Lord, they might have gone ahead of us to the glory of heaven. However, the impact of their actions can still be felt clearly even today. In this regard, we indeed need more and more people who are willing to commit themselves to the Lord and walk in His path as these two Apostles had one.

Truly, it will not be an easy one for us, as there would opposition against all those who are faithful and kept their faith. But Jesus reminded us yet again in the Gospel today, that we who have believed in Him, has seen the Lord Himself through Jesus, and by our faith in Him, we have been justified. And because we know the Lord, we will also do what He has asked us to do, and through these therefore, we would be blessed and saved.

During this season of Easter, which is coming to an end soon, let us therefore reflect on our own lives, and on how we have acted in our life so far. Have we been committed to our Lord, and have we been faithful to Him, through all of our words and actions? Can we call ourselves true Christians, as those who do not just believe in the Lord through mere words, but also through real action?

The examples of the Apostles St. Philip and St. James show us that there are still many things that we can do as the followers of Christ in order to fulfil the commands which our Lord had placed in the shoulders of the Apostles. Both the Apostles took the charge with zeal and vigour, and despite the challenges and the difficulties that faced them, all these did not prevent them from carrying out the missions which the Lord entrusted to them.

Let us all therefore look forward, and as we are about to celebrate the Solemnity of the Pentecost Sunday soon, let us all recommit ourselves, and rediscover the gifts of the Holy Spirit which had been given to us, and make use of them all in order to help those who are still in darkness, by showing them the love of God manifested through each and every one of us the faithful ones of our Lord, that more and more souls may see the light of God and be saved. God bless us all. Amen.