Day: August 19, 2016

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(Usus Antiquior) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 21 August 2016 : Offertory, Secret Prayer of the Priest, Communion and Post-Communion Prayer

Liturgical Colour : Green

Offertory

Psalm 33 : 8-9

Immittet Angelus Domini in circuitu timentium eum, et eripiet eos : gustate et videte, quoniam suavis est Dominus.

 

English translation

The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about those who fear Him, and shall deliver them. O taste, and see that the Lord is sweet!

 

Secret Prayer of the Priest

Concede nobis, Domine, quaesumus, ut haec hostia salutaris et nostrorum fiat purgatio delictorum, et Tuae propitiatio potestatis. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, qui Tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 

English translation

Grant us, we beseech You, o Lord, that this saving Victim may become both the cleansing of our sins, and the propitiation of Your might. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

 

Communion

Matthew 6 : 33

Primum quaerite regnum Dei, et omnia adjicientur vobis, dicit Dominus.

 

English translation

Seek first the kingdom of God and all things shall be added unto you, says the Lord.

 

Post-Communion Prayer

Purificent semper et muniant Tua sacramenta nos, Deus : et ad perpetuae ducant salvationis effectum. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, qui Tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 

English translation

May Your Sacraments, o God, ever purify and fortify us, and bring us to the effect of everlasting salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 21 August 2016 : Holy Gospel

Liturgical Colour : Green

Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum Matthaeum – Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew

Matthew 6 : 24-33

In illo tempore : Dixit Jesus discipulis Suis : Nemo potest duobus dominis servire : aut enim unum odio habebit, et alterum diliget : aut unum sustinebit, et alterum contemnet. Non potestis Deo servire et mammonae.

Ideo dico vobis, ne solliciti sitis animae vestrae, quid manducetis, neque corpori vestro, quid induamini. Nonne anima plus est quam esca : et corpus plus quam vestimentum? Respicite volatilia caeli, quoniam non serunt neque metunt neque congregant in horrea : et Pater vester caelestis pascit illa. Nonne vos magis pluris estis illis?

Quis autem vestrum cogitans potest adjicere ad staturam suam cubitum unum? Et de vestimento quid solliciti estis? Considerate lilia agri, quomodo crescunt : non laborant neque nent. Dico autem vobis, quoniam nec Salomon in omni gloria sua coopertus est sicut unum ex istis.

Si autem foenum agri, quod hodie est et cras in clibanum mittitur, Deus sic vestit : quanto magis vos, modicae fidei? Nolite ergo soliciti esse, dicentes : Quid manducabimus aut quid bibemus aut quo operimur? Haec enim omnia gentes inquirunt. Scit enim Pater vester, quia his omnibus indigetis. Quaerite ergo primum regnum Dei et justitiam ejus : et haec omnia adjicientur vobis.

 

English translation

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will sustain the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

“Therefore I say to you, do not be solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not the life more than the meat, and the body more than that of the raiment? Behold the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor do they reap, nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of much more value than them?”

“And which of you, by taking thought, can add to his stature one cubit? And for raiment why are you solicitous? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not labour, and neither do they spin, but I say to you, that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these.”

“Now if God so clothe the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, o you of little faith! Do not be solicitous therefore, saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathen seek. For your Father knows that you have need of all these things. Seek all of you therefore first the kingdom of God, and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

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(Usus Antiquior) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 21 August 2016 : Gradual and Alleluia

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 117 : 8-9 and Psalm 94 : 1

Bonum est confidere in Domino, quam confidere in homine.

Priest : Bonum est sperare in Domino, quam sperare in principibus.

Alleluja, Alleluja.

Priest : Venite, exsultemus Domino, jubilemus Deo, salutari nostro. Alleluja.

 

English translation

It is good to confide in the Lord, rather than to have confidence in man.

Priest : It is good to trust in the Lord, rather than to trust in princes.

Alleluia, Alleluia.

Priest : Come, let us praise the Lord with joy, let us joyfully sing to God our Saviour. Alleluia.

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(Usus Antiquior) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 21 August 2016 : Epistle

Liturgical Colour : Green

Lectio Epistolae Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Galatas – Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Galatians

Galatians 5 : 16-24

Fratres : Spiritu ambulate, et desideria carnis non perficietis. Caro enim concupiscit adversus spiritum, spiritus autem adversus carnem : haec enim sibi invicem adversantur, ut non quaecumque vultis, illa faciatis.

Quod si spiritu ducimini, non estis sub lege. Manifesta sunt autem opera carnis, quae sunt fornicatio, immunditia, impudicitia, luxuria, idolorum servitus, veneficia, inimicitiae, contentiones, aemulationes, irae, rixae, dissensiones, sectae, invidiae, homicidia, ebrietates, comessationes, et his similia : quae praedico vobis, sicut praedixi : quoniam, qui talia agunt, regnum Dei non consequantur.

Fructus autem Spiritus est : caritas, gaudium, pax, patientia, benignitas, bonitas, longanimitas, mansuetudo, fides, modestia, continentia, castitas. Adversus hujusmodi non est lex. Qui autem sunt Christi, carnem suam crucifixerunt cum vitiis et concupiscentiis.

 

English translation

Brethren, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh, for the flesh lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are contrary one to another, so that you do not do the things that you would.

But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idolatry, witchcrafts, enmities, contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings and such like, of that which I foretell you, as I have foretold to you, that they who do such things shall not obtain the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ have crucified their flesh with the vices and conscupiscences.

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(Usus Antiquior) Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 21 August 2016 : Introit and Collect

Liturgical Colour : Green

Introit

Psalm 83 : 10-11, 2-3

Protector noster, aspice, Deus, et respice in faciem Christi Tui : quia melior est dies una in atriis Tuis super milia.

Quam dilecta tabernacula Tua, Domine virtutum! Concupiscit, et deficit anima mea in atria Domini.

Priest : Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper : et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 

English translation

Behold, o God, our Protector, and look on the face of Your Christ. For better is one day in Your courts above thousands.

How lovely are Your tabernacles, o Lord of hosts! My soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord.

Priest : Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

Collect

Custodi, Domine, quaesumus, Ecclesiam Tuam propitiatione perpetua : et quia sine Te labitur humana mortalitas; Tuis semper auxiliis et abstrahatur a noxiis et ad salutaria dirigatur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, qui Tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

 

English translation

Guard Your Church, we beseech You, o Lord, with Your continual kindness, and because without You human frailty falls, let it, by Your assistance, ever be both withheld from harm and guided to what is salutary. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.

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Saturday, 20 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the proclamations of the Word of God, exhorting us to remember that we exist for God alone, and it is to God that we all ought to dedicate our time and devotion, and we should not fall for the temptation of power, of pride and glory, of human affection and fame, and for all things that bring about our downfall.

The essence from the Gospel today cannot be made any clearer, brothers and sisters in Christ, than the exhortation and calling for us all to truly live out our lives in faith, to be beacons of faith and of love, to show to the whole world who we really are, that is as the children and as the followers of our loving God. We must have God in us, and He must be the centre of our lives.

The passage we just heard in the Gospel has been often used to attack our faith and the Church, as those who failed to understand the true intentions of the Lord with His words, would take up those words and then use them to strike without proper understanding at our Church and on the way which we do things in this Church of God, particularly with regards to the way that we worship the Lord.

Critics and unbelievers pointed that Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their long prayers and elaborate prayer tassels and mantles, citing these to attack our supposedly elaborate ceremonies and celebrations of the Faith, at the centre of which is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in how we carry on the worship of the Lord in our churches and parishes.

These same critics argued that our faith is empty just as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had been, but that was because of their lack of understanding, again on what Jesus truly intended with His message and with the truth about our faith. And thus, in their ignorance and stubbornness, they became just like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law whom they were comparing us with.

Why is this so, brethren? That is because the rich traditions of our faith and the Church all speak of the same thing, that is our desire and our strong, adamant and living wish to serve the Lord and to worship Him in the best way we can. But in order to do so, we must learn to detach ourselves from the concerns and the desires of the world, all of which prevented us from being able to comprehend the way in which we should devote ourselves to the Lord.

And that is by giving of ourselves heart, soul and mind to God, by opening ourselves to the word of God that we will find our way to the Lord. Let those critics and all those who showed negativities to our faith be, and instead let us show the fundamental difference which we have between us and those Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of old. And that is, while those people sought to serve their own purposes and advance their own status, we do all that we did because we want to worship and glorify the Lord in the best way that we mankind can offer.

And this is where we should look up to the examples of St. Bernard, a holy saint, a renowned religious and Abbot, and also a great Doctor of the Church for his numerous works and contributions for the faith and the Church at large, even until this very day. St. Bernard, also known as St. Bernard of Clairvaux was truly a great reformer of the faith on his time, leading many others by example on how they ought to live their faith lives with devotion and zeal.

He was renowned for his extensive works in trying to bring together different rivalling factions in the Church, chastising all those who sought to advance their own personal, worldly glory at the expense of the Church and the faithful, when at that time, the Church was kind of bitterly divided from within into factions, and where even secular rulers were trying to advance their own influences and positions in relation to the Church and the people of God.

He preached for a return to the true and genuine faith in the Lord, to lay aside the indifference, the distractions and all the intrigues and all the temptations and allures of worldly desires and wishes that had been preventing all of the people of God from finding their way to Him. He preached that all the faithful ought to renew their devotion and commitment to the Lord, and many answered that call to holiness and to refocus their attention back to God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us are also therefore called to do the same as well. All of us have that obligation to serve, just as the Lord Himself had mentioned in the Gospel today. As Christians, each and every one of us ought to listen to His calling, and the mission which He had entrusted us with, that is for us to serve the Lord and His people with love.

Shall we all devote ourselves to that mission which we have been entrusted with, and do whatever it is that we can do in order to help those who are around us, particularly all those who are lost in the darkness of the world and all those who have not been able to find their way, tempted and lured away by their human desires and wants. Let us all help one another that all of us may find our way to the Lord and that all of us may be saved together in Christ. May the Lord be our guide always. Amen.

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Saturday, 20 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 23 : 1-12

At that time, Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees have sat down on the chair of Moses. So you shall do and observe all they say, but do not do as they do, for they do not do what they say. They tie up heavy burdens and load them on the shoulders of the people, but they do not even raise a finger to move them.”

“They do everything in order to be seen by people : they wear very wide bands of the Law around their foreheads, and robes with large tassels. They enjoy the first places at feasts and reserved seats in the synagogues, and they like being greeted in the marketplace, and being called ‘Master’ by the people.”

“But you, do not let yourselves be called Master, because you have only one Master, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Neither should you call anyone on earth Father, because you have only one Father, He Who is in heaven. Nor should you be called Leader, because Christ is the only Leader for you.”

“Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.”

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Saturday, 20 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 84 : 9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation that He promise peace to His people, His saints. Yet His salvation is near to those who fear Him, and His Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Saturday, 20 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Ezekiel 43 : 1-7a

He took me to the gate, facing east. Then I saw the Glory of the God of Israel approaching from the east with a sound like the sound of the ocean, and the earth shone with His Glory. This vision was like the one I had seen when He came for the destruction of the city, and like the one I had seen on the bank of the river Chebar. Then I threw myself to the ground.

The Glory of YHVH arrived at the Temple by the east gate. The Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court : the Glory of YHVH was filling the House. And I heard someone speaking to me from the Temple while the Man stood beside Me.

The voice said, “Son of man, you have seen the place of My throne, where I will place the soles of My feet, and live among the Israelites forever.”

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Friday, 19 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Eudes, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the message from the the Word of God speaking to us about the Law of God, what that Law is about, and what we ought to do as those seeking to obey the Lord, giving of ourselves to fulfil His commandments and walk in His ways, through the one kind of act and through that one word which meaning constantly elude our ability to comprehend it, that is love.

What is love? Do we really understand what it is and what it means? Love is not just the joy and happiness that two people, between male and female have for one another. It is not just the kind of material love that this world is trying to promote love as, and neither it is about the attraction or the worldly and flesh lust that existed between two lovers.

True love is just as what the Lord Himself had shown us, the example of the perfect love. He has given His love for us even though we have repeatedly spurned that love and left to seek other idols and other things to worship and adore. And as a result, in our rebelliousness that led to sin, we have deserved to die and to be cursed forever in darkness. Yet, God did not let go of His love for us.

And that was what He showed to Ezekiel His prophet, when He showed him the great vision of the land filled with an immense number of skeletons, which He gave life back to, transforming the dead and lifeless skeletons back into living beings, humans with their flesh and their breath in them. Through this vision, all of us see how God is the Master and Lord over our lives, and our lives are indeed the greatest gifts to us from our God.

Without God and the life He has given to us, we are nothing but bones and dust. We are truly nothing without God in our lives, and yet that is what exactly many of us were unable to comprehend. Many of us thought that we really are great and our deeds are wonderful, but all of them are in reality the greatness of God expressed through us all, His masterpieces in this world.

At the time of Jesus, the common misconception that prevented many of the people from seeing the truth which Jesus spoke to them was that they were too preoccupied with themselves, with their wants and desires, and they were too busy serving and trying to please the world and the society they were in, that they have largely forgotten about God. And when they tried to obey the Law and the commandments of God, they forgot that it was not about themselves, but really about God and about serving others who live around them.

Let us all look at the examples of St. John Eudes, the holy saint and holy priest whose feast day we are celebrating today. St. John Eudes was a French missionary who lived and worked around a few hundred years ago, renowned for his devotion to the Lord and to His mother Mary, and spreading that devotion by establishing several renowned congregations of religious life, the Sisters of our Lady of Charity of the Refuge, from which the Sisters of the Good Shepherd would come from, as well as the Congregation of Jesus and Mary.

In his daily life and in his works, St. John Eudes was particularly devoted to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, immersing himself in the greatness of the loving heart of our Lord, meditating for many hours and spending his time to devote himself wholly to God and knowing His love. And he spread that devotion to those around him, telling them to love the Lord with all of their hearts, for the Lord Himself had first loved all of them without any hesitation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I think it is really time for us to realise that God loves us all unconditionally, and He alone is the One Who truly loves us all dearly from the depths of His marvellous and wonderful Heart. While we mankind may falter and fail each other, as history had often shown us, but God never disappointed us. If we think that He had disappointed us in any way, it is likely because we do not understand how His love works.

Let us reflect on this matter, and see in our own lives just how God had in fact blessed us and helped us along the way over the years. When we are able to take a step back and let ourselves to think for a while, certainly we will be able to see that there are many things that we have to appreciate in this life, and we need to show that same love to each other, and that is how exactly we shall fulfil our obligation to obey the Lord.

For if God is love, then how can it be that His people, His disciples and His followers do not practice them? How can we be God’s people if our ways are filled with corruption and evil deeds, with hatred and with anger? Let us all find our ways anew to the Lord, and commit ourselves wholeheartedly to be ever more loving and be ever more faithful disciples of our Lord. May God bless us all. Amen.