Day: August 23, 2016

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Thursday, 25 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Matthew 24 : 42-51

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Stay awake then, for you do not know on what day your Lord will come. Obviously, if the owner of the house knew at what time the thief was coming, he would certainly stay up and not allow his house to be broken into. So be alert, for the Son of Man will come at the hour you least expect.”

“Imagine a capable servant, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give them food at the proper time. Fortunate indeed is that servant, whom his master will find at work when he comes. Truly I say to you, his lord will entrust that one with everything he has.”

“Not so with the bad servant who thinks, ‘My master is delayed.’ And he begins to ill-treat his fellow servants, while eating and drinking with drunkards. But his master will come on the day he does not know, and at the hour he least expects. He will dismiss that servant, and deal with him as the hypocrites. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

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Thursday, 25 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Psalm 144 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7

I will praise You day after day and exalt Your Name forever. Great is the Lord, most worthy of praise; and His deeds are beyond measure.

Parents commend Your works to their children and tell them Your feats. They proclaim the splendour of Your majesty and recall Your wondrous works.

People will proclaim Your mighty deeds, and I will declare Your greatness. They will celebrate Your abundant kindness, and rejoice in singing of Your justice.

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Thursday, 25 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

1 Corinthians 1 : 1-9

From Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and from Sosthenes, our brother, to God’s Church which is in Corinth; to you whom God has sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with those who everywhere call upon the Name of our Lord Christ Jesus, their Lord and ours.

Receive grace and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I give thanks constantly to my God for you and for the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. For you have been fully enriched in Him with words as well as with knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you.

You do not lack any spiritual gift and only await the glorious coming of Christ Jesus, our Lord. He will keep you steadfast to the end, and you will be without reproach on the day of the coming of our Lord Jesus. The faithful God will not fail you after calling you to this fellowship with His Son, Christ Jesus, our Lord.

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Wednesday, 24 August 2016 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great feast day of one of our Lord’s holy Twelve Apostles, namely St. Bartholomew the Apostle, one of the brave and courageous chief disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, who fearlessly went forth to many places far and wide in order to bring the Good News of the Gospel to the people who were still unaware of the Lord and His salvation.

He was also known as Nathanael, which story we heard in the Gospel today taken from the Gospel according to St. John. Nathanael, St. Bartholomew was known to be an educated Jew, who could also speak Greek and was very wise by that day’s standard. Indeed, he was probably the most intelligent and the best educated among all of Christ’s Apostles.

Yet in that intelligent mind and body, existed a heart that yearned for the Lord, which desired to seek the Lord and find His love. He sought the One Who would lead the people of God back to their glory, and He Who would liberate His people from their torment and suffering. And he did find the One Whom he sought in Jesus, Who came to call him and praise him for his wisdom, uprightness and faith.

That same Apostle, St. Bartholomew would go on to serve the Lord throughout His earthly ministry, caring for the poor, serving the people to whom God had revealed Himself to, frequently even having to suffer persecution and challenges from the Jewish authorities and from all those who were opposed to the works of Christ. Yet, he persevered and endured through all of them and remained committed to his calling.

It was told that St. Bartholomew continued his mission after Christ had risen from the dead and departed from this world in His Ascension. He went on to evangelise in many regions, such as India and Armenia, where records attested to his many works on the people who lived in those places. He preached to them and led them to the revelation of truth in God.

St. Bartholomew eventually met his death in martyrdom in Armenia, where it was told that he managed to convert the king of the Armenians, whose brother then took over power and in revenge for such an act, tortured St. Bartholomew and his fellow Apostle, St. Jude Thaddeus, was martyred defending their faith in God, and they were raised to the glory of heaven promised to them, after having done so much for the Lord, for His Church and for the salvation of His people.

In the first reading, we read about the vision of St. John the Apostle in his book of Apocalypse or the Book of Revelations, showing to us at the end of the series of his visions, after seeing the vision of tribulations and challenges that would come to face the Church and the faithful, he saw the glorious Holy City of Jerusalem. It is the representation of the eternal life and the glory that God had promised to all those who have kept their faith in Him to the end.

God rewards all those who have walked in His ways and those who have given themselves to Him, leaving behind their sinfulness and old ways of the world. He does not abandon His beloved ones to the darkness, but shows them instead the way to reach out towards the light. However, the examples of St. Bartholomew the Apostle and that of the other holy Apostles, disciples, saints and martyrs serve to remind us that the way forward for us will not be an easy one.

Trials and tribulations, challenges and difficulties, and all other obstacles are always part of this journey of faith, as those who do not desire our salvation and liberation from the tyranny and oppression by sin are at work to undermine our salvation, and to keep us in the darkness. But never fear, brethren, for God is always ever faithful to His beloved ones, and we are assured and guaranteed the eternal rest and glory that can be found in Him alone, as St. John the Apostle had seen in his wonderful vision.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all devote ourselves to the Lord anew in the footsteps of the holy Apostles, walking in the path that St. Bartholomew had initiated before us. Let us all follow his example, his upright and just actions, learn from his wisdom and from his desire to seek and love the Lord, and more importantly, the desire to spread the Good News of salvation to many more people that they too may be saved together with us.

Let us all be modern day Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, not be fearful but instead be filled with joy and courage, knowing that God is on our side, guiding us and helping us on the way, that we may merit to receive the glory of His kingdom, and together as one people, may we be able to help each other to reach out to the promise of the heavenly kingdom and eternal life God will give to those who keep their faith in Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 24 August 2016 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

John 1 : 45-51

At that time, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the One that Moses wrote about in the Law, and the prophets as well : He is Jesus, Son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming, He said of him, “Here comes an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him.”

Nathanael asked Him, “How do You know me?” And Jesus said to him, “Before Philip called you, you were under the tree, and I saw you.” Nathanael answered, “Master, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” But Jesus replied, “You believe because I said, ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’ But you will see greater things than that.”

“Truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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Wednesday, 24 August 2016 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 144 : 10-11, 12-13ab, 17-18

All Your works will give You thanks; all Your saints, o Lord, will praise You. They will tell the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your power.

That all may know of Your mighty deeds, Your reign and its glorious splendour. Your reign is from age to age; Your dominion endures from generation to generation.

Righteous is the Lord in all His ways, His mercy shows in all His deeds. He is near those who call on Him, who call trustfully upon His Name.

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Wednesday, 24 August 2016 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Revelations 21 : 9b-14

One of those seven Angels with the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I am going to show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” He took me up in a spiritual vision to a very high mountain and He showed me the Holy City Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shines with the glory of God, like a precious jewel with the colour of crystal-clear jasper.

Its wall, large and high, has twelve gates; stationed at them are twelve Angels. Over the gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. Three gates face the east; three gates face the north; three gates face the south and three face the west.

The city wall stands on twelve foundation stones on which are written the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.

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Tuesday, 23 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Rose of Lima, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Virgins)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded that whatever it is we face in life, and no matter all that we experience through our earthly existence, we should keep our focus firmly on the Lord and not to be distracted by the many things and temptations that will keep us away and pull us away from the path to attain the salvation found only in our God alone.

In the first reading, the Lord reminded us through St. Paul His Apostle, that we should be wary and be vigilant of the false prophets and all the lies which they spread around us, as these would become obstacles and hindrances on our path as we walk towards the Lord. There are many of those opposed to us being saved in the Lord, not least of which is the forces of the devil and his allies.

It is the ultimate objective of the evil one in trying to subvert our attempt to find our way to the Lord, and it is imperative for him to try to make us stumble on our journey, for in his great pride and jealousy against God, as well as against the love and honour which God had accorded to us from the very beginning, he has declared war against Adam and all of his descendants.

Indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ has already come and died for our sake, that we might be freed and be liberated from our sins. However, it does not mean that we who still live in this world should then be complacent and be lax in our way of life that we may fall into the traps set upon our path by those who do not take kindly seeing us all be freed from our troubles and proceeding towards our salvation and life in God.

We should heed what our Lord Jesus told us in the Gospel, when He spoke out against the wickedness and the lack of faith among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, which led to the people being misled in their life and in their faith, by the obsession with appearances and with worldliness, as the emphasis on God and on our relationship with Him was lost, and instead was replaced with the emphasis on human and worldly status.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, when we worship the Lord, it is important that our interior orientation is properly attuned to the Lord, or else, we may lose our focus and instead of focusing on God, we become inappropriately focused on ourselves and on our own human frailties and all the things that led us to sin. It is important therefore that we spend some time to think about how we live our lives in order to be truly faithful to the Lord.

Let us all look at the examples of St. Rose of Lima, the holy saint whose feast we are celebrating today. She was an ordinary woman whose extraordinary life and devotion to God elevated her to the glory of heaven, and we all can learn from her life examples. She is the first saint from the Americas, then known as the New World, a woman of astounding beauty and charm.

Many young men, both rich and poor, influential and powerful tried to woo her and get her into marriage with them, but she turned away from all of them, because since her youth, she had promised that she would live a holy and chaste life devoted to God alone. Her parents opposed that decision, but she continued to persevere on despite the challenges.

She was well known for her great piety and devotion, often engaged in self-mortification and resisting the temptations of the flesh and the world. She was known to wear a heavy silver crown with spikes that pierced into the skin and the flesh of her head to remind her of her mortality and the futility of human fame, glory and all the false lies and promises that Satan tempted us with in this world.

Certainly the examples of St. Rose of Lima should inspire us to devote our lives in a similar manner. We should resist those temptations of the flesh, and all the things that have become obstacles on our path, that is our unrestrained desires, the pulling force of greed and human frailties, and instead, push on through, inspired by St. Rose of Lima and the other holy saints, to lead an ever more devoted life, not just by appearances alone, but also through real action, through charity and love, by caring for all those who are less fortunate around us.

May God see in us the light of the love which He had shown us, and may He bless us and our endeavours, so that through our good works, we may be justified in our faith and draw ever closer to His presence. May God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.