Day: September 8, 2016

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Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Luke 6 : 43-49

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “No healthy tree bears bad fruit, no poor tree bears good fruit. And each tree is known by the fruit it bears : you do not gather figs from thorns, or grapes from brambles. Similarly the good person draws good things from the good stored in his heart, and an evil person draws evil things from the evil stored in his heart. For the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart.”

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what the one is like, who comes to Me, and listens to My words, and acts accordingly. That person is like the builder who dug deep, and laid the foundations of his house on rock. The river overflowed, and the stream dashed against the house, but could not carry it off because the house had been well built.”

“But the one who listens and does not act, is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. The flood burst against it, and the house fell at once : and what a terrible disaster that was!”

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Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Psalm 115 : 12-13, 17-18

The Lord remembers us and will bless us; He will bless the family of Israel; He will bless the family of Aaron; He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great.

It is not the dead who praise the Lord, for they have gone down to silence; but it is we, the living, who bless the Lord, from now on and forever.

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Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
1 Corinthians 10 : 14-22

Therefore, dear friends, shun the cult of idols. I address you as intelligent persons; judge what I say. The cup of blessings that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ? The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.

Consider the Israelites. For them, to eat of the victim is to come into communion with its altar. What does all that mean? That the meat is really consecrated to the idol, or that the idol is a being. However, when the pagans offer a sacrifice, the sacrifice goes to the demons, not to God.

I do not want you to come into fellowship with demons. You cannot drink at the same time from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons. You cannot share in the table of the Lord and in the table of the demons. Do we want, perhaps, to provoke the jealousy of the Lord? Could we be stronger than He?

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Friday, 9 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are called to put our attention into two things, that is firstly, we have to remember the mission which God had entrusted to us all through His Apostles, as St. Paul succinctly placed in what he wrote in his Epistle, that we all are servants and preachers of the Gospel, the Good News of God. We are the evangelisers of this new and current time and age.

We serve the Lord by preaching the Good News which He has brought upon this world, by being witnesses of His death and resurrection. We are God’s servants, and thus we should speak, act and do things in accordance with what He has revealed to us and taught us, or else, others will not come to believe in us if we ourselves do not act in accordance with God’s ways.

And that is in tandem with the second thing that we heard in today’s Gospel, that is about how Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their hypocrisy and lack of genuine faith, using the well known parable of the plank and the eyes. They were rebuked as those who wanted to remove the sins in others while they themselves committed great sins and yet they turned a blind eye to these.

In order to understand this, we have to understand what it was like at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and scribes, the elders and the priestly class and caste are among the elites and the highly respected and influential members of the community, and also rightly feared for their influence and oppression of all forms of dissent against their authority.

They considered themselves pious and great in faith, as guardians of God’s laws and commandments. They treasured their customs and traditions, valuing highly their appearances and showy prayers in public as signs of their faith. And yet, in all these, they did not glorify God, and neither did they honour Him as He should have been honoured. They thought only of themselves and their human needs and desires.

And in that, they did not just oppress others around them but they also misled and misguided them to the wrong path. Instead of bringing the people closer to God, they have closed the path off to many, and including themselves as well. That is a reminder for us not to be like them and not to act as they have acted. We must instead be true to our faith and be committed in all things, that whatever we do, we do not for ourselves, but for the greater glory of God.

Perhaps the example of today’s saint, St. Peter Claver can be a source of inspiration and example for us all to follow from today on. St. Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit priest who went forth to the New World, what is today called the American continent. He went specifically to the Spanish colony in what is now Latin or South America, ministering to the people there, preaching among those who have yet to accept the Lord as their Saviour.

It was told that many people listened to his sermons and preachings, and as many as three hundred thousand people converted to the Faith and gave themselves to be baptised through his works, and that he baptised them all by himself throughout his forty years of working among them. He was hardworking and dedicated to his mission, that is to save the souls of those who still lived in the darkness and in ignorance of the Lord and His saving works.

St. Peter Claver did not allow himself to succumb to the same temptations facing the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Despite of his privileged position as a priest and as a Spanish, which accorded to him immense benefits and privileges as both a member of the clergy and as a European versus all the natives and the pagans living in the New World, he lived simply and even when given privileges, he chose to live among the slaves, to whom he had dedicated his life’s works to.

The examples of St. Peter Claver should serve as a reminder to us all, brothers and sisters in Christ, that as the disciples and servants of our Lord, we must live according to what He has commanded us to be, that is to love and to give ourselves in love to one another, just as St. Peter Claver had done. And he also gave himself to the poorest, the weakest, those who were oppressed and who were at a disadvantage.

Let us all therefore vow to make ourselves better disciples of the Lord, by following in the footsteps of our holy predecessors, the saints and servants of God, and not fall into the temptations of this world. May God help us to love each other ever more sincerely with each passing day. God bless us all. Amen.