Month: October 2016

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Thursday, 6 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the Holy Scriptures we are presented with the image of God as a Father, and indeed as our Father. He is the One Who created us all out of love, and we are all His beloved children, each of whom He knew personally. He knows us all by name, and He knows all that we are, everything inside our hearts and minds.

And the point that the readings today want to bring across to each and every one of us is that, if we all who belong to the Lord have been considered as His children, then God Who is the perfect and good Father will know what we need, and He will take very good care of us, and we have nothing to worry about in this life, for He will show us the way, and we need only to follow Him.

Unfortunately, in reality, many of us are often distracted on our way, and therefore we end up falling and failing to achieve our goal that is to follow the Lord our God. We are often unable to restrain ourselves, our human and worldly desires, that Satan and all of his allies are able to come in and persuade us to do things that keep us away from the salvation in God.

The temptations and persuasions of this world are strong, and day after day, we should know just how much we have to work in order to resist these and turn towards God our Father. Many of us do not know and are not aware that God had been blessing us all these while, giving us what we need and caring for us. First of all, this very life is a gift from Him, and our friends, relatives and acquaintances are also His gifts, and through these people, God exercised His works and helped us often without us realising it.

He is our Father, and if fathers know how to take care of their children, then certainly God above all knows how to do so. For those of us who have children ourselves, we realise that a child often asks for many things, and are often curious about many things. Sometimes if they did not get what they wanted, they would then throw tantrum, become angry, kicking and crying, insisting that they wanted what they desired.

But then how do we as parents handle these children of ours then? Do we immediately give in to all of their demands? Well, many parents do so. They gave in to all of their children’s demands, and as a result, they spoilt their children. The children became accustomed to have people submitting to what they wanted, and therefore grew up to become people who are conceited and lacking in self-restraint.

Let us all look at ourselves, we are like those children. From our own actions, many of us when we do not get what we want, we become angry and try our best to get what we want regardless the cost. But God does not want us to grow up to be like this. And that is why He chastises us and punishes us whenever we err and make mistakes, so that we may learn from them and not fall into the temptations of sin and thus fall away from His grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day let us all grow ever closer to the Lord our God and Father, and let us all understand that God wants the best from us, and thus from time to time, He has chastised us so that we may learn very important lessons in this life, that we may remain ever faithful and true to Him. And today, we also can learn from the examples of St. Bruno, the faithful servant of God, a holy and devoted priest who have given his life in service to God and to His people.

St. Bruno was a great evangeliser, a missionary who went forth to preach the Good News of God among the many peoples in the lands now known as France, Germany and beyond, where he visited communities and places, one after another preaching about God, and teaching many others about the faith, revealing to them the truth about His love for us all mankind.

St. Bruno was simple and humble, refusing to be appointed bishop when the opportunity arose, and even when many recommended him to be made one. He went forth in many places to declare the goodness of God, inspiring many people to follow his examples and teachings, helping many souls to find their way back to the Lord, as well as brokering peace between rival factions in the Church at that time.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore seek to follow their examples, the examples of St. Bruno and all the other holy saints of God. May God be our guide as well, and may He, our Father and Leader, help us to find our way in this world, that we may not be lost amidst the temptations, challenges and persuasions of this world. May He remain with us and fill with always with His grace. Amen.

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Thursday, 6 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Luke 11 : 5-13

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to his house in the middle of the night and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine who is travelling has just arrived, and I have nothing to offer him.'”

“Maybe your friend will answer from inside, ‘Do not bother me now; the door is locked, and my children and I are in bed, so I cannot get up and give you anything.’ But I tell you, even though he will not get up and attend to you because you are a friend, yet he will get up because you are a bother to him, and he will give you all you need.”

“And so I say to you, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For the one who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened. If your child asks for a fish, will you give him a snake instead? And if your child asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion?”

“If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”

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Thursday, 6 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Luke 1 : 69-70, 71-72, 73-75

In the house of David His servant, He has raised up for us a victorious Saviour; as He promised through His prophets of old.

Salvation from our enemies and from the hand of our foes. He has shown mercy to our fathers; and remembered His holy covenant.

The oath He swore to Abraham, our father, to deliver us from the enemy, that we might serve Him fearlessly, as a holy and righteous people, all the days of our lives.

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Thursday, 6 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Galatians 3 : 1-5

How foolish you are Galatians! How could they bewitch you after Jesus Christ has been presented to you as crucified? I shall ask you only this : Did you receive the Spirit by the practice of the Law, or by believing the message? How can you be such fools : you begin with the Spirit and end up with the flesh!

So you have experienced all this in vain! Would that it were not so! Did God give you the Spirit and work miracles among you, because of your observance of the Law or because you believed in His message?

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Wednesday, 5 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s Scripture readings show to us the works of the Apostles, who in St. Paul and the Twelve Apostles had brought the Good News of the Lord and preached it to the many peoples in the various cities that they have visited. They have revealed the goodness of God to those people and called them out of the darkness and into the light.

And what did they tell these people, brethren? It is that God is their loving God and Creator, He Who have crafted them and gave life to them, and therefore, instead of a faraway and distant God, He is the Lord Who is also our Father, loving and caring, compassionate and willing to forgive us His children, all those who have erred in our ways.

This has become even more special for the Lord Himself after taking up the flesh of our own humanity, becoming one of us, through Jesus Christ His Son, the Divine Word Incarnate, that as He calls His Father, God, as His Father, now we all who share in the same flesh of Man He had, we too may also call God our Father. And that is the very essence of His prayer, which now we all know as the Pater Noster, our Father, or the Lord’s Prayer.

That prayer is the essence of pure prayer and the perfect way of communicating with the Lord our Father. And Jesus showed us all how to pray, that we know how to talk to the Father Who cares for us and shows His gentle love to us, that we may be able to find the way to understand what He wants us to do, and that we may be able to open our hearts and minds to listen to Him speaking to us in the depth of our our hearts.

Many of us may think that we know how to pray, but in reality, if we think about it, how did we pray to God? Did we pray to God only when we are in need of help and thus heaped upon God a litany of wishes or even demands? Did we only seek to turn to the Lord at our times of need and wants? If we have done all these, then we ought to know then that our prayer and spiritual life is weak, and the foundation of our faith is likely also weak.

Many of us think that prayer is a human’s way to get help from God, as if God is our servant to begin with, and that we can ask Him and order Him to do as we wanted. And that is where many of us are often mistaken on the nature of prayer. We think of prayer as some kind of wonder path for us, a magical path for God to come in and help in our lives, and thus that is why when our wants and wishes are not met and fulfilled, we tend to become angry and reject the Lord.

The truth is that, prayer is a way for us to communicate with the Lord, our God and Father. And as all forms of communication are, prayers should be a two-way conversation between us and God. However, it is too often that we drown out God’s voice in our own loud voice and insistence that God should listen to our demands and wishes. And more often than not, we are also often too busy in noticing just how much our Father wants to speak with us and talk to us.

Jesus offered a simple and yet powerful prayer, a model for all other forms of prayers to follow. It contains glorification, petition and humility all in one prayer. As God has been so loving and caring towards us, it is indeed only right and just for us to thank Him and to glorify Him for all of His wonderful grace. God has loved us so much, and if we only would open our hearts and minds to Him, He would have blessed us abundantly. He will not abandon us to destruction or ruin on purpose.

Therefore, as we all reflect on today’s Scripture readings, let us all look upon our relationship with God our Father. Are we even close to Him? Are we able to truly look upon Him and call Him our Father? Have we given Him the love of our heart just as He has given His love for us? These are the things that we have to ponder as we live our lives in this world today, that we may not lose the sight of our true focus and attention, that is the Lord our loving God.

Despite whatever challenges and difficulties we face, and even while others and all our strengths falter, but God alone will remain true and faithful, and in Him alone we shall find true love and salvation. God will not abandon us for He Who is all good cannot possibly deny His own love for us. Let us all therefore draw closer to God our Father and ask Him to bless us always and to grace us with His love, and let us open our hearts to communicate with Him through sincere prayer. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 5 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 11 : 1-4

At that time, one day Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this : Father, may Your Name be held holy, may Your kingdom come; give us each day the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive all who do us wrong; and do not bring us to the test.”

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Wednesday, 5 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 116 : 1, 2

Alleluia! Praise the Lord, all you nations; all you peoples, praise Him.

How great is His love for us! His faithfulness lasts forever.

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Wednesday, 5 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Galatians 2 : 1-2, 7-14

After fourteen years I again went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and Titus came with us. Following a revelation, I went to lay before them the Gospel that I am preaching to the pagans. I had a private meeting with the leaders – lest I should be working or have worked in a wrong way.

They recognised that I have been entrusted to give the Good News to the pagan nations, just as Peter has been entrusted to give it to the Jews. In the same way that God made Peter the Apostle of the Jews, He made me the Apostle of the pagans.

James, Cephas and John acknowledged the graces God gave me. Those men who were regarded as the pillars of the Church stretched out their hand to me and Barnabas as a sign of fellowship; we would go to the pagans and they to the Jews. We should only keep in mind the poor among them. I have taken care to do this.

When later Cephas came to Antioch, I confronted him since he deserved to be blamed. Before some of James’ people arrived, he used to eat with non-Jewish people. But when they arrived, he withdrew and did not mingle anymore with them, for fear of the Jewish group.

The rest of the Jews followed him in this pretence, and even Barnabas was part of this insincerity. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel, I said to Cephas publicly : If you who are Jewish agreed to live like the non-Jews, setting aside the Jewish customs, why do you now compel the non-Jews to live like Jews?

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Tuesday, 4 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate together the feast day of a great and famous saint, St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the Order of Friars Minor or known better as the Franciscans, the Apostle of Italy and the reformer of the faith and religious life in more than one way, a holy man and a devoted person, known for his great and tender love for all creations and for even animals and living beings, and for his asceticism and great piety.

Yet, for all the glorious deeds and renown he had in his life, he was ultimately a humble person who did not gather credit for himself, as he showed through his way of life and also how he enforced a rigorous discipline known now as the discipline of the Franciscans, who in addition of their vows of chastity and obedience to the Lord, they also took an additional vow of poverty, where all of those who joined the Franciscan order agreed to shun worldliness and material wealth forever.

It is linked to what we heard in today’s Scripture passages, where we heard two stories, both of which showed us all the importance for us to rethink our priorities in life, and ask ourselves what is it that we are looking for in this life? What is our objective and our aim in this life? The first reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians showed him telling the people how he was converted to the faith from his old ways, and from his past of causing great harm and danger to the people of God.

St. Paul was once a great enemy of the Church and the faithful, as he was a very fanatical Jew who took his faith to the extremes, advancing the false cause of the Pharisees and the elders who opposed and rejected Jesus. He hunted down and made life very difficult for the many people who believed in Jesus and followed Him. He arrested them and gave them up to the chief priests and the Pharisees to be punished and to be made to endure suffering.

This is the past life which St. Paul came to leave behind after God called him to abandon all of them behind him and henceforth, while he was once a greatly feared enemy of all the faithful people of God, God had made him to be one of His greatest defenders. He has been awaked from the falsehoods that had clouded his mind and judgment, and therefore, he became a great saint. In the same manner, St. Francis of Assisi also had that moment of change and conversion, when God called him to serve Him.

St. Francis of Assisi was born as Pietro Bernardone, the son and heir of a rich Italian textile and garment merchant, who was influential and powerful being the member of the elite of the society, and as a power broker and as one of the owners of great wealth. The father of St. Francis of Assisi insisted that St. Francis took up the best education and preparation in order to prepare him to succeed him in his business.

But St. Francis, despite all of the good things that he enjoyed in life, the privileges that he had received since his early age, he was not satisfied with all of these. He was longing for the fulfilment which he sought, which he gradually found in the Lord through the visions which he received throughout his life. He enjoyed a life typical of the rich and the young at that time, taking part in wars as member of the military, but while his peers revel in the satisfaction and joy of such actions, St. Francis of Assisi gradually found that all of them were not what he wanted.

God spoke to him one day in a moment when he passed through a dilapidated church building, which had fallen into neglect and disrepair. God asked St. Francis to follow Him and to repair His Church. He misunderstood this as God wanting the dilapidated church building to be repaired physically. As such, he secretly took some of the expensive clothing and garments from his father’s store and sold them, and the money given to the church that it might be repaired.

His father eventually found out about this and was angry, and St. Francis escaped and took refuge in the church. His father came up to him and demanded him to account for what he had done and return him the garments and the money which had been taken from him. St. Francis repudiated his father and took off all of his clothes and garment, returning these to his father. The bishop, touched by this act, covered St. Francis with the fringes of his cope while the father left.

From then on, St. Francis of Assisi left worldly life and concerns, and became a devoted servant of the Lord. He and his fellow compatriots lived in poverty and commitment, and yet they were joyful because of that life filled with the joy of serving the Lord and His people, and the joy of knowing that in them they have found the true treasures of their life.

Jesus Himself once said also that we should not gather for ourselves treasures of this world, all those things that can run out, can perish and be destroyed by fire, by moth and by all sorts of worldly forces. Rather, we all should find for ourselves the true treasure that we can find in the Lord alone. It is by siding with God and by believing in Him that we shall find our way.

Let us all devote ourselves in the same way as St. Francis of Assisi had done. And just as Jesus had said to Martha in the Gospel today, let us all realise that there are many distractions in this world that can distract and prevent us from being able to find our way to our Lord and His salvation. Therefore, let us all be stronger and be ever more committed in our spiritual growth and development, so that through strong discipline in faith, we may be able to achieve salvation in God, and in the process help one another to reach out to te Lord as well.

There are many people in this world, our own brethren, who needs our help. We can be their guides, and indeed, God had blessed us all with the opportunities and the abilities in order to do so. Let us all follow the examples of the saints and the holy men and women who had gone to their glory before us, especially that of St. Francis of Assisi, our role model.

May God bless us all and help us in this endeavour. May He keep us always in His love and grace, and may His blessings ever be on us and our families. God be with us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 4 October 2016 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 10 : 38-42

At that time, as Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He entered a village, and a woman called Martha welcomed Him to her house. She had a sister named Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet to listen to His words.

Martha, meanwhile, was busy with all the serving, and finally she said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the work? Tell her to help me!”

But the Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you worry and are troubled about many things, whereas only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.”