Month: November 2016

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Sunday, 27 November 2016 : First Sunday of Advent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Romans 13 : 11-14a

You know what hour it is. This is the time to awake, for our salvation is now nearer than when we first believed; the night is almost over and day is at hand. Let us discard, therefore, everything that belongs to darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.

As we live in the full light of day, let us behave with decency; no banquets with drunkenness, no promiscuity or licentiousness, no fighting or jealousy. Put on, rather, the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Sunday, 27 November 2016 : First Sunday of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 121 : 1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And now we have set foot within your gates, o Jerusalem!

There the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to give thanks to the Lord’s Name. There stand the courts of justice, the offices of the house of David.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : “May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your walls and security within your citadels!”

For the sake of my relatives and friends, I will say, “Peace be with you!” For the sake of the house of our Lord, I will pray for your good.

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Sunday, 27 November 2016 : First Sunday of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Isaiah 2 : 1-5

The vision of Isaiah, son of Amoz, concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In the last days, the mountain of YHVH’s house shall be set over the highest mountains and shall tower over the hills. All the nations shall stream to it, saying, “Come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us His ways and we may walk in His paths. For the Teaching comes from Zion, and from Jerusalem the word of YHVH.”

“He will rule over the nations and settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not raise sword against nation; they will train for war no more. O nation of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

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Saturday, 26 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the Word of God from the Sacred Scriptures telling us of the hope of our future inheritance, the promise of everlasting life in pure bliss and joy in the perfect realm and world God has promised before us, to all those who are faithful to Him, that He will bring all of us into paradise, to enjoy forever the fruits of His love, never to be sorrowful or sad anymore, ever again.

At the end of the Book of the Revelations of St. John the Apostle, after all the parts describing the great persecution and sufferings that will await the faithful, and subsequently what happened to the wicked, who endured the great wrath of God, and had their cities and all things destroyed, in the end, after all things have been judged, God will reveal to all the heavenly Jerusalem, the true Holy City where all the faithful ones will dwell with their God forevermore.

But the path to reach this heavenly inheritance will not be an easy one, brothers and sisters in Christ, otherwise everyone would have been easily saved and no one would have to face condemnation and hell. There will be plenty of obstacles, dangers and threats to our safety and even to our very own lives, and we should not be complacent in this matter lest we falter.

It is easy for us to be complacent if we do not live our lives with faith and be courageous in living up to what the Lord expects us to be. It is easy for us to fall into the trap of the temptations of the world, that is when we fall into the lures of pleasure of the flesh, of drunkenness and other vices and wickedness just as our Lord Jesus highlighted in today’s Gospel passage.

This is especially true in our era today, the time that we are living in, when we are experiencing daily the pressure to conform to the expectations of this world. We live in a world often obsessed with success, with fame and greed, with individualism and the ego of man, so much so that we end up being pressured to conform to these ways, which are often contrary to the ways of the Lord our God.

Take for example the abundance of materialism as a culture in and around us, through various advertisements and other means of communication. We are always inundated with so many of these messages and influences, that we are in danger of losing our focus and our way, becoming more and more attached and obsessed with the values and pursuits of worldliness rather than striving to become more faithful disciples and followers of our Lord.

We have to take note of the seriousness of this matter and prepare ourselves, brethren, for all that God had said in the Scriptures He will do in His own time, and when He comes to deliver judgment to all, we certainly will not want to end up on the wrong side, as our vices and wickedness outweigh our good deeds and virtues. We must not think that there is always time available for us, and therefore we can delay seeking God’s mercy and forgiveness until the very end.

Indeed, we do not even have the slightest idea or hint of when this will happen, and it can happen anytime. The Lord may just suddenly appear and declare His salvation to all whom He deems to be worthy, and if we are not prepared, we will be like those five foolish women who did not bring extra lamp oil with themselves. As a result, they missed the opportunity given to them, and God rejected them.

As Christians, all these readings and the readings for the past few weeks should have awakened in us the sense of great urgency to live in accordance with the ways of our Lord and at the same time, it is also a reminder for us to learn to resist worldly temptations of wealth, money and possessions. Otherwise these will easily tempted us as how they have tempted our ancestors and predecessors.

Let us all therefore strengthen our own spiritual life and connection to God through sincere and fervent prayers. Let us all put our focus and effort to serve the Lord through various means and commit ourselves day by day, by loving one another, showing charity and mercy to the poor, the weak, the ostracised, the unloved, and those who are sick and dying.

Let us all show forth our faith to others and to the whole world. Do not be afraid of ridicule, rejection and even persecution, but just do what we can do in order to remain as true Christians amidst this difficult time. God will be with us and He will guide us to Himself. Rich will be our reward when He comes again in glory and find us in our faith and worthy of Him. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 26 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Luke 21 : 34-36

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Be on your guard : do not immerse yourselves in a life of pleasure, drunkenness and worldly cares, lest that day catch you unaware, like a trap! For, like a snare, will that day come upon all the inhabitants of the earth.”

“But watch at all times and pray, that you may be able to escape all that is going to happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

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Saturday, 26 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Psalm 94 : 1-2, 3-5, 6-7

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks with music and songs of praise.

For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In His hand are the depths of the earth and the mountain heights. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hand shaped the dry land.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we are His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

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Saturday, 26 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Revelations 22 : 1-7

Then the Angel showed me the river of life, clear as crystal, gushing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of the city, on both sides of the river are the trees of life producing fruit twelve times, once each month, the leaves of which are for healing the nations.

No longer will there be a curse; the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the City and God’s servants will live in His presence. They will see His face and His Name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light or lamp or sun for God Himself will be their light and they will reign forever.

Then the Angel said to me, “These words are sure and true; the Lord God Who inspires the prophets has sent His Angel to show His servants what must happen soon.” “I am coming soon! Happy are those who keep the prophetic words of this book.”

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Friday, 25 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we approach the closing of the current liturgical year, all of the Scripture readings which we heard and received all have that ‘Apocalyptic’ slant, that is, many of them are talking about what will happen soon, in the future, when as foretold in the Book of the Revelations of St. John the Apostle, our Lord will come again in His glory to save all of those who are faithful to Him.

And we are told about what will happen at the great and Last Judgment of all the things living and the dead, as we pronounce every time we recite the Creed, when the Lord Jesus, the Great Judge of all will give His judgment on every single one of us, from the lowest among us to the greatest, from the richest to the poorest, from the kings to the lowliest peasants and beggars, all will receive judgment according to their deeds in life, as written in the records of the Lord.

And we are also told how those whose lives have been worthy in the eyes of the Lord have their names written in the Book of Life, while those who have been wicked and been against the Lord and His ways in their lives do not have their names written in that Book. It is a measure of comparing between those worthy and unworthy in the sight of God.

And the Lord’s Judgment is simple, that those who have been found worthy and whose names are in the Book will receive the eternal glory and joy promised to them, and the others whose names are not found in the Book will receive for their part, eternal damnation and suffering, separated from God’s love and grace without any hope of escape or succour.

In the Gospel, we heard Jesus telling His disciples and the people about knowing and being able to discern the sign of times, so that we will not be caught unaware of what will happen, as we have just discussed earlier on. We cannot remain ignorant and complacent in how we live our lives, as many of us tend to do, for the danger is that when the Lord suddenly comes again, we may be caught unprepared, and by then, no amount of regret is going to save us from what is to come.

And how do we prepare ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ? Then let us all heed what Jesus told His disciples in another occasion in the Gospels when He told them about what will happen at the Last Judgment when He will separate the worthy ones from the unworthy and wicked ones. All of what Jesus told them is about the failure of the wicked ones to stretch out their hands to help out those who are needy, poor, naked, suffering and in prison, while those who are worthy have already done something to help these.

Therefore, that is what we need to do, brothers and sisters in Christ, by making ourselves readily available to help those who are weak, the least and the ostracised ones in our society, those who are unloved and those who have no one to care for them, poor and in need of help. This is what we need to do as Christians, as our form of Christian love and charity to our brethren, what God has asked us all to do.

Today we also celebrate the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria, who is a devout and holy woman whose examples can be our inspiration on how we should live out our lives in faith. It was told that she was a noble by birth and was renowned by her beauty and also her piety, who converted to the Faith through visions she received from the Lord.

She showed concern for all of her fellow Christians who were suffering under persecution by the then Emperor Maxentius, by challenging the Emperor himself to rescind his persecution order and let the Christians be. The Emperor was told to have gathered over fifty best philosophers to argue with St. Catherine, but they were all soundly defeated by the wisdom of God found in the holy woman and servant of God. Many of them in fact were converted to the faith and would later be martyred together with her.

St. Catherine was arrested and put in prison, and while in prison, her courageous faith and zeal continued to bring forth even more good fruits, and more people converted because of her, and it was told that even the Empress herself believed and was converted, and thus, even the Empress would join St. Catherine in her martyrdom. She met her end knowing fully that God is with her, and through her, many good deeds have been done. She is therefore truly worthy of the Lord and His promise.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore be inspired by her examples, by her piety and devotion, and by her dedication and commitment to live a life filled with faith and devotion to God. We should do our best to help one another, and to give our life into a dedication of service to our less fortunate brethren, so that in the end, when it is time for us to give an account of our own lives and be judged, our names will be written in the Book of Life and we shall receive the fullness of God’s promise. May the Lord guide us in this endeavour and bless all of us. Amen.

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Friday, 25 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Luke 21 : 29-33

At that time, Jesus added this comparison, “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as their buds sprout, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near.”

“Truly, I tell you, this generation will not pass away, until all this has happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away.”

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Friday, 25 November 2016 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 83 : 3, 4, 5-6a and 8a

My soul yearns, pines, for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, at Your altars, o Lord of hosts, my King and my God!

Happy are those who live in Your house, continually singing Your praise! Happy the pilgrims whom You strengthen. They go from strength to strength till they appear before God in Zion.