Day: April 22, 2017

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Wednesday, 26 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
John 3 : 16-21

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through Him the world is to be saved.”

“Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned. He who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God. This is how the Judgment is made : Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

“For whoever does wrong hates the light, and does not come to the light, for fear that his deeds will be seen as evil. But whoever lives according to the truth comes into the light, so that it can be clearly seen that his works have been done in God.”

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Wednesday, 26 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 33 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.

Oh, let us magnify the Lord, together let us glorify His Name! I sought the Lord, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, the Lord hears and saves them from distress.

The Lord’s Angel encamps and patrols to keep safe those who fear Him. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!

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Wednesday, 26 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 5 : 17-26

The High Priest and all his supporters, that is the party of the Sadducees, became very jealous of the Apostles; so they arrested them and had them thrown into the public jail. But an Angel of the Lord opened the door of the prison during the night, brought them out, and said to them, “Go and stand in the Temple court and tell the people the whole of this living message.” Accordingly they entered the Temple at dawn and resumed their teaching.

When the High Priest and his supporters arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, that is the full Council of the elders of Israel. They sent word to the jail to have the prisoners brought in. But when the Temple guards arrived at the jail, they did not find them inside, so they returned with the news, “We found the prison securely locked and the prison guards at their post outside the gate, but when we opened the gate, we found no one inside.”

Upon hearing these words, the captain of the Temple guard and the high priests were baffled, wondering where all of this would end. Just then someone arrived with the report, “Look, those men whom you put in prison are standing in the Temple, teaching the people.” Then the captain went off with the guards and brought them back, but without any show of force, for fear of being stoned by the people.

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Tuesday, 25 April 2017 : Feast of St. Mark, Evangelist (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate together the feast of one of the four great writers of the Holy Gospels, the accounts of the life and the works of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Mark was one of the Evangelists, those whose accounts had been deemed by the Church and the by the Apostles and their successors to be true and free of error version of the life of the Lord.

St. Mark, like St. Luke, was not one of the Apostles of the Lord, unlike St. Matthew and St. John, both of whom also wrote their own Gospels. But all four of them were those who were very close to the Lord and had extensive knowledge of what happened during the time of Jesus and His life on earth, from His birth and His years of life, to the time of His ministry and eventually suffering and death on the cross. And they also witnessed the resurrection of the Lord and all other things He had done.

On this day, let us all place our attention to what the Lord had helped to assemble through His Church, a set of witnesses and proofs which His servants had gathered and kept for many centuries and ages, the passages from the history of the Lord’s salvation, and also through the traditions passed down from generations to generations, which we now know as the Bible or the Holy Scriptures.

In the Gospel today, the Lord Jesus gave His disciples one last and important command before He ascended into His heavenly glory. He commanded them to go forth to all the nations, to peoples from all the four corners of the world, to travel to the furthest and uttermost distant land to preach the Good News and the truth of God to all, so that all may come to be reconciled with God, and may seek to be baptised and sealed by the sacrament of baptism in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

That was why the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord went to faraway lands, to all parts of the Roman Empire and also to the land of the Persians, to India and beyond, carrying with them the testimonies of the faith as they had received from the Lord, and which the Holy Spirit affirmed in them, by the divine wisdom granted and provided to them. They laboured hard and showed the Lord’s teachings through their actions, and converted many people to the faith.

The Evangelists like St. Mark also did their part in fulfilling the will of God, by writing down upon the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, of the account of the life and the works of Jesus, noting down all that He had done in the midst of the people, as attested and witnessed by all those to whom the Lord had shown His deeds and taught His ways. In that way, the venerable testimonies of the faith and traditions will not be forgotten, as they were written and recorded in the Gospels and the Scriptures.

Now, let us heed what we heard from St. Peter in his first Epistle, our first reading today. In his Epistle, St. Peter spoke of the need for us all to be ever vigilant, against the assaults from the devil, our great enemy, who is always ever ready to strike at us whenever we are unprepared and not ready, and whenever he sees an opportunity to bring us down, just as he struck down our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, by the means of false promises, lies and sweet temptations.

The devil has many allies in this world, all of whom are evil spirits, or those affected by the evil spirits, who are then working together trying to claim our souls from the Lord, by bringing us to our downfall, by causing us to sin before God and men alike. This is what St. Peter warned all the people to whom he was writing to, and that is what all of us need to heed and pay attention to as well.

Therefore, how do we then prepare ourselves? How do we then remain vigilant? It is something that surely all of us will be asking. First of all, we must be committed in our faith, and we cannot be lukewarm in living our faith. Our actions must reflect what we believe, and our faith in God must be the foundation and reason for our actions in life, or else we will end up being easily shaken when temptation and challenges come on our way.

We have to know what our faith is about, and the best way to do it is to read what the holy saints and Evangelists had written in the Scriptures and in the Holy Gospels. Let us ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ, whether our answers to the following questions are yes or no. For it is important that we must reflect on how we have lived our faith life thus far.

Have we spent at least some time each day to read the words of the Lord, the history of our salvation, and trying to understand just how much the Lord loves each and every one of us by reading the Scriptures? Have we spent some time amidst our busy life schedules and worldly commitments to take a step back, and remember about the Lord? Have we spent more hours worrying about what to do tomorrow, about what we are to gain tomorrow, than remembering the Lord and knowing just how fortunate it is that we can continue living each and every day by the grace of God?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us need to become stronger in our faith, and the best way to begin is by familiarising ourselves with the word of God found in the Scriptures, particularly in the Gospels where the account of how the Lord gave us His salvation through Christ had been written for our sake. Now that we have access to the truth, should we now then go and actually spend time reading the word of God?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, may all of us draw more closely to the Lord, and deepen our relationship with Him. May all of us grow stronger in our faith, and in all the things we say and do, let us all reflect the faith which we have in the Lord, and let us act in the same way as what the Apostles and the saints of the past had done before us. May God bless us all. St. Mark the Evangelist, holy and devoted saint of God, pray for us. Amen.

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Tuesday, 25 April 2017 : Feast of St. Mark, Evangelist (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Mark 16 : 15-20

At that time, Jesus told His disciples, “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation. The one who believes and is baptised will be saved; the one who refuses to believe will be condemned.”

“Signs like these will accompany those who have believed : in My Name they will cast out demons and speak new languages; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous, they will be unharmed; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

So then, after speaking to them, the Lord Jesus was taken up into heaven and took His place at the right hand of God. The Eleven went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.

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Tuesday, 25 April 2017 : Feast of St. Mark, Evangelist (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 88 : 2-3, 6-7, 16-17

I will sing forever, o Lord, of Your love and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.

The heavens proclaim Your wonders, o Lord; the assembly of the holy ones recalls Your faithfulness. Who in the skies can compare with the Lord; who of the heaven-born is like Him?

Blessed is the people who know Your praise. They walk in the light of Your face. They celebrate all day Your Name and Your protection lifts them up.

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Tuesday, 25 April 2017 : Feast of St. Mark, Evangelist (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
1 Peter 5 : 5b-14

All of you must clothe yourself with humility in your dealings with one another, because God opposes the proud but gives His grace to the humble. Bow down, then, before the power of God so that He will raise you up at the appointed time. Place all your worries on Him since He takes care of you.

Be sober and alert because your enemy the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Stand your ground, firm in your faith, knowing that our brothers and sisters, scattered throughout the world, are confronting similar sufferings. God, the Giver of all grace, has called you to share in Christ’s eternal Glory and after you have suffered a little He will bring you to perfection : He will confirm, strengthen and establish You forever. Glory be to Him forever and ever. Amen.

I have had these few lines of encouragement written to you by Silvanus, our brother, whom I know to be trustworthy. For I wanted to remind you of the kindness of God really present in all this. Hold on to it. Greetings from the community in Babylon, gathered by God, and from my son, Mark. Greet one another with a friendly embrace. Peace to you all who are in Christ.

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Monday, 24 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the readings from the Holy Scriptures telling us first about the chains and fetters that bound the nations, the peoples, their rulers and their kings, which had become obstacles in the path of their acceptance of the Lord, His truth and His teachings. People had conspired against the Lord and His Messiah, plotting against the good works which He had done in this world.

And thus, that was why there were so much opposition against Jesus, against His works and all that He had taught to the people. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law always constantly sought to undermine the good works of Jesus at almost every available opportunity, even to the point of setting up traps hoping that He would fall into the trap, and therefore they would be able to accuse Him of wrongdoing.

The chief priests and the elders of the people also opposed Jesus, because they feared that Jesus had become too great an influence, providing an alternative voice for the people to follow, a new authority that rivalled the power and authority of the chief priests and the elders, or the Sanhedrin. They would not want this ‘Upstart’ to take over their roles and duties, and they did not want Jesus to outshine them in the eyes of the community.

Hence, they did all they could in order to seek fault with Jesus, oppressing Him and making Him an outcast in the society. Even though He had performed all sorts of miracles as foretold by the prophets and the messengers of God, marking Him as the One Whom God had promised to be the Messiah or the Saviour of the world, but many of the people refused to believe in Him, exactly because of the chains and fetters that prevented them from doing so.

And what were these fetters and chains? I was speaking in figurative terms, brothers and sisters, that these things which held back those who opposed the truth and the good works of Christ and His disciples, were the sins of man, the pride present in our hearts, the greed, desire and cravings we have for the many sorts of enjoyable and tempting things in this world, be it pleasures of the flesh and the body, be it money and material possessions, or even fame and renown among others.

Many had hardened their hearts against the Lord because of these, and as a result, when He came, showing them His truth, not only by words but also through miraculous and wondrous deeds, they still stubbornly refused to listen to the Lord, Who also wanted to call them to repentance and salvation. Remember, brethren, that Jesus offered His life as a sacrifice for all of us, all of us sinners without exception. He died even for His enemies and those who cried out for His death.

And that was why in the passage from the Acts of the Apostles today, we heard how St. Peter and the other Apostles of the Lord showed the people what they needed to do in order to become true disciples of the Lord. First of all, they need to leave behind their past way of life, their sins, their prejudices, their hard-heartedness, their arrogance, their hatred and anger, as well as any other things that had become the various obstacles preventing man from truly being able to reach out to the Lord.

They prayed for the Holy Spirit to come upon the people, and upon receiving the Holy Spirit with an open mind and heart, the people of God received courage and new hope. They have been transformed by the Lord and became new people, new men and women, abandoning behind their past ways of life, and embracing their newfound faith in God. This is in fact, what the Lord Jesus spoke about when He told the faithful Pharisee, Nicodemus, when he came to meet Him in secret at night, about the need for the people to be reborn in the Spirit.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are therefore called to a genuine conversion and change in our lives. If we have not abandoned and rejected sin and all sorts of wickedness which we have used to do in life, then now it is the best time for us to do so. We have to always keep in mind that God loves each and every one of us, even though we are sinners, but He does not love or condone our sins. Sin is abhorrent to Him and is in fact what caused us to be sundered from the fullness of His grace and love.

Today let us all look at the examples of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, the holy saint whose feast we are celebrating. He was a Capuchin friar and priest, who was a renowned figure in the Counter-Reformation era. At that time, many people had been misled by the confusion and by the falsehoods of the ‘reformation’, which led to the people falling away from the path towards the Lord’s salvation, living their lives in sin and in debauchery, even for those who are within the Church of God.

St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen was a very important figure who helped countless souls finding their way back to the Lord and helped to reconcile many people, both within and outside the Church to return to the grace of God. He preached to many people and taught them the truth about God, encouraging them to repent from their sins. He was renowned for his personal humility and zeal, and many flocked to him to confess their sins before God.

There were great opposition against St. Fidelis, just as there were opposition against Jesus and His disciples. There were people who were not pleased that St. Fidelis had managed to gain numerous converts and still many more people who were coming to seek forgiveness and reconciliation with the Lord through His Church. His life was threatened and challenges were made against him, and yet, St. Fidelis placed everything in the hands of God and entrusted everything to Him.

The courage and the commitment with which St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen had lived his life in faith should become a source of great inspiration for all of us Christians. We should also walk in his footsteps, and from now on, promise the Lord our God that we will remain true to Him, and abandoning our past way of sinfulness and wickedness, we will turn ourselves wholeheartedly towards Him and will obey Him in all of His will and commandments.

May the Lord bless each and every one of us, and may He strengthen in us our faith, so that in all the things we say and do, in every breath we take, we will always proclaim the glory of God by our actions and deeds, and through us, more people may come to see the truth of God and be saved as well. May the Lord be with us, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 24 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
John 3 : 1-8

At that time, among the Pharisees there was a ruler of the Jews named Nicodemus. He came to Jesus by night and said, “Rabbi, we know that You have come from God to teach us, for no one can perform miraculous signs like Yours unless God is with Him.”

Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again from above.” Nicodemus said, “How can there be rebirth for a grown man? Who could go back to his mother’s womb and be born again?” Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you : No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

“Because of this, do not be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again from above.’ The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

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Monday, 24 April 2017 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, Priest and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 2 : 1-3, 4-6, 7-9

Why do the nations conspire? Why do the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth brace themselves and the rulers together take their stand against the Lord and His Anointed. They say, “Let us break their bonds! Let us cast away their chains!”

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord looks at them in derision. Then in anger He speaks to them, terrifying them in the fury of His wrath : “Behold the King I have installed, in Zion, upon My holy hill!”

I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to Me : “You are My Son. This day I have begotten You. Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall rule them with iron sceptre and shatter them as a potter’s vase.”