Liturgical Colour : Red
John 7 : 37-39
At that time, on the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood up and proclaimed, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me; and let the one who believes in Me drink, for the Scripture says : Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”
Jesus was referring to the Spirit, which those who believe in Him were to receive; the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into His glory.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Romans 8 : 22-27
We know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pangs of birth. Not creation alone, but even ourselves, although the Spirit was given to us as a foretaste of what we are to receive, we groan in our innermost being, eagerly awaiting the day when God will give us full rights and rescue our bodies as well.
In hope we already have salvation. But if we saw what we hoped for, there would no longer be hope; how can you hope for what is already seen? So we hope for what we do not see and we will receive it through patient hope. We are weak, but the Spirit comes to help us. How to ask? And what shall we ask for?
We do not know, but the Spirit intercedes for us without words, as if with groans. And He Who sees inner secrets knows the desires of the Spirit, for He asks for the holy ones what is pleasing to God.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 103 : 1-2a, 24 and 35c, 27-28, 29bc-30
Bless the Lord, my soul! Clothed in majesty and splendour; o Lord, my God, how great You are! You are wrapped in light as with a garment.
How varied o Lord, are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all – the earth full of Your creatures. Bless the Lord, my soul!
They all look to You for their food in due time. You give it to them, and they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are filled with good things.
You take away their breath, they expire and return to dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and the face of the earth is renewed.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Genesis 11 : 1-9
The whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved from east, they found a plain in the country of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in fire.” They used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. They said also, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven; so that we may become a great people and not be scattered over the face of the earth!”
YHVH came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man were building, and YHVH said, “They are one people and they have one language. If they carry this through, nothing they decide to do from now on will be impossible. Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language so that they will no longer understand each other.”
So YHVH scattered them over all the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there YHVH confused the language of the whole earth and from there YHVH scattered them over the whole face of the earth.
Alternative reading
Exodus 19 : 3-8a, 16-20b
The Israelites camped there in front of the mountain, but Moses went up to God and YHVH called to him from the mountain, saying, “This is what you are to say and to explain to the Israelites : You have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to Myself.”
“Now if you listen to Me and keep My covenant, you shall be My very own possession among all the nations. For all the earth is Mine, but you will be for Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” And He added, “This is what you are to say to the people of Israel.”
So Moses went and summoned all the elders of the people and related to them all that YHVH had commanded him to say. All the people responded with one voice, “All that YHVH has said, we will do.”
On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning and a dense cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast was heard. All the people in the camp trembled. Moses then made the people leave the camp to meet God and stand at the foot of the mountain.
Mount Sinai was completely covered in smoke because YHVH had come down in fire, and the smoke rose as from a furnace. The whole mountain shook violently, while the blast of the trumpet became louder and louder. Moses spoke and God replied in thunder. When YHVH had come down to the summit of Mount Sinai, God called Moses who went to the summit.
Alternative reading
Ezekiel 37 : 1-14
The hand of YHVH was upon me. He brought me out and led me in spirit to the middle of the valley which was full of bones. He made me walk to and fro among them and I could see there was a great number of them on the ground all along the valley and that they were very dry.
YHVH said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live again?” I said, “Lord YHVH, only You know that.” He then said, “Speak on My behalf concerning these bones; say to them : Dry bones, hear the word of YHVH! YHVH says : I am going to put spirit in you and make you live. I shall put sinews on you and make flesh grow on you; I shall cover you with skin and give you My Spirit, that you may live. And you will know that I am YHVH.”
“I prophesied as I had been commanded and then there was a noise and commotion; the bones joined together. I looked and saw that they had sinews, that flesh was growing on them and that He was covering them with skin. But there was no spirit in them.”
So YHVH said to me, “Speak on My behalf and call on the Spirit, son of man! Say to the Spirit : This is the word of YHVH : Spirit, come from the four winds. Breathe into these dead bones and let them live!” I prophesied as He had commanded me and breath entered them; they came alive, standing on their feet – a great, immense army!
He then said to me, “Son of man, these bones are all Israel. They keep saying : ‘Our bones are dry, hope has gone, it is the end of us.’ So prophesy! Say to them : This is what YHVH says : I am going to open your tombs, I shall bring you out of your tombs, My people, and lead you back to the land of Israel.”
“You will know that I am YHVH, o My people! When I open your graves and bring you out of your graves, when I put My Spirit in you and you live. I shall settle you in your land and you will know that I, YHVH, have done what I said I would do.”
Alternative reading
Joel 3 : 1-5
In the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on every mortal. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even upon My servants and maidens, I will pour out My Spirit on that day.
I will show wonders in the heavens, and on earth blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will darken and the moon turn to blood, at the approach of the great and dreadful day of God.
Then all who call upon the Name of YHVH will be saved. For on Mount Zion there will be a remnant, as YHVH has said; in Jerusalem some will be saved – those whom YHVH will call.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the penultimate day of the Easter season, as tomorrow we will together as the whole Church celebrate the great Solemnity of the Pentecost, the birth time of the Church at the time when the Lord sent His Holy Spirit to all of His Apostles and disciples, sending them forth to all the nations and to all the peoples to preach His Good News and truth.
Yet, at the same time, we must also keep in mind, that to become a disciple of the Lord is not something that is very simple or safe. As the reality is that, as disciples of the Lord, there will always be challenges, difficulties, and times when we may feel to be alone amidst all those who are up against us, as what the Apostles and the disciples themselves had experienced.
As we heard in the readings today, the first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles spoke of the life which St. Paul had in Rome during the last years of his life and ministry, a relatively peaceful time before what was told to be the first major official persecution of the Christian faith by the Roman Empire, when the city of Rome was engulfed in a massive firestorm, and blame quickly were laid on the Christian communities. It was told that St. Paul met his martyrdom by beheading at that time, the year of our Lord sixty-four.
Many Christians became victims of the persecutions, be it by the Jewish authorities, the chief priests and the Pharisees in the earliest days of the Church, or by the opposition and persecutions by the Roman authorities, including the one which I had just mentioned. And there were also resistance by those pagan priests and philosophers, who refused to see their old and traditional pagan worship to be replaced by the Christian faith.
But, at the same time, there were also many people, Jews and Gentiles alike, who were willing to receive the words of truth, and to accept the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. These people were willing to turn away from their past sinful ways, and become Christians, and thus strengthening the foundations of the early Church. Many of them eventually also met persecution, suffering and even martyrdom because of their faith, and also refusal to apostasise from their faith.
If not for their courage, the bravery and devotion of the Apostles, disciples, saints and martyrs who have laboured hard for the sake of the Lord and His Church, many souls would not have been saved, and many would have been lost to damnation in hell. We too, would not have received the faith we now have, if not for the hard work of all those who have passed down the faith to us, just as the Apostles passed down the teachings of the Lord to their successors.
Today, we remember the memory of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions, who were Christian converts in the country now known as Uganda. They became Christians after missionaries came to their area, bearing the word of God’s truth, and they converted to the faith, leaving their pagan and sinful ways behind them. However, this met with a great resistance by the king, who wanted to eradicate all traces of Christianity in his domain.
Therefore, the king ordered the arrest, persecution and also killing of many of the. Christian converts and missionaries, who suffered terribly under the great persecution. Yet, St. Charles Lwanga and many others who had been sentenced to death because of their faith refused to renounce the Lord and their newfound faith. They remained true to their devotion and as a result were executed. St. Charles Lwanga himself met his martyrdom by being burnt alive on a stake.
But their martyrdom inspired many more Christians to persist in their faith, and it was told that many of their persecutors eventually became Christians themselves, and including even the king. Through all these examples, all of us as Christians living in our world today must realise that, first of all, there are a lot of things that we still need to do, in order to bring the testimony of our faith to all those who have not yet known or even have rejected the Lord.
And then, we must remember that when we face difficulties and persecutions from the world, we have to stay firm and resolute amidst those challenges. If we give up or allow ourselves to be distracted by temptations of the world, then our failure to act will cause not just ourselves but also potentially many others to fall as well, and their damnation will be on our own, and we are the ones to be blamed for that.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all continue to strive to lead a holy and righteous life, by doing what the Lord had taught us to do, and by devoting ourselves completely, heart, body, mind and soul to Him, keeping in mind the zeal and the courage which the Holy Apostles, saints, and martyrs, including St. Charles Lwanga and his companions had shown in their respective lives. May the Lord be with us all, and may He bless all of our works and endeavours, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Red
John 21 : 20-25
At that time, Peter looked back and saw that the disciple Jesus loved was following as well, the one who had reclined close to Jesus at the supper, and had asked Him, “Lord, who is to betray You?”
On seeing him, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain until Income, does that concern you? Follow Me!” Because of this the rumour spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus had not said to Peter, “He will not die,” but, “Suppose I want him to remain until I come.”
It is this disciple who testifies about the things he has written here, and we know that his testimony is true. But Jesus did many other things; if all were written down, I think the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 10 : 4, 5 and 7
The Lord is in His holy place – our God Whose throne is in heaven. He looks down to earth to observe the race of Adam.
The Lord searches both righteous and wicked. He hates those who delight in violence, for the Lord is righteous; He loves justice. The upright will see His face.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Acts 28 : 16-20, 30-31
Upon our arrival in Rome, the captain turned the prisoners over to the military governor but permitted Paul to lodge in a private house with the soldier who guarded him. After three days, Paul called together the leaders of the Jews.
When they had gathered, he said to them : “Brothers, though I have not done anything against our people or against the traditions of our fathers, I was arrested in Jerusalem and handed over to the Romans. They examined me and wanted to set me free, for they saw nothing in my case that deserved death.”
“But the Jews objected, so I was forced to appeal to Caesar without the least intention of bringing any case against my own people. Therefore, I have asked to see you and speak with you, since it is because of the hope of Israel that I bear these chains.”
Paul stayed for two whole years in a house he himself rented, where he received without any hindrance all those who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught the truth about Jesus Christ, the Lord, quite openly and without any hindrance.
Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard about how Jesus forgave St. Peter three times in the Gospel, after He was risen from the dead, and St. Peter professed his love and devotion to Him anew, also three times, and Jesus commanded Him to go forth and do His will, following Him and feeding His sheep throughout the world.
In the first reading, taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard how St. Paul stood before king Agrippa and queen Berenice, as he was about to embark on the journey to Rome, the final leg of his journey and ministry, for he already knew through the Holy Spirit, that he would glorify the Lord through martyrdom at the capital of the Roman Empire.
Both St. Peter and St. Paul were unlikely people to be called by God, according to human and worldly standards. Why is that so? That is because, St. Peter was an illiterate and uneducated fisherman of the lake of Galilee, hardly someone a person of this world would employ in the very important mission to preach the Gospel and the Good News to many people.
And how about St. Paul? As we all should know, St. Paul was once known as Saul, a great enemy of the Church and the faithful, a terror and nightmare of all those who follow the Lord’s way in Jerusalem, Judea and throughout the country of the Jews at that time. Saul was very zealous and dedicated, to the point of frenzy in his hunting of Christians and all those who follow the Lord’s way, arresting them and even torturing them.
Yet, the Lord called both of them, and transformed them into His great servants, those to whom He had entrusted with the very important mission, that is the conversion of souls and salvation of all mankind. St. Peter was entrusted with the leadership of the entire Universal Church, which God had established in this world, with St. Peter as its base and support. And also St. Paul, who was the important Apostle through his missions and journeys, evangelising to the pagans and Gentiles, the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Both of them were the main pillars of the Church, supported and joined by all the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord, by all the holy men and women, all those who have left everything behind in order to follow and to serve the Lord. There were many of those who had given all of their lives in order to advance the cause of the Lord, calling more and more souls to know the Lord and to repent from their sins.
And these include St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, the two renowned saints who were told to have perished in the most severe persecution to ever face the Church in its early days, under the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ordered the persecution of all Christians, the burning of all Christian texts and bibles, and the destruction of churches and Christian properties. Many martyrs were born of that persecution, and yet there were many tales of those who persisted in their faith, laying down their lives for the Lord rather than choosing apostasy.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, many of them, especially St. Peter and St. Paul knew what would be their fate if they continued faithfully to preach the Good News of the Lord and convert more and more souls to the true faith. In the Gospel today, the Lord Himself had mentioned it to St. Peter, how he would also be bound and brought to where he would not want to go, similar to St. Paul, and both ended up in Rome and met their end in martyrdom there.
But through their faith and devotion to the Lord, they glorified the Lord by their lives and by their heroic martyrdom, becoming great inspirations in faith for the many generations of Christians until this very day. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, in our world today, there are still many things that we can do as Christians in order to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles and saints.
I do not mean that we should intentionally seek martyrdom or persecution, but rather, as Christians, we can no longer be content with just sitting still and doing nothing for the sake of our faith. As the members of God’s Church, all of us have been called by God from our diverse backgrounds and origins much as St. Peter and St. Paul had been called, all sinners who were called to redemption and holiness.
God has given us the gifts, through His Holy Spirit, in order to guide us through this mission He had entrusted to us. Now, it is entirely up to us to choose whether we want to proceed with it or not. Thus, now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all renew our commitment to God, to serve Him with ever greater zeal and devotion, and also to carry on living a good and devout Christian life, through our actions in life, by loving our fellow men, showing mercy to sinners and to our enemies, and to preach the Word of God and His truth through our upright life.
May the Lord bless all of our works and endeavours, and may He empower each and every one of us to be worthy sons and daughters of His, filled with the Holy Spirit, rich in love, mercy, compassion, hope and faith. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
John 21 : 15-19
At that time, after Jesus and His disciples had finished breakfast, He said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” And Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.”
A second time Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” And Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Look after My sheep.” And a third time He said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”
Peter was saddened because Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” and he said, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.” Jesus then said, “Feed My sheep! Truly, I say to you, when you were young, you put on your belt and walked where you liked. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will put a belt around you, and lead you where you do not wish to go.”
Jesus said this to make known the kind of death by which Peter was to glorify God. And He added, “Follow Me.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 