Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 13 : 18-21
At that time, Jesus continued to say to the people, “What is the kingdom of God like? What shall I compare it to? Imagine a person who has taken a mustard seed, and planted it in his garden. The seed has grown, and become like a small tree, so that the birds of the air shelter in its branches.”
And Jesus said again, “What is the kingdom of God like? Imagine a woman who has taken yeast, and hidden it in three measures of flour, until it is all leavened.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 125 : 1-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6
When YHVH brought the exiles back to Zion, we were like those moving in a dream. Then, our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.
Among the nations it was said, “YHVH has done great things for them.” YHVH had done great things for us, and we were glad indeed.
Bring back our exiles, o YHVH, like fresh streams in the desert. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs and shouts of joy.
They went forth weeping, bearing the seeds for sowing, they will come home with joyful shouts, bringing their harvested sheaves.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 8 : 18-25
I consider, that the suffering of our present life cannot be compared with the glory that will be revealed, and given to us. All creation is eagerly expecting the birth, in glory, of the children of God. For, if now, the created world was unable to attain its purpose, this did not come from itself, but from the one who subjected it. But it is not without hope; for even the created world, will be freed from this fate of death, and share the freedom and glory of the children of God.
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.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of God from the Sacred Scriptures, and we are reminded that first of all, God is our loving Father, the One Who created us and cared for us, every single moments of our lives. Yet, many of us are unaware of this love which God has for everyone. In fact, we even doubted His love.
That is why today each and every one of us are called to remember our nature as the sons and daughters of God, as those whom God had called from the world, and chosen to become enlightened and as children of the light, turning away from all the darkness of our lives in this world. God wants each and every one of His children to be united with Him, and to receive the fullness of His love, and that is why we heard what happened in the Gospel today.
Jesus healed a woman who had been sick for eighteen years, because she was possessed by evil spirits, who kept her chained to the darkness and made her to suffer. God, seeing one of His children suffering in that manner certainly was moved to mercy and to the desire to forgive her from her faults and sins. That was why, Jesus stretched out His hands and cast the evil spirits from the woman, even though it was a Sabbath day, a day when according to the Jewish traditions and rules, it was forbidden to do anything.
But that was exactly why we have ended up being disobedient and distant from God, because we no longer do what is necessary for us to draw closer to God, our loving Father. Instead, we become distracted and are drawn away by our own temptations of greed, personal desires and ambition, and many more things that have become obstacles in our journey towards the Lord.
For example, as mentioned, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law immediately criticised Jesus the moment He performed the healing on the woman. They rebuked Him and protested that Jesus had disobeyed the laws of the Sabbath. But that was exactly because they failed to understand the true meaning of the Sabbath day, its intention and purpose when the Lord instructed His people to keep it holy.
The Sabbath is a day set aside in the week, much as Sundays are for us now, to be a holy day of the Lord, when the people would set aside their daily businesses and occupations, and instead focused their attention and commitment to the Lord. That is the true intention why the Lord instituted the Sabbath, much like the Sundays we have. Yet, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law have enforced the rules without proper understanding of the meaning and purpose.
Instead, they have ended up glorifying themselves and made use of the Sabbath as means to show the people that they were devout and holy. To them, if someone is to obey the entirety of the Sabbath rules, by staying dormant and inactive throughout the day, not even doing what is good, ignoring the needs of the poor and those who are in need of assistance, then they were considered holy and pious.
But Jesus our Lord made things straight, and plainly spoke to them, rebuking their wrong attitudes and thoughts, reminding them that God loves all of His children, and desires that each and every one of them should be saved and freed from the bondage and slavery to sin. To that extent, He reminded the people that the Sabbath was created for the people of God, as way to ensure and encourage them to give themselves to God, to reorientate themselves and refocus their attention to God.
If God has loved us so dearly and if He had generously given His care and attention, then it is only right and just that we also love Him in the same manner. But this is easier said than done. As the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had shown, there are always many reasons for us mankind to make excuses when we are supposed to love God. And especially when God is not at the centre of our lives, then we will end up drifting away from Him, and we will be lost from Him.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have, therefore, this important takeaway today, that all of us should come to realise more in our very own lives, just how loving and caring God has been for us, in various occasions in our lives, be it in good times or in not so good times, or at the time when we are lonely and troubled. God is and has always been there, caring for us and showing His love for us. Can we not love Him back in the same manner?
Let us all therefore love the Lord our God more wholeheartedly from now on, devoting ourselves, our time and effort to care for our needy brethren, because we must remember that, as the Lord Himself said, that whatever we have done for the least, the last and the weakest among our brethren, we have done it for the Lord Himself. May the Lord be with us always, and may He continue to guide our paths in the way towards His everlasting love and grace. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 13 : 10-17
At that time, Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, and a crippled woman was there. An evil spirit had kept her bent for eighteen years, so that she could not straighten up at all. On seeing her, Jesus called her and said, “Woman, you are freed from your infirmity.” Then He laid His hands upon her, and immediately she was made straight and praised God.
But the ruler of the synagogue was indignant, because Jesus had performed this healing on the Sabbath day, and he said to the people, “There are six days in which to work. Come on those days to be healed, and not on the Sabbath!”
But the Lord replied, “You hypocrites! Everyone of you unties his ox or his donkey on the Sabbath, and leads it out of the barn to give it water. And here you have a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound for eighteen years. Should she not be freed from her bonds on the Sabbath?”
When Jesus said this, all His opponents felt ashamed. But the people rejoiced at the many wonderful things that happened because of Him.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 67 : 2 and 4, 6-7ab, 20-21
Arise, o God, scatter Your enemies; let Your foes flee before You. But let the righteous be glad and exult before God; let them sing to God and shout for joy.
Father of orphans and Protector of widows – such is our God in His holy dwelling. He gives shelter to the homeless, sets the prisoners free.
Blessed be the Lord, God, our Saviour, Who daily bears our burdens! Ours is a God Who saves; our YHVH lets us escape from death.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 8 : 12-17
Then, brothers, let us leave the flesh and no longer live according to it. If not, we will die. Rather, walking in the spirit, let us put to death the body’s deeds, so that we may live. All those who walk in the Spirit of God are sons and daughters of God.
Then, no more fear : you did not receive a spirit of slavery, but the spirit that makes you sons and daughters, and every time, we cry, “Abba! (this means Dad!) Father!” the Spirit assures our spirit, that we are sons and daughters of God. If we are children, we are heirs, too. Ours will be the inheritance of God, and we will share it with Christ; for, if we now suffer with Him, we will also share glory with Him.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the holy day of the Lord, all of us through the Scripture readings and passages we received have been reminded of the importance of obeying and adhering to the Law of God, as what all of us as Christians must do in our lives. And the Lord Jesus summed up the entirety of the Law of God into two very important commandments, that is the essence of the entire Law.
Why did the Lord Jesus do this? Why did He explain to the people at His time on this matter? That is because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him about the question, “Which is the most important commandment in the Law?” And the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were well known for their strict adherence and interpretation of the Law, focusing on even minute details in the laws according to Moses.
And they wanted to test Him and to challenge Him, by making Him to be on the spot, when they asked that question. Should He try to give an answer by pointing out any particular laws and rules within the customs, laws and traditions upheld by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law at that time, then they would strike at Him using their in-depth knowledge of the laws and regulations, bringing even more questions and troubles for the Lord.
However, the Lord Jesus knew their thoughts and intentions. Those people had been so focused on the applications of the Law with regards to worldly concerns and other corruptions of the Law as it evolved throughout history, that they have forgotten the true intentions of the Law. And Jesus pointed out those intentions and purposes of God’s Law to them, in a way that they could not deny, because by denying, they would admit that they have not done what the Lord had commanded them to do.
Jesus made it very clear that the Law of God has in its primary intention, for the people of God to learn how to love, and indeed practice that love, which they have to give first and foremost to God their Lord and Master. The first three commandments of the Ten Commandments in fact is about this love which we must have for God, that we worship Him alone above any other things, above any other worldly matters and idols.
The other seven commandments of the Law, exhorting us to love our parents, not to kill, not to steal and all of that refer to the love that we must have for our fellow brethren, our fellow men and women. But do we know what it truly means for us to love our fellow brothers and sisters? It is by listening and remembering what we have heard in today’s first reading taken from the Book of Exodus, when the Lord exhorted the people through Moses to be loving and to be generous in compassion to one another.
Yet, the people had forgotten all these by the time of Jesus, when the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law oppressed the poor and the lowly, those whom they deemed to be inferior to them, and they levied great obligations and rules for them to follow. They cared only for their own desires and plans, and despised even those whom they should have cared for, as the leaders and guides of the people of Israel.
In our own lives, let us spend some time to think about how we have acted in these lives we have lived thus far. Have we been so focused on our own concerns and desires, like those of the Pharisees, that we have failed to give our love to those to whom we are commanded to love? First of all, the Lord our God, and then to our fellow men and women, those who are around us, strangers and acquaintances alike.
But in our own lives, as we can witness it ourselves among our relatives, friends, peers, colleagues and all those whom we interact with day by day, there is not much love among the peoples, but instead anger, disputes, jealousy, wrath, and all sorts of negative and wicked behaviours, that befits more that of those who follow Satan rather than those who follow the path of the Lord.
How many of us put so much great importance in our careers and in finding more money and worldly possessions, that we end up spending so much time trying to advance ourselves in our career, gathering more fame for ourselves, filling and satisfying ourselves with all sorts of worldly pleasures and more? In the end, what does all these earn us, brothers and sisters in Christ? All these things do not avail us when the end comes for us, when we have to give an account of our lives before God.
We may think that we do not worship the idols of false and pagan gods as the people in the past did, and that we are Christians because we believe in God. Yet, through our actions, in prioritising all the worldly pursuits ahead of God and others, we have made those to be our modern day idols, all the things that became great distractions and obstacles on our path to God’s salvation and grace.
And similarly, let us ask ourselves, how many of us have caused grievances and suffering for others, because of our selfish actions, and due to our desires to gain good things for ourselves, indulging in the ‘idols’ of our worldly lives? We cannot be true disciples of the Lord, as long as we put God and His people, our brothers and sisters in Christ aside, and not prioritising God as the centre and focus of our very lives.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today embark on a new course and path of life, no longer being corrupted by our greed and worldly desires, by all the corruptions of our sins and all the temptations of life. Let us all devote ourselves wholeheartedly to God from now on, giving our very best to help those who are around us to do the same. Let us fill our hearts with the desire to love God, not just with words alone, but through our real and genuine actions as well.
Let us all fulfil our calling as Christians, to love our brethren unconditionally just as the Lord has loved each and every one of us, sinners and delinquents, and yet He was willing to forgive us from our sins. Let us reach out to those who are less fortunate than us, that if we see anyone who is struggling to make ends meet in life, then we should care for them and do whatever we can to aid them.
Let us also reach out to those who have been ostracised by others and are unloved, that they do not slide further into a world devoid of love. Let us bring them to experience the love of God through our own hands, and through the love which we now share with them. May God continue to guide us to Him, and make us ever more faithful servants of His with each passing day. May God bless us always, and guide us in all of our endeavours. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 