Month: October 2018

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Wednesday, 31 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, the eve of the Solemnity of All Saints, the All Hallows’ Eve, from which the name Halloween came from, all of us are reminded that as Christians, all of us are called to emulate the good examples of the saints, the blesseds and other holy men and women who had lived their lives virtuously and showed good Christian morality and way of life.

We are all quite familiar with the popular culture of present day Halloween, which came from centuries of distortions and twists of the truth of the Allhallowtide celebration, commemorating the three holy days of the All Hallows’ Eve itself, that is today, and the Solemnity of All Saints, and then lastly, the Feast of All Souls. In the past, certain communities and cultures celebrated the day of the dead, in remembrance of these events, which distortions led to the current secular Halloween.

This is not how we should commemorate this day, which instead should be a time of reflection and rediscovery for us, of the true calling of our Christian faith, and how each and every one of us can follow in the footsteps of the saints and martyrs, all those holy and devoted men and women who had gone before us. They have all shown us how to live as a Christian, to act and behave as a Christian, and to follow God wholeheartedly as Christians ought to do, as is also evident in the Scripture passages used today.

In the first reading today, from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Ephesus, St. Paul exhorted the faithful to treat one another with respect and with proper dignity given to the other person, and he also mentioned how each parts of the community and the family ought to work with one another in establishing a loving Christian relationship with one another, between parents and children, and between masters and servants.

This came at a time when the general community treated children as insignificant persons, as immature and even easily exploitable, with a large percentage of the children population at work, mostly helping their families, but also a time when children were often not treated with love and care. And because of this lack of love in the relationship within families, between the parents and their children, that was why children also often times treated their parents with contempt.

And for the servants, livelihood was also relatively bad, as they often had to work long hours without adequate food, provisions and rest, and they were often at the mercy of their masters’ desires and will. They were often sold to the highest bidder and when they have outlived their usefulness, they would be mistreated and made to suffer, and cast out even without money or possession on them.

And these are the things and realities which unfortunately still remain in our world today. Parents and children still cannot get along, and even though child labour have been mostly eradicated from many parts of the world, but we see increasingly more and more broken families all over the world, where husband and wife cannot get along and seeking divorce, where children often end up becoming the victim of the divisions and sorrows surrounding all the conflicts.

We also see how people have often been unjustly treated both at workplace and in general livelihood. I am sure we have often witnessed those who abused their wealth, their influence and power in order to gain for themselves selfish benefits at the cost of many others who suffered because of the selfishness of those few who wanted good things for themselves and to satisfy their own wicked desires and greed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, that is why, in the Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus said it plainly, that the gateway to the kingdom of God, which is the pathway to salvation and eternal life, is a narrow one. For all the sins we mankind have committed, which many of us have not repented and regretted before God, we fall in further and deeper into even more sins, and from there, to eternal damnation.

But, the many saints of God, those deemed by the Church to be holy and exemplary in their faith and life, are bright stars of hope, amidst the darkness present in this world. And for us Christians, having this immense treasure trove of our predecessors, in all of their inspirational examples and faith, we should be inspired to live our lives more and more, day after day, to be in accordance with what we believe.

And we do not have to start ambitiously. We should start rather, from ourselves and from our families. As mentioned earlier, many of us have experienced troubles and difficulties in our family lives. Unless something is done, the devil will come in and wreak havoc in everything, and the only losers will be us alone. And we can take action by deepening our relationship with God, and also our families and communities with God and one another.

By spending more time in prayer, we attune ourselves more closely to the Lord and we will be able to know and understand His will for us better. And by showing love, care and concern, patience and temperance in our actions, we will be better able to love one another as fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord, and shun all sorts of actions that cause hurt to others and bring benefit only to ourselves.

Let us all renew our faith, and reflect on our lives thus far, thinking of what we can and should do, in order to serve the Lord more wholeheartedly, day after day. May the Lord be with us always, and may His glorious saints continue to ceaselessly pray for us sinners, still living in this world. Amen.

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Wednesday, 31 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 13 : 22-30

At that time, Jesus went through towns and villages teaching, and making His way to Jerusalem. Someone asked Him, “Lord, is it true that few people will be saved?”

And Jesus answered, “Do your best to enter by the narrow door, for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has gone inside and locked the door, you will stand outside. Then you will knock at the door, calling, ‘Lord, open to us!’ But He will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.'”

“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets!’ But He will reply, ‘I do not know where you come from. Away from Me, all you workers of evil.’ You will weep and grind your teeth, when you see Abraham and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves left outside.”

“Others will sit at table in the kingdom of God, people coming from east and west, from north and south. Some who are among the last, will be first; and some who are among the first, will be last!”

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Wednesday, 31 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 10-11, 12-13ab, 13cd-14

All Your works will give You thanks; all Your saints, o Lord, will praise You. They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your power.

That all may know of Your mighty deeds, Your reign and its glorious splendour. Your reign is from age to age; Your dominion endures from generation to generation.

The Lord is true to His promises and lets His mercy show in all He does. The Lord lifts up those who are falling and raises those who are beaten down.

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Wednesday, 31 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 6 : 1-9

Children, obey your parents for this is right : Honour your father and your mother. And this is the first commandment that has promise : that you may be happy and enjoy long life in the land. And you, fathers, do not make rebels of your children, but educate them by correction and instruction which the Lord may inspire.

Servants, obey your masters of this world with fear and respect, with simplicity of heart, as if obeying Christ. Do not serve only when you are watched or in order to please others, but become servants of Christ who do God’s will with all your heart. Work willingly, for the Lord and not for humans, mindful that the good each one has done, whether servant or free, will be rewarded by the Lord.

And you, masters, deal with your servants in the same way, and do not threaten them, since you know that they and you have the same Lord Who is in heaven, and He treats all fairly.

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Tuesday, 30 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us regarding the kingdom of God being present in our midst, within our Church and our Christian communities. In the Gospel passage, the Lord Jesus taught the people using parables in order to show them the truth of the kingdom of God, and how they ought to live in accordance with the way of God’s kingdom.

In that parable, the Lord showed the people that His kingdom is like that of a mustard seed that may first appear to be small, but then is capable of growing into a large tree, that has many branches and shows the amazing nature of how such a small seed can produce such a significant, large and important tree. This is what the Lord used, comparing the kingdom of God to that growing tree of mustard seed.

And then, He also used the example of flour and yeast, in which when the yeast is placed within the flour mixture in the dough, and then left standing, the dough will rise and become wholesome, from ordinary flour into life-giving and sustaining bread as we are familiar with. This is yet another example that the Lord used, comparing the process of the making of bread with the coming of the kingdom of God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, both parables did not mention it, but in the minds of the people who heard it, many of whom were farmers and also were involved in the making of bread for their living, they must surely have been aware of what are the necessary conditions that will allow the mustard seed to grow and for the dough to rise and become a bread. Without the right conditions in place, none of those will happen.

The mustard seed needs to be placed in a rich and fertile soil, just as another parable, the parable of the sower mentioned. Only on rich and fertile soil, will the mustard seed grow well into a large and healthy tree, and also with all the right conditions and needs required by any green plants, that is water, sunlight, minerals, the right temperature and level of humidity, and in the right kind of environment and conditions.

Similarly, the yeast that is put in flour needs to be activated first by placing them in warm water, or otherwise, the yeast will remain dormant, as yeast is a microorganism that requires the right temperature to function properly. And then, yeast will only catalyse the formation of leavened bread when the yeast and dough mixture is placed in the right place and given the right conditions, that is in the absence of oxygen. That is why, the mixture must be sealed to allow all the oxygen surrounding the mixture to be used up, and yeast can do its work.

How are these relevant to us, then, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is exactly how we welcome the kingdom of God into our lives, and how we allow the kingdom of God to grow and prosper within us, through the providence of the right conditions and the right environment for the kingdom of God to prosper in our midst, and that is, first and foremost, within the most important unit and part of the Church, that is our families.

In the first reading today, St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the city of Ephesus, spoke about the important framework of the Christian families, which God has made and blessed, by the union between a man and a woman, in the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony, through which the man and the woman are joined in a holy and indivisible union blessed by God, the core of the Christian family.

And St. Paul told his message to the Christians of Ephesus and also for others, with the intention of reminding them all to remain true to their Christian matrimony and family bonds, and each husbands ought to respect their respective wives, and vice versa. This message was quite revolutionary in the midst of a society where adultery and sexual promiscuity were very common, at a time when there were plenty of wickedness within the society.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what all of us need to realise, that we must make sure that the foundation of our Christian families are strong, and founded upon the firm foundation of God’s love and truth. And how do we preserve that love within our families, that we do not end up having broken relationships and families? It is by ensuring that we stay together as a family, praying together and placing God at the very centre and as the very focus of our lives and our actions.

The devil knows this fact, and that is why he is constantly on the attack to try to destroy the institution of marriage and the family, by tempting us with various worldly temptations, the temptations of sexual perversion and immorality, adultery and other persuasions, in order to break apart our families and societies. When we are broken, then it is the right time and condition for the devil to strike at us. That is why, we need to deepen our relationship with God, within our families and ensure that our families are always centred on God and in prayer, at all times.

That is also how we provide the best and optimum environment for us Christians to grow in faith, and in love and devotion towards God. The family is like a miniature Church, and indeed, is its important subset, through which the whole Church rises together and grows in faith, through the correct nurturing of faith in our every Christian generations. As we pass on the faith, we also help to gain more and more souls saved for the Lord.

That is how the kingdom of God exists in our lives, within our families and within our society. God truly works in His mysterious ways, and now, brothers and sisters, are we willing to commit ourselves to continue the good works that the Lord has started in our midst, and allow the kingdom of God to flourish in our midst, and bring more souls to the salvation in God. Let us all redouble our efforts to serve the Lord and to love God with all of our hearts, minds and our whole being. May God be with us all, and may He bless us in our endeavours. Amen.

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Tuesday, 30 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 13 : 18-21

At that time, Jesus continued speaking, “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.”

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Tuesday, 30 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear the Lord and walk in His ways. You will eat the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home; your children, like olive shoots will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.

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Tuesday, 30 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 5 : 21-33

Let all kinds of submission to one another become obedience to Christ. So wives to their husbands : as to the Lord. The husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the Head of the Church, His Body, of Whom He is also the Saviour. And as the Church submits to Christ, so let a wife submit in everything to her husband.

As for you, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. He washed her and made her holy by baptism in the Word. As He wanted a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless, He Himself had to prepare and present her to Himself.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. And no one has ever hated his body; he feeds and takes care of it. This is just what Christ does for the Church, because we are members of His Body.

Scripture says : Because of this a man shall leave his father and mother to be united with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a very great mystery, and I refer to Christ and the Church. As for you, let each one love his wife as himself, and let the wife respect her husband.

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Monday, 29 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, calling on all of us Christians to be true bearers of the Lord’s truth and to follow Him in His ways with understanding and comprehension what it means for us to be the followers of Christ. Otherwise, we will end up having an empty and superficial faith as what the Lord warned us against in the Gospel today.

In the Gospel passage, the Lord Jesus went up against the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, present in the synagogue where He performed a healing miracle on a woman who had been possessed by an evil spirit that caused her to suffer physically for a long time, eighteen years long. The synagogue elders, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law among them contended that the Lord Jesus had made a grave mistake by doing what the Law of Moses told them not to do on a Sabbath day.

The Lord rebuked them because they had in fact misunderstood and misinterpreted the meaning and intention of the laws of the Sabbath as revealed to Moses. They thought and adamantly insisted that the people of God could not do anything and any work at all, during the day of the Sabbath, deemed to be sacred as it had been hallowed by God Himself as a day of rest and a holy day of the Lord.

But, this contradicted the true spirit of the Law of God, as the Lord’s second out of ten commandments would show, that the faithful are all called to keep holy the day of the Lord. Keeping the day of the Lord and being idle and doing nothing is not the same, and it is indeed possible for someone to be idle and doing nothing, and yet committing sin in his mind and heart, by evil thoughts and intentions. And worse still, we must not forget that there is something called the sin of omission.

What is this sin of omission? That was exactly what the Lord Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for. In their shallow and superficial understanding of the Law of God, and the external application of its tenets, they have forgotten, that God would not have wanted the old woman to suffer any longer, even a single day longer. God loves each and every one of us so much, that He could not have allowed Satan to have dominion over one of His beloved children, even a moment longer.

The Lord Jesus said that, if one is capable of doing something good for others and for God, as what Jesus was perfectly capable of, in healing the woman and freeing her from the dominion of the evil spirits, then he or she should do it, even during the Sabbath. The Lord’s intention of enacting the Law of the Sabbath was in fact to remind the people of God that they must focus their attention in life on Him, and to do what is right according to what He had taught them.

Many of them had been so preoccupied by the worldly concerns, and the temptations in life, that they had forgotten about God and His ways, and became wayward. Therefore, by the enactment of the Sabbath, they were reminded that the Lord is paramount and as the centre of the life of all the faithful, that they ought to withdraw and get away from all their preoccupations and the temptations they endured, and refocus their attention on the Lord.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, we can see that there were those who have misunderstood the intention of the Law, like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. How about us, then? Have we also misunderstood the intention of what God has taught and revealed to us through His Church? Have we been living our faith life thus far, with nothing more than just fulfilling our obligations, for example, going for regular Sunday Masses and others, but without understanding their importance and significance for our faith and spiritual life?

Perhaps it is time now for us to turn towards the Lord, with a renewed spirit and with a new zeal and love for Him. Let us all seek to understand our faith more deeply and connect ourselves to the Lord more intimately from now on. May the Lord be with us, and may He continue to bless us and protect us, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 29 October 2018 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

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.