Month: June 2019

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Thursday, 27 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Genesis 16 : 1-12, 15-16

Sarai, Abram’s wife had not borne him a child, but she had an Egyptian servant named Hagar, and she said to Abram, “Now, since YHVH has kept me from having children, go to my servant; perhaps I shall have a child by her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

Abram had been in the land of Canaan ten years when Sarai, his wife, took Hagar, her Egyptian maid, and gave her to Abram her husband as wife. He went in to Hagar and she became pregnant. When she was aware of this, she began to despise her mistress. Sarai said to Abram, “May this injury done to me be yours. I put my servant in your arms and now that she knows she is pregnant, I count for nothing in her eyes. Let YHVH judge between me and you.”

Abram said to Sarai, “Your servant is in your power; do with her as you please.” Then Sarai treated her so badly that she ran away. The Angel of YHVH found her near a spring in the wilderness and said to her, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from Sarai, my mistress.”

The Angel of YHVH said to her, “Go back to your mistress and humbly submit yourself to her.” The Angel of YHVH said to her, “I will so increase your descendants, that they will be too numerous to be counted.” Then the Angel of YHVH said to her, “Now you are with child and you will have a son, and you shall name him Ishmael, for YHVH has heard your distress. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, defiant towards all his brothers.”

Hagar gave birth to a son and Abram called the child Hagar bore him, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Genesis 16 : 6b-12, 15-16

Then Sarai treated Hagar so badly that she ran away. The Angel of YHVH found her near a spring in the wilderness and said to her, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am running away from Sarai, my mistress.”

The Angel of YHVH said to her, “Go back to your mistress and humbly submit yourself to her.” The Angel of YHVH said to her, “I will so increase your descendants, that they will be too numerous to be counted.” Then the Angel of YHVH said to her, “Now you are with child and you will have a son, and you shall name him Ishmael, for YHVH has heard your distress. He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, defiant towards all his brothers.”

Hagar gave birth to a son and Abram called the child Hagar bore him, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael.

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Wednesday, 26 June 2019 : 12th 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 speaking to us about the Covenant which He has made with His people, beginning with Abraham, our father in faith, who is a righteous and upright man, a model for each and every one of us in how we ought to live our lives. And we are urged by the Lord Himself to bear good fruits in our lives, so that our lives may truly be worthy of Him.

In our first reading today, we heard of the moment when the Lord made the Covenant with His servant Abraham, calling him into a new existence, one that is blessed and filled with God’s grace, as his faithfulness, dedication and uprightness have been found to be good and worthy by God, as a man whose life has been filled with good faith and bear truly good fruits, in his commitment to God, in his obedience to His call and in adherence to His will, and in his loving and compassionate attitudes to his fellow men.

For example, Abraham, then called Abram came from the faraway land of Ur in lower Mesopotamia, which was then a great centre of civilisation. Surely Abram had a good life in his ancestral lands, judging by the large amount of wealth and possessions that he had. Yet, the Lord called him out of that land to follow His lead into the land He promised to him and his descendants, and Abram obeyed the Lord faithfully.

Leaving his ancestral lands behind, Abram came to the land promised to him, and there, he laboured and suffered, yes, he did suffer quite a lot, having to travel from places to places, and even sojourning for a while in Egypt during a bad famine, and yet, he remained faithful and committed, and showed his great faith, commitment and dedication in his generosity, his compassionate love for his fellow men.

In one example, when the Lord said to Abraham that he would destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness, Abraham, who knew that Lot and his family, his relatives stayed in that city, and how there might have been some other people who were righteous and might be caught in the destruction, begged the Lord a few times to spare the whole towns just for the sake of even the few righteous ones who were there, including Lot and his family.

This is what Our Lord said in the Gospel passage today, when He spoke of the parable using the example of a good tree that produces good fruits, and how bad trees produce bad fruits. Abraham is an example of a good tree that produces good fruits, which refers to his good, compassionate and kind heart, his loving and faithful self, which is shown in his actions, filled with love and compassion, with faith and commitment to God, in his sincerity to be a righteous man of God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? We are all in fact the children of Abraham through faith, as he is truly our father in faith. We are therefore, the partakers of the same Covenant which God has promised with Abraham, and which He has renewed over and over, and finalised with the Eternal Covenant that He had made with us all through the loving sacrifice of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Therefore, all of us are also expected to follow the good examples of Abraham, in how he had lived faithfully and dedicated his whole life to serve the Lord and in being righteous in all of his actions. Are we able to do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we able to commit ourselves in the way that Abraham had done, in how he trusted God completely and devoted himself to walk in God’s ways?

Let us all reflect on this today, and see how we can be better disciples and followers of Christ from now on. Let our lives be living and real examples of faith, of righteousness, so that our lives will truly bear good fruits of our faith, and we may be worthy to receive the eternal glory and inheritance that God has promised Abraham, our father in faith, and all of us, God’s beloved children and people. Amen.

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Wednesday, 26 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 7 : 15-20

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Beware of false prophets : they come to you in sheep’s clothing; but inside, they are voracious wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits. Do you ever pick grapes from thorn bushes; or figs, from thistles?”

“A good tree always produces good fruit. A rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit; and a rotten fruit cannot bear good fruit. Any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruit.”

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Wednesday, 26 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 104 : 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9

Give thanks to YHVH, call on His Name; make known His works among the nations. Sing to Him, sing His praise, proclaim all His wondrous deeds.

Glory in His holy Name; let those who seek YHVH rejoice. Look to YHVH and be strong; seek His face always.

You descendants of His servant Abraham, you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is YHVH our God; His judgments reach the whole world.

He remembers His Covenant forever, His promise to a thousand generations, the Covenant He made with Abraham, the promise He swore to Isaac.

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Wednesday, 26 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 15 : 1-12, 17-18

After Abram met with Melchizedek, the word of YHVH was spoken to Abram in a vision : “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward will be very great!” Abram said, “My Lord YHVH, where are Your promises? I am still childless and all I have will go to Eliezer of Damascus. You have given me no children, so a slave of mine will be my heir.”

Then the word of YHVH was spoken to him again, “Eliezer will not be your heir, but a child born of you (your own flesh and blood) will be your heir.” Then YHVH brought him outside and said to him, “Look up at the sky and count the stars if you can. Your descendants will be like that.”

Abram believed YHVH Who, because of this, held him to be an upright man. And He said, “I am YHVH Who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.” Then Abram asked, “My Lord, how am I to know that it shall be mine?” YHVH replied, “Bring Me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove and a young pigeon.”

Abram brought all these animals, cut them in two, and laid each half facing its other half, but he did not cut the birds in half. The birds of prey came down upon them, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was going down, a deep sleep came over Abram, and a dreadful darkness took hold of him.

When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot and a flaming torch passed between the halves of the victims. On that day YHVH made a Covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this country from the river of Egypt to the Great River, the Euphrates.”

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Tuesday, 25 June 2019 : 12th 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 about the importance for us as Christians to live righteously and devote ourselves to serve God in everything that we do, so that we may be truly worthy to be called children of God and as His followers, heeding the examples of our holy predecessors as we heard in our Scripture passages today.

In our first reading today, we heard of the story of the conflict that occurred between Abraham and Lot, who are each others’ close relatives, and each of them possessed a lot of wealth and possessions, cattle and animals, servants and goods, that resulted in the conflict that happened between their servants and amongst their flocks and possessions. In the quarrels that ensued, Abraham decided to part ways with Lot amicably, knowing that if they have stayed in the same lands, even more conflicts would come to happen.

In this way, Abraham truly acted nobly and wonderfully even though he could have given in to the temptations of pride and desire. He could have made it such that he benefitted from the conflict, or claimed parts of the wealth, flocks and possessions of his own relative for his own, and many others things he could have done as how we mankind often behaved in this world. But he chose not to do all of that.

Instead, Abraham showed the best of his upright and good attitude, as someone whom the Lord had indeed chosen among all the people to be the one with whom He was pleased with and with whom He was about to make a great Covenant, as mentioned in the same passage, how God blessed Abraham and promised to him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and beyond.

In the Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples mentioning just how difficult it is in reality for us all to pass through the gates of eternal life, that is for us to enter into the glory prepared for us by God, as we have to be righteous and good throughout our lives, and we have to be worthy to be recipients of what the Lord has promised all of us in the Covenant He had made with us.

This does not mean that we have to be perfect in our lives, as even Abraham himself was not perfect, he did sin just like any one of us. The holy saints of God were themselves not perfect and were sinners just like us, and yet, they made sure that they did not allow sin to rule over them or to have sway over their lives. They did what is righteous and just, good and acceptable to the Lord, and in their righteousness, God made them all worthy.

What matters is for us to do what the Lord has commanded us to do, and that means, instead of succumbing to the temptations of pride whenever we encounter others and having our desires within us, to be recognised, to be praised, to be acknowledged and to have achievements in our lives, we should instead be humble, knowing that no amount of pride can do us any good. If we let pride to have its way in our lives, and greed to lead us in our way, there will be endless conflict and unhappiness ahead of us.

Let us all learn to be more faithful like Abraham, to be more compassionate, loving and be more concerned about each other, just like our holy predecessors, Abraham and all those saints who have gone before us have shown us with their own righteous and worthy lives. The path to enter into the kingdom of God and eternal life is indeed a narrow one, but it does not mean it is necessarily difficult to enter. What we need is the will and the desire to truly love God first and foremost in our lives, and to love one another just as much as we love ourselves.

May the Lord guide us through this narrow path that all of us may be reconciled and reunited with Him, and so that we may be ever closer and be ever more worthy to be in His loving presence, by our faithfulness and our commitment to serve Him, each and every days of our lives. Amen.

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Tuesday, 25 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 7 : 6, 12-14

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs, or throw your pearls before pigs. They might trample on them, and then turn on you and tear you to pieces.”

“So, do to others whatever you would that others do to you : there, you have the law and the prophets. Enter through the narrow gate : for wide is the gate, and broad is the road, that leads to destruction, and many go that way. How narrow is the gate that leads to life; and how rough, the road; few there are, who find it.”

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Tuesday, 25 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 14 : 2-3ab, 3cd-4ab, 5

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, who speak truth from their heart and control their words, who do no harm to their neighbours.

Those who cast no discredit on their companions, who look down on evildoers but highly esteem God’s servants.

Those who do not lend money at interest and refuse a bribe against the innocent. Do this, and you will not be shaken.

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Tuesday, 25 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 13 : 2, 5-18

Now Abram was very rich in flocks, silver and gold. Lot who went with Abram also had flocks, cattle and tents. The land was not sufficient to allow them to stay together, for their possessions were too great for them to live together.

A quarrel arose between the herdsmen of Abram’s flock and those of Lot. (The Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at the time.) Abram said to Lot, “Do not let there be a dispute between you and me, nor between my herdsmen and yours, since we are brothers! Is not the whole land before you? Let us part company. If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you go to the right, I will go to the left.”

Lot looked up and saw the whole valley of the Jordan : how well it was watered! Before YHVH destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, this was like one of YHVH’s gardens, like the country of Egypt, on coming to Zoar. Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley and journeyed eastward. In this way they separated from each other.

Abram settled in the country of Canaan while Lot lived among the towns of the plain and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the people of Sodom were wicked, sinning greatly against YHVH. YHVH said to Abram after Lot had left him, “Raise your eyes and look from where you are, towards the north, the south, the east and the west; all the land you see I will give to you and your descendants forever.”

“I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; if the grains of the dust can be counted, then your descendants may be counted. Come, travel through the length and breadth of the land, for it is to you that I am giving it.” So Abram moved his tent and came to live by the oaks of Mamre at Hebron. There he built an altar to YHVH.

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Monday, 24 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a special occasion in the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist is one of the special saints of the Church, in the important role he played in the history of our salvation being the one to proclaim and herald the coming of the Messiah of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. John the Baptist therefore has this celebration of his birth or Nativity, which commemorates the moment when he was born into the world.

St. John the Baptist has such an important role, that God prepared him and his own coming in such a marvellous and miraculous way, as prophesied by the prophets of old and by what was described in the accounts of the Gospels. It was about him that the prophets had spoken that he had been called to be God’s servant from his mother’s womb, as how his coming had been proclaimed by the Angel of God.

The Angel spoke to Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, speaking of how his son would become a great and dedicated servant of God, the last of the prophets and messengers of God with one very important role, that is to proclaim the coming of God’s salvation and to prepare the people for the coming of this salvation through his own works and ministry among the people of God.

St. John the Baptist was the one who called the people to repent from their sins, be baptised in the waters of the Jordan, as the commitment for them to turn away from their old sinfulness and to be prepared to welcome the coming of God’s kingdom and His salvation. But he also made it very clear to the people who followed him, to his own disciples and to all those who asked it of him, that he was not the Messiah of God.

St. John the Baptist had a lot of following and he was very charismatic and influential. People came to him from all over Judea, Samaria and Galilee and perhaps even beyond seeking him for them to be baptised by him. Had he desired to claim everything he had done for his own glory and benefit, he could have done it easily, as what some of the people at that time had done.

There were some people at the time who claimed to be the Messiah of God, and gathered following among the people and rebelled against the Romans and the authorities. But as they were not the true Messiah, their rebellions and uprisings failed terribly. St. John the Baptist did not choose that path, even though he could have easily done so. Instead, he obeyed the Lord faithfully and committed himself totally to what he has been called to do.

And he humbly accepted his role, even when he himself was eclipsed by the coming of the One Who is the Messiah, Our Lord Jesus Christ. He revealed to the people and to his own disciples Who the Lord Jesus truly is, and let some of his own disciples to follow the Lord instead. When his disciples complained that everyone was going to the Lord and that He became increasingly even more popular than him, St. John the Baptist said humbly that it was only right that his Master increases while he, who is only the servant, decreases.

St. John the Baptist dedicated his whole life to serve the Lord, and that means even laying down his own life for the sake of God. When he opposed and stood up against the wickedness of king Herod and his adultery, he was arrested and put in prison, and by the mechanism of Herodias who hated him, St. John the Baptist was beheaded in prison, and therefore died a martyr’s death, for the sake of the Lord and His glory.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, truly we can see in St. John the Baptist a great saint and role model for our own lives. We should heed his examples, his call for us to repent from our past sinfulness and to embrace faithfully the way of the Lord. We should model our own lives and faith based on this holy servant of God’s own faith and dedication, his obedience to the will of God and his humility in service.

Let us all on this Solemnity celebrating the moment of this great saint’s birth recommit ourselves and our own lives to the Lord to honour the memory of the faithful St. John the Baptist, modelling our own lives after his own. Let us all draw ever closer to God and be more faithful with each and every days of our lives. May God bless us all and may He empower us all to live faithfully according to His will, now and always. Amen.