Day: November 19, 2023

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Thursday, 23 November 2023 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr, and St. Columban, Abbot (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbots)

Luke 19 : 41-44

At that time, when Jesus had come in sight of the city, He wept over it, and said, “If only today you knew the ways of peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Yet days will come upon you, when your enemies will surround you with barricades, and shut you in, and press on you from every side.”

“And they will dash you to the ground and your children with you, and not leave stone upon stone within you, for you did not recognise the time and the visitation of your God.”

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Thursday, 23 November 2023 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr, and St. Columban, Abbot (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbots)

Psalm 49 : 1-2, 5-6, 14-15

The God of gods, YHVH has spoken; He summons the earth, from the rising of the sun to its setting. God has shone from Zion, perfect in beauty.

Gather before Me, My faithful ones, who made a Covenant with Me by sacrifice. The heavens will proclaim His sentence, for God Himself is the Judge.

Yet, offer to God a sacrifice of thanks, and fulfil your vows to the Most High. Call on Me in time of calamity; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.

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Thursday, 23 November 2023 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr, and St. Columban, Abbot (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbots)

1 Maccabees 2 : 15-29

In the meantime, the king’s representatives, who were forcing the Jews to give up their religion came to Modein to organise a sacred gathering. While many Israelites went to them, Mattathias and his sons drew apart.

The representatives of the king addressed Mattathias, and said to him : “You are one of the leaders of this city, an important and well-known man, and your many children and relatives follow you. Come now, and be the first to fulfil the king’s order, as the men of Judah have already done, and the survivors in Jerusalem as well. You and your sons will be named friends of the king and the king will send you gold, silver and many other gifts.”

But Mattathias answered in a loud voice : “Even if all the nations included in the kingdom should abandon the religion of their ancestors and submit to the order of king Antiochus, I, my sons and my family will remain faithful to the Covenant of our ancestors. May God preserve us from abandoning the Law and its precepts. We will not obey the orders of the king nor turn aside from our religion either to the right or to the left.”

When he finished speaking these words, a Jew came forward, in the sight of everyone, to offer incense on the altar that was built in Modein, according to the king’s decree. When Mattathias saw him, he was fired with zeal. His heart was stirred; and giving vent to his righteous anger, he threw himself on the Jew and cut the man’s throat on the altar. At the same time, he killed the king’s representative who was forcing the people to offer sacrifice; and then tore down the altar. In doing this, he showed his zeal for the Law, as Phinehas had done with Zimri, son of Salu.

Mattathias then began to proclaim loudly in the city : “Everyone who is zealous for the Law and supports the Covenant, come out and follow me!” Immediately, he and his sons fled to the mountains and left behind all they had in the city. Many Jews who looked for justice and wanted to be faithful to the Law went into the desert.

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Wednesday, 22 November 2023 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Scriptures in which we are reminded of the challenges and difficulties that we may have to endure as we carry out our lives faithfully as Christians, that is as those who follow the Lord and walk in His ways. We are also presented with the reminders of what we all need to do in living our lives faithfully as followers of the Lord, that we have to be active and committed in living our lives sincerely and with devotion, in following God as best as we are all able to. Each and every one of us are reminded that without action and contribution in our lives, and without actively living our Christian faith, then we cannot truly be the followers and disciples of Christ.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the Maccabees, in which the sufferings of the seven brothers, sons of the same mother, were recounted to us, the sufferings and persecution which they endured because of their adherence to the Law of God, the Jewish practices and customs that ran contrary to the desires and demands of the Greek King of the Seleucid Empire, at that time, King Antiochus IV Epiphanes, who imposed a wide-ranging ban on the local practices of the peoples throughout his vast Empire, demanding and enforcing his will that he wanted everyone to follow the ways and practices of the Greeks, abandoning their own faith, beliefs and practices, to become like the Greeks in all things.

And this king was truly ruthless and determined in his efforts to impose his will on the entire Empire. However, this came to direct conflict with many among the Jewish people, the descendants of the Israelites living in the regions of Judea, Galilee, Samaria and elsewhere, because they mostly believed in the Lord their God, the one and only true God, and hence, they could not bear themselves to worship other gods, or abandon their Lord and Master for those pagan gods and false idols. The Lord their God was their one and only Master, and remains so, to this very day. All of us also worship the same God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the One Who had sent unto us, His Beloved Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In that encounter and event described in our first reading today, it was detailed how the king persecuted greatly all those who chose willingly to remain faithful to God, and the seven brothers, each of whom were adamant in their commitment to God and in refusing each of the king’s efforts to sway and persuade, coerce and force them to abandon their faith in the Lord. They chose to suffer and die, one by one, from the oldest to the youngest, and the mother, who had to witness all of these, she also remained firmly faithful to the Lord, encouraging all of them and remaining steadfast with them. Despite everything that the king had tried to do to convince them to do otherwise, none of the seven brothers and the mother betrayed the Lord. They all died as martyrs of the faith.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the parable which the Lord related and told to His disciples and followers, of a variation of the well-known parable of the silver talents. In this parable, we heard of how a man entrusted to his servants some sums of silver talents or pounds, for them to take care of while he went on his journey to a distant land to be crowned king there. Each of the first two servants mentioned invested their silver well, and made good gains from the silver, doubling what they had been entrusted with. Meanwhile, the third and last servant mentioned did not do anything to the silver, and returned it to his master intact as how it was entrusted to him. We heard how those who had done well in investing their silver were rewarded and entrusted with the care of many cities, while the one who had been lazy and did nothing, was punished and his silver taken away, ending up with nothing.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this parable has a symbolic meaning in showing us that the Lord has entrusted each and every one of us with various talents, abilities, gifts and opportunities in life, and some of us did receive more than others. However, each one of us are also therefore expected to make good use of those gifts and opportunities, and we should not be idle or ignorant of what we can and should do in using the blessings that God had given to us. And how do we use these blessings and gifts, opportunities and other things that God had granted to us? It is by remaining steadfast and faithful in our lives, in living our lives honourably and worthily in accordance to the path that the Lord Himself has shown and taught to us. All of us have been reminded of this today, and the courage and faith of the seven brothers and their mother mentioned in our first reading today served as one good example of what it means for us to be truly faithful to God.

Today, the Church celebrates the feast of a great woman and servant of God, whose faith and devotion to God, and the dedication to Him, to the point of suffering and enduring grievous tribulations for His sake, should be a great inspiration for all of us Christians to follow. St. Cecilia was well-known as the patron saint of musicians, but she is also a great martyr of the Faith, as she had to bear great sufferings for the sake of the Lord, in her obedience to Him and in her steadfastness in refusing to abandon her faith in Him. She was born into Roman nobility and despite her vow of virginity before God, as a Christian, was forced by her family to marry a pagan nobleman named Valerian. St. Cecilia according to tradition, warned Valerian that an Angel of the Lord watched over her and if he tried to violate her sacred virginity, he would be struck down.

Hence, that was also how St. Cecilia managed to convince her husband to become a Christian himself, as when he asked to see the Angel mentioned by St. Cecilia, he did see the Angel of God after he was baptised by the Pope at that time, Pope St. Urban I. At that time, the Christians in Rome and elsewhere throughout the Roman Empire were persecuted for their faith, and this eventually led to the martyrdom of St. Cecilia and her husband, together with other Christians that had been arrested and made to suffer and die, when they refused to betray the Lord and abandon their faith in Him, just like those of the seven brothers mentioned in our first reading passage today. St. Cecilia was one of those great martyrs of the Church, whose courage and dedication to God, and whose commitment to virtue and holiness, and the purity of her sacred virginity, inspired countless Christians throughout history, right up to this day.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard all of these courageous and faithful examples of our holy predecessors, let us all therefore as Christians living in our present day world be filled with faith and commitment to God, inspired and strengthened by the virtues and the courage of those who have gone before us. Let us all not be easily swayed or threatened to abandon our faith, and let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord. May the Lord, our loving God and Master, continue to guide and strengthen us in our journey of faith, in our pursuit of His salvation and truth, now and always. May He inspire us all to become great role models and inspirations ourselves, in how we live our lives with great faith and charity. Amen.