Feast

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Friday, 25 July 2025 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

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.

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Friday, 25 July 2025 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Corinthians 4 : 7-15

However, we carry this treasure in vessels of clay, so that this all-surpassing power may not be seen as ours, but as God’s. Trials of every sort come to us, but we are not discouraged. We are left without answer, but do not despair; persecuted but not abandoned, knocked down but not crushed.

At any moment, we carry, in our person, the death of Jesus, so, that, the life of Jesus may also be manifested in us. For we, the living, are given up continually to death, for the sake of Jesus, so, that, the life of Jesus may appear in our mortal existence. And as death is at work in us, life comes to you.

We have received the same Spirit of faith referred to in Scripture, that says : I believed and so I spoke. We also believed, and so we speak. We know that He, Who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us, with Jesus, and bring us, with you, into His presence. Finally, everything is for your good, so that grace will come more abundantly upon you, and great will be the thanksgiving for the glory of God.

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Tuesday, 22 July 2025 : Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, a truly important woman and figure in the early Church and who was also highly visible throughout the narrative of the Gospels, the story of the activities of the Lord Jesus during His ministry in this world. This was because St. Mary Magdalene, although not numbered among the Twelve Apostles, was truly an integral part of the Lord’s group, and was one of the women who had always journeyed with the Lord and followed Him throughout His ministry and works. She was also honoured greatly as an equal to the Apostles, and indeed, was considered as one of the Apostles. In fact, she was known as the Apostle to the Apostles, Apostolorum Apostola, for her role in bringing the news of the Lord’s Resurrection to the Apostles.

In our first reading today, we heard of the reading from the Book of Song of Songs in which we heard the words of the author of this book speaking about the love that the author has been seeking, the love of the Lord, the One Who is truly the true love of our lives. That passage from the Book of Song of Songs highlighted the seeking and longing within one’s heart, seeking the great love of God that alone can truly satisfy our longing for love that is indeed true and fulfilling, and the effort that one ought to have and put in, in our journey to seek the love of God, to find this most wonderful and generous love that He has imparted upon us, and which we all experienced in every aspects and parts of our lives.

Then in the other alternative first reading from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful people of God in the region of Corinth, we heard of the Apostle speaking also on the love of Christ, the perfect manifestation, proof and example of God’s love being made manifest for all of us. He spoke of how the love of Christ has transformed all the Christian believers, the people of God with the transformational love, the most selfless and wonderful love which He has selflessly and most lovingly provided upon us. That is why all of us as Christians, as those who profess to believe in Christ, must all be filled with the same love which Christ our Lord has shown us most generously and most lovingly from His Cross, for the sake of our salvation.

Lastly, from the Gospel passage today from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard the moment when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and how He revealed Himself first of all to none other than St. Mary Magdalene, the one to whom the Lord entrusted the news of His Resurrection. That was why as mentioned, St. Mary Magdalene was the Apostle to the Apostles, with the word ‘Apostle’ meaning someone who brings forth a testimony and Good News, and it was through her that the Twelve Apostles and the other disciples came to know of the Risen Lord before He appeared to them as well. She was distraught when she went to the Lord’s tomb and saw that the tomb had been opened and the Lord’s Body went missing.

And despite the words of the Angels that were there to tell St. Mary Magdalene and the other women of the Lord’s Resurrection, we heard how at first she was distraught that someone might have stolen His Body. But the Lord appeared to her in all of His Risen glory and reassured her of His Resurrection. She was distraught because she truly cared for the Lord, and having been one of His most ardent and faithful followers, she genuinely felt the loss when she saw and witnessed everything that happened during the Lord’s Passion on the Cross, as He suffered and died, and St. Mary Magdalene herself being specifically mentioned being there at the Lord’s side during His crucifixion when many of the disciples had fled and hid themselves. And when His Body apparently disappeared as well, that must have been terrible to her. But the Lord reassured her and strengthened her in her faith.

While not much was known of the exploits and works of St. Mary Magdalene after this point during the early Church, it was quite certain that she was together with the other disciples when the Holy Spirit came upon them all, and she was likely part of the missions and evangelising works, the spreading of the Good News of God, bringing more and more of God’s people closer to Him, and calling on more to come to know Him. And through her efforts in encouraging the Apostles after the Lord’s Resurrection and the many other roles that she might have played in the early Church, many were touched by the love and devotion that St. Mary Magdalene had for the Lord, in her focus on Him and in her efforts to seek Him, as an exemplary disciple and follower of Christ.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore be inspired by the good examples, faith and love for God which St. Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, has shown to us. Let us all be inspired by the great love and dedication that she has shown, in following the Lord faithfully throughout His ministry, as she went to wherever the Lord and His disciples went, serving Him and being committed to Him and the mission He has entrusted to her and others. Let us all therefore also answer God’s call with fervent and loving hearts, full of love for Him and ever focused on Him at all times. Let us all be good, worthy and faithful Christians at all times, doing our very best so that through our actions, efforts and works, we may inspire many others to come to the Lord and His salvation as well.

St. Mary Magdalene, Holy Apostle to the Apostles, you who have restored hope to the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord through your faithful bearing of the Good News of the Resurrection, pray for all of us so that we too may be good and faithful witnesses of the Lord and His Resurrection in our world today, within our communities and to everyone whom we encounter and journey with each day, in every moments of our lives. May God be with us always, and may He continue to bless us all most wonderfully in all things, in our every efforts to glorify Him by our lives, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 22 July 2025 : Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 20 : 1-2, 11-18

Now, on the first day after the Sabbath, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning while it was still dark, and she saw that the stone blocking the tomb had been moved away. She ran to Peter, and the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and she said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

Mary stood weeping outside the tomb; and as she wept, she bent down to look inside. She saw two Angels in white, sitting where the Body of Jesus had been, one at the head, and the other at the feet. They said, “Woman, why are you weeping?”

She answered, “Because they have taken my Lord and I do not know where they have put Him.” As she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not recognise Him. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?”

She thought it was the gardener and answered Him, “Lord, if You have taken Him away, tell me where You have put Him, and I will go and remove Him.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned, and said to Him, “Rabboni!” – which means Master. Jesus said to her, “Do not touch Me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to My brothers and say to them : I am ascending to My Father, Who is your Father, to My God, Who is your God.”

So Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord, and this is what He said to me.”

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Tuesday, 22 July 2025 : Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 62 : 2abc, 2d-4, 5-6, 8-9

O God, You are my God, it is You I seek; for You, my body longs and my soul thirsts.

As a dry and weary land without water. Thus have I gazed upon You in the Sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.

I will praise You as long as I live, lift up my hands and call on Your Name. As with the richest food, my soul will feast; my mouth will praise You with joyful lips.

For You have been my help; I sing in the shadow of Your wings. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.

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Tuesday, 22 July 2025 : Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Apostle of the Apostles (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Song of Songs 3 : 1-4a

On my bed at night I looked for the one I love, I sought him without finding him; I called him and he did not answer. I will rise and go about the city, through the streets and the squares; I will seek the love of my heart…

I sought him without finding him; the watchmen came upon me, those who patrol the city. “Have you seen the love of my heart?” As soon as I left them, I found the love of my heart.

Alternative reading (Second Reading if this Feast is celebrated as a Solemnity)

2 Corinthians 5 : 14-17

Indeed, the love of Christ holds us, and we realise, that, if He died for all, all have died. He died for all, so, that, those who live, may live no longer for themselves, but for Him, Who died, and rose again for them. And so, from now on, we do not regard anyone from a human point of view; and even if we once knew Christ personally, we should now regard Him in another way.

For that same reason, the one who is in Christ is a new creature. For him, the old things have passed away; a new world has come.

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Sunday, 20 July 2025 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded to have faith and trust in the Lord, to believe in Him wholeheartedly and to trust in the plans that He has for each and every one of us. There is truly nothing that is impossible for God, and everything that God has planned for us will come to fruition and completion in due time, provided that we trust in Him, listen to Him speaking to us and guiding us all towards the fulfilment and accomplishment of His promises to us. We should trust in His plans and designs, which we may not yet see in full or completeness, and which we may still wonder at and have a lot of questions about, but trust in the Lord nonetheless, because we know that in God alone is sure hope and certainty of salvation.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis of the account of the time when the Lord came to visit Abraham and Sarah at their encampment at the moment when both of them were still awaiting their promised son, whom God had promised to him many times from the time when He called Abraham, then still known as Abram, from the land of Ur in Mesopotamia, to follow Him to the land that He would bestow upon him and his descendants, the land of Canaan. And Abraham obeyed the Lord and trusted in Him even though he and his wife had not been able to conceive a child for a long time. He went to the land of Canaan and did everything just as God had told him to do, and he was righteous in all things, a truly obedient servant of God.

And for additional context, Sarah did try to circumvent the problem, if we are aware of the story of how everything turned out in the Book of Genesis, by using her slave Hagar to conceive a child with Abraham. That was how Ishmael, Abraham’s eldest son was born, born from Abraham and Hagar, Sarah’s Egyptian slave. At that time, it was common practice for a woman who owned a slave and had difficulty having a child, or for other reasons, to take her own slave to bear a child with her husband, and any children born by the slave would be considered as the legal child of the woman instead of the slave. This was because slave did not have any right at that time, and the slave and everything the slave possessed were considered to belong to the slave’s master, and that included any children the slave might have borne.

But God reassured Abraham and told him that the child that He had promised to him and Sarah would be born through Sarah and not through any other means, including that of Hagar and Ishmael. And the Lord appeared to both Abraham and Sarah as we heard in today’s first reading to remind and reassure them again on this matter. But as we heard, Sarah did not truly believe and still doubted, and she even laughed in secret about this. Yet, nothing could have escaped God’s attention and knowledge, and that was why He told Sarah that precisely that very moment the next year, she would be having a child with her, the child born from her own womb, just as God has promised. What God had promised might be delayed for a while, but eventually in His good time, everything will happen just as He has said it would.

That was how Isaac was to be conceived and born for Abraham and Sarah, the son that had been promised to them, the one through whom Abraham, the childless man, would become the father of many nations, and whose descendants would number as many as the stars in the sky, and as many as the grains of sand on the seashore. And he was named Isaac precisely because of this incident, because Sarah laughed at what the Lord had told her and Abraham about having a child at her age, something that is impossible for man, but not impossible for God. Indeed, God had the final laugh when everything did happen as He said it would, proving to Abraham and Sarah, and to all of us, the faithfulness and love that God has for all of us, and of the Covenant that He had made with us.

Then, from our second reading this Sunday, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church in Colossae in Asia Minor, we heard of the Apostle exhorting the faithful to hold firmly to the truth and the Good News which they have all received from the Apostles and the other missionaries, the truth which the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has come to reveal to the whole world, through the Apostles and the Church, from which the secrets and mysteries of the Lord that had been long hidden from our sight and understanding, had finally been revealed and made known in full to everyone who believe in Him and in His Providence. And all these had been made known to them all because God wants all those whom He loved and truly cared for to find their way to Him, and to trust in Him, in His Wisdom and guidance, that they may not be lost to Him.

This relates well to what God had Himself revealed to Abraham and Sarah from our story in the first reading passage today, as the Lord revealed His plan, slowly, through the wisdom and the encounters that He has put in the paths of men, and showed His faithfulness to the Covenants He had made and established, and constantly renewed with us. And lastly, He gave us all the perfect fulfilment of all of His promises, Covenant and all that He has reassured us all from time to time, through His only Begotten Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, by Whom God has shown us all the perfect manifestation of His Love, teaching and revealing to us what His Law, commandments and ways are all about, and how we all ought to follow Him so that we may partake in the eternal life that He has prepared for all of us.

In our Gospel passage this Sunday, according to St. Luke the Evangelist, we then heard the short, more summarised account of what happened in the encounter between the Lord Jesus and the two sisters, Mary and Martha, who invited Him to their house. And we heard how Mary was listening to the Lord speaking and teaching to her while Martha was busy preparing all the things to welcome the Lord, probably a meal and more. But when Martha asked the Lord to tell Mary to help her out, likely that she was frustrated that she was left to do all the work by herself, the Lord told Martha that she should remember what is truly most important for her, and not to be distracted by all her works that she failed to notice how the Lord truly should be the priority at that time, and not all of her plans and chores.

This does not mean that what Martha had done was wrong. Martha had good intentions above all else, and she certainly and genuinely wanted to welcome the Lord and make Him happy with her hospitality. However, what the Lord wanted her to know was that she should not allow those busy preoccupations and the hectic preparations to distract her from appreciating the Lord’s Presence and the time when He was there at her place. This applies to all of us as well, brothers and sisters in Christ. How many of us, for example, were all so busy seeking for worldly pursuits and ambitions, in us seeking to climb the career ladder and in getting various wants and ambitions that we have, our desires and all that we ended up forgetting those whom we love all around us?

This is why we should learn to be more like Mary, to be ready to listen to the Lord and to be appreciative of everything we had done for us. We should have more faith and trust in God like Abraham had done, instead of being skeptical and doubtful as Sarah had done. If we put our trust more in God than in our own human power and works, then we can certainly see the clear difference in our lives, as we will find that trusting in God give us the peace and satisfaction that trusting in our own human means and workings cannot do for us. And we are reminded this Sunday that we should apply this to our lives, and do our best so that as Christians, we may be good role models and inspirations for one another, at all times, to show them God’s Providence, love and guidance in all things.

May the Lord continue to help and guide us in our journey and actions through life, and help us all so that we may continue to be strong and faithful in Him at all times. May He grant us the listening ears of Mary and the faith that Abraham, our father in faith had in Him. May God bless our every actions and good works, our efforts and endeavours, all done for His greater glory, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 July 2025 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 10 : 38-42

At that time, as Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He entered a village, and a woman called Martha welcomed Him to her house. She had a sister named Mary, who sat down at the Lord’s feet to listen to His words. Martha, meanwhile, was busy with all the serving, and finally she said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the work? Tell her to help me!”

But the Lord answered, “Martha, Martha, you worry and are troubled about many things, whereas only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the better part, and it will not be taken away from her.”

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Sunday, 20 July 2025 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 1 : 24-28

At present, I rejoice when I suffer for you; I complete, in my own flesh, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His Body, which is the Church. For I am serving the Church since God entrusted to me the ministry to make the word of God fully known. I mean that mysterious plan that, for centuries and generations, remained secret, and which God has now revealed to His holy ones.

God willed to make known to them the riches, and even the glory, that His mysterious plan reserved for the pagan nations : Christ is in you, the hope for glory. This Christ, we preach. We warn, and teach everyone true wisdom, aiming to make everyone perfect, in Christ.

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Sunday, 20 July 2025 : Sixteenth Sunday 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.