Ordinary Time 2023

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Friday, 20 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 84 : 8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Show us, o Lord, Your unfailing love and grant us Your saving help. Yet Your salvation is near to those who fear You, and Your Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Friday, 20 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Hebrews 8 : 6-13

Now, however, Jesus enjoys a much higher ministry in being the Mediator of a better covenant, founded on better promises. If all had been perfect in the first covenant, there would have been no need for another one. Yet God sees defects when He says : The days are coming – it is the word of the Lord – when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not keep My covenant, and so I Myself have forsaken them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come : I will put My law into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people.

None of them will have to teach one another or say to each other : Know the Lord, for they will know Me from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and no longer remember their wrongs. Here we are being told of a new covenant; which means that the first one had become obsolete, and what is obsolete and ageing is soon to disappear.

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Thursday, 19 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded yet again of the role that Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, has in being the High Priest of all mankind, in being our intermediary and mediator with the Father, our loving Creator and Master. Through Christ all of us have been shown the path of reconciliation and rejuvenation, in recovering our grace-filled existence where once we have been cast out into the darkness because of our disobedience and refusal to listen to God and to obey His will. God has loved us so much ever since the very beginning and He would not abandon us to the darkness and evil, and since the beginning, He has assured us of His faithfulness to the promises and the Covenant that He has established with us, and He sent us His Son to be our Saviour and to be the One to help us to return to His grace.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews about the actions of the Lord Jesus as the High Priest of all, in His offering of the most worthy sacrifice and offering of all for our sake. The author highlighted how the priests and high priests needed to offer sacrifices and offerings for the atonement of their sins first before they could offer the sacrifices on behalf of the people, and contrasting this with Jesus Christ, the one and true Eternal High Priest, by Whose sacrifice and offering every one of us, past, present and future, have received the sure guarantee of salvation and eternal life, should we embrace His most generous and wonderful love. Jesus our High Priest, the Sinless One, has willingly offered on our behalf, the perfect and most worthy offering that is sufficient to redeem all of us from the precipice of destruction and damnation.

How did He do that, brothers and sisters? He did that by being both our High Priest and also the sacrificial Lamb at the same time. As our High Priest, He offered on our behalf the perfect offering of Himself, of His own Most Precious Body and Blood as the perfect, unblemished and most sacred Lamb of God. While priests and High Priests offered the imperfect although unblemished offerings of lambs and other sacrifices, but the imperfection and limited nature of those offerings prevented them from achieving lasting and complete reconciliation between God and His beloved people. It was only through Christ and His most wonderful, generous and perfect offering that He has redeemed all of us from our fated destruction and annihilation due to our sins and wickedness.

Christ has become the bridge between us and God, as He called upon all of us to follow Him and to enter into His presence, embracing the Love of God that He has shown us in the flesh, tangible and approachable to us. He has given His all for us, embracing our humanity and emptying Himself from all glory and honour, choosing the condition of a criminal and a slave, so that by taking up upon Himself all of our sins, all the consequences and punishments due to those sins, and as the Lamb of God, He might purify us from our sins and faults, through the power of His own mercy and love, and through His most selfless and loving gift to all of us, and for such a great love indeed that He was willing to endure the greatest of pain and sufferings, humiliations and indignations for our sake.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the works which the Lord has done for the sake of His people during His ministry in this world. He has spent a lot of time and effort to reach out to everyone who had come to seek Him, seeking His healing and help, amidst their many troubles and difficulties. The Lord has shown His compassion and mercy, as He saw our sufferings and pains, and He wanted us all to be freed from all those things. It revealed to us the true intentions of our most loving Creator, for He created us out of pure love and the desire to share His ever overflowing love with us. Hence, He could not have allowed us to perish or to be separated forever from Him, and thus, He has given us so many opportunities to return to Him and to find our path back towards Him.

However, many of us tend to be defiant and stubborn in our attitude and way of life, constantly and repeatedly refusing to obey the Lord, shutting our minds and hearts against Him, and refusing to embrace the truth of God which He has brought into our midst through His Son. Although the Lord has shown us His most generous love, but we still often refused to believe in Him, and refused to embrace His mercy and love, although we have seen, witnessed, experienced all the wonderful love that God has lavished on us. The Lord has not stopped loving us even with all of that, and He has patiently reminded us, helped us and encouraged us to embrace His path, His love and His mercy, and He still offered Himself even to those who have hurt and betrayed Him, just as He gave Himself to be crucified even for the sake of all those who condemned Him to die.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us having been reminded of the great love of God shown through Christ, Who has most generously offered Himself for our sake, we are then reminded to offer our own love and devotion to Him. God has loved us most unconditionally and generously, and He has not held even from us His own beloved Son, Who has given Himself so thoroughly for us. Can we therefore love Him in the same way, and devote ourselves, our time and attention in the same manner as well? Can we do more in our lives so that we can truly consider ourselves as genuine and worthy Christians, as those whom God had called and made to be His own? We are all expected and reminded that as Christians, we have to be wholeheartedly faithful to God and entrust ourselves wholly to His providence and salvation.

May the Lord be with us always, and may He continue to help us in our journey in faith and life so that hopefully we may all grow ever stronger in our faith and devotion to Him, and may He guide us and give us the courage and strength to persevere through the many challenges and trials that we may have to face in our journey as Christians, in each and every moments. Amen.

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Thursday, 19 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 3 : 7-12

At that tine, Jesus and His disciples withdrew to the lakeside, and a large crowd from Galilee followed Him. A great number of people also came from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, Transjordan, and from the region of Tyre and Sidon, for they had heard of all that He was doing.

Because of the crowd, Jesus told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him, to prevent the people from crushing Him. He healed so many, that all who had diseases kept pressing towards Him to touch Him. Even the people who had evil spirits, whenever they saw Him, they would fall down before Him and cry out, “You are the Son of God.” But He warned them sternly not to tell anyone Who He was.

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Thursday, 19 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 39 : 7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17

Sacrifice and oblation You did not desire; this You had me understand. Burnt offering and sin offering You do not require. Then I said, “Here I come!”

“As the scroll says of me. To do Your will is my delight, o God, for Your law is within my heart.”

In the great assembly I have proclaimed Your saving help. My lips, o Lord, I did not seal – You know that very well.

But may all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and may all who love Your saving grace continually say, “The Lord is great.”

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Thursday, 19 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Hebrews 7 : 25 – Hebrews 8 : 6

Consequently Jesus is able to save for all time those who approach God through Him. He always lives to intercede on their behalf. It was fitting that our High Priest be holy, undefiled, set apart from sinners and exalted above the heavens; a Priest Who does not first need to offer sacrifice for Himself before offering for the sins of the people, as high priests do. He offered Himself in sacrifice once and for all.

And whereas the Law elected weak men as high priests, now, after the Law, the word of God with an oath appointed the Son, made perfect forever. The main point of what we are saying is that we have a High Priest. He is seated at the right hand of the Divine Majesty in heaven, where He serves as minister of the true Temple and Sanctuary, set up not by any mortal but by the Lord.

A high priest is appointed to offer to God gifts and sacrifices, and Jesus also has to offer some sacrifice. Had He remained on earth, He would not be a priest, since others offer the gifts according to the Law. In fact, the ritual celebrated by those priests is only an imitation and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.

We know the word of God to Moses with regard to the construction of the holy tent. He said : You are to make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain. Now, however, Jesus enjoys a much higher ministry in being the Mediator of a better covenant, founded on better promises.

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Wednesday, 18 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures all of us are called to heed the love that God has given to us in the Person of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, Who is His most beloved and only begotten Son. Not only that, but we are reminded today that Christ is also our one and only True and Eternal High Priest, as the One Who interceded, made amends and reconnected us to the Lord, our most loving God and Father. By His coming into this world, He has bridged the once vast and immense gap that existed between God and us mankind, all because of our disobedience and sins against Him. And thanks to that, all of us now can look with great hope, to the Light of our Lord’s salvation and the promise of eternal life, which He has made to us and which He will fulfil, if we remain firm in our faith in Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews in which the author of this Epistle spoke of the High Priesthood of Melchizedek, a rather mysterious figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis during the occasion when Abraham, the father of nations and the Israelites, offered a tenth of his materials to God. High Priest Melchizedek was described as the High Priest of the Most High God, or even as the High Priest and King of Salem, with some Biblical scholars relating this Salem with the historical Jerusalem. And as mentioned by the author of the Epistle of the Hebrews, who was not really discreet in making the connections between Melchizedek and Jesus Christ, Melchizedek was mentioned as One Who was without a father, mother or any genealogy, and the author also mentioned how Melchizedek was the figure of the Son of God.

Regardless of who Melchizedek really was, and what his nature and origin was, as truly many things were beyond even the knowledge and understanding of the prophets and the messengers of God, the writers of the Scriptures and even the Church fathers, what matters is that Melchizedek truly indeed was a prefigurement of the Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, in what He would do for the sake of each and every one of us, in bringing the salvation of God into our midst. As the High Priest of God, Melchizedek interceded on behalf of Abraham and offered his offerings to the Lord, and in the same way, the Lord Jesus as our one and true Eternal High Priest also offered on our behalf a most perfect and worthy offering to the Lord, His Heavenly Father, the offering and sacrifice of His own Body and Blood, as the slain and sacrificed Paschal Lamb of God.

And that was exactly how the Lord Jesus had become the Mediator of the New Covenant which God has created and established with us mankind, that Christ has become our link and the means for us to be reconciled with God, by reaching out to us and being present in our midst, showing us God’s love manifested in His Person, and by showing us all that God truly wants us all to return to Him and find comfort, liberation and true joy through Him. We heard of how the Lord healed a man who had a paralysed hand, allowing him to make use of his hand again. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were present there frowned upon the actions of the Lord as it happened on the Sabbath, a day that was meant to be a day of rest according to God’s Law. On that day, people rested from work and should not be doing any work, and spend the time to be with God.

Back then, we must understand that the Pharisee and the teachers of the Law were those who were very particular about the way how the Law of God was obeyed and lived, that they paid a lot of attention on the details and rituals involved. They have also enforced a very strict interpretation of the Law on the people, especially on the matter of the Sabbath laws and customs. No one was supposed to do any work or action, even for doing what is good and right, according to the beliefs and rules imposed by those considered as elders and guides of the people. That was where the Lord rebuked them and showed them His anger and indignation at those who showed no compassion and love for their fellow brethren, and those who had made it difficult for many to be good and faithful disciples and followers of God, all because of the excessive burdens they had imposed on the observance of the Law.

The Lord wants us all to know that what the Sabbath was all about, was meant to help the people to return their focus and attention once again on the Lord, and away from the many temptations present all around us, all of which could distract us from our relationship with God. That was why the Sabbath was instituted at the first instance, and that is for God’s people to dedicate at least one day for the Lord and to focus their attention and efforts on Him, on that Sabbath day, and not to spend all of their time and attention on their many worldly desires, preoccupations, works and other distractions in life. All of these were the reason why the Lord gave the Sabbath to His people so that they might learn to appreciate all that He has given them, and grow ever closer in faith and love in Him, as they spent more time with Him on that sacred day.

Instead, what happened was that the day became a source of misery for some, and prevented good deeds from being carried out. Like in other occasions when the Lord performed His healing and miracles, the Lord criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their rigid and proud attitude, refusing to listen to the truth that God has delivered into their midst through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. They preferred to remain in their stubborn attitude and hence failed miserably in their duties and responsibilities as the custodians of the Law and of the faithful people of God. Contrast this stubbornness and disobedience, pride and ego with the humility and obedience of Christ the Son, the Son of God Who willingly obeyed His Father’s will and allowed Himself to be stripped of all glory and honour, to be condemned to death like a criminal and put to death in a most painful and humiliating way.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are henceforth reminded to first of all be appreciative and thankful of everything that the Lord had done for our sake, in Him loving us most generously and patiently despite our repeated disobedience and constantly stubborn attitudes. Then, let us also be thankful for our High Priest, our Lord and Saviour Who has offered Himself as the perfect and worthy offering for the absolution of our innumerable sins. He did all of these so that we may not perish but live, and that we may be truly reconciled with God. Can we therefore commit ourselves from now on to follow the Lord and His ways, just as He Himself has shown us in His perfect obedience? Can we show our true and living faith by doing what God has taught and commanded us to do, through His Church and His servants?

May the Lord, our Saviour and High Priest continue to strengthen and guide us in our journey of faith throughout life. May He empower each and every one of us so that we may indeed live our lives ever more worthily with each and every passing moments. May He continue to bless us in our efforts and endeavours each day and at every moments, all for His greater glory. Amen.

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Wednesday, 18 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 3 : 1-6

At that time, again Jesus entered the synagogue. A man, who had a paralysed hand, was there and some people watched Jesus : would He heal the man on the sabbath? If He did, they could accuse Him.

Jesus said to the man with the paralysed hand, “Stand here in the centre.” Then He asked them, “What does the Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

Then Jesus looked around at them with anger and deep sadness, because they had closed their minds. And He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was healed. As soon as the Pharisees left, they met with Herod’s supporters, looking for a way to destroy Jesus.

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Wednesday, 18 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 109 : 1, 2, 3, 4

The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your foes Your footstool.”

From Zion the Lord will extend Your mighty sceptre and You will rule in the midst of Your enemies.

Yours is royal dignity from the day You were born in holy majesty. Like dew from the womb of the dawn, I have begotten You.

The Lord has sworn, and He will not take back His word : “You are a Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”

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Wednesday, 18 January 2023 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Hebrews 7 : 1-3, 15-17

Scripture says that Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, came out to meet Abraham who returned from defeating the kings. He blessed Abraham and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything.

Let us note that the name Melchizedek means King of Justice, and that king of Salem means king of Peace. There is no mention of father, mother or genealogy; nothing is said about the beginning or the end of his life. In this he is the figure of the Son of God, the Priest Who remains forever.

All this, however, becomes clear if this Priest after the likeness of Melchizedek has in fact received His mission, not on the basis of any human law, but by the power of an immortal life. Because Scripture says : You are a Priest forever in the priestly order of Melchizedek.