Ordinary Time

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Friday, 10 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded through the Scriptures to put our faith and trust in God and His truth, and not in the falsehoods and wickedness of Satan. God loves each and every one of us, and He has created us out of His pure and most enduring love for us. Meanwhile, Satan, as well as all of his wicked allies and forces, all were aiming only at our eventual downfall and destruction, snatching us away from God Who truly loves each and every one of us. They have always been busy at work in trying to subvert the messages of God’s truth and to tempt us so that we fall into the slippery path towards damnation and evil. We heard how Satan tricked our ancestors and made his false promises and spoke lies to tempt us to sin by disobeying God and His commandments.

In our first reading today, we heard of the continuation of the past few days’ account from the moment of the Creation of the world and the Universe, and specifically today we focused on the very moment that Satan came before Adam and Eve, tempting both of them with the very tempting allure of worldly power and glory, of knowledge, wisdom and understanding, to become even like God by knowing all things good and evil. Satan was in fact playing on our desires and wants, and in our moment of weakness, he struck where it caused us to lose our focus and faith in the Lord and His providence, that we chose to trust in the words of the great deceiver and enemy rather than to keep our faith and trust in the Lord. We chose to embrace the path of the world, the path of pride, ego and greed, and as a result, we fell into sin, just as Satan himself has fallen.

As a great and mighty, brilliant and amazing Angel and spirit that God had created, Lucifer, the original name and identity of Satan, was truly an amazing and great being, that showcased the marvels of God’s creations and wonders. However, this Angel was taken over by his vanity and pride, and began plotting rebellion and desires to take over the control over Heaven and all of God’s kingdom, to sit on God’s Throne and to rule over all. Hence, by his pride and ego, Satan had fallen, defeated and cast out of Heaven, and in his defeat, he sought to bring us down together with him and all of his fallen and defeated allies. Hence, he struck at us using the same things that had led to his downfall in the first place, the vices and wickedness of the world, the temptations to sin against God.

It is here also that we should notice the contrast and comparison we can make between our first and Gospel reading passages today. In the beginning, man and woman were made all good and perfect, and they had nothing lacking in them. They were naked and without anything to wear just like the other animals and plants of the field, and yet they were not embarrassed or ashamed. Yet, the moment they ate of the fruits of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, they became aware of their nakedness and became embarrassed and panicked, seeking to hide themselves and their naked beings, and also hiding away from God. In the Gospel on the other hand, we heard of the Lord Jesus healing and opening the ears and loosening the tongue of a person who had been suffering from being deaf and mute.

Through this comparison, actually, we can see that because of sin, we have become ‘blinded’ and made to be unaware of God’s love and truth, as we allowed the veil and corruptions of sin to cover us and to prevent us from seeing the truth about God’s love and compassionate kindness towards each one of us. We became lacking in faith and trust in Him, and chose therefore to embrace the wickedness of our worldly desires and the many temptations all around us. Our ancestors, Adam and Eve became embarrassed and afraid of their nakedness and actions, because they were swallowed by their vanity and pride, and while they were once focused only on God, His love and kindness, they have become focused on their own selves and desires, turning inwards and away from God’s path.

Hence, the irony was that, while their eyes were indeed ‘opened’ by their newly gained knowledge about themselves, but sin had blinded them and made them to be unaware of the wickedness that they had done in disobeying God and in rebelling against Him. Yet, the Lord did not give up on us and continued to love us all most generously after all, and He gave us His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to deliver us from the hands of the devil, and from the tyranny of sin, evil and death. Through Him and His works, just as we heard in our Gospel passage today, He embodied and showed us all the perfect manifestation of God’s ever patient and enduring love for each and every one of us. He still loved us despite all of our stubborn attitudes and behaviours, because all of us are truly precious to Him.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard from these readings from the Sacred Scriptures and reminded of how we mankind had often disobeyed the Lord, rejected His generous mercy and love, and continued to sin against Him, can we all spend some time to discern well our path forward in life? Can we all do whatever we can to resist those many temptations all around us, the temptations to sin and to do what is abhorrent and wicked in the sight of God? God is indeed ever patient and loving, but we should never take His love for granted, ever again. If we continue to walk down this path of sin and disobedience, eventually the time will come when we have no more way out of the predicament and our fate that is destruction and eternal damnation, and at that time, no amount of regret will ever console us or give us any hope, anymore. Let us all not wait until we regret for eternity in hellfire with Satan and his fellow fallen allies, and regret our rebelliousness.

Today we also celebrate the Feast of St. Scholastica, a renowned and great woman of God, a saint of the Church, who was the twin sister of St. Benedict of Nursia, another holy man of God. Her examples in commitment and love for God should indeed become source of hope and inspiration to each one of us in how we ourselves should live our lives with great faith. She was remembered for her great piety and personal holiness, as well as for her dedication to prayerful life and for her discipline in obeying the Law and commandments of God, through her obedience to the Rule of St. Benedict that her brother had established as the rule and norms for his community of the faithful. Through her examples and dedications, many others had become called and responded to God’s call, encouraging many more people to commit themselves ever more to the Lord, in their lives and in leading righteous lives, just as we all should as well.

May the Lord continue to watch over us and help us to journey ever closer to Him, and by heeding the good examples set by St. Scholastica and the innumerable other saints, holy men and women of God, that we may find our way to Him and His salvation. May God continue to bless us in everything that we say and do, and may He empower all of us to live ever more faithfully in His presence, now and always, and be good role models and inspirations to many others all around us. Amen.

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Friday, 10 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There, a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, and put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He said with a deep sigh, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately, his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it; but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Friday, 10 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 31 : 1-2, 5, 6, 7

Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is wiped away. Blessed are those in whom YHVH sees no guilt and in whose spirit is found no deceit.

Then I made known to You my sin and uncovered before You my fault, saying to myself, “To YHVH I will now confess my wrong.” And You, You forgave my sin; You removed my guilt.

So let the faithful ones pray to You in time of distress; the overflowing waters will not reach them.

You are my Refuge; You protect me from distress and surround me with songs of deliverance.

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Friday, 10 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Genesis 3 : 1-8

Now the serpent was the most crafty of all the wild creatures that YHVH God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say : You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden God said : You must not eat, and you must not touch it or you will die.”

The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, but God knows that the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the fruit was good to eat, and pleasant to the eyes, and ideal for gaining knowledge. She took its fruit and ate it and gave some to her husband who was with her. He ate it.

Then their eyes were opened and both of them knew they were naked. So they sewed leaves of a fig tree together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the voice of YHVH God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and they, the man and his wife, hid from YHVH God among the trees of the garden.

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Thursday, 9 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scripture passages, we are reminded always again and again of God’s love and kindness, which He has lavished on each and every one of us since the very beginning of time. God has created us all out of His love for us, and He has provided us with everything we need, ever caring, kind and compassionate towards us, and He has always reached out to us, even after we have fallen away from His path of righteousness and grace. God has never abandoned or forgotten about us, and He has always loved us all the same. Yet, we mankind were still often stubborn and refused to follow God’s path, or accept His love, compassion and mercy, as we allow ourselves to be swayed and tempted by sin.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis in which the story of how God created our first ancestors, blessed them and provided for them in the Gardens of Eden, was told to us. Back then, man was supposed to live in perfect bliss, happiness and harmony, to be with God in the state of fullness of grace, and having no need to worry or any suffering at all. God made everything to be good and perfect, all wonderful and amazing, all creation to be entrusted to us as their caretakers and guardians, as stewards and as the Lord’s servants, His representatives and workers, in caring for everything that God Himself had made. The Lord entrusted all of those to us, expecting us to be good and faithful stewards to His creation, to be filled with righteousness and obedience to His will.

Unfortunately, we have instead lapsed into sin, and allowed the devil to have his way with us, as we embraced his lies and sweet words over that of obeying God and His commandments. We chose to entertain Satan who tempted us all with the temptations of worldly glory and desires, of greed and ambition, to seek to know more and to become even like God, just as Satan said to Adam and Eve, our ancestors. They allowed themselves to be swayed and convinced by the falsehoods of Satan, and chose to disobey God, and hence, became corrupted by sin. Thus that was how original sin came to afflict each and every one of us. Sin corrupted us and tore us away from the Lord, sundering us from His love and grace, and it all came from our inability to resist the temptations to sin.

Yet, God never gave up on us, and while we have to suffer the consequences of our sins, forced to wander off in this world and away from the perfect bliss of Eden that was intended for us, the Lord continued to watch over us and provide for us the means by which we may find our way back to Him. He has always patiently cared for us and provided for all of our needs, even when we still refused to budge and were stubborn in our rebellion against Him. Not only that, He even promised that He will liberate us all from the tyranny of sin, evil and death, and will gather us back to Himself, which He has done through the sending of His own Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, into our midst, to be the source of our Hope and to lead us all as our Good Shepherd into the right path, that all of us may be reconciled to Him.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the account of the encounter and exchanges between the Lord Jesus Himself and a Syro-Phoenician woman. Back then, the Jewish people were often prejudiced against the non-Jewish people, and the Syro-Phoenician woman was one of the people inhabiting regions neighbouring the Jewish areas in Judea and Galilee, and the Jews, especially the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law among them, often considered their neighbours to be inferior and unfit for God’s grace and love, because they deemed themselves as God’s chosen people, and hence the only ones who were deserving of God’s love and salvation. Not only that, but they took great pride in that, and they scorned those who did not share their thoughts and ideas, and all the pagan peoples.

At the first glance, it might seem that the Lord Jesus was being very rude and dismissive towards the Syro-Phoenician woman. However, the Lord did not do that with the intention to ridicule or being truly prejudiced against the woman. Instead, the Lord actually wanted to make a point before all the people assembled and all of the disciples, that it is indeed folly and unbecoming of God’s people to have such an elitist and biased attitude which they had been keeping up to that point. The Lord used that example by showing to everyone just how persistent and committed the woman was, and what a strong belief and faith that she had in the Lord, that despite everything that the Lord had said to her, she still insisted to seek the Lord and to ask and beg Him to heal her daughter who was very sick. She continued to trust and to be faithful to the Lord, and this faith is a great example to all of the disciples, as well as to all of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do our best to resist the evils and the temptations of sin all around us. Let us all recall that every one of us have been created all good and perfect by the Lord, and are expected to lead a life that is truly attuned to God’s will, believing in Him and having faith and trust in Him much as how the Syro-Phoenician woman had lived hers, and in her persistence to follow the Lord despite all that she had to face and endure. Each and every one of us are reminded that if we do not do our part, and do not resist the temptations of sin, all around us, it will be harder and harder for us to resist the pull of sin and we may end up falling deeper and deeper into the wrong paths, as we can easily lose focus on our true focus and attention, that is the Lord, our God and Saviour.

May all of us continue to grow ever more in faith, and may we all grow ever stronger in our devotion and love for God, and may all of us do all that we can in order to glorify Him by our lives, our actions, words and every deeds. Let us all turn towards the Lord with renewed faith and zeal, and let us all be good examples and inspirations to one another, so that we may encourage each other to keep our faith and to turn away the falsehoods and lies of Satan. May God be with us always, and may He guide us to Himself, and help us to walk ever more faithfully in His Presence, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 9 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 24-30

At that time, when Jesus left the place where He rebuked the Pharisees, He went to the border of the Tyrian country. There He entered a house, and did not want anyone to know He was there, but He could not remain hidden. A woman, whose small daughter had an evil spirit, heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet. Now this woman was a pagan, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.

Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to puppies.” But she replied, “Sir, even the puppies under the table eat the crumbs from the children’s bread.” Then Jesus said to her, “You may go your way; because of such a response, the demon has gone out of your daughter.”

And when the woman went home, she found her child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

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Thursday, 9 February 2023 : 5th 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 ear 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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Thursday, 9 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 2 : 18-25

YHVH God said, “It is not good for Man to be alone; I will give him a helper who will be like him.” Then YHVH God formed from the earth all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air and brought them to Man to see what he would call them; and whatever Man called every living creature, that was its name.

So Man gave names to all the cattle, the birds of the air and to every beast of the field. But he did not find among them a helper like himself. Then YHVH God caused a deep sleep to come over Man and he fell asleep. He took one of his ribs and filled its place with flesh. The rib which YHVH God had taken from Man He formed into a woman and brought her to the man.

The man then said, “Now this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken from man.” That is why man leaves his father and mother and is attached to his wife, and with her becomes one flesh. Both the man and his wife were naked and were not ashamed.

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Wednesday, 8 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani, and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Holy Virgins)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are reminded that each and every one of us have been made good and perfect by God, and all of His Creation have also been good and wonderful, full of His grace and love, as all of His created things and beings are filled with goodness and His love for each one of us. However, it was because of our refusal to obey Him or listen to Him and His words that we have fallen into the path of sin. Due to our inability to resist the temptations of evil and worldly desires, and inability to restrain our pride and ego, we have ended up falling into the ever deeper trap of sinfulness and wickedness, and we end up slipping ever further down the slippery path towards damnation. Unless we then make a conscious effort to resist those temptations, how can we be ever more committed as Christ’s followers and disciples?

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis the story of the moment when God created our ancestors, the first Man, Adam, from dust of the Earth, in the Gardens of Eden, and later on shortly, the first Woman, Eve, from Adam’s own flesh and bone. Mankind were created in the very image of God Himself, and was the pinnacle of all of His Creation, made in His own likeness and filled with all graces and blessings. We heard how God was happy with everything He had created and how everything were good and perfect, filled with the great bliss of heavenly joy, and that is what we have always been intended to enjoy, from the very beginning, to be with God and to live forevermore in His loving presence, in the wonderful Eden, paradise that He has prepared for us, and that was what God has always intended for us all.

Yet, our ancestors chose to disobey Him, and to listen to the lies and falsehoods of Satan who disguised himself as a snake, tempting Adam and Eve with the false promises that if they were to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, then they would become like God, in knowing everything and in understanding everything. Thus, that was how we ended up falling into sin, as sin came forth from disobedience, from our refusal to listen to God, and from the malice that sprang forth from within us, from the pride and ego, the greed and the desires that we indulged in, and allowed to control us, and all those things led to us walking down the path of evil, of sin against God, of wickedness and evil. If only that we put more effort to restrain those desires, temptations and resist the pressures exerted on us to live in the state of sin, we could have still existed in the state of grace in Eden, and not to suffer all the pain and sufferings of this world.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the Lord speaking to His disciples and all the people assembled of the nature of how we all can be corrupted by sin and the wickedness that come forth from within us, from our hearts and minds, and not from what we take in from the outside, not from any food or any worldly things that we encounter and have in this world. This must be understood in the context of how back then, the Law of God as revealed through Moses and passed down through the generations to the people of God contained restrictions and prohibitions of the consumptions of certain food and items, which were considered as unclean and inappropriate to be eaten by the people. The Law itself prescribed that should anyone eat of those unclean food, then they themselves would be considered as unclean as well, and thus, had to purify themseelves and face the consequences.

The Lord highlighted that such a belief was erroneous, and the truth was that, the things which made us to become corrupted and wicked, all came from within us, as He pointed out that God did not create evil, and everything that God had created were good, perfect and wonderful. Even Satan himself when he was created by God was a great, brilliant and mighty Angel known as Lucifer, the brightest and most brilliant of the Angels. Unfortunately, his vanity and pride led him to disobey God and fall into wickedness and evil, as he aspired to rule over all the Universe and to sit on the Throne of God, in trying to supplant and overthrow his own Master and Creator. Thus, in the same way that Satan had fallen, our ancestors and all of us mankind had also fallen in the same manner as well. Our downfall into sin was caused by our vulnerabilities and succumbing into our internal misalignments from the path of the Lord, and from the wickedness within us.

That is why today, as we listened to these words of the Scriptures, each one of us are reminded to be vigilant over ourselves and our actions in life. We must be careful lest the temptations of pride, greed, desires and all other obstacles in our path and journey towards the Lord might end up leading us down the path of damnation and destruction. We are reminded that our ancestors had fallen into the trap of sin that Satan and all of his forces had laid before them, and the same traps and threats are facing us all as well. Unless we remain vigilant and strong in our faith, we may end up falling deeper and deeper into the wrong path, and may end up getting further and more distant from the Lord and His righteousness and grace. We are all called to reflect on our way of life so that hopefully we may realise just how much we need to repent from our many sins and evils.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us should be inspired by the examples shown unto us by two great saints of God, whose lives and dedication to God can inspire us to live our lives ever more worthily of Him. The Lord has presented to us on their feast days, the great saints, St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita. St. Jerome Emiliani was a great humanitarian and generous man, the founder of the Somaschi fathers, a group of priests and brothers committed to a holy life dedicated to God and to the people of God. He was remembered for his great piety and even more so for his great generosity and charity, particularly towards the sick, the hungry and the orphans. He spent a lot of effort in caring for those who were less fortunate and had none to care for them, establishing orphanages and hospitals, and many other institutions designed to help them find their way in life.

Meanwhile, St. Josephine Bakhita was a devoted holy virgin, who was once a slave hailing from the area now known as Sudan. She was abducted from her family in a very young age and was forced to be a slave, and was sold from master to master for many years, being tortured and abused by many of her masters, before finally ending up in the hands of the Italian Vice-Consul who was much kinder to her, and who eventually returned to Italy with St. Josephine Bakhita in tow. Eventually, after some more ordeal and hardships, St. Josephine Bakhita was declared a freedwoman and became a part of the Canossian sisters, as a convert and as a novice, eventually taking perpetual vow and dedicating her whole life to serve the Lord through the Canossian Sisters community that she was living in. She was remembered for her great love for God and others, and for her great and tender care and love for the members of her community.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be inspired by the good examples showed by St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, our holy predecessors, and do whatever we can to glorify the Lord by our lives. Let us all purify ourselves from the wickedness of sin, by seeking God and His forgiveness, and by turning our back against our sinful past, embracing wholeheartedly the righteousness and grace of God from now on. May God bless us always, and may He bless our every good works, efforts and endeavours. Amen.

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Wednesday, 8 February 2023 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani, and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Holy Virgins)

Mark 7 : 14-23

At that time, Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. Let everyone who has ears listen.”

When Jesus got home and was away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about this saying, and He replied, “So even you are dull? Do you not see that whatever comes from outside cannot make a person unclean, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and is finally passed out?” Thus Jesus declared that all foods are clean.

And He went on, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him, for evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”