Saints

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Tuesday, 21 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 2 : 23-28

At that time, one Sabbath Jesus was walking through grainfields. As His disciples walked along with Him, they began to pick the heads of grain and crush them in their hands. Then the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! They are doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath!”

And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did in his time of need, when he and his men were very hungry? He went into the house of God, when Abiathar was High Priest, and ate the bread of offering, which only the priests are allowed to eat, and he also gave some to the men who were with him.”

Then Jesus said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Master even of the Sabbath.”

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Tuesday, 21 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 110 : 1-2, 4-5, 9 and 10c

Alleluia! I thank the Lord with all my heart in the council of the just, in the assembly. The works of the Lord are great and pondered by all who delight in them.

He lets us remember His wondrous deeds; the Lord is merciful and kind. Always mindful of His covenant, He provides food for those who fear Him.

He has sent His people deliverances and made with them a covenant forever. His holy Name is to be revered! To Him belongs everlasting praise.

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Tuesday, 21 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Hebrews 6 : 10-20

God is not unjust and will not forget everything you have done for love of His Name; you have helped and still help the believers. We desire each of you to have, until the end, the same zeal for reaching what you have hoped for. Do not grow careless but imitate those who, by their faith and determination, inherit the promise.

Remember God’s promise to Abraham, God wanted to confirm it with an oath and, as no one is higher than God, He swore by Himself : I shall bless you and give you many descendants. By just patiently waiting, Abraham obtained the promise.

People are used to swearing by someone higher than themselves and their oath affirms everything that could be denied. So God committed Himself with an oath in order to convince those who were to wait for His promise that He would never change His mind.

Thus we have two certainties in which it is impossible that God be proved false : promise and oath. That is enough to encourage us strongly when we leave everything to hold to the hope set before us. This hope is like a steadfast anchor of the soul, secure and firm, thrust beyond the curtain of the Temple into the sanctuary itself, where Jesus has entered ahead of us – Jesus, High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded that each and every one of us as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people, each and every one of us are called to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the path that God has called us to walk through, following the examples of the Lord Himself, Our Saviour and High Priest Who has obeyed so perfectly the will of His Heavenly Father so that by His perfect obedience, He may show all of us mankind the path towards eternal life and salvation. He has become the perfect Man, the New Adam and the New Man that all of us as Christians are called to follow and embody in our own lives, embracing wholeheartedly our Christian faith in everything that we say and do at all times.

In our first reading today, the continuation from the discourse by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the nature and the works of the Messiah, in which the author continued to elaborate on the role which Christ as the Messiah had played in the story of our salvation. As the author was writing to the audience composed of the Jewish people, likely both those who have believed in the Lord and also those who have not yet believed, he explained in detail throughout this Epistle Who the true and real identity of Jesus Christ was, the One Whom the Jewish leaders and authorities had rejected, oppressed and then handed over to the Romans to be crucified. This Epistle to the Hebrews instead presented this crucifixion as part of the plan of the Lord in saving all of His people just as He has promised and prophesied through His prophets like the prophet Isaiah.

The account from this Epistle further highlighted the actions that Christ has done at the pinnacle of His salvific mission, in offering on our behalf the perfect offering for all of our multitudes of sins, in the manner how the priests of the Israelites offered sacrificial offerings for the people of God. Those priests had to first offer sacrifices for themselves first because they themselves were sinners and had to atone for their own sins first, before offering the sacrifices on behalf of the people who came to them seeking their help. But it is different for the case of the Lord Jesus, the One and only True High Priest of all because He is perfect and without any taint of sin, and hence had no need to offer sin offering for Himself.

And most amazingly, while He Himself is blameless and without any fault, He chose willingly to bear the blame and the punishment assigned to Him, imposed on Him by the Jewish leaders and authorities, who blamed on Him the fault of rebellion and blasphemy against God, that He was handed over to the Romans to be crucified. Yet, as those who were familiar with the Scriptures would realise, this persecution and suffering of the Messiah that God had sent to be with His people has been foretold by the prophets, and it was by this willing sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all, offered His own Most Precious Body and Blood on the Altar of His Cross, by which He has purchased all of us, once and for all, the redemption for all of our innumerable sins.

Then from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the words of the Lord Jesus against those people who questioned Him on why those Pharisees and the disciples of St. John the Baptist carried out fasting and other pious practices but His disciples did not do the same. This was because at that time the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were particularly strict in how they interpreted the Law of God, requiring all the people to follow the Law strictly, and one of them was the requirement for fasting, and how they ought to fast in the right manner. However, they placed so much emphasis and time focusing on how they observed and practiced the Law, that they ended up neglecting to follow the Lord faithfully and with God at the centre of all things.

The Lord also presented to them all the parable of the new wine and wineskin, old wine and wineskin, as well as new cloth and old cloth. This parable is meant to highlight first of all the fact that the Lord’s coming revealed truths about the Lord and His Law, His intentions and desire for His people, all of us, to fulfil them all perfectly and to correct the erroneous ways that His will, His Law and commandments have been received by the people, particularly by those who interpreted the Law and practiced them. Secondly, it is also a reminder for us that if we truly want to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and completely, then there is a need for us all to follow His path and reject the old path of worldliness that we may be familiar with. Otherwise, if we do not do so, we are no better than hypocrites.

Today, the Church also celebrates the feast of not just one but two amazing men of God whose faith and dedication to Him should be reminders for all of us to be truly faithful and committed as well in our own lives, in our obedience to God and His cause, and in doing whatever we can so that we may imitate their good and faithful lives, and realise how being good Christians may often require us to make sacrifices and to be ready and prepared to face challenges, trials and even oppressions for our faith in God. Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian both have suffered for their faith in God, being persecuted for their belief in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all. However, they remained firmly faithful even despite all those sufferings and becoming for us great inspirations and role models to follow.

Pope St. Fabian was born into a noble Roman family during the third century after the birth of Christ, at a time of great challenges and turmoil for the Church and the faithful as they often encountered harsh persecutions and oppressions from the Romans who treated Christians and their faith as those who deserved to be punished and killed, unless they abandoned their faith. His election as Pope was truly remarkable in the sense that when the previous Pope, his predecessor passed away and the election for the successor took place, the future Pope St. Fabian was actually just visiting, and amidst all the competition between all the influential candidates at that time, no one minded Pope St. Fabian at all until a dove miraculously descended upon him, and the whole assembly acclaimed him as the new Pope. He would go on to carry out many great deeds and works as Pope.

Meanwhile, not much was known about the early life of St. Sebastian, but according to Church tradition and his hagiography, he was a young man who joined the Roman military during the time of the reign of the then Emperor Carinus, and then under his successors, Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Those two Emperors were notorious for their very harsh and terrible persecution against Christians, but St. Sebastian managed to become one of the captains of the Praetorian Guards, the guards of the Emperor himself. In that capacity, he managed to help several of the captive and persecuted Christians, and even managed to convert some of those involved in the arrest and persecution of Christians.

Eventually, after the relatively long reign of about fourteen years for Pope St. Fabian and after the clandestine efforts in helping Christians and converting others for St. Sebastian, both of them were found out in their efforts and faith as Christians, with Pope St. Fabian being persecuted by the new Roman Emperor Decius, who unlike the previous Emperors that had been more tolerant of Christianity, he was a hardliner, arrested Pope St. Fabian and executed him for his faith as an example to all the other Christians. St. Sebastian meanwhile was persecuted by another harsh persecutor, the Emperor Diocletian, who was particularly displeased that one of his own Praetorian captains was a Christian. He was shot with many arrows, but miraculously survived and cared for by a Christian widow, before being martyred after he rebuked the Emperor publicly for his actions against Christians.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of what we have heard in our Scripture passages today and the lives of those saints whose memory we commemorate is that we must appreciate the great love, compassion and kindness which God has given to us so generously through His Son, and therefore, just as He has suffered in doing so, being rejected by the world and all those who dwelled and remained in sin, and how Pope St. Fabian, St. Sebastian and many other saints and holy men and women of God had done, let us all realise the challenges, difficulties and sufferings that we may face amidst our lives as Christians in this world today. Let us also be ready to live lives that are truly worthy of God at all times so that we may be good role models and inspirations ourselves to one another. Amen.

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Mark 2 : 18-22

At that time, one day, when the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting, some people asked Jesus, “Why is it that both the Pharisees and the disciples of John fast, but Yours do not?”

Jesus answered, “How can the wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the Bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the day will come when the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.”

“No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear away from the old cloth, making a worse tear. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the wine would burst the skins, and then both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 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 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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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 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 5 : 1-10

Every High Priest is taken from among mortals and appointed to be their representative before God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He is able to understand the ignorant and erring for he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he is bound to offer sacrifices for his sins as well as for the sins of the people.

Besides, one does not presume to take this dignity, but takes it only when called by God, as Aaron was. Nor did Christ become High Priest in taking upon Himself this dignity, but it was given to Him by the One Who says : You are My Son, I have begotten You today. And in another place : You are a Priest forever in the priestly order of Melchizedek.

Christ, in the days of His mortal life, offered His sacrifice with tears and cries. He prayed to Him Who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His humble submission. Although He was Son, He learnt through suffering what obedience was, and once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for those who obey Him. This is how God proclaimed Him Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

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Friday, 17 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded to remain firm in our faith in the Lord and to obey Him, and not to harden our hearts and minds against Him and His truth, for the Lord has brought unto us His salvation and grace, revealing His love manifested perfectly in the flesh through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour. There were those who believed in Him and embraced His truth, but there were many others who hardened their hearts and refusing to follow Him, or believe in His words and teachings, questioning His authority and legitimacy, just as what we had heard from the action of the teachers of the Law in our Gospel passage today.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of this Epistle continued to speak of the matter of believing and trusting in the Messiah Whom God had sent into this world, the same Jesus Christ, the One Who had been betrayed by many among His own people, and handed over to the Romans to be crucified, but Whose Resurrection and truth cannot be contained and henceforth, continued to propagate among the Jewish people and many more others among the non-Jews, which became the beginning and foundation of the Church of God. After hearing for the past few days the various things that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews spoke about regarding the Lord and all that He had done to save us all, in order to convince those in the Jewish community who had not yet believed then, we too should be convinced of the truth that we have received as well.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in today’s passage again exhorted the people and hence, all of us to continue to keep our faith and trust in the Lord because all those who have stood by their faith in God and remained firmly faithful will indeed be rewarded by God, while all those who refused to listen to the Lord and believe in Him shall be judged and condemned by their own stubborn attitudes and conscious refusal of God’s merciful love and compassion towards all of His beloved ones. We must not take God’s love and mercy for granted as we must not forget that while He is truly a loving and merciful God, but He is also a just and Holy God, in Whose Presence sin and evil cannot stand and survive.

This is why as Christians it is important that we should always strive to hold fast to this faith which we have in the Lord, and not to be easily swayed by false ideas and teachings that run contrary to our faith in God. We should also not be swayed easily by our ego and pride, our ambitions and desires, some of which were the reasons why those who have rejected the Lord and refused to believe in Him and His truth had done so. It was the belief in their abilities, intellect and power, as well as pride in their sense of superiority which made many among the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the elders of the Jewish community to reject the Lord and harden their hearts and minds against His truth and works in their midst.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist in which the famous story of how the Lord Jesus healed a paralytic man was told to us. As we heard, four people brought the paralysed man through the roof of the building that Jesus was teaching in, as there were so many people gathered there to listen to Him. And when the Lord told the paralysed man that his sins had been forgiven, those teachers of the Law in the crowd grumbled and made complaints against the Lord, saying that He has insulted and blasphemed against God for only God has the power and authority to forgive us from our sins. Indeed, they were right on this, as God alone can forgive us our sins, but they refused to acknowledge that God Himself has come into their midst in the flesh.

Those teachers of the Law in fact were knowledgeable about the Law and the prophets of God and as such, of all people they should have been the ones who knew well that the prophets of God were all speaking of the coming of the Saviour of God, and they all, especially the prophet Isaiah attributed Divine identity to this Saviour, after all, how can Isaiah mentioned the name of the Saviour as Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. How can this Saviour be another god that is not the one and only True God of all, unless He truly comes into this world to dwell among us, as the prophet Isaiah also prophesied about Emmanuel, God Who dwells with His people?

That is why the stubbornness among the people of God, their ego and pride, their refusal to listen to the Lord and embrace His truth, all of those things had become great obstacles in preventing them from accepting the reality that the Lord Himself has brought into their midst. God has come into our midst to heal us all from our afflictions that is our maladies, sickness and all of our shortcomings, but most importantly our sins as mentioned earlier that no one can forgive us all our sins save that of the Lord. And He has given us all His Son to reach out to us, forgiving our sins and offering the most generous and wonderful love of God manifested before us. What else can we possibly want, brothers and sisters?

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Anthony, also known as St. Anthony the Abbot, or St. Anthony the Great or St. Anthony of Egypt. He was a truly renowned ascetic who lived many years in the wilderness in the desert during the early years of the Church. St. Anthony was a contemporary of another great hermit and ascetic, namely St. Paul the Hermit, whose feast we had just celebrated two days earlier. St. Anthony was born in a wealthy family in Egypt and lost both of his parents when he was just about twenty years old. He then chose to abandon worldly glory and pursuits, living in the wilderness and desert like St. Paul the Hermit, devoting many decades of his life in seclusion and contemplative prayer.

It was told that St. Anthony was often visited and attacked by the evil one who attempted to tempt and coerce him to abandon his holy and devout life for the pleasures of the world, but the Devil was unable to shake St. Anthony’s firm faith and conviction to follow the Lord wholeheartedly. He resisted those temptations and became great role models and inspirations for many others who would follow in his footsteps as an ascetic, known as the ‘Father of Monasticism’ who would inspire the other monks like St. Benedict of Nursia, St. Bede the Venerable among many others. While St. Anthony was not the first ascetic, preceded by St. Paul the Hermit and others, but he was the first to popularise the way of ascetic lifestyle, conscious withdrawal from the world and prayerful commitment to God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all continue to do our part in glorifying God by our lives, and let us all continue to put our faith in Him, our trust and belief that in Him alone lies our hope, the hope for liberation and redemption from the dominion and bondage to sin. Each and every one of us should continue to live our lives worthily as Christians, dedicating ourselves, our time and efforts to direct more and more people towards the Lord, sharing our faith and showing it towards everyone whom we encounter daily in life. May God be with us all and may He continue to strengthen us all, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 17 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 2 : 1-12

At that time, after some days, Jesus returned to Capernaum. As the news spread that He was in the house, so many people gathered, that there was no longer room even outside the door. While Jesus was preaching the Word to them, some people brought a paralysed man to Him.

The four men who carried him could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened the roof above the room where Jesus was and, through the hole, lowered the man on his mat. When Jesus saw the faith of these people, He said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

Now some teachers of the Law, who were sitting there, wondered within themselves, “How can He speak like this, insulting God? Who can forgive sins except God?”

At once Jesus knew in His Spirit what they were thinking, and asked, “Why do you wonder? Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise, take up your mat and walk?’ But now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

And He said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take up your mat and go home.” The man rose and, in the sight of all those people, he took up his mat and went out. All of them were astonished and praised God, saying, “Never have we seen anything like this!”

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Friday, 17 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 77 : 3 and 4bc, 6c-7, 8

Mysteries which we have heard and known, which our ancestors have told us. We will announce them to the coming generation : the glorious deeds of the Lord, His might and the wonders He has done.

They would teach their own children. They would then put their trust in God, and not forget His deeds and His commands.

And not be like their ancestors, stubborn and rebellious people, a people of inconstant heart whose spirit was fickle.