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Wednesday, 6 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Sacred Scriptures we are all called to seek the mercy of God, our loving Father and to rebuild the relationship we have with Him, just a child seeking and asking for his or her father’s forgiveness. The father who loves his children will forgive them after he has chastised and disciplined them, and he will reunite them to himself, guiding them down the right path.

In our first reading today, as we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us regarding the conversation that God has with Jonah, the prophet that He has chosen, called and sent to the people of Nineveh, the great capital of the Assyrian Empire which at that time had conquered many countries and peoples, razed multiple cities and settlements, enslaving innumerable people across the known world then. They committed great sins before God and their fellow men alike, and for that, they should have been destroyed and crushed.

That was what God told them through the prophet Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to proclaim the imminent destruction of that city and its people. Upon hearing that, the people of Nineveh, from its great King, all the nobles, to all the people to the lowest status ones, all listened to the words of the Lord and sought to appease the wrath of God, humbling themselves from their previous pride and haughtiness, stripping themselves from their regal and proud appearances, and wore the penitential sackcloth as a sign of their regret and penitence before God and mankind alike.

The Lord then did not carry out what He intended to do to Nineveh, as He saw their sincerity in humbling themselves and in asking for His forgiveness, that He forgave them and spared them their destruction. But this angered Jonah in turn, for he has earlier on tried to escape from the Lord and His calling for him to go to Nineveh to speak the judgment for Nineveh. For Jonah, he was angry probably because he has laboured for the Lord and went through a great many things to come to Nineveh and speak of God’s words, only for whatever he had spoken to not have come true, as God spared Nineveh its destruction.

But God in truth never desired the destruction of Nineveh or any of its people at all. That is because ultimately, He still loves each and every one of His children equally, and every single one of them are precious to Him. Although the people of Nineveh and its king had committed great sins against Him, just as a father with prodigal and naughty children, he still desired their conversion and return to righteousness. Is this not the same as the attitude showed by the elder son in the famous parable of the prodigal son? Jonah was acting exactly the way the elder son behaved, while the younger son was representative of the people of Nineveh.

Just as in that parable, the Lord, Who is our loving Father rejoiced at the conversion of hearts of the people of Nineveh just as the younger son was welcomed with great joy by his father. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is our God, our loving Father, Who truly desired to be reconciled with us and for us to find our way back to His love and embrace, to be filled once again with His grace and blessings, and to walk once again in the path of His truth and to be righteous and good just as He is righteous and good.

And therefore, as the Lord Himself has taught us the Lord’s Prayer in our Gospel passage today, we ought to deepen our relationship with our heavenly Father through prayer, and not just any prayer that merely passes through our mouth, but prayers that are made with genuine love and desire to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, to spend precious time with Him and to know Him more in each and every available opportunities. Through deepening ourselves in prayer and devotion to Him, and through a more genuine living of our Christian faith, all of us are called to be ever more faithful children of our Father in Heaven.

Today, let us all also be inspired by the faith and examples showed by St. Bruno, whose feast day we are celebrating today. St. Bruno was a priest of Cologne in Germany, who is also the founder of the renowned Carthusian Order. St. Bruno was a longtime educator and theologian, credited with the upbringing and development of numerous students who became great priests and servants of God. He was humble and dedicated to God, and when he was about to be appointed as a bishop, he renounced secular glory and privileges, choosing to leave behind his position and assuming the simple life of a priest.

He was a close confidant of the Pope and through his contributions by the foundation of the Carthusian Order, St. Bruno inspired many others to follow in his footsteps in being ever faithful to God, to be humble in one’s ways and to put God ahead of everything else in one’s life. St. Bruno is truly a great example that all of us ought to be inspired to follow, and today, we are all reminded and called, to reflect on our lives and to ask ourselves if we can commit ourselves to the Lord with sincerity and genuine love for Him.

May the Lord continue to guide us in our journey and may He strengthen each and every one of us that we will always persevere through whatever challenges we may encounter throughout life. May God bless us in our every endeavours and efforts to live our lives ever more worthily in His Name. Amen.

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Wednesday, 6 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Luke 11 : 1-4

At that time, Jesus was praying in a certain place; and when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught His disciples.”

And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this : Father, may Your Name be held holy, may Your kingdom come; give us, each day, the kind of bread we need, and forgive us our sins; for we also forgive all who do us wrong; and do not bring us to the test.”

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Wednesday, 6 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Psalm 85 : 3-4, 5-6, 9-10

Have mercy on me, o YHVH, for I cry to You all day. Bring joy to the soul of Your servant; for You, o YHVH, I lift up my soul.

You are good and forgiving, o YHVH, caring for those who call on You. Listen, o YHVH, to my prayer, hear the voice of my pleading.

All the nations You have made will come; they will worship before You, o YHVH, and bring glory to Your Name. For You are great, and wonderful are Your deeds; You alone, are God.

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Wednesday, 6 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bruno, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Jonah 4 : 1-11

But Jonah was greatly displeased at this, and he was indignant. He prayed to YHVH and said, “O YHVH, is this not what I said when I was yet in my own country? This is why I fled to Tarshish. I knew that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and full of love, and You relent from imposing terrible punishment. I beseech You now, YHVH, to take my life, for now it is better for me to die than to live.”

But YHVH replied, “What right have you to be angry?” Jonah then left the city. He went to a place east of it, built himself a shelter and sat under its shade to wait and see what would happen to Nineveh. Then YHVH God provided a castor-oil plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade over his head and to ease his discomfort. Jonah was very happy about the plant.

But the next day, at dawn, God sent a worm which attacked the plant and made it wither. When the sun rose, God sent a scorching east wind; the sun blazed down upon Jonah’s head, and he grew faint. His death wish returned and he said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Then God asked Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?” Jonah answered, “I am right to be angry enough to wish to die.” YHVH said, “You are concerned about a plant which cost you no labour to make it grow. Overnight it sprang up, and overnight it perished. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot distinguish right from left and they have many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned for such a great city?”

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Tuesday, 5 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Holy Virgins)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us heard the readings from the Sacred Scriptures in which all of us are reminded of the great love and mercy of God, the compassionate and merciful love which He had for each and every one of us that He is willing to forgive us from our sins if we are willing to listen to Him and repent, turning away from those wicked and sinful ways. Unfortunately, more often than not, we are too preoccupied and busy to listen to the Lord’s words and urging in our hearts.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Jonah on the words that Jonah brought on behalf of the Lord to the people of Nineveh, the capital of the great Assyrian Kingdom, which at that time was the Hegemon of that part of the world. Assyria was rising in power and they conquered many other smaller states and cities, committing atrocities and acts of wanton destruction during their conquests as attested by historical records and evidences. They grew rich and mighty over the sufferings and pains of others and this was their great sin.

As such, God sent Jonah to them to warn them of their upcoming destruction and annihilation, and yet, while God desired destruction upon the wicked that is justified because of their sins, the fact that He actually sent His prophet Jonah to proclaim this to them was truly a clear sign how the Lord still loved and cared for His people, even after they had sinned greatly against Him, disobeyed Him and betrayed Him. That is why, one of the reason why He sent Jonah to them was actually to make them to realise the errors of their ways, repent and turn back to righteousness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the truth is that God never intended for any of us to be destroyed or crushed because of our sins. Otherwise, He could have destroyed us right from the beginning when our ancestors first disobeyed and betrayed Him for the temptations of Satan. He created all of us out of His love for each one of us, and it is by His love and enduring attention to us that we all live by His grace. He wants all sinners to return to Him and to find salvation through Him, be freed from the bondage of sin and death.

However, as we have also heard in our Gospel passage today, the main hindrance to this is our own preoccupation in life, as we are often distracted by the many desires, temptations and other things in life, as well as the lies and the falsehoods that the devil has planted in our hearts and minds, which we heeded to instead of the truth and love of God. In our Gospel passage today we heard of the Lord Jesus visiting to the house of Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, who were good friends of the Lord, and while Mary was listening to the Lord and His teachings, Martha was very busy tending to the preparations and possibly cooking.

When Martha scolded Mary and told the Lord that Mary should have helped her in her work and efforts, the Lord lightly rebuked Martha and told her that what Mary had done was right. Martha was not wrong in her desire to serve and provide for the Lord, but in her preoccupation with her chores and work, it distracted her from truly welcoming the Lord and allowing His words of truth and love to enter her heart as her sister Mary had done. She has essentially placed her work and actions above her love for God.

This is why we should not allow all those distractions from keeping us away from God, and we must realise and be grateful that the Lord has been so loving and merciful towards us, all these while. He has given us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, to be the One Who would deliver us from the destruction due to our sins and evils, and redeemed us by the most loving sacrifice He had made on the Cross, as He offered Himself in atonement for our many and innumerable sins. Here we have ourselves seen God’s most wonderful mercy and love bared to us.

Today, we celebrate the feast of the great saint and mystic who had revealed to us this loving and merciful aspect of the Lord, the Divine Mercy of God, namely St. Faustina Kowalska, the original visionary of the Divine Mercy. St. Faustina Kowalska was a Polish nun who entered the convent at a young age and received for much of her life, visions of the Lord, the Divine Mercy, calling on her to propagate the devotion to the Divine Mercy of God, reminding the people of God about their sins, and how they ought to turn away from their sins and embrace God’s most generous mercy.

St. Faustina Kowalska saw the vision of the Divine Mercy, with rays of red and white light emanating from the Most Sacred Heart of the Lord, which is symbolic of the blood and water that had come out forth from the wound that the centurion lanced to check that the Lord had died on the Cross. By that Most Precious Blood, the Lord had redeemed and brought us to freedom from the tyranny of sin and death, and by His Divinity and Humanity mingled together in the person of Jesus Christ, He has become the Salvation of the whole entire world.

The devotion to the Divine Mercy gradually grew in popularity and now it has become one of the most popular devotions in the world. But what we must truly realise is that we must not leave it as merely a devotion alone, but it must be accompanied with a genuine conversion of the heart and soul, of our entire beings, that we reject sin and evil, Satan and all of his wicked lies and falsehoods that have kept us away from the Lord and His salvation for so long.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all entrust ourselves to the Lord and listen to Him, His calling for us to embrace His love and mercy, much like how the people of Nineveh, wicked as they were, decided to humble themselves before God and all men, abashing themselves for their wickedness and sorrowful over their sins. This is the same attitude that we should have as well, brothers and sisters, and we should turn ourselves towards our Lord, the Divine Mercy, and seek His mercy and forgiveness, that we may be healed, made whole and reconciled once again.

May the Lord be with us all, and may He strengthen each and every one of us to live ever more courageously in faith from now on, and walk virtuously in His path from now on. May God bless us always, and may He guide us in our journey of faith through life, with the intercession of the saints, especially St. Faustina Kowalska, our role model in faith. Amen.

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Tuesday, 5 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Holy Virgins)

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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Tuesday, 5 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Holy Virgins)

Psalm 129 : 1-2, 3-4, 7bc-8

Out of the depths I cry to You, o YHVH, o YHVH, hear my voice! Let Your ears pay attention to the voice of my supplication.

If You should mark our evil, o YHVH, who could stand? But with You, is forgiveness, and for that, You are revered.

For with Him, is unfailing love and with Him full deliverance. He will deliver Israel from all its sins.

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Tuesday, 5 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Faustina Kowalska, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Holy Virgins)

Jonah 3 : 1-10

The word of YHVH came to Jonah a second time : “Go to Nineveh, the great city, and announce to them the message I give you.”

In obedience to the word of YHVH, Jonah went to Nineveh. It was a very large city, and it took three days just to cross it. So Jonah walked a single day’s journey and began proclaiming, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

The people of the city believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Upon hearing the news, the king of Nineveh got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. He issued a proclamation throughout Nineveh :

“By the decree of the king and his nobles, no people or beasts, herd or flock, will taste anything; neither will they eat nor drink. But let people and beasts be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call aloud to God, turn from his evil ways and violence. Who knows? God may yet relent, turn from His fierce anger and spare us.”

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not carry out the destruction He had threatened upon them.

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Monday, 4 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Lord through the Sacred Scriptures in which we heard the story of both the prophet Jonah, his calling and mission to the city of Nineveh, as well as the story of the Good Samaritan from the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan. Through these readings all of us are called to realise what we have all been called to do as Christians, that is to bring forth God’s truth and love to this world, much as He had spoken through the prophet Jonah and what He had revealed to us directly through the story of the Good Samaritan.

In our first reading today, we heard the rather long account of how God called the prophet Jonah from the land of Israel, calling him to follow His task and mission of going to the great city of Nineveh, to proclaim God’s words to the people of that city, who were infamous for their wickedness and great power, as the capital of the mighty and powerful Assyrian Empire. The story of Jonah and his mission was dated by historians as having occurred in the eighth century before the birth of Christ, during the decades before the final fall of the northern kingdom of Israel to the hands of the same Assyrians.

At that time, the Assyrians were rapidly growing in power as the great Hegemon of the entire Middle East. They conquered many countries and did many horrible things through their conquests, destroying many places and displacing numerous peoples, all for their own benefits. They were haughty and sinful, and through the prophet Jonah, God wanted to remind them of their mortality and their insignificance before the power of God. In the end, what God really wanted was for them to repent from their sins, to humble themselves and turn away from their sins.

But Jonah refused to obey the Lord and instead attempted to flee far away from the Lord, first to Tarshish, and then perhaps hoping to take a ship travelling to a far away place where God could not reach him. It was then that God showed His might and reminded Jonah that he could not flee from Him no matter how hard he tried to, as a great storm came and almost sank the ship that he was in, and he finally gave in to the Lord, asking himself to be thrown into the sea, and thereafter, as the Lord sent a great fish or whale to rescue him from the sea, Jonah came on dry land and then went to the city of Nineveh as God intended.

Through the prophet Jonah, God revealed His will to the people of Nineveh, as He first told them that the great city would be utterly destroyed and ruined by God for their many sins and wicked attitudes. And surprisingly, the Assyrian King, the ruler of Nineveh and the entire city listened to the Lord and His words, and humbled themselves before Him such that they all wore sackcloths in deep mourning, hoping that the Lord would not carry out His sentence against them and spare them. The Lord saw their repentance, and then did not carry out what He had designed to do on them.

As we then heard the well-known parable of the Good Samaritans from our Gospel passage today, all of us are reminded of a similar story of how a man who had been beset by robbers had been left to die in the wilderness by the roadside, only for a priest and a Levite to walk past by him, ignoring him and doing nothing to save him at all. This is a significant representation, as not only that it was reminiscent of what Jonah did, in refusing to do something to save people in need, for his case, the people of Nineveh, while he could do so, but it also showed us that all of us are called to learn what true love actually means.

The priest and the Levite were those who were deeply and greatly revered in the community of God’s people then, and yet, they did nothing at all to help, and not even sparing a glance or effort to aid the dying man. Instead, it fell to a Samaritan, a man belonging to a race that had often been hated and rejected by the descendants of the Israelites, who reached out in compassion and love to save the man, who was most likely from among the Israelites, most bitter enemies and rivals of the Samaritans.

And not only that, but as we all heard, the Good Samaritan not only took very good care of the man and brought him to a proper lodging, but he even took the extra mile of providing for his needs and showing genuine care and concern, hoping for his full recovery and sponsorship of his treatment. Through this story of the Good Samaritan in our Gospel passage today, the Lord wanted all of His disciples and therefore, all of us to know what it truly means to be His followers and disciples, to love generously and with great compassion for those who are in need.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us as Christians are called to action, to follow the Lord and trust in Him as He called on us to do His will, to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to His cause, humbling ourselves before Him and trusting in Him. We should learn from the case of the prophet Jonah and the story of the Good Samaritan, how all of us have been called by God and been given the opportunities to do what is good in this world. Yet, many times we have rejected His call and find many excuses not to follow Him, just as Jonah, the priest and the Levite had done.

Today, all of us should look upon the great examples set by a most famous saint of the Church, whose life and holiness, whose labours and efforts are still remembered even to this very day. St. Francis of Assisi, the renowned founder of the Order of Friars Minor, better known as the Franciscans and its later many offshoots, was a great saint who dedicated much of his life in service to God and to his fellow men. St. Francis of Assisi is a great role model for all of us to follow, in how we should be willing to reach out to our brethren in need, and to do God’s will.

St. Francis of Assisi was born Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, the son of a very rich and prosperous silk merchant in Assisi in what is today northern Italy, one Pietro di Bernardone, who would later on called his son Francesco upon his love for France, which eventually became his more famous name of St. Francis of Assisi. St. Francis in his youth was exposed to the life of the rich, the indulging of worldly pleasures and excesses, and was brought up by his father with the hope that he would be the one to continue his family’s business and legacy.

However, the young St. Francis gradually came to detest the life of excesses and wastefulness he experienced, and began to seek for true satisfaction and happiness. After a stint in the military and being struck by a disease, he would come to seek spiritual closeness to God, going for pilgrimage to Rome and even joined the poor in begging for alms. Then, he received a spiritual vision and experience from God as he passed by the ruined church of San Damiano, in which as he passed by the dilapidated church, he heard the Lord’s voice calling him, to rebuild His Church.

The young St. Francis took it that the Lord was calling him to restore the dilapidated church, and he went to take some of his father’s fine silk, selling them and using them to help the rebuilding the church. However, the priest in charge refused to accept his ill-gotten money from stealing, and the angry St. Francis threw the coins he earned on the floor. Actually, what the Lord wanted him to do, as He called St. Francis was for him to follow the Lord and to do what he could to restore the Church of God, the Universal Church and the people of God.

When St. Francis tried to hide from the wrath of his father, he hid from him for a month in a cave before eventually seeking the help of the local bishop. And when his merchant father came to seek him and demanded that he return the properties that he had stolen from him, St. Francis decided to remove from himself all pieces of clothings and there laid naked before all. The bishop covered the naked St. Francis with his cope, and from then on, St. Francis abandoned his birthright and his past life, in exchange for a new life committed to God. Ever since then, St. Francis dedicated himself wholly to God.

St. Francis of Assisi then laboured to gather others who shared his vision to rebuild and reform the Church, eventually establishing what is to be known as the Order of Friars Minor, of a religious order committed not only to prayer but also ministry to the people of God, as friars who lived in the midst of the world and in a community at the same time, where they shared their property with one another in a community of brotherhood, in poverty and in joy of serving God. Many people would come to join the Franciscans, and the Pope himself also approved of this foundation.

St. Francis himself would come to receive the holy wounds of the Lord, also known as the ‘stigmata’, which appeared on his hands and side, as well as his feet, which according to tradition happened as a Seraphim came to him and showed him the spiritual vision of God. He endured the physical pain of the stigmata each day henceforth, while living a life truly dedicated and committed to God, serving the Lord humbly and with love to the very last moments of his life, when he eventually went to the glory of Heaven, carried by the Angels of God in his sleep of death.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of God and remembered the examples and the life showed by St. Francis of Assisi, let us all discern carefully in what way that we can follow the Lord and His calling more faithfully, listening to His words and urgings in our lives, and entrust ourselves to Him, inspired by what St. Francis of Assisi had done in his own life. May the Lord help us and strengthen us all, and may He continue to guide us in our journey of faith through life. May God bless us all in our every efforts and endeavours, in the footsteps of our holy predecessors, St. Francis of Assisi and many others. Amen.

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Monday, 4 October 2021 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 10 : 25-37

At that time, then a teacher of the Law came and began putting Jesus to the test. And he said, “Master, what shall I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What is written in the Law? How do You understand it?” The man answered, “It is written : You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus replied, “What a good answer! Do this and you shall live.” The man wanted to justify his question, so he asked, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus then said, “There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him and went off, leaving him half-dead.”

“It happened that a priest was going along that road and saw the man, but passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite saw the man, and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan also was going that way; and when he came upon the man, he was moved with compassion. He went over to him, and cleaned his wounds with oil and wine, and wrapped them in bandages. Then he put him on his own mount, and brought him to an inn, where he took care of him.”

“The next day, he had to set off; but he gave two silver coins to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and whatever you spend on him, I will repay when I return.'” Jesus then asked, “Which of these three, do you think, made himself neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The teacher of the Law answered, “The one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus said, “Then go and do the same.”