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Tuesday, 7 September 2021 : 23rd 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 Scriptures, we are all called to follow the Lord wholeheartedly, to be truly sincere in our faith and dedicate ourselves to glorify the Lord by our own actions and deeds, be it great or small. We have to be sincere in following the Lord, in the manner of His Apostles and the many other disciples, the countless saints and martyrs who had devoted themselves and given their lives in the service of the Lord.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Colossae, the Apostle spoke about the attitude that Christians, as God’s people, as His chosen ones and those who have answered His call. And because of that, it is something that we have to embrace wholeheartedly, in welcoming God into our hearts and walking down the path that He has prepared for us and shown us. As God’s beloved people, we should dedicate ourselves thoroughly, and through baptism, as St. Paul mentioned, we have been made partakers of this New Covenant that God has made with all of us.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been made parts of the Lord’s promise, to follow Him and to be transformed through Him, that by embracing Him, we may be purified from our sinful ways, from the corruption of our wickedness and evils, to be, as St. Paul said, ‘circumcised’ which means that we have received that spiritual transformation, remade and reforged in the faith, and transformed from a people of darkness into the people of the true light, the Light of Christ.

The Lord has called us all to follow Him, as we heard in our Gospel passage today on how He has called those whom He had chosen to be His disciples, and twelve among whom He has chosen to be the members of His inner circle, of which eleven of them would become the members of the Twelve Apostles. The Lord called on all those Apostles to be His chief and principal disciples, to be the ones sent into the world in order to deliver the truth and the Good News of the Lord to everyone.

They would go on to embark on many journeys all around the world, proclaiming the truth of God and standing up courageously for their faith in God. They gave their all to the Lord and committed themselves wholeheartedly to the missions entrusted to them. Many people and communities came to believe in God through them, and many souls were saved by their labours and hard works, their dedication and love for God and for their fellow men.

And all of us, as Christians, we are all called to follow in the examples of the Holy Apostles and the disciples of the Lord. We may think that we are unworthy and incapable of doing so, but in truth, those same Apostles were themselves called from humble and insignificant, ordinary origins, and what matters is that they allowed the Lord to lead them, to strengthen them and to guide them in their path and faith. And whenever they stumbled, they prayed to the Lord for guidance and help.

Brothers and sisters, as we inherit the many great works that the Apostles and the many other disciples of the Lord had initiated and done, the Lord has called on all of us to put our trust in Him and to allow Him to change and transform us all through His love and truth. But are we all willing to welcome Him? Are we all willing to accept the crosses that we are going to bear, the sufferings and trials that we may have to bear in our respective journey of faith?

Let us discern this carefully, and consider what each and every one of us can do to be part of the Church, as active and contributing members, to commit and dedicate ourselves just in the same way that the Apostles and disciples of the Lord had committed their lives and efforts for the greater glory of God. Let us grow to be ever more faithful in all things, and let us inspire one another to do the same, in being active and evangelising Christians. Amen.

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Tuesday, 7 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 6 : 12-19

At that time, Jesus went out into the hills to pray, spending the whole night in prayer with God. When day came, He called His disciples to Him, and chose Twelve of them, whom He called ‘Apostles’ : Simon, whom He named Peter, and his brother Andrew; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James son of Alpheus and Simon called the Zealot; Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who would be the traitor.

Coming down the hill with them, Jesus stood in an open plain. Many of His disciples were there, and a large crowd of people, who had come from all parts of Judea and Jerusalem, and from the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. They gathered to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases. And the people troubled by unclean spirits were cured.

The entire crowd tried to touch Him, because of the power that went out from Him and healed them all.

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Tuesday, 7 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 1-2, 8-9, 10-11

I will extol You, my God and King; I will praise Your Name forever. I will praise You, day after day; and exalt Your Name forever.

Compassionate and gracious is YHVH, slow to anger and abounding in love. YHVH is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

All Your works will give You thanks; all Your saints, o YHVH, will praise You. They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom; and speak of Your power.

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Tuesday, 7 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 2 : 6-15

If you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, let Him be your doctrine. Be rooted and built up in Him; let faith be your principle, as you were taught, and your thanksgiving, overflowing.

See that no one deceives you with philosophy or any hollow discourse; these are merely human doctrines, not inspired by Christ, but by the wisdom of this world. For in Him, dwells the fullness of God, in bodily form. He is the Head of all cosmic power and authority, and, in Him, you have everything.

In Christ Jesus, you were given a circumcision, but not by human hands, which removed completely from you the carnal body : I refer to baptism. On receiving it, you were buried with Christ; and you also rose with Him, for having believed in the power of God, Who raised Him from the dead.

You were dead. You were in sin and uncircumcised at the same time. But God gave you life with Christ. He forgave all our sins. He cancelled the record of our debts, those regulations which accused us. He did away with all that, and nailed it to the cross. Victorious through the cross, He stripped the rulers and authorities of their power, humbled them before the eyes of the whole world, and dragged them behind Him, as prisoners.

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Monday, 6 September 2021 : 23rd 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 Scripture, we are all reminded to follow the Lord and be faithful to Him, and to play our part as members of God’s Church. God has told us to follow Him sincerely and wants us to understand His path and His commandments well. The Lord has shown us what we have to do, and what we should be doing is to trust in Him and to commit ourselves to this path that the Lord has revealed to us.

However, this is easier said than done, as many of us often preferred to trust in our own judgments and strength, and in our own way of thinking and ideas, not willing to listen to the Lord and trust ourselves in His infinite wisdom. As we heard in our Gospel passage today, the Lord Himself was confronted by the Pharisees who wanted to test Him and see if He would violate the law of the Sabbath that they held to be sacrosanct. They were often opposed to Him and His teachings, and particularly found offence in the Lord’s activities on the Sabbath.

This was where the Lord strongly rebuked those self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the Law, by revealing how it is ridiculous for the Law of God to be used to prevent someone from performing something that is good, right and just, and He told them that the Law was not meant to arbitrarily restrict the faithful from doing anything on the holy day of the Lord. Instead, the true purpose and intention of the Law of the Sabbath was to remind the people of God to spend more time in their relationship with God.

And that was why, they were told not to do work or conduct their usual daily business, not because they could not do so or prohibited like as if those things were grave sins. Rather, out of the seven days of the week, if everyone were to do their work on every single day, then there would be no space for God in their hearts and minds. Hence, the Lord instituted the Sabbath and its laws to help the faithful to redirect their attentions and their focus on the Lord, away from the usual busy schedules and activities of their worldly lives.

Yet, this does not mean that the Lord wanted to exclude all of them from doing what they should and could be doing on that day, in doing good things and in showing their faith in the Lord. On the contrary, if one were to purposely ignore the plight of others and the needy during the day of the Sabbath, then they would have committed the sin of omission, in failing to do what they could do, when they were in the right place and opportunity to do so, to show God’s love and compassion to our fellow men.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, this was what the Lord highlighted in His rebuke of the attitude of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. He wanted them to know that obeying the Law is and should not just be a mere formality and a ritual to be done with and to be followed blindly without understanding. Otherwise, it might end up like the Pharisees themselves, who practiced their version and interpretation of the Law, including the rules regarding the Sabbath, and yet, did so with little understanding of its true intentions.

God chose to heal the man without hesitation, and healed the paralytic man, restoring him to full health, to the anger of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who became even more determined to oppose Him and to arrest Him. Yet, through these actions, the Lord wants each and every one of us to know that His love is always all-encompassing, and He is always ready to reach out to us, and loving us once again, in His willingness to love us and in the great patience which He has shown us.

How about us, brothers and sisters in Christ? As we listened to these words of the Scriptures, we have all been invited to reflect on our way of life, on whether we have truly been faithful to the Lord in all of our lives and whether we have truly understood His Law and commandments, or whether we have been spending all these time merely paying Him lip service and treating our Christian life as a mere formality? Have we been living our lives as Christians in the wrong way all these while?

Let us all therefore spend some time to discern carefully what we are going to do from now on, in walking down the path that the Lord has shown us. Let us commit ourselves to Him anew and be ever more genuine and sincere in loving Him, and in loving one another according to His teachings. May God be with us all, and may He continue to guide us all through life, to be ever more faithful Christians, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 6 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 6 : 6-11

At that time, on another Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and began teaching. There was a man with a paralysed right hand, and the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees watched Him : Would Jesus heal the man on the Sabbath? If He did, they could accuse Him.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to the man, “Get up, and stand in the middle.” Then He spoke to them, “I want to ask you : what is allowed by the Law on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?” And Jesus looked around at them all.

Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored, becoming as healthy as the other. But they were furious, and began to discuss with one another how they could deal with Jesus.

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Monday, 6 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 61 : 6-7, 9

Find rest in God alone, o my soul; from Him, comes my hope. He alone, is my Rock and my Salvation; with Him as my Stronghold, I shall not be overcome.

Trust in Him at all times, my people; pour out your hearts before Him; God is our refuge.

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Monday, 6 September 2021 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 1 : 24 – Colossians 2 : 3

At present, I rejoice when I suffer for you; I complete, in my own flesh, what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the Church. For I am serving the Church since God entrusted to me the ministry to make the word of God fully known.

I mean that mysterious plan that, for centuries and generations, remained secret, and which God has now revealed to His holy ones. God willed to make known to them the riches, and even the glory, that His mysterious plan reserved for the pagan nations : Christ is in you, the hope for glory.

This Christ, we preach. We warn, and teach everyone true wisdom, aiming to make everyone perfect, in Christ. For this cause I labour and struggle, with the energy of Christ working powerfully in me. I want you to know how I strive for you, for those of Laodicea, and for so many who have not met me personally.

I pray, that all may be encouraged. May you be established in love, that you may obtain all the riches of a full understanding, and know the mystery of God, Christ Himself. For, in Him, are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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Sunday, 5 September 2021 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us through the readings of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the all encompassing love of God, as He reassured all those who have placed their trust in Him that He would not abandon them and that He would love them all equally without bias or prejudice, and all are equally precious before Him, as He extends to us His love, His grace and blessings.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard from the prophecy of Isaiah the Lord’s promises to His people that He would one day come and liberate them, opening the eyes of their blind, unbinding and opening the ears of the deaf and the tongues of the mute, making the paralysed and the disabled to walk and move again, and other miraculous deeds and works that the Lord would do amongst His people.

At the time of the prophet Isaiah, the people of Israel had been going through tough times, a time of many challenges and trials, as the once united and great kingdom of Israel under King David and King Solomon were already long passed and gone. The divided northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah had become diminished and were subjected to humiliations from their neighbours and other powers. And just around the time of Isaiah and his ministry as God’s prophet, the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered and destroyed by the Assyrians, who brought off most of the inhabitants of the land to exile in far-off Mesopotamia.

At the same time, the people of the southern kingdom of Judah where Isaiah performed his ministry did not fare much better, as they too came under attack from king Sennacherib of Assyria, who brought up a vast army against Judah and Jerusalem, and almost conquered it if not for the timely intervention from God. The people of God had been brought low and suffered, and all these were because of their own disobedience and refusal to believe in God or follow His path, despite the numerous reminders from the many prophets sent to them.

In our Gospel passage today, from the Gospel of St. Mark, we then heard of the account of the miraculous healing that the Lord had done on a deaf and mute man, as He had pity on the man, and by His power, loosened the man’s tongue and opened his ears, allowing him to hear and speak properly once again. He has liberated the man from his troubles and showed God’s enduring love and compassion for each and every one of us. He fulfilled the promises that He Himself had made through His prophet Isaiah, the promises that we have just discussed earlier on.

And this is also a show that God loves everyone without exception, that even those who are often marginalised and prejudiced against, the weak and those afflicted with physical and spiritual ailments, God has reached out to them and healed them, freeing them from their troubles. This particular case mentioned in our Gospel today is significant because the word that the Lord spoke, ‘Ephphata’ meaning ‘Be opened!’ at the time when He loosened the tongue and opened the ears of the man, is also for a long time used in the rites of baptism of the Church, and is still used today in the baptism using the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.

Through this symbolic act, the priests placed their hands on the ears and the mouth of the person or infant to be baptised, signifying that they performed the rites of the Sacrament of Baptism in persona Christi, or in the person of Christ, opening the ears and the mouth of the one to be baptised that just as the man was healed as mentioned in our Gospel passage, then the person that was to be baptised would also be healed from his or her spiritual bondage to sin and death.

And the opening of the ears and the mouth are also significant because they represent symbolically our willingness by accepting baptism, to open our ears to listen to the truth and the Word of God, and to speak only the words of God’s truth, and not to proclaim things that are contrary to our faith. The Lord had freed us from our bondage and enslavement to sin and evil, and He has healed us from the most terrible disease of all, that is sin and death.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, although we may be physically well and even in best of health, all of us are in fact suffering from the affliction of sin, which corrupts us from within and making us defiled and unworthy of God. God alone can save and heal us from this affliction, and He has shown His willingness to free us and to be reconciled fully with us. All of us, whether we are great or small, rich or poor, influential, famous or unknown, all of us are equally sinners before God, and God loves all of us equally, which is what the Lord wanted to show us through the Word of God we have heard today.

And, in our second reading today, from the Epistle of St. James the Apostle, we heard the same message as the Apostle reminded the faithful that the Lord does not discriminate between persons, and he went on to give examples of how the faithful could unknowingly act in ways that promote prejudice and discrimination by treating their fellow brothers and sisters in different ways. It is inevitable that we will have differences in how we interact with different groups of people, and we will certainly be more willing to treat well those whom we love and care about, while ignoring or even treating badly those whom we dislike.

However, the Lord called on all of us to overcome this tendency, and reminded us that if He loves each and every one of us equally, then we as His people should also do the same, and love one another in the same manner. We have to do our best and strive to show care and compassion, forgiveness and the willingness to embrace even those who have persecuted and hurt us, as the Lord Jesus Himself taught us to forgive those who have hated us and pray for those who have persecuted us. He asked us to forgive one another’s sins, just as the Lord, His heavenly Father has forgiven us our sins, one of the key elements of the Lord’s Prayer, the Pater Noster we all know so well.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in our world today where inequality, prejudice, racial and religious tensions, divisions among people and all the other divisions and disagreements that exist between our communities and peoples, we are all called as Christians to be revolutionary and different. In a world where we are all encouraged to love ourselves and hate those whom we dislike, we are called to love without boundaries and without prejudice, to reach out even to those who hate us and dislike us, to forgive them and to pray for them.

And in a world that is obsessed with appearances, with prestige, power and glory, we are all called to get rid from ourselves these temptations of the flesh, to be filled with God’s love instead, and to be able to listen to His truth and to proclaim His words rather than to listen to the temptations of the devil, the allures of worldly desires and rather than to advance our own goals and ambitions in life. Again, as Christians, we are all called to be loving just as the Lord has been so loving towards us.

Is this easily done for us? Certainly not, brothers and sisters in Christ, and it is truly often much easier said than done. We may think that it is easy for us to love one another, but those of us who have been hurt by others may find it very hard to forgive, and to let go of our anger and insecurities, of our desire for retribution and vengeance. And those of us who have not truly known love will find it difficult to love others, as the many trials and challenges many of us face in this world show us that to be Christians, is by no means a simple and easy feat.

That is why today, on this Sunday, brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord called us all and reminded all of us of what being true Christians is all about. It is to love God with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, and then to love ourselves and one another, just as much as we value and love ourselves. This is the true commandment of God, in the Lord Jesus’ own words, that we have to ‘love one another just as I have loved you’, a reminder that even though the challenges may be great, but we have to persevere nonetheless.

And none of us should endure it alone. Instead, we should help and support one another, by doing our best even in the smallest things and showing love for each other, to those dear to us, and even to strangers and those who hate and dislike us, and whom we dislike as well. Let us all slowly allow the Lord to teach us how to love genuinely and truly, in each and every moments of our lives. From now on, let all of our words, actions and deeds be ones that glorify the Lord, that through us, the Lord, His truth and love may come to be known by more and more people.

May God bless each and every one of us, all equally precious and beloved by God, that we may be always strong in dedicating ourselves to serve Him and to follow Him for all of our days, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 5 September 2021 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

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.”