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Tuesday, 4 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Peter 3 : 12-15a, 17-18

As you wait for the day of God, and long for its coming, when the heavens will dissolve in fire, and the elements melt away in the heat. We wait for a new heaven and a new earth, in which justice reigns, according to God’s promise.

Therefore, beloved, as you wait in expectation of this, strive, that God may find you rooted in peace, without blemish or fault. And consider, that God’s patience is for our salvation. So then, dearly beloved, as you have been warned, be careful, lest those people who have gone astray, deceive you, in turn, and drag you along, making you stumble, and finally fall away.

Grow in the grace and knowledge of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ : to Him be glory, now, and to the day of eternity. Amen.

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Monday, 3 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded that each and every one of us are called to a truly holy and worthy existence, one that is truly blessed by God, that in our every words, actions and deeds, in our every dealings and interactions with one another, we will always continue to do what is right according to what the Lord has taught and shown us. As Christians, that is as those who have professed our faith in the Lord and have embraced Him as our God and Saviour, each and every one of us must always be exemplary and inspirational in how we all carry out our actions throughout our respective lives. We must also be wary lest we may be tempted by those pleasures, coercions and temptations present all around us which may mislead us down the wrong path.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Peter in which the Apostle spoke to the faithful regarding the need for all of them to follow the Lord and commit themselves to the path of Christian living, in doing what God has called them to do. This is because as St. Peter himself had explained and elaborated, all of us have shared in His divine nature and we are all indeed created in His image and likeness, and as His beloved children and chosen people, all of us truly should live our lives worthily and be holy just as our Lord Himself is holy. It is crucial that we must be Christians that are truly committed to God and truly genuine in our Christian living. Otherwise, we will end up being hypocrites and no better than unbelievers and pagans, if we do not truly live our lives in accordance to our faith.

Especially if we call ourselves as Christians and have known the way and the truth of God, and yet, we have allowed ourselves to be deluded and swayed by the evils of this world, by the corruptions of worldly pleasures and desires, all of which could lead us to actions that are contrary to God’s path and teachings. Many of our own predecessors have shown us of what could happen if we choose to follow those temptations and if we succumb to the forces of evil and darkness, to the temptations of power, glory and worldly comforts and pleasures. We cannot truly call ourselves as Christians if we have chosen this path, and not only that, but we may even scandalise our faith and sully the Holy Name of God and His Church, as many of our predecessors had done.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the teaching that the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples through the parable of the evil tenants and the landowner of a field. In that parable, the Lord told His disciples about the story of how those evil tenants refused to pay their rental dues, and how they went to the great lengths even to resist the landowner and all the servants that he had sent to them to remind them of their obligations, going as far as to persecute the servants and to made their lives difficult, and finally, killing them, and lastly, even killing the son of the landowner, whom the latter had sent hoping that the evil tenants would listen to his son.

This parable was clearly referring to the way how the people of God treated His servants, the prophets and messengers of God and finally, His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ Himself. Therefore, the Lord was in fact making a premonition and predicting everything that He Himself would have to endure and to suffer from because of the stubbornness of those who continued to doubt Him and refusing to listen to Him and His words. Those evil tenants represent the people of this world, while the landowner himself represents God, Who had entrusted this world to us, and we are indeed His stewards and the guardians of His Creation. To each and every one of us He has entrusted to us this world with all of its obligations and responsibilities.

However, just as we have heard from the Gospel passage and the parable story, those evil tenants had grown greedy from their possession of the fields, and refused to give their dues, which represent our own human greed and inability to resist the temptations of worldly pleasures, glory, fame and ambition, all of which had dragged so many people into the path of ruin and destruction. Those people had refused to obey the Lord because their hearts and minds had been corrupted by the temptations of the world, and by the allures of the false pleasures and joys which deluded them into the wrong paths. As such, we are reminded that we should not follow this same path in our own lives. We are all again called to be holy just as the Lord is holy.

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Charles Lwanga and his companions in martyrdom, the Holy Martyrs of Uganda. St. Charles Lwanga himself was an important official in the Kingdom of Buganda in what is now part of Uganda, where the Christian missionaries had been active during the time of his life and martyrdom, proclaiming the Good News, truth and salvation in God to the people there who were then still mostly pagans. At the time, more and more people began to embrace the Christian faith, as well as abandoning the wicked practices of their past pagan beliefs and customs, and this brought about tension within the Kingdom, between those who still upheld the pagan ways and those who have embraced the Christian faith.

The then King of Buganda ordered the massacre of Christian missionaries and persecutions of Christians throughout his domain. He was also infamously renowned for his immoral behaviours and actions, which led to St. Charles Lwanga, who had secretly converted to the Christian faith, to take many of the Christian converts under his protection, finding ways to hide them from the persecutions by the authorities. St. Charles Lwanga also spread the faith among the people, teaching quite a few of them about the Lord and the Christian faith, and not few were baptised by him and the other missionaries. Eventually, this led to him suffering for his actions and courage in defending his faith.

St. Charles Lwanga stood by his faith and refused to renounce his faith when confronted by the King who ordered that all of his servants and court pages to renounce Christianity if they had become a convert to the faith. Thus, St. Charles Lwanga and others who have embraced the Lord were put to great sufferings and torture, and was eventually martyred by burning at the stake at the site of Namugongo, where a great Basilica and church now stands, marking the place where these faithful servants of God committed themselves to the very end, against the temptations of worldly comforts and glory, and chose to side with the Lord, His truth and love.

Through the examples and the inspirations from the story of the Holy Ugandan Martyrs, St. Charles Lwanga and his many companions in martyrdom, let us all therefore live our lives from now on to the fullest, in the best way possible as those who are committed to the Lord, devoting ourselves in each and every moments to glorify the Lord by our lives, to live in a holy and worthy way so that by our every actions, deeds and interactions with one another, we may always truly proclaim the Lord at all times, and be the shining beacons of His light, truth, love and Good News in this world, as we have all been called to do.

May the Lord continue to bless us all in all of our every good works, efforts and endeavours. May He empower each and every one of us so that by our good examples and actions, we will continue to shine forth with the light of faith, helping many around us to come to the fullness of God’s love and grace. May God be with us all, His beloved people, His Church and flock. Amen.

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Monday, 3 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 12 : 1-12

At that time, using parables, Jesus went on to say, “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press and built a watch tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenants and went abroad. In due time he sent a servant to receive from the tenants his share of the fruit. But they seized the servant, struck him and sent him back empty-handed.”

“Again the man sent another servant. They also struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another and they killed him. In the same way they treated many others : some they beat up and others they killed. One was still left, his beloved son. And so, last of all, he sent him to the tenants, for he said, “They will respect my son.”

“But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him and the property will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

And Jesus added, “Have you not read this text of the Scriptures : The stone which the builders rejected has become the keystone; this is the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it?”

They wanted to arrest Him, for they realised that Jesus meant this parable for them, but they were afraid of the crowd; so they left Him and went away.

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Monday, 3 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 90 : 1-2, 14-15ab, 15c-16

You, who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, who rest in the shadow of the Almighty, say to YHVH, “My Stronghold, my Refuge, my God in Whom I trust!”

“Because they cling to Me, I will rescue them,” says YHVH. “I will protect those who know My Name. When they call to Me, I will answer; in time of trouble, I will be with them.

“I will deliver and honour them. I will satisfy them with long life; and show them My salvation.”

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Monday, 3 June 2024 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Peter 1 : 2-7

May grace and peace abound in you, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus, Our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and piety. First, the knowledge of the One Who called us through His own glory and Might, by which we were given the most extraordinary and precious promises. Through them, you share in the divine nature, after repelling the corruption and evil desires of this world.

So, strive with the greatest determination, and increase your faith, with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with moderation, moderation with constancy, constancy with piety, piety with mutual affection, mutual affection with charity.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great occasion of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi, marking just like last Sunday’s Trinity Sunday, a very important and core tenet of our Christian faith and beliefs. All of us as Christians believe that the Holy Eucharist, which we celebrate at the Holy Mass or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is none other than the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself. This is the belief in the Doctrine of the Transubstantiation, one of the core tenets of the Christian faith, that God has given us all His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for our salvation, through the New and Eternal Covenant He had established with us.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus of the words of Moses, the leader of the Israelites during the time of their Exodus from Egypt and their journey towards the Promised Land of Canaan, who spoke to the Israelites regarding the great and most wonderful love which God has shown to His people in all that He had done for them, and this culminated with the Covenant which He established anew with all of His people at the holy mountain of God, Mount Sinai, where the people of Israel had journeyed towards. There at the holy mountain, through Moses, the Covenant between God and His people was sealed and established, by the sacrifice and the outpouring of the blood of a sacrificial lamb upon the altar.

This was in fact a prefigurement of what would happen much later on, mentioned in our second reading today from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews often linked the Lord Jesus to the role of the High Priest for indeed, Christ is the one and only True, Eternal High Priest for all mankind. Why is this so? This is because by His Passion, His sufferings and His trials, His crucifixion and ultimately His death on the Cross, our Lord has willingly offered the perfect and only worthy offering to the Lord for our salvation and redemption. In the past, the sacrifice and the outpouring of the blood of the animals like lambs were used to represent the redemption and forgiveness of God for the sins of His people.

However, the blood of the lambs alone would not have been enough to redeem all of mankind for all their innumerable sins and faults, and that was why the sacrificial and sin offerings were repeatedly done again and again by the priests and the high priests who offered them for the sake of the people of God. But God had promised His salvation to all of His people, telling and reassuring them all that one day He would send His Saviour, Who would deliver them all from their sins, much as how He has once delivered them and freed them from the hands of the Pharaoh and the Egyptians, leading them to freedom and bringing them to the Promised Land where He settled them and made them to dwell in peace.

Again all of those were prefigurement of the salvation that is to come for all of us, the whole people, all the children of mankind. For through His Beloved Son, His only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Eternal High Priest, He showed us all the sure path to eternal life and salvation, because by His offering of the perfect and most worthy offering, which is worth all of the immense and unimaginably great extent of our many sins and wickedness, of all mankind that has, is and will ever exist, from the beginning to the end of time, He has redeemed all of us, once and for all through this supreme act of sacrifice and offering. And what is this perfect and most worthy offering, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is none other than His own Most Precious Body and Blood, the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, broken and outpoured upon us from the Altar of the Cross. Through His Precious Body and Blood, Christ has made with us all, a New and Eternal Covenant between us and God.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the account from the Gospel of St. Mark of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist during the Last Supper, which happened just before the Lord was to begin His Passion, His suffering and death. He gave His disciples the bread that He has blessed, prayed over and broken up, sharing with them His own Most Holy and Precious Body, with the words, ‘Take this. It is My Body.’ And afterwards, He also shared the chalice or cup filled with the wine He has also blessed, and told them that that wine is His Blood, the Blood of the New Covenant.’ When the Lord said this to His disciples, He truly meant it as He said that the bread is His Body and the wine is His Blood.

He never meant for the bread and wine to be merely symbolic or memorial representation of His Body and Blood and His Sacrifice on the Cross. He literally and truly meant that the disciples, and all of His Church, are truly consuming, partaking and having His own Precious Body and Blood, the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, the Bread of Life, Who would soon suffer and endure the most bitter and painful sufferings for their sake, for all of us, so that by His willing sacrifice, He might provide for us the sure path to salvation and eternal life, breaking forever the chains of sin and death that had dominated over us from the beginning of time. This is also what He meant when earlier on during the discourse on the Bread of Life, the Lord also said that His Body is truly food and His Blood is truly drink, and all those who partake of the Bread of Life, of His Body and Blood, will never perish but have eternal life.

This is why from the very earliest beginnings and history of the Church, the Church fathers from the Apostles and their successors, throughout time and history and right down to this present moment have all preserved this core belief and tenet in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, that in each and every celebration of the Holy Mass, the bread and wine have indeed been turned by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, through the hands and prayers of His priests, to be the very essence and reality of His own Most Precious Body and His Most Precious Blood, although in appearance, they may still appear as bread and wine to our senses. Through our faith in Him, we believe that what we partake is none other than the Lord Himself.

But it is also important that we understand that each and every celebrations of the Holy Mass, unlike what some people outside and even within the Church had misunderstood and misrepresented, are not the repetitions of the sacrifice of the Lord at Calvary. Instead, every time the Holy Mass is celebrated, it is exactly the same Sacrifice that the Lord has offered and given to us at Calvary, at the moment of His Passion, His suffering and death on His Cross. What the Church fathers and the early Christians, and all of our predecessors in faith throughout time had partaken in the Holy Eucharist, is the same Precious Body and Precious Blood of the Lord just as what we have partaken and received, and all of us share in this Holy Communion, uniting all of us in this One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Body of Christ and Kingdom of God on earth.

The Lord has instituted the Holy Eucharist and also the Ministerial Priesthood at the Last Supper, to perpetuate this celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so that by the power that He had granted to those whom He had chosen, and to their successors, the bishops and priests throughout time and history, right up to this day, at every celebration of the Holy Mass, the bread and wine have indeed been consecrated and transformed into the essence and reality of His own Body and Blood, which we believe as the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. When the Lord asked His disciples to ‘do this in the memory of Me’, some misunderstood that the celebration of the Eucharist is a mere symbol or memory, but the reality is that, each celebration is indeed meant to bring unto us the Sacrifice of the Lord at Calvary, and we all truly partake His Body and Blood, not merely having a symbol of His loving sacrifice.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we commemorate this great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi, let us all reflect on how much we truly believe in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. The sad and unfortunate reality in our Church today is that, many even within the Church had no longer believed in the Real Presence, and the belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Real Presence have been steadily slipping to an all-time low. Many of us treated the Lord and His Real Presence with indifference and lack of reverence and faith. We often treat the Eucharist as nothing more than bread and wine, and we lack the proper reverence and respect, honour and worship of the Lord’s Real Presence.

That partly explain why increasingly there are more and more lapses from among us in the Church, as we steadily and continuously losing people to the world, to the many temptations present around us, and many others do not believe in the Real Presence in the Lord either, especially those who have not believed in God, whenever they see us treating the Eucharist with indifference and lack of respect and proper adoration. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, remembering the New and Eternal Covenant that He Himself has made and sealed with us all by the breaking of His own Holy and Precious Body and the outpouring of His own Holy and Precious Blood, through His perfect and loving sacrifice on the Cross.

Let us all renew our devotion to the Lord, particularly in the way we treat the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord’s very own Most Precious Body and Blood, in how we honour and respect Him, and in ensuring that each and every one of us keep ourselves truly worthy to be the Temple of His Holy Presence, as we all partake His Holy and Precious Body and Blood into ourselves, into our very beings. Let us all strive to be truly holy and worthy to receive the Lord, our most loving God, Who has shared with us this most perfect and loving gift of His Body and Blood, so that as He had said, that we who partake in Him, will receive the assurance of eternal life and glory with Him, and will be raised with Him on the last day.

May the Lord, our God and Saviour, Who has given us all His Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, continue to bless us all and guide us in our journey of faith throughout our lives. May He empower and strengthen each and every one of us so that in all the things that we do, so that by our worthy lives and by our proper respect and belief in the Real Presence of the Lord, more and more people may come to the Lord and be healed by Him, and seek Him as their Lord and Saviour, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 14 : 12-16, 22-26

At that time, on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the day when the Passover Lamb was killed, the disciples asked Him, “Where would You have us go to prepare the Passover meal for You?”

So Jesus sent two of His disciples with these instructions, “Go into the city, and there, a man will come to you carrying a jar of water. Follow him to the house he enters and say to the owner, ‘The Master says, Where is the room where I may eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ Then he will show you a large room upstairs, already arranged and furnished. There, you will prepare for us.”

The disciples went off. When they reached the city, they found everything just as Jesus had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. And He said, “Take this. It is My Body.” Then He took a cup; and after He had given thanks, He passed it to them and they all drank from it.

And He said, “This is My Blood, the Blood of the Covenant, poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not taste the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.”

After singing psalms of praise, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 9 : 11-15

But, now, Christ has appeared, as the High Priest, with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a Sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is not created. He did not take with Himself the blood of goats and bulls, but His own Blood, when He entered, once, and for all, into this Sanctuary, after obtaining definitive redemption.

If the sprinkling of people, defiled by sin, with the blood of goats and bulls, or with the ashes of a heifer, provides them with exterior cleanness and holiness, how much more will it be, with the Blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself, as an unblemished Victim, to God, and His Blood cleanses us from dead works, so that we may serve the living God.

So, Christ is the Mediator of a new Covenant, or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over, to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 115 : 12-13, 15 and 16bc, 17-18

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to Me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the Lord.

It is painful to the Lord to see the death of His faithful. Truly Your servant, Your handmaid’s Son. You have freed Me from My bonds.

I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice; I will call on the Name of the Lord. I will carry out My vows to the Lord in the presence of His people.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Exodus 24 : 3-8

Moses came and told the people all the words of YHVH and all His laws. The people replied with one voice : “Everything that YHVH has said, we shall do.”

Moses wrote down all the words of YHVH, then rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve raised stones for the twelve tribes of Israel. He then sent young men from among the sons of Israel to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice bullocks as peace offerings to YHVH.

And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; and with the other half of the blood he sprinkled the altar. He then took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. They said, “All that YHVH said we shall do and obey.”

Moses then took the blood and sprinkled it on the people saying, “Here is the blood of the Covenant that YHVH has made with you in accordance with all these words.”