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Tuesday, 12 June 2018 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 17 : 7-16

After a while, the brook dried up because no rain had fallen in the land. Then YHVH spoke to Elijah, “Go to Zarephath of the Sidonites and stay there. I have given word to a widow there, to give you food.”

So Elijah went to Zarephath. On reaching the gate of the town, he saw a widow gathering sticks. He called to her and said, “Bring me a little water in a vessel that I may drink.” As she was going to bring it, he called after her and said, “Bring me also a piece of bread.”

But she answered, “As YHVH your God lives, I have no bread left, but only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am just now gathering some sticks so that I may go in and prepare something for myself and my son to eat – and die.”

Elijah then said to her, “Do not be afraid. Go, and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me. Then make some for yourself and your son. For this is the word of YHVH, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of meal shall not be emptied nor shall the jug of oil fail, until the day when YHVH sends rain to the earth.’”

So she went and did as Elijah told her; and she had food for herself, Elijah and her son from that day on. The jar of flour was not emptied nor did the jug of oil fail, in accordance with what YHVH had said through Elijah.

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Monday, 11 June 2018 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of one of the Apostles of the Lord, namely St. Barnabas, the companion of the famed St. Paul the Apostle, during several of his missionary trips around the Eastern Mediterranean region. St. Barnabas accompanied St. Paul from cities to cities, preaching the Christian faith to the people in those places.

St. Barnabas and St. Paul were not among the Twelve Apostles, who were Christ’s chief confidants and followers. However, as an Apostle, St. Barnabas was a key component and part in the foundation of the early Christian Church. Together with St. Paul and the other Apostles, they worked tirelessly to establish the foundations of the Church and spread the faith to many places throughout the Eastern Mediterranean.

We heard about their exploits in the first reading passage today, and if we continued reading the entire Acts of the Apostles and the letters that St. Paul wrote to the various communities of the faithful, we can see how the works of St. Barnabas and the Apostles were crucial in the establishment of the faith in numerous places, despite the hardships and challenges that they had to endure.

Without their hard work and perseverance, we would not have the Church as it is today, and many souls would have been lost to damnation, as without the truth being brought forth to the masses by these faithful servants of God, they would have remained in the darkness and ignorance, and remaining in the state of sin, they would have been lost.

However, as we should have realised, that with the hard work that the Apostles had given, also came great perseverance and suffering that they had to endure. The Lord Jesus commissioned His disciples to go forth in their assigned works in our Gospel passage today, and then, He even told them of what to expect in their work, that there would be those who would refuse to believe them, and would reject them.

To the Apostles, this would mean suffering and persecution, and just as St. Paul had experienced many times, they had to go through suffering in prison, and died a painful martyr’s death. Some were crucified on crosses, while others were beheaded, shot with arrows, or thrown to the lions and wild animals in the gladiator arena, and many more were tortured to death.

Yet, they remained true to their faith and refused to give it up to secure their own lives. They would rather suffer and perish in faith rather than to betray and abandon their Lord. Their example should be our inspiration on how we should live faithfully in accordance to God’s ways, and stand up for our faith in Him, as all true Christians should. We should no longer be lukewarm in our faith, and begin from now on, to practice our faith in our lives.

That is how we can also take part in the work of evangelisation that the Apostles had begun, as preaching by word alone is just one way of evangelising the faith to others. In fact, if we do not act in the same manner as we have preached and spoken, no one will believe in us. The Apostles lived as they have believed, and they practiced the love that they had been shown in their daily lives and interactions, caring for the need of one another, and loving God with all of their might.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the works of the Apostles, as I have mentioned, are not yet complete. There are still many areas in which the faith can reach out to many more souls who are still lost from the Lord. Even within our Church there are still many of those who have lost their faith, or become lukewarm and apathetic in the living of their faith. This is where we can play our part, to be examples and inspirations to each other in faith.

May the Lord be with us all, and may through the intercession of St. Barnabas, all of us will draw ever closer to God, and be more faithful in our respective lives, day after day. May God bless us all and our endeavours. Amen.

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Monday, 11 June 2018 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 10 : 7-13

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Go, and proclaim this message : The kingdom of Heaven is near. Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons. Freely have you received, freely give. Do not carry any gold or silver or money in your purses. Do not take a travelling bag, or an extra shirt, or sandals, or a walking stick : workers deserve to be compensated.”

“When you come to a town or a village, look for a worthy person, and stay there until you leave. When you enter the house, wish it peace. If the people are worthy people, your peace will rest on them; if they are not worthy people, your blessing will come back to you.”

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Monday, 11 June 2018 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God’s saving power. All you lands, make a joyful noise to the Lord, break into song and sing praise.

With melody of the lyre and with music of the harp. With trumpet blast and sound of the horn, rejoice before the King, the Lord!

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Monday, 11 June 2018 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Acts 11 : 21b-26 and Acts 13 : 1-3

A great number believed and turned to the Lord. News of this reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the manifest signs of God’s favour, he rejoiced and urged them all to remain firmly faithful to the Lord; for he, himself, was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. Thus large crowds came to know the Lord.

Then Barnabas went off to Tarsus, to look for Saul; and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year, they had meetings with the Church and instructed many people. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.

There were at Antioch – in the Church which was there – prophets and teachers : Barnabas, Symeon known as Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod, and Saul. On one occasion, while they were celebrating the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul to do the work for which I have called them.”

So, after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.

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Sunday, 10 June 2018 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the account of mankind’s fall in the Scriptures, when Adam and Eve, our ancestors were tempted by Satan, in the form of a serpent, to disobey God’s commands, and ate from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Due to that disobedience, we have sinned against God, and the punishment for our sins, was exile from Eden, where we should have lived an eternity of joy with God.

And yet, God did not seek to destroy us. If He had wanted to destroy us because of His anger against us, He could have done so from the very beginning. After all, He Who has created us, could definitely also unmake us by His will alone. But, God loves each and every one of us, without exception, and therefore, as a result, God’s great love for us made our salvation possible.

Indeed, God is angry with us because of our sins, as sins are abhorrent and wicked in His sight. However, He did not hate us, as people as who we are, because He Himself has created us, out of love, and God desires to love each and every one of us, and share the love that He had within Himself. And love was why, God sent us His salvation, through none other than Jesus Christ, Our Lord, His own beloved Son.

Why do we need to be saved? That is because sin is truly a wicked thing, which corrupts everything it touches. Sin was born out of disobedience against God, and therefore, sin is caused by our pride, our ego, our desire that go against the Lord’s wish and will. And sin corrupts the body, the mind, the heart and the soul. Essentially, it makes us unworthy of God, just like our ancestors Adam and Eve.

When we sin, we cannot stand before God and we cannot be with Him, as God is all good, and sin is evil and wicked. Our sins will destroy us and crush us before God, and we will be judged for those sins. Sin separates us from God, and hell should have been our due, as hell is the complete absence of any hope of salvation and a state of total separation from God’s love.

But God desired otherwise, and He gave us Jesus, to be the One through Whom we all have a new hope in our lives. Through Jesus, a bridge has been established, spanning the gap between us and God, Our Lord and Father. He is the Mediator of a new Covenant that has been made between God and us mankind. He has shown us the perfect and selfless love that God has for each and every one of us.

Yet, many of us behaved like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who obstinately refused to believe in the Lord and opposed Him at every possible opportunity. They doubted and questioned Him, and this made the Lord very angry, especially when they doubted the work of God made through the Holy Spirit, when clearly God was at work. Instead, they alleged that the Lord had made His works through the power of Beelzebul, a prince of demons.

What we must realise here, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that God’s mercy and forgiveness is vast and great, and as long as we are willing to repent and to believe in Him, we shall be forgiven from our sins, and we will be reconciled with Him. Yet, if we constantly refused to repent and believe, and even reject the good works of God and considering them as falsehood and wicked, that is what the Lord mentioned as the sin against the Holy Spirit, which will not be forgiven.

God does not throw us mankind into hell, but rather, it is we ourselves who warrant ourselves hell for eternity, because of our pride, ego, greed, desire and all the things that prevented us from finding our way to the Lord, and from being forgiven of our sins. We falter in our ways, and we fell into sin, but it is up to us to accept God’s rich offer of mercy, turn ourselves to Him and be forgiven.

May the Lord be with us always, and may He continue to love us despite our many trespasses against Him. Let us all renew the commitment to live worthily and to be devoted to Him, each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us all and our every endeavours, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 June 2018 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 3 : 20-35

At that time, Jesus and His disciples went home. The crowd began to gather again and they could not even have a meal. Knowing what was happening, His relatives came to take charge of Him, “He is out of His mind,” they said.

Meanwhile, the teachers of the Law, who had come from Jerusalem, said, “He is in the power of Beelzebul : the chief of the demons helps Him to drive out demons.”

Jesus called them to Him, and began teaching them by means of stories, or parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a nation is divided by civil war, that nation cannot stand. If a family divides itself into groups, that family will not survive. In the same way, if Satan has risen against himself and is divided, he will not stand; he is finished.”

“No one can break into the house of a strong man in order to plunder his goods, unless he first ties up the strong man. Then indeed, he can plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, every sin will be forgiven humankind, even insults to God, however numerous. But whoever slanders the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He carries the guilt of his sin forever.”

This was their sin when they said, “He has an unclean spirit in Him.”

Then the mother and brothers of Jesus came. As they stood outside, they sent someone to call Him. The crowd sitting around Jesus told Him, “Your mother and Your brothers are outside asking for You.” He replied, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”

And looking around at those who sat there, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to Me.”

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Sunday, 10 June 2018 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Corinthians 4 : 13 – 2 Corinthians 5 : 1

We have received the same spirit of faith referred to in Scripture, that says : I believed and so I spoke. We know that He, Who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us, with Jesus, and bring us, with you, into His presence. Finally, everything is for your good, so that grace will come more abundantly upon you, and great will be the thanksgiving for the glory of God.

Therefore, we are not discouraged. On the contrary, while our outer being wastes away, the inner self is renewed, from day to day. The slight affliction, that quickly passes away, prepares us for an eternal wealth of glory, so great, and beyond all comparison. So, we no longer pay attention to the things that are seen, but to those that are unseen, for the things that we see last for a moment, but that which cannot be seen is eternal.

We know that, when our earthly dwelling, or, rather, our tent, is destroyed, we may count on a building from God, a heavenly dwelling, not built by human hands, that lasts forever.

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Sunday, 10 June 2018 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 129 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8

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

If You should mark our evil, o Lord, who could stand? But with You is forgiveness.

For that You are revered. I waited for the Lord, my soul waits, and I put my hope in His word. My soul expects the Lord more than watchmen the dawn.

O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with Him is unfailing love and with Him full deliverance. He will deliver Israel from all its sins.

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Sunday, 10 June 2018 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 3 : 9-15

YHVH God called the man saying to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I ordered you not to eat?”

The man answered, “The woman You put with me gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.” God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

YHVH God said to the serpent, “Since you have done that, be cursed among all the cattle and wild beasts! You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”