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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints or Virgins)
Genesis 2 : 4b-9, 15-17

On the day that YHVH God made the earth and the heavens, there was not yet on earth any shrub on the fields, nor had any plant yet sprung up, for YHVH God had not made it rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the surface of the earth.

Then YHVH God formed Man, dust drawn from the clay, and breathed into his nostrils a breath of life and Man became alive with breath. God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there He placed Man whom He had created. YHVH God caused to grow from the ground every kind of tree that is pleasing to see and good to eat, also the tree of life on the middle of the garden and the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

YHVH God took Man and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and to take care of it. Then YHVH God gave an order to Man saying, “You may eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will not eat, for on the day you eat of it, you will die.”

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Tuesday, 7 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we continue to hear the discourse on the creation of the world, in which we heard how in the Book of Genesis it was describe, the process involved when God created this world with all of its living creatures, from plants to animals, from the smallest to the greatest of living things, just as He had created all the non-living objects, and the crowning moment in which that He created above all things in this world, He created mankind.

Man has been created as the last of God’s creation, as the crowning glory of all of His wondrous creations, because no one and nothing else was created in the very image of God Himself. All of us have been created in God’s own image, and in our faces, we bear within ourselves, the very Image of God. God Himself breathed life into us, turning mere dust and earth into a living being, namely Man.

But why God created all of us in the first place? It was because of His love. God is perfectly fine with Himself, a perfect being with a perfect love, needing nothing else. But He wants to share the love He has inside Him, and that was why, He created all of us. He loves all that He has created, and in particular He loves each and every one of us mankind, whom He had made to be even His own children.

Indeed, He has not intended for us to suffer in this world, or to suffer the pain of death. If we read through the first chapters of the Book of Genesis, we would realise just how wonderful and perfect was the world that was before the entry of sin into our hearts. Before sin came into mankind’s hearts, all things were good, and indeed were very good because God created all things perfect and good. All that men ever needed were there, and our first ancestors Adam and Eve had been given great privileges, having been given command over all other things on earth.

But mankind disobeyed the Lord, following rather their own greed and desire, tempted by the devil, instead of listening to God’s ways. And when we sinned, that was when we were sundered and separated from God’s love and grace. And by right, we would have been doomed to destruction, as a result of our own folly. But God did not give up on us, and He continued to love us all nonetheless, even as He punished our ancestors and banished them from the Garden of Eden.

To that extent of His great love, that God had given us all His laws and commandments, His precepts and ways to be followed and to be obeyed. That was what the Ten Commandments and all the laws given to Moses was about. The Law of God was meant to be a guide for us to find our way back to Him, and to repent our sins and be saved in the state of grace, having been reconciled with Him.

Yet, the reason why in the Gospel today Jesus was very angry at the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, as He also did in various other parts of the four Holy Gospels was that, the Law which God had given to men, had been misinterpreted, misunderstood, and worst of all, misused, that in the end, instead of helping to bring mankind closer to God, they ended up being used otherwise, either as means to bring glory instead to man, or to shut people out from salvation.

What do I mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? I mean that those elders and leaders of the Israelites had not been faithful in their duties and responsibilities. They had not been using the Law of God in the right manner, but instead, continued the mistakes of their ancestors. The laws which God had given to Moses had become a formality, and they had been twisted in meaning and purpose, becoming instead a series of laws that were done without understanding of its real purpose, that is for mankind to know God, to love God and to find their way to Him.

Instead, they became a burden to the people, for the Pharisees and the elders insisted that all of the people must obey the commandments and laws in its entirety, in its application, from the smallest details to the greatest. And they themselves did obey the laws, but not because they loved God, but because they were concerned about their own image, enjoying being praised and lauded for their obedience and adherence to the laws of God.

This was what Jesus meant when He criticised the Pharisees because they first criticised Him and His disciples for not washing their hands in the manner prescribed in the laws they had formulated, where the people ought to wash their hands in a certain manner, that is to wash thoroughly the entire hand and arms before they could eat or drink. But in doing so, if they did so without having God in all the things they did, then whatever they were doing would not benefit them at all.

They were also arbitrary in their judgments, allowing people to contravene the laws and commandments where they liked it, as long as they were able to benefit from it. It was just like how they allowed the Temple of God to be defiled with the presence of merchants and money changers, selling goods and even tricking people, many of them honest people and indeed poor, in order to gain profits, not just for the merchants but also for themselves.

In all that we had heard today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all reminded that all the things we do, we must do it with the love of God in everything. God must be the reason that we do every single thing and action in our lives, or else we are bound to do things as the Pharisees had done. Instead of bringing us closer to God, we would end up doing things that keeping us further away from Him.

We must remember always that God created us all out of love, and all that He had done for us is because of His love. He does not need anything else from us except for our obedience, and most importantly for our love. We ought to love Him in the same manner and intensity just as He had first loved us all. We must not see what God had done unto us as a matter of punishment, that God ought to be feared and obeyed without understanding that all He had done, He did it out of love for us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all strive that each and every one of us will be able to appreciate the grace of life that all of us have received from God, the love which He had showered us with, so that we may come to the realisation that we need to repent from our sinful and wicked ways, and draw closer to God’s mercy and love. God wants to forgive us, brethren, but do we realise that we need to do something in order to be forgiven?

And that is by opening the doors of our hearts to welcome His love and His mercy. Let us all let the Lord enter into our hearts, and destroy the pride, greed, apathy, hatred, and all the things that had kept us away from being able to love God with all of our strength. May the Lord help us in this journey and strengthen our faith that we will persevere through the challenges and the difficulties that will come our way, that in the end, we will be found righteous and worthy to receive the inheritance promised to us by the Lord, but once lost because of our sins. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 7 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 7 : 1-13

One day the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules. You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

And Jesus commented, “You have a fine way of disregarding the commandments of God in order to enforce your own traditions! For example, Moses said : Do your duty to your father and your mother, and : Whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death. But according to you, someone could say to his father or mother, ‘I already declared Corban (which means “offered to God”) what you could have expected from me.'”

“In this case you no longer require him to do anything for his father or mother, and so you nullify the word of God through the tradition you have handed on. And you do many other things like that.”

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Tuesday, 7 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 8 : 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

When I observe the heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars You set in their place – what is man that You be mindful of him, the Son of Man that You should care for Him?

Yet You made Him a little lower than the Angels; You crowned Him with glory and honour and gave Him the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet.

Sheep and oxen without number and even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea and all that swim the paths of the ocean.

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Tuesday, 7 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Genesis 1 : 20 – Genesis 2 : 4a

God said, “Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth under the ceiling of the sky.” God created the great monsters of the sea and all living animals, those that teem in the waters, according to their kind, and every winged bird, according to its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds increase on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning : the fifth day.

God said, “Let the earth produce living animals according to their kind : cattle, creatures that move along the ground, wild animals according to their kind. So it was. God created the wild animals according to their kind, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind. God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, to Our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the wild animals, and over all creeping things that crawl along the ground.” So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over every living creature that moves on the ground.” God said, “I have given you every seed bearing plants which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree that bears fruit with seed. It will be for your food. To every wild animal, to every bird of the sky, to everything that creeps along the ground, to everything that has the breath of life, I give every green plant for food.” So it was.

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. There was evening and there was morning : the sixth day. That was the way the sky and earth were created and all their vast array. By the seventh day the work God had done was completed, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work He had done.

And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day He rested from all the work He had done in His creation. These are the successive steps in the creation of the heavens and the earth.

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Monday, 6 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard of the work of God’s love, which He had done out of love for all the things which He had created. In the first reading today, taken from the familiar passage of the first part of the Book of Genesis, we heard about the account of how God created the entire universe, that from nothingness that was before creation, God made the whole universe, all of creations complete with all the creatures.

God did not create the whole universe, with all of the objects, things both living and non-living without a reason. That reason was love, for He Himself is love, and is in perfect harmony and love in Himself. He existed in perfect harmony and love within His most Holy Trinity, but then, He wanted to share that love. And therefore, He created all things, including us all mankind because He wants to love each and every one of us.

He did not create us to allow us to perish in the darkness and in damnation of hell. But it was because of our ancestors’ and our own disobedience and refusal to listen to Him that we have been separated and sundered from His love and grace. He has made all things good and perfect, but it was our refusal to obey and to embrace His love that had brought evil upon this world.

Yet, despite all of that, He never gave up on us. Had He not loved us, or hated us for what we have done, then God would have pulled away His love and grace from us. Just as easily as He had created us, He could have destroyed us utterly as well, for after all, He is God, the Almighty God of the whole universe. But He did not do so, and that is because of His love. He loves each and every one of us so tenderly that He is willing to give us a chance.

That was why He continued to work on us mankind throughout time, sending His servants and prophets to call us back from the darkness and therefore to return into His light. He called many times for mankind to abandon their ways of sin and evil, and to return to the truth and the righteousness of God. And to that extent, He also promised that He would send us all a Saviour, Who would deliver us from all of our sins and troubles, and He did fulfil that promise perfectly, through the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour.

In the Gospel today, we witnessed and heard how Jesus and His disciples went from place to place, and many came to Jesus wanting to be healed from their afflictions, both that of the body and that of the spirit. He healed them, cured them from the diseases that affected their flesh, and He cast out demons from them, making them healed both in body and spirit, and be reconciled with God.

He urged them to repent from their sins and called them to a life of righteousness, to be forgiven by God and to live a life of virtue and upright nature, which is what He had commanded His Apostles and disciples to continue in this world, so that even after He had left this world, His works would still continue to go on and save more souls, the proof of the love of God Who willingly suffered for our sake and Who willingly endured the cross for us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we commemorate the memory of those who have followed in the footsteps of the Holy Apostles, those who have received the same calling and ministry as the disciples of our Lord had. Today we remember St. Paul Miki and his companions, who were the faithful servants of God, martyred in the land now known as Japan, at the time of the great persecution of the faithful there approximately four centuries ago.

At that time, the Church and the faith grew rapidly in Japan, as many missionaries came to that land making use of the opportunity of the open door policy of the Japanese government at that time, consisting of many local warlords, who welcomed the Europeans who came to trade, and at the same time, carrying with them missionaries seeking for the conversion of souls.

Many people, both the commoners and the nobles alike were attracted to the faith for various reasons, but many of them genuinely came to believe in the message which the missionaries had preached, about the Lord our God Who loves us all so much, about the state of our sins and our fate of damnation, and how God wanted to save us all by calling upon Himself all peoples from every nations to come and to approach upon the Throne of His mercy.

Many were baptised and became ardent Christians, including St. Paul Miki and many others. They openly practiced their faith and preached it to many others, who also were then convinced to repent their sinful ways and be converted to the faith. The faith and the Church there was rapidly growing, and its outlook was great. But no sooner that the changes in the political scenes happened, that the Christians soon found themselves in trouble.

For the new government of the Tokugawa shogunate in Japan became increasingly suspicious and hostile to the influence that the Christian faith had on many people in the Japanese society. There were increasingly more and more persecutions of the faithful, and more and more people found it difficult to practice their faith openly, out of fear of the authorities.

But there were many of those who refused to be daunted by the challenges presented to them, and continued to do the good works which had been started in them. Many of them, including St. Paul Miki and his many other fellow brethren in faith were arrested, and were made to choose between staying on in their faith and facing certain death, or to abandon and reject their faith in God, by the act of stepping on images of the Lord and crucifixes, and live.

St. Paul Miki and his many companions in the faith did not comply with the offer of the authorities. They would rather serve the Lord Who loved them even though they knew that they would suffer great persecution, torture and eventually death. They would not choose the comforts of the world to save themselves but at the cost of betraying the Lord and therefore losing their souls.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, from the examples of St. Paul Miki and his many fellow companions, we should learn to follow the Lord as they had done, filled with faith and commitment. We should love Him in the same manner as they had done, that is with all of their hearts. After all, God had loved us all so much, that even though we have sinned, but He was willing to forgive us.

May the Lord strengthen in us our faith, and may He awaken in us the strong desire to love Him and to devote ourselves to Him. Let us all help one another to grow ever closer to God, and to grow in our faith, love for God and love for one another. May we all become worthy and good servants of our Lord, in the footsteps of the Holy Apostles and the holy saints of God, St. Paul Miki and his companions. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 6 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Mark 6 : 53-56

At that time, having crossed the lake, Jesus and His disciples came ashore at Gennesaret, where they tied up the boat. As soon as they landed, people recognised Jesus, and ran to spread the news throughout the countryside.

Wherever He was, they brought to Him the sick lying on their mats; and wherever He went, to villages, towns or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplace, and begged Him to let them touch just the fringe of His cloak. And all who touched Him were cured.

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Monday, 6 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 103 : 1-2a, 5-6, 10 and 12, 24 and 35c

Bless the Lord my soul! Clothed in majesty and splendour; o Lord, my God, how great You are! You are wrapped in light as with a garment.

You set the earth on its foundations, and never will it be shaken. You covered it with the ocean like a garment, and waters spread over the mountains.

You make springs gush forth in valleys winding among mountains and hills. Birds build their nests close by and sing among the branches of trees.

How varied o Lord, are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all – the earth full of Your creatures. Bless the Lord, my soul!

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Monday, 6 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Genesis 1 : 1-19

In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth had no form and was void; darkness was over the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘Day’ and the darkness ‘Night’. There was evening and there was morning : the first day.

God said, “Let there be a firm ceiling between the waters and let it separate waters from waters.” So God made the ceiling and separated the waters below it from the waters above it. And so it was. God called the firm ceiling ‘Sky’. There was evening and there was morning : the second day.

God said, “Let the waters below the sky be gathered in one place and let dry land appear. And so it was. God called the dry land ‘Earth’, and the waters gathered together he called ‘Seas’. God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants, fruit trees bearing fruit with seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And so it was. The earth produced vegetation : plants bearing seed according to their kind and trees producing fruit which has seed, according to their kind. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning : the third day.

God said, “Let there be lights in the ceiling of the sky to separate day from night and to serve as signs for the seasons, days and years; and let these lights in the sky shine above the earth.” And so it was. God therefore made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the smaller light to govern the night; and God made the stars as well. God placed them in the ceiling of the sky to give light on the earth and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning : the fourth day.

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Sunday, 5 February 2017 : Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day from the Sacred Scriptures all of us received a challenge from the Lord our God. He issued us all the challenge to be true Christians, that is to be His true followers, as all those who truly practice what He had taught us all through His Church, that we become those who live out our faith and not just merely reciting our Creed and pretend to believe, but yet in our hearts there is no place for God.

In the Gospel today, we heard the famous parable and teaching of Jesus, which is often known as the parable of the salt and the light, when Jesus explained using the example of salt and light, to urge all of His followers to be salt of the earth and to be light of the world. In our world today, so filled with good things, with convenience and pleasantries, we may often not realise just how significant these two things were for the people of that time.

Why is this so? In our world today, salt is ever present and are readily available, as the technique to make it easily and cheaply had been mastered by men, and we used it with abandon on our food, that we often do not realise the significance of salt. In the similar way, the prevalence of electricity and lightbulbs, and all other iridescent human-made light sources, light had been something that we often take for granted as something that is always available.

Salt and light are two very important commodities of Jesus’ time, at a time when refrigeration are not readily available and when electricity have yet to be discovered for more than a millennia. It was a world that constantly needed to deal with rotten foods as well as darkened nights without light. That was where salt and light came into the lives of those people, as the two things that made their lives much better.

For salt is used in preservation of foods just as much as they give good flavour to the food. With salt, food that used to be tasteless and easily spoil can be kept for longer and also tastes better. It has made mankind’s life much easier and indeed in some cases, could have become a lifesaver when there was no food at all in the middle of the desert. Thus in this context, the importance of salt as highlighted by Jesus in His parable cannot be underestimated.

And then how about light? Light was important because darkness exists when there was no light, when the sun was down and when the moon and the stars were not bright enough to sufficiently illuminate the dark paths and places. It was not like today when we live in a world saturated by light everywhere. As some of our brethren in some parts of the world are still experiencing to this very day, light was indeed very precious.

Many had to rely on candlelight for anything that they want to do after dark, and as we know candles can be a great fire hazard at the time when houses were made from wooden or any other easily flammable materials. To have light at that time would be a great privilege, but also could be a great danger. Candles were also expensive, and they needed to be replaced every time they were burnt out. That was why many poor people had to contend with living in the darkness for much of the half of the day during night.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, have we seen the significance of why Jesus our Lord used the example of salt and light in bringing about His points to the people? He used these two examples, calling all of the people to become salt of the earth and light of the world because these are among the things that people truly value at that time. And therefore what He taught them would be more easily accepted and understood.

Now, let us delve into what He had said in that parable, that when salt had lost its saltiness, it became useless. Indeed, as mentioned, salt is used because of its flavourful properties and preservative abilities, which is due to its saltiness. If somehow these properties are gone, then they are no more useful than grains of sand. No one will use salt that is no longer salty.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? This saltiness refers to our faith. Our faith must be living and real, and cannot be dead and dysfunctional. Faith cannot be just merely on paper alone, that we say that we are one of the faithful, and yet, in our actions we do things that are contrary to our faith and to the teachings of our Lord. This is our saltiness, the saltiness of our faith. Without faith, we are pretty much dead, and without good works, our faith is equally dead.

Then we should ask ourselves, whether we have this flavour of our faith ready inside us? If we have not had this saltiness inside us, then maybe it is time that we should renew our ‘saltiness’, that is by renewing our faith. Have we been obedient to God and have we done what He had asked us to do? To love our brethren and to show care and compassion for the weak, for the oppressed and for the unloved ones? This is what we exactly need to do, so that we may have that ‘salt’ of faith in us.

In the same manner, we must be light of the world as Christ had mentioned. We must be light in the sense that light penetrates the grip of darkness on our eyes, allowing eyes that once could not see because of the dark conditions to be able to see because of the light. And as light, we are guides for those who are still in the darkness, so that through our actions, we may inspire others to also follow in our footsteps, believing in God and therefore attain salvation together in us.

This is related to what we have just discussed about the ‘saltiness’ of our faith, in that, we must do good deeds and good works in accordance with what we believe in God, and then, as we do these, we must not be afraid, but must be forthcoming and be courageous in doing them, giving the example for many others to follow. This is what Jesus meant by the words He said, that a light ought not to be hidden, but instead should be put on a lampstand for all to see its light.

It means that our faith must be exemplary and good, and be visible for all to see. It does not mean that we must boast of our faith, but rather, we must not be afraid to lead others to follow the Lord as we ourselves had done, by leading them with good examples and teaching them with courage and zeal on how to become a good disciple and follower of our God. We must be good role models for one another, and help each other in keeping ourselves worthy and pure before God.

We should remember what the prophet Isaiah had mentioned in his Book, our first reading today, that we should share our food with the poor, bring to our house the homeless, caring for all those who are unloved and rejected. This is our mission as Christians, which unfortunately many of us have not been able to do because of our various excuses in life. We have always used fear, doubt, as well as laziness, pride and other irresponsible reasons to make excuses so as not to do what God had commanded us to do.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on this Sunday’s readings from the Sacred Scriptures, let us all therefore sincerely and fervently pray to the Lord, that He may give us the strength to renew our faith, that we may awaken in us the desire to care and love for one another, to stand up for our faith when the need arises, and therefore, give new ‘flavour’ and ‘saltiness’ to our faith, and then, be examples to one another, as light of the world, guiding many others on their way to God.

May the Lord bless us all and all of our good works. May He protect us and strengthen us, that we may continue to persevere and do what He had asked us to do, so that in the end of it all, we may receive the crown of eternal glory, having been found worthy by Him, Who sees in us the worth of the ‘salt’ of our faith and the unquenchable and strong light of faith and love present in each and every one of us who call themselves as Christians, God’s own beloved people. Amen.