10th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
John 6 : 51-58

Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “I am the Living Bread from heaven; whoever eats of this Bread will live forever. The Bread I shall give is My Flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world.”

The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood lives eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

“My Flesh is really food, and My Blood is truly drink. Those who eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, live in Me, and I in them. Just as the Father, Who is Life, sent Me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats Me will have life from Me. This is the Bread from heaven; not like that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this Bread will live forever.”

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
1 Corinthians 10 : 16-17

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread that we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ?

The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 147 : 12-13, 14-15, 19-20

Exalt YHVH, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.

He grants peace on your borders and feeds you with the finest grain. He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word.

It is He, Who tells Jacob His words; His laws and decrees, to Israel. This, He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them. Alleluia!

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Deuteronomy 8 : 2-3, 14b-16a

Remember how YHVH, your God, brought you through the desert for forty years. He humbled you, to test you and know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He made you experience want, He made you experience hunger, but He gave you manna to eat which neither you nor your fathers had known, to show you that one does not live on bread alone, but also by everything that comes from the mouth of God.

Do not forget YHVH, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, the house of slavery. It is He Who has led you across this great and terrible desert, full of fiery serpents and scorpions, an arid land where there is no water. But for you He made water gush forth from the hardest rock. And He fed you in the desert with manna which your fathers did not know.

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Friday, 16 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us as Christians are reminded by the Lord through the Scripture readings we heard today, to be genuine and true disciples of His, in all of our words, deeds and actions. He mentioned it in the Gospel today, when He spoke of which actions constitute as sins against the Lord, even in the matter of mere thought and intention, and how we ought to resist against sinning.

The Lord Jesus mentioned the danger of having even the intentions and thoughts of sinning, in whatever form it is, as intentions eventually lead to the deed, if we do not do anything actively in order to resist those temptations and the allure to commit the sin. That is why, what the Lord Jesus told us today is that, all of us who are Christians, cannot be complacent in our faith.

It might seem very scary to us that the Lord Jesus told His disciples and the people to pluck out their eyes and cut off their hands in the case that those organs and limbs leading us towards sin. But that is exactly the danger of interpreting and seeing the words of the Scripture literally as it is. The Lord was not ordering us all to cut off our limbs and destroying our organs and senses if we are tempted to sin, but in fact, He was telling us to be active in resisting the temptation to sin.

Why is that so? That is because, if we are to do as the Lord had asked us to do, then almost everyone, if not everyone will become paraplegic or paralysed, without limb, blind, deaf or mute, since everyone is a sinner, and all of us mankind are easily tempted by various means to sin, be it with our eyes, or our ears, or our tongue, or our limbs, hands and feet.

Remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, God has blessed us and given us these organs and limbs, for us not to commit those sins, but instead, to bring glory to His Name. We are all expected to do our best, to fulfil what He had commanded us to do, through our organs, bodies, limbs, through our minds and hearts, through our entire being.

All of us must be active in our faith, by doing all that we can in order to serve the Lord, by our good deeds and by our actions. We must do so, so that the more good and faithful deeds we commit in life, the more capable we will be in resisting the temptation to sin and do what is not right in accordance to the Lord and in His teachings. When we sin, we tend to sin more and more, since our senses and minds will be dulled by the sins we commit.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are called to seek the Lord by sincerely doing what we need to do, by doing the acts of love and mercy to our brethren, forgiving all those who have slighted and hated us, by praying for those who persecute us and consider us to be their enemies. Let us all seek peace and harmony in all things, and do our best to show the examples of our faith through our actions.

It is by living our faith to the fullest, by our words, actions and deeds that we will be able to come to the fullness of grace and love by the Lord, and He will bless us all forevermore, remembering our faith and the dedication with which we have devoted our whole lives to. May the Lord empower us to become ever better and more faithful disciples of His. Amen.

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Friday, 16 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 115 : 10-11, 15-16, 17-18

You, family of Aaron, trust in YHVH; He is your help and your shield! You who fear YHVH, trust in Him; He is your help and your shield!

May you be blessed by YHVH. Maker of heaven and earth. Heaven belongs to YHVH, but the earth He has given to humans.

It is not the dead who praise YHVH, for they have gone down to silence; but it is we, the living who praise YHVH, from now on and forever.

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Friday, 16 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 115 : 10-11, 15-16, 17-18

You, family of Aaron, trust in YHVH; He is your help and your shield! You who fear YHVH, trust in Him; He is your help and your shield!

May you be blessed by YHVH. Maker of heaven and earth. Heaven belongs to YHVH, but the earth He has given to humans.

It is not the dead who praise YHVH, for they have gone down to silence; but it is we, the living who praise YHVH, from now on and forever.

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Friday, 16 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Corinthians 4 : 7-15

However, we carry this treasure in vessels of clay, so that this all-surpassing power may not be seen as ours, but as God’s. Trials of every sort come to us, but we are not discouraged. We are left without answer, but do not despair; persecuted but not abandoned, knocked down but not crushed.

At any moment, we carry, in our person, the death of Jesus, so, that, the life of Jesus may also be manifested in us. For we, the living, are given up continually to death, for the sake of Jesus, so, that, the life of Jesus may appear in our mortal existence. And as death is at work in us, life comes to you.

We have received the same Spirit of faith referred to in Scripture, that says : I believed and so I spoke. We also believe, and so we speak. 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.

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day through the readings from the Sacred Scriptures, we are reminded that as Christians, all of us have to be truly devoted to the ways shown to us by our Lord Jesus, as He had taught us through His disciples. We cannot be Christians and yet in our words, in our actions and in our deeds, we show things that are contrary to what we believe in.

Our faith in the Lord must be sincere, deep and genuine, and based on our heartfelt desire to love Him and to serve Him all of our days. We must truly love one another and seek peace and harmony in all things. We must follow the examples of the Lord our God in all that He had done, in all that He had shown us how to do. He has taught us to love Him and if we love Him, we will also love one another in the same manner.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the exhortation He had made in our Gospel passage today, Jesus our Lord is challenging us to go beyond what has been expected of us in accordance with the Law. We cannot just obey the laws and commandments of God without understanding them, or else we will end up being just like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who obeyed the laws to the letter, but on their true heart’s intentions and purpose, their hypocrisy was evident.

Let us ask ourselves, brothers and sisters in Christ. How often is it that in our own daily lives, we have been angry at our brethren, at another person, just because we are jealous at what they have, which we do not have? The Lord said that even the intention is enough for us to drive ourselves towards committing the crime of sin, so if we do not restrain ourselves and those negativities, such as anger, jealousy, desire and all, we will end up leading ourselves into sin.

Therefore, as Christians, all of us need to have that zeal in us, that commitment and devotion, which we must have to be true disciples and followers of our Lord Jesus, or else we will be easily swayed by the temptations of this world, by all the pressures for us to do otherwise, to do differently from what the Lord had taught us and shown us, because these were things that are easier to be done than to be faithful to God.

Why is that so? It is easier for us to hate someone and be angry at someone for a misstep or wrongdoing or pain that has been inflicted upon us by that someone. It is in our human nature and habit for us to do so, by our instincts and experiences. However, it is far more difficult for us to forgive and let go of our anger, allowing us to think rationally and not be carried away by our anger and emotions.

Similarly, it is easier for us to do what is evil and wicked, as because of sin, we have been made vulnerable to those desires that led us to sin. It is easier for us to seek the desires for the pleasures of the flesh, for other forms of worldly desires, for recognition, for power and all the things which inevitably lead us into conflict with one another, as we mankind are by our nature selfish and stubborn, not wanting to give in or to let go.

No, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us as Christians cannot be like this. We must seek to be humble, to be peacemakers, and let us put our attention especially on the sermon which Jesus made on the mountain, the Beatitudes, in which He spelled out clearly, how Christians, all of us who believe in the Lord and follow Him ought to live.

We must be sincere in our faith to the Lord, and through our action we must bring peace and harmony with one another, for all of us are brothers and sisters in the same Lord. Whatever actions that others had done that caused us to be angry, let us not be quick to be angry, for remember that perhaps in our own actions and words, we might have made someone else unhappy and angry too.

Let us all rather seek to love one another, and therefore also love the Lord our God with sincerity and tenderness. Let us all renew our commitment to Him, and devote ourselves to a holy and loving life from now on, as the true and beloved children of God. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 15 June 2017 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Matthew 5 : 20-26

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “I tell you, if your sense of right and wrong is not keener than that of the Lawyers and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

“You have heard, that it was said to our people in the past : Do not commit murder; anyone who murders will have to face trial. But now I tell you : whoever gets angry with a brother or sister will have to face trial. Whoever insults a brother or sister is liable, to be brought before the council. Whoever calls a brother or sister ‘Fool!’ is liable, of being thrown into the fire of hell.”

“So, if you are about to offer your gift at the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there, in front of the altar; go at once, and make peace with your brother, and then come back and offer your gift to God.”

“Do not forget this : be reconciled with your opponent quickly when you are together on the way to court. Otherwise he will turn you over to the judge, who will hand you over to the police, who will put you in jail. There, you will stay, until you have paid the last penny.”