15th Week of Ordinary Time

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Friday, 20 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Isaiah 38 : 1-6, 21-22, 7-8

In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him with a message from YHVH, “Put your house in order for you shall die; you shall not live.”

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to YHVH, “Ah YHVH! Remember how I have walked before You in truth and wholeheartedly, and done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then the word of YHVH came to Isaiah, “Go and tell Hezekiah what YHVH, the God of his father David, says : I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. See! I am adding fifteen years to your life and I will save you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria. I will defend it for My sake and for the sake of David My servant.”

Isaiah then said, “Bring a fig cake to rub on the ulcer and let Hezekiah be cured!” Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the House of YHVH?” Isaiah answered, “This shall be for you a sign from YHVH, that He will do what He has promised. See! I shall make the shadow descending on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.”

So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had covered on the stairway.

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Thursday, 19 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the prophet Isaiah mentioning both prayer to God and also the revelation of God’s promises in the book he wrote, which recounted what happened at that time during the life of the prophet. The prophet Isaiah lived during a time of uncertainty for the people of Israel, for at that time, the northern kingdom of Israel, the ten tribes of Jacob, had just been conquered by the Assyrians.

The Assyrians destroyed the Israelite kingdom and carried off most of its people into exile in faraway lands. And an Assyrian army led by its king also came up to Jerusalem, besieging it and almost captured it, if not for the great intervention by God, Who destroyed most of the Assyrian army through His Angel. In that event, what we heard in the passage from the prophet Isaiah’s book came to reality. When the people of God was in need of help and assistance, God came to their help and answered their needs.

That was the promise that the Lord gave to His people, that should they turn towards Him, filled with remorse for their sins and wickedness, and with renewed zeal and commitment to live their lives in accordance to His laws, then He would once again bless them and be with them, rejuvenating them and making them a great nation and a prosperous people once again. He would be their God and they would be His people once again.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we should also listen to the words of the Lord in the Gospel passage today, when He told the people, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” The Lord showed His reassurance for us, telling us that it is in Him alone that we can find complete and total happiness, joy and satisfaction. The Lord alone can provide this satisfaction and nothing else in this world can do the same.

The Lord has shown us this great favour, and He wants us all to know of His love and mercy, the compassion which He shows to all those who sincerely seek His forgiveness and those who want to be reconciled to Him. He does not turn away those who are in need of His help, and He always makes Himself available to those who come seeking His forgiveness. This is our loving God, and this is just how much He loves all of us.

But at the same time, we also have to remember that as mentioned in the Gospel today, that the yoke and burden of the Lord is light, lighter than that of the world. This goes on to say that to be a follower and disciple of the Lord, as Christians, we must be ready to face trials, challenges and difficulties, and we cannot expect to be just bystanders or let the Lord to do everything for us while we just enjoy the fruits of His labour.

And often, we will find that the burden of the Lord, the crosses that we have to bear, are indeed heavy, heavier and less appealing than the burdens and the yoke that the world tempts us with. Why is that so? That is because, while the burdens of the world, of sin and its temptations are deceiving in their appearance, so that we fall for its sweet falsehoods and later on suffer the eternal consequences and sufferings, the Lord’s cross is something painful but rewarding in time to come.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, the choice is on our hands. The Lord has given us the free will to choose which path we want to take. But we must very well know the consequence of our choice. Do we want to enjoy our lives now and suffer later for eternity because we chose the wrong path? Or do we rather suffer now for a while, but through our perseverance gain the eternal glory from God?

May the Lord be with us always, and may He continue to guide us in our path, so that in all the things we do, we will seek not the glory of the world, which is temporary, just as the mighty Assyrians was utterly humiliated and defeated by God. Instead, let us go forth, glorifying the Lord by our lives, as mentioned in every conclusion and dismissal of the Holy Mass.

Let us go forth with courage and faith, knowing that God is always with us, and that with Him alone, lies true and eternal happiness. May God bless us all and our endeavours. Amen.

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Thursday, 19 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 11 : 28-30

At that time, Jesus said to the people, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble of heart; and you will find rest. For My yoke is easy; and My burden is light.”

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Thursday, 19 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 101 : 13-14ab and 15, 16-18, 19-21

But You, o YHVH, You sit forever; Your Name endures through all generations. Arise, have mercy on Zion. For Your servants cherish her stones, and are moved to pity by her dust.

O YHVH, the nations will revere Your Name, and the kings of the earth Your glory, when YHVH will rebuild Zion and appear in all His splendour. For He will answer the prayer of the needy and will not despise their plea.

Let this be written for future ages, “YHVH will be praised by a people He will form.” From His holy height in heaven, YHVH has looked on the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.

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Thursday, 19 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 26 : 7-9, 12, 16-19

Let the righteous walk in righteousness. You make smooth the path of the just, and we only seek the way of Your laws, o YHVH. Your Name and Your memory are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for You in the night; for You my spirit keeps vigil. When Your judgments come to earth, the world’s inhabitants learn to be upright.

YHVH, please give us peace; for all that we accomplish is Your work. For they sought You in distress, they cried out to You in the time of their punishment. As a woman in travail moans and writhes in pain, so are we now in Your presence. We conceived, we had labour pains, but we gave birth to the wind. We have not brought salvation to the land; the inhabitants of a new world have not been born.

Your dead will live! Their corpses will rise! Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust! For you will grow like plants drenched with the morning dew, and the earth will bring forth its dead spirits.

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Wednesday, 18 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, listening to the word of God in the Scriptures, we listened to the wisdom of God being revealed to us, as He revealed His truth and His boundless intellect to us. Through the Holy Spirit, He inspired those who wrote the Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, to reveal unto us, the greatness of His divine wisdom, far beyond any human understanding and wisdom.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, the Lord was chastising and rebuking the great king of Assyria, who at that time ruled over the most powerful nation in the region, and probably also in the world. The Assyrian Empire was vast and powerful, and ruled over many people and many territories it has conquered with its mighty army and forces.

It was therefore the reason for the hubris and pride of the king of Assyria, who has conquered and destroyed everything that he wished to conquer and destroy. But the Lord chastised him, reminding the people to whom the prophet Isaiah wrote his book, that is the Israelites and all of us, that God alone has all might, power and He alone is in control, and not us man.

This would later come to reality and fruition, when the king of Assyria, Sennacherib came up to Jerusalem and Judea, besieging the city of God. King Sennacherib of Assyria boasted proudly before the Lord and before His people, that his mighty army had conquered nations and peoples of all kinds, and none of their gods and idols could have stopped him, and thus, he made fun and disrespected the Lord by saying that not even God could have stopped him.

But the king was humbled greatly by God, when He sent His Angels to eradicate a total of not less than a hundred and eighty-five thousand from among the king’s army. The king had to return to his palace in shame, retreating in great defeat, and later on, his own two sons would betray him and murder him in the temple of his pagan god in Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire.

Through these things we have just discussed, we can clearly see that there are many things that even those in power and those who are mighty could not have done with all the great power and might they had, if they did not cling on to the power and wisdom of God. Man can presume to know everything and to have might, power and greatness, but in the end, all must bend to the will and the power of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God’s will is absolute, and His power is also infinite and absolute, but at the same time, He gave us all the free will to choose what path we want to take in our lives, whether, we want to follow Him and put our trust in Him, or instead, place our trust in our own power, ability and might. From what we have seen in the evidence throughout the Scriptures, putting our trust in the power of man is not the best way to go.

Those who are strong and powerful, intelligent and ambitious, were in fact among those who would encounter the failure the fastest, as history had proven that many of them were unable to restrain themselves, their pride and greed, and ended up falling into sin and their endeavours fell apart, when they faced infighting and conflict over their unrestrained pride and unbridled greed.

Man has betrayed each other, even their closest friends and family members, husband has betrayed wife and vice versa, children has betrayed their parents and vice versa, just because they trusted in worldly provisions and in their own might and power. They failed to realise that whatever it is that they are fighting for, all of them are insignificant and foolish in the eyes of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, all of us as Christians must realise that we must put God first and foremost in our lives, and place Him at the very centre of our lives. May the Lord be our Guide at all times, and may He continue to strengthen our faith, and give us the courage to live with dedication to this faith which we have in Him. May God bless us all and our endeavours. Amen.

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Wednesday, 18 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 11 : 25-27

At that time, Jesus said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, I praise You; because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to simple people. Yes, Father, this was Your gracious will.”

“Everything has been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son, and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him.”

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Wednesday, 18 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 93 : 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15

They crush Your people, o YHVH, they oppress Your inheritance. They murder the widow and the lonely; they massacre the helpless.

“YHVH does not see,” they say, “The God of Jacob does not care.” Remember this, you stupid people; when will you understand, you fools!

He Who made the ear, will He not hear? He Who formed the eye, will He not see? He Who rebukes nations, will He not punish them?

YHVH will not reject His people, nor will He forsake His heritage. Justice will return to the just; and the upright will follow, in its wake.

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Wednesday, 18 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 10 : 5-7, 13-16

Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger, the staff of My fury! Against a godless nation I send him, against a people who provoke My wrath I dispatch him, to plunder and pillage, to tread them down like mud in the streets. But the mind of his king is far from this, his heart harbours other thoughts; what he wants is to destroy, to make an end of all nations.

For the King says : “By my own strength I have done this and by my own wisdom, for I am clever. I have moved the frontiers of people, I have plundered treasures, I have brought inhabitants down to the dust, I have toppled kings from their thrones. As one reaches into a nest, so my hands have reached into nations’ wealth. As one gathers deserted eggs, so have I gathered the riches of the earth. No one flapped a wing or opened its mouth to chirp a protest.”

Does the ax claim more credit than the man who wields it? Does the saw magnify itself more than the one who uses it? This would be like a rod wielding the man who lifts it up; will those not made of wood, be controlled by the cudgel? This is why YHVH Sabaoth, is ready to send a wasting sickness upon the king’s sturdy warriors. Beneath his plenty, a flame will burn like a consuming fire.

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Tuesday, 17 July 2018 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day the Scriptures mentioned to us first of all, God’s assurance to His people in the kingdom of Judah, led by king Ahaz that He would be with them regardless of the opposition and troubles that they were facing at the time. At that time there were many enemies rising up against Judah, composed of the kingdom of Aram and the northern kingdom of Israel. The two kingdoms have allied themselves in a plot to destroy Judah.

The people had no faith in God, as they have often disobeyed Him and worshipped pagan idols and gods instead of worshipping Him. All of these they have done, despite the fact that God had performed so many good deeds and miracles among the people. He had delivered them from the hands of their former Egyptian masters who enslaved the Israelites for many years, and the enemies of Israel, such as the Amalekites, Philistines and many others were defeated by God’s might.

They did not have a faith that lasted a long time, and their lukewarm attitude and preoccupation in worldly matters ended up tempting them to walk away from the path which the Lord had shown them. That is because their hearts were filled not with love and desire to love God, but instead with pride, with selfishness and all sorts of wickedness that prevented them from being truly faithful.

In the Gospel passage today, the same problems were faced by the Lord Jesus, Our God and Saviour, Who went to His people in various parts of Galilee, performing miracles and many good works before the people. He healed the sick, including the mother of St. Peter among them, opened the eyes of the blind, loosened the tongues of the mute and opened the ears of the deaf. He even raised people back from the dead, as He had done with the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Naim and many more.

Despite all of these obvious signs, many of the people still refused to listen to the Lord or to believe in Him. They doubted Him and presumed to know Him, especially those who have known Him in Nazareth and having seen Him growing up in their midst, and therefore, assuming that He could not have performed all those miraculous deeds on His own, and doubting Him.

They failed to believe in Him, because they were too focused on the things of this world, and view everything from the perspective of the world. They allowed themselves to be swayed by the falsehoods and all the lies which Satan placed in their hearts to make them doubt and to harden their hearts and minds against the Lord Who tried to speak to them and to show them the truth.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard of the accounts from the Scriptures telling us both of what happened during the years of the Old Testament, and during the time when the Lord Jesus performed His earthly ministry, all of us are called to reflect on our own attitude in life and how we have lived our lives thus far. Have we been faithful to the Lord, or have we instead lived our lives in our own way?

We are often too preoccupied in our respective, busy lives, filled with many concerns and desired of worldly nature, which prevent us from listening to the Lord calling us to Him, and which distract us from the path which we ought to take in our journey towards Him. That is why so many of us failed to respond to God’s call, and walked the same path as those who have disobeyed the Lord in the past.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we going to continue this attitude in life? Are we going to continue to live in sin and refuse to follow the Lord just because we think that we know what is better for us? Let us all today learn to be humble, that first and foremost, we must place God at the centre of our lives, as our focus and priority, and know that not everything in this world is about us.

And we have to learn to quieten ourselves, in our minds and in our hearts, so that we can find out better what it is that the Lord wants us to do in our own respective lives. This is why it is so important that all of us as Christians must know how to pray, and pray with the correct intention and faith. By having an active and vibrant prayer life, we can then better resist the temptations to sin and know better God’s will and love for us.

May the Lord be with us and be our Guide, that throughout our struggles and journey in life, and despite the challenges and tribulations that come our way, we will always remain strong and resolute in our faith and dedication to God. Let us all strive with a renewed faith, day after day, to be ever more faithful to the Lord in our lives. Amen.