18 April 2016

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we continue the discourse on the Lord as our Good Shepherd, our Guide and Leader through the darkness of this world, and He is gathering us all so that each and every one of us may find our way to salvation and find succour and grace in His embrace. This is what He is asking from each one of us, that we walk in His path and follow Him as our Shepherd and Guide.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us call ourselves as Christians, and yet do we know the reason behind all of this? Do we know the reason why we call ourselves as Christians? That is because all of us belong to Christ, and He is part of us. We follow Him, and He leads us, and this is why those who see us, by right they should have known that we belong to Christ our Lord and to no one else.

Remember what Jesus said in the Gospel today? That the sheep know the shepherd, and listen only to the shepherd, and not to the other thieves and false shepherds? That is what we should be, for we are the sheep and the flock of the Lord, belonging to God. That means, our way of life, all of our dealings, words, deeds and actions should reflect the nature of God, that is goodness, love, compassion and care for each other.

And yet, if we reflect on how we live our lives, we should realise just how far from the truth that is. How many of us actually do and act in the way that we believe in? How many of us truly walk in the way of our faith and act in the manner appropriate to our faith? It is important because, while the Lord our God gathered us into His flock, but we are still prone to falling into temptation and into the falsehoods and lies of the devil.

The devil will not just be quiet and leave us be, even as we proceed on with our lives. He will do all that is in his power and ability in order to hamper us and to obstruct our path towards salvation. He will not let us be and allow us to peacefully achieve our goal of salvation. Instead, he will harass us, tempt us and try to pull us away by various means, so that in the end, we will abandon our Lord in the hope of attaining something else more valuable or attractive to us.

What we have to realise is the fact that it is not always something that is good and enticing that is what we should choose. The false leads of the devil and his attempts to deceive us were meant to distract us and to mislead us into a way through which we shall be trapped and fall into harm’s path. The devil is hiding behind a facade of innocence and goodness in order to lure us away from the safety in God, and thus to destroy us. Just as wolves are trying many tricks to lure away the sheep away from their shepherds, thus in the same manner the devil is doing the same to us.

And therefore, all of us must be fully alert and be careful, that we would not fall into the trap of the devil. What is at stake here is nothing less than the fate of our eternal soul. Do we want to look forward to a good and blessed eternal life, in the presence of God? Or do we rather have the suffering and the eternal pain that is to come when we are cast out and rejected because of our sinful ways?

God will not abandon us to the darkness and to the damnation of hell. And yet, it is usually we ourselves that have abandoned the Lord and we walked away from Him. It is a conscious choice that we make if we are to follow God, or to follow the devil and all of his temptations. God calls everyone to be saved in Him, and the first reading showed all these very clearly.

Therefore, let us all spend some time to reflect on this, and let us all think about ways for us to help one another to reach out to God and to resist the temptations of the devil. Why is this so? Because all of us have to realise that each and every one of us who have called ourselves Christians, and who have become members and parts of the Church have that particular obligation, the obligation for us to be shepherds for each other, to help lead and guide one another in faith.

That is why I placed so much emphasis in the beginning on why it is important for us to know what does being a Christian mean to us. If we act as true Christians should act, then those who see us will also come to believe in the Lord as we have done, and our actions will inspire them greatly in serving the Lord our God. On the other hand however, if our actions do not reflect what we believe, or worse, even contradicting, then it is a great scandal of our faith.

Let us not bring one another to fall into eternal damnation, but instead let us help and support each other, so that together we may draw ever closer tor God our Lord and Shepherd, and let us commit ourselves to renew our faith in Him, and devote ourselves wholly to Him in body, heart and mind. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 10 : 1-10

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “Truly, I say to you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. But the shepherd of the sheep enters by the gate. The keeper opens the gate to him and the sheep hear his voice; he calls each of his sheep by name and leads them out.”

“When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but rather they will run away from him, because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice.”

Jesus used this comparison, but they did not understand what He was saying to them. So Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, I am the gate of the sheep. All who came were thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not hear them. I am the Gate. Whoever enters through Me will be saved; he will go in and out freely and find food.”

“The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, life in all its fullness.”

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 41 : 2-3 and Psalm 42 : 3, 4

As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for You, o God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I go and see the face of God?

Send forth Your light and Your truth; let them be my guide, let them take me to Your holy mountain, to the place where You reside.

Then will I go to the altar of God, to God, my gladness and delight. I will praise You with lyre and harp, o God, my God.

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 11 : 1-18

News came to the Apostles and the brothers and sisters in Judea that even foreigners had received the Word of God. So, when Peter went up to Jerusalem, these Jewish believers began to argue with him, “You went to the home of uncircumcised people and ate with them!”

So Peter began to give them the facts as they had happened, “I was at prayer in the city of Joppa when, in a trance, I saw a vision. Something like a large sheet came down from the sky and drew near to me, landing on the ground by its four corners.”

“As I stared at it, I saw four-legged creatures of the earth, wild beasts and reptiles, and birds of the sky. Then I heard a voice saying to me : ‘Get up, Peter, kill and eat!’ I replied, ‘Certainly not, Lord! No common or unclean creature has ever entered my mouth.'”

“A second time the voice from the heavens spoke, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call unclean.’ This happened three times, and then it was all drawn up into the sky. At that moment three men, who had been sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were staying.”

“The Spirit instructed me to go with them without hesitation; so these six brothers came along with me and we entered into the man’s house. He told us how he had seen an Angel standing in his house and telling him : ‘Send someone to Joppa and fetch Simon, also known as Peter. He will bring you a message by which you and all your household will be saved.'”

“I had begun to address them when suddenly the Holy Spirit came upon them, just as it had come upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered what the Lord had said : ‘John baptised with water, but you shall be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’ If, then, God had given them the same gift that He had given us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to resist God?”

When they heard this they set their minds at rest and praised God saying, “Then God has granted life-giving repentance to the pagan nations as well.”