Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 131 : 6-7, 9-10, 13-14
Then came the news, “The Ark is in Ephrata, we found it in the fields of Jaar.” Let us go to where He dwells and worship at His footstool!
May Your priests be arrayed in glorious mantle; may Your faithful ones shout in gladness. For the sake of Your servant, David, do not turn away the face of Your Anointed.
For YHVH has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His dwelling : “This is My resting place forever; this I prefer; here, will I dwell.”
Liturgical Colour : White
1 Chronicles 15 : 3-4, 15-16 and 1 Chronicles 16 : 1-2
Then David gathered all Israel together in Jerusalem to bring the Ark of God up to the place he had prepared for it. David called together the sons of Aaron and the sons of Levi. And the Levites carried the Ark of God with the poles on their shoulders, as Moses had ordered according to the command of YHVH.
David then told the leaders of the Levites to assign duties for some Levites to sing and play a joyful tune with their various musical instruments : harps and lyres and cymbals. They brought the Ark of God in and put it inside the tent that David had prepared for it; and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings to God.
And when David had finished offering the sacrifices, he blessed the people in the Name of YHVH.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded that ultimately each and every one of us are beloved by the Lord and none of us are beyond His salvation and grace, as long as we are still willing to cooperate with Him and embrace Him as our loving Father and allowing Him to forgive us from our many sins and trespasses. Each and every one of us have been given many opportunities and chances to repent from our sins and turn away from our wickedness and evils, and God has also given us many assistance and help throughout our journey in life, strengthening our faith and encouraging us through His guidance and the Holy Spirit that He has sent to inflame our hearts with His love and zeal.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel in which God showed Ezekiel through the heavenly vision he experienced on what the people of Israel in Judah, in Jerusalem and all those who remained in the land of Judah would have to experience and endure, at that time when many among the people of God had been uprooted into exile in far-off and distant lands in Assyria and Babylon. Ezekiel himself witnessed this vision from his exile and time in Babylon during the years when the kingdom of Judah was in its final years of existence. Ezekiel was tasked to deliver the final fate of the kingdom of Judah and its people, to remind the rest of the people of God in exile not to continue to disobey the Lord just as their ancestors had done.
That was why God showed Ezekiel the vision of His glory passing through Jerusalem, as His Presence passed through out of the Temple, the House that King Solomon once built for Him, out of the city of God’s people, the city which had seen the lamentations of many prophets and messengers of God, persecuted and martyred for their faith in Him throughout the many centuries since the Temple was established. It was the coming of God’s judgment over all those who have profaned His Holy Name, desecrated His Holy Temple and House, rejected His messengers and servants who had kept on bringing to them the patient and ever enduring love of God, which He had kept on manifesting and reminding His people throughout the centuries since He brought them to settle in the land that He has granted to them.
It is a reminder for each and every one of us as well that while God is ever loving, forgiving, compassionate and kind towards us, and while He is always ever patient with His care and love towards each one of us, but we must not take this love for granted, and we must also realise that while He loves each one of us generously but He despises our sins and wickedness, all the things which we had done, which were all against the righteousness, justice and virtues which He has shown and taught us to do. The sins and wickedness that the people of Israel had done in the past all had to be accounted for, and God therefore told them through Ezekiel that they would have to bear witness and suffer the destruction of their city and kingdom, everything that they had found to be precious.
In our Gospel passage today, we then heard from the Gospel according to St. Matthew about the Lord Jesus Who told His disciples to seek forgiveness and reconciliation with one another. He told them to get their fellow brethren to be forgiven and to be reconciled to the Church, especially when they had erred and become wayward in their paths and ways. God again showed His great mercy, forgiveness and love, calling on all of His people to return to Him, and He has provided us with the ways and means to embrace this great mercy, love and forgiveness. However, sin in all of its form is wicked and evil, and has no place before the Lord, and hence, we must reject those sins which we have committed, or else, they will keep us separated from God and His grace.
That is why we are reminded that we have been given the free will and the freedom to choose our path and course in life, on whether we want to follow the path of righteousness and God’s grace, or whether we prefer to continue walking down the path of sin and disobedience against God. If we continue to disobey the Lord and sin against Him, then we must realise that in the end there will be nothing left for us but destruction and damnation, eternal separation from God just as how those people in Judah had suffered from their sins and disobedience against God. However, if we choose to repent from our sins and return to the Lord once again with renewed love and commitment towards Him, we will then be blessed and be reconciled, reunited and returned to His Holy Presence.
Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a renowned Polish priest who was remembered for his great faith and piety as a missionary to many people in different parts of the world, and then finally in his perseverance and courage in faith in the face of great persecutions and hardships, as he faced the tyranny and the evils of the NAZI German regime during the Second World War, eventually dying as a martyr of the faith and became a great inspiration and role model for everyone of us. He was born in Poland and had a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary since early on in his life, which eventually pushed him to dedicate himself to the Conventual Franciscans, a religious order founded upon the ideals of St. Francis of Assisi, where he became its member and eventually was ordained as a priest. Throughout all those years, St. Maximilian Kolbe championed and promoted strong devotions to the Blessed Mother of God.
St. Maximilian Kolbe would then assemble the Militia Immaculatae, or the Army of the Immaculate One, a powerful missionary movement centred upon the devotion to Mary, which worked hard for the conversion of sinners and the propagation of the faith, through their ceaseless prayers and missionary efforts, outreach and works among the people. He also founded the related publication Knight of the Immaculata dedicated to the propagation of the messages and ideals of his devotion. Then, St. Maximilian Kolbe undertook a period of six years of mission in East Asia, working first in Shanghai and then in Japan, as well as in India, performing missionary efforts and works before returning to Poland before the beginning of the Second World War. During that terrible war, many people suffered and St. Maximilian Kolbe helped many people through his connections and resources to hide from the terrors and tyranny of the NAZI regime.
This eventually led to the arrest and incarceration of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was then eventually transferred to the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. In that concentration camp, St. Maximilian Kolbe continued to minister to the inmates as a priest, despite all the beatings and sufferings that he had to suffer from. And eventually, in July of the year 1941, when a prisoner escaped from the concentration camp, and the deputy camp commander ordered ten prisoners to be starved to death as punishment and warning for the rest of the inmates, a man named Franciszek Gajowniczek cried out, ‘My wife! My children’ which therefore prompted St. Maximilian Kolbe, who was there, to volunteer and take the man’s place to be executed by being starved to death. St. Maximilian Kolbe faced his final moments and death with peace, and when he was put to death by lethal injection in the end, having survived the starvation period, he remained calm and composed, surrendering everything to God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, just as we have heard and discussed in our Scripture passages earlier, in everything that we have also discussed from the life and examples of St. Maximilian Kolbe, let us all therefore strive as Christians to abandon our sinful attitudes and actions, embracing once again God’s love and grace, His forgiveness and mercy, not taking all these for granted. Let us all also follow in the footsteps of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who has truly shown his love both for the Lord and for his fellow men, as a most exemplary Christian, and whose examples we should also follow as well. Let us all therefore commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and put our faith and trust completely in God from now on. Holy martyr, St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us sinners! Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Matthew 18 : 15-20
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “If your brother has sinned against you, go and point out the fault to him, when the two of you are alone; and if he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen to you, take with you one or two others, so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”
“And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard him as a pagan, or a tax collector. I say to you : whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound.”
“In like manner, I say to you, if, on earth, two of you agree in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by My heavenly Father; for where two or there are gathered in My Name, I am there, among them.”
Liturgical Colour : Red
Psalm 112 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Alleluia! Praise, o servants of YHVH, praise the Name of YHVH! Blessed be the Name of YHVH now and forever!
From eastern lands to the western islands, may the Name of YHVH be praised! YHVH is exalted over the nations; His glory above the heavens.
Who is like YHVH our God, Who sits enthroned on high, but also bends down to see on earth as in heaven?
Liturgical Colour : Red
Ezekiel 9 : 1-7 and Ezekiel 10 : 18-22
Then He shouted loudly in my ears saying, “The punishment of the city is near; see, each one of these has in his hand his instrument of destruction.” And six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each one with his instrument of destruction. With them was a man clothed in linen, with writing material at his side. They came; and stopped near the altar of bronze.
Then the Glory of the God of Israel rose from the Cherubim, where It rested; and went to the threshold of the House. YHVH called to the man clothed in linen; who had the material for writing at his side; and He said to him, “Pass through the centre of the city, through Jerusalem, and trace a cross on the forehead of the men who sigh and groan, because of all the abominations committed in it.”
I heard Him say to the others, “Now you may pass through the city, after him, and strike. Your eyes shall not look with pity; show no mercy! Do away with them all – old men, young men, virgins, children and women – but do not touch anyone marked with a cross.”
And, as they were told to begin with the Sanctuary, they struck the elders who were in front of the Temple. YHVH said to them, “Let the courts be filled with the slain and the Temple be defiled with their blood : Go out!” They went and slew the people in the city.
The glory of YHVH went from above the threshold of the House and went, to rest on the Cherubim. Then the Cherubim left, opening their wings and rising above the earth in my sight; and the wheels went with them. They halted at the east gate of the House of YHVH; and the Glory of the God of Israel was over them.
These were the living creatures I had seen under the God of Israel on the banks of the river Chebar. I recognised them as Cherubim. Each had four faces, each had four wings; and they had what seemed like human hands under their wings. As for the appearance of their faces, they were the faces I had seen by the river Chebar, the same likeness. Each one went straight ahead.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures today, we are all reminded that each and every one of us should be willing to listen to God, to heed His words and the calling which He had made to us in each and every moments of our lives, as He has constantly done so, in reaching out to us and calling on us to return to Him and to embrace His love and grace once again. It is by our disobedience that we have fallen into sin and therefore been sundered from the fullness of God’s grace and love, and therefore that is why we have to wander and suffer in this world, as consequences of our rebelliousness and disobedience. But God truly did not wish for our destruction and damnation, and He truly wants each and every one of us to be reconciled and reunited with Him, and that is why He has always provided us with the means, help and guidance in order to do so, and we should heed what He has told and reminded us of.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel in which the continuation of the vision of the prophet Ezekiel which he received from God was told to us. We heard how in that vision, the prophet Ezekiel was tasked to speak to the people of Israel, the people of God, in order to remind them of the words that the Lord wanted to share with those people, the lamentations, the groaning and the woes which He had for them, for all of their stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to His words, despite everything that He had done for them. It was their own wickedness and disobedience, their refusal to follow the path that God has set before them which led them to their then predicament and hardships, as they were enduring exile and sufferings far away from the lands that they had been uprooted from, the lands of their ancestors.
Yet, God still cared for them and loved them nonetheless, and He reached out to them through His many prophets and messengers with this specifically in mind. God loved His people, each and every one of them, and He sent them prophets like Ezekiel and many others so that they might recognise their errors and wickedness, and embrace once again the path of God’s righteousness and virtues. And not only that, but He even sent us all, His most beloved Son, His only Begotten One, Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Divine Word Incarnate to manifest to us His ever enduring and present love, and as our loving and Good Shepherd, He wants us all to be found and gathered from this world, each and every one of us, the lost sheep of the Lord’s flock.
In our Gospel passage today, this is what we have heard from the Lord Jesus Himself, Who told His disciples the folly of their debates and their struggles with each other to determine who among them was truly the greatest and the first among the disciples of the Lord. He told them all that they ought to have the faith like that of little children because it is this kind of faith which is truly pure and genuine, not tainted and corrupted by the desires of the world, truly loving God and committing oneself to follow Him wholeheartedly instead of being so immersed and preoccupied by worldly matters and desires that we end up forgetting our true and most important mission in life as Christians, that is to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts and might, and to love one another in the same way as well.
The Lord then also reiterated this love which He has for each and every one of us. He told His disciples using the comparison with that of a shepherd and owner of the flock who would leave behind his ninety-nine safely accounted flock of sheep to seek for the one that had been lost to him. This is a representation and reminder to every one of us of just how beloved we are by the Lord and how precious we truly are to Him, that God will not let any one of us to be lost to Him. He will always show us His patient love and mercy, reaching out to us ever consistently and patiently to bring us out of the darkness into the light of His salvation and grace. That is why we all should heed His love and appreciate just how blessed all of us are to have been beloved in such a manner by our loving God, our Shepherd and Father.
Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, two saints whose lives and commitments to the Lord, actions and examples have been great inspiration for each and every one of us. Pope St. Pontian was the leader of the Church at the time when the Church and Christians throughout the Roman Empire was persecuted for their faith in God, during the tumultuous years of the upheavals that were also facing the Roman Empire in that era. Pope St. Pontian and his predecessors, Pope St. Callixtus I and Pope St. Urban I also faced internal divisions and challenges such as from St. Hippolytus, whose feast we are also celebrating today. This St. Hippolytus, also known as St. Hippolytus of Rome, had been elected as a rival Pope or Antipope over the controversy of the Pope’s decision to extend absolution and forgiveness to Christians who have committed grave sins.
St. Hippolytus was among those who advocated rigorism and stricter attitudes against those Christians who have committed serious and grave sins such as adultery and idolatry, and thus, allowed himself to be elected by his supporters as a Rival Bishop of Rome and Antipope, which led to a bitter division in the Church which lasted through the next two Pontificates, up to that of Pope St. Pontian’s pontificate. When the persecution of the faithful intensified and led to the arrest of both Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, it was told that when they were exiled to the Sardinian mines, they were reconciled with each other, with Pope St. Pontian apparently voluntarily resigning his Papal office to allow the election of a worthy successor to continue the office of the Supreme Pontiff while St. Hippolytus also repented his schism, which had led to the division of the Church. Eventually they were both martyred for their faith in God but not before they helped to restore unity in the Church and inspire many with their great courage and faith in God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have discussed in our Scripture readings earlier today and as we have heard from the great examples and inspiration shown by Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, let us all as Christians continue to strive to be faithful and committed to God, rejecting the evils and wickedness of this world, and follow Him in all of the ways of our lives. Let us all be willing to work with one another, overcoming our differences and seek forgiveness for one another just as Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus had shown us. Each and every one of us as Christians should be great role models and examples for our fellow brethren in everything that we say and do, in our every efforts and endeavours in our lives.
May the Lord continue to help and guide us in our journey of faith in life, and may He continue to strengthen and empower us so that in everything that we do, we will always continue to glorify the Lord by our every actions, words and deeds in life. May God bless each and every one of us and may He bless our every deeds, efforts and good works in all things, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10, 12-14
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you, that, unless you change, and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble, like this child, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child, in My Name, receives Me.”
“See that you do not despise any of these little ones; for I tell you, their Angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father. What do you think of this? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside, and go to look for the stray one? And I tell you, when he finally finds it, he is more pleased about it, than about the ninety-nine that did not go astray.”
“It is the same with your Father in heaven. Your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to perish.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 118 : 14, 24, 72, 103, 111, 131
I delight in following Your laws, more so than in all riches.
Your laws are my delight, my counsellors who uphold me.
Your law is more precious to me than heaps of silver and gold.
How sweet are Your promises to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Your statutes are my heritage forever, they are the joy of my heart.
I gasp in ardent yearning for Your commandments that I love.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Ezekiel 2 : 8 – Ezekiel 3 : 4
God said to Ezekiel, “Listen then, son of man, to what I say, and do not be a rebel among rebels. Open your mouth and take in what I am about to say.”
I looked and saw a hand stretched out in front of me holding a scroll. He unrolled it before me; on both sides were written lamentations, groaning and woes. He said to me, “Son of man, eat what is given to you. Eat this scroll and then go; speak to the people of Israel.”
I opened my mouth and He made me eat the scroll; and then He said to me, “Eat and fill yourself with this scroll that I am giving you.” I ate it; and it tasted as sweet as honey. He said, “Son of man, go to the Israelites; speak to them with My words.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 