25th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Monday, 25 September 2017 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 125 : 1-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6

When YHVH brought the exiles back to Zion, we were like those moving in a dream. Then, our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.

Among the nations it was said, “YHVH has done great things for them.” YHVH has done great things for us, and we were glad indeed.

Bring back our exiles, o YHVH, like fresh streams in the desert. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs and shouts of joy.

They went forth weeping, bearing the seeds for sowing, they will come home with joyful shouts, bringing their harvested sheaves.

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Monday, 25 September 2017 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezra 1 : 1-6

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, YHVH willed to fulfil the word He had said through the prophet Jeremiah. So He moved the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his kingdom : “Thus speaks Cyrus, king of Persia : YHVH, the God of heavens, Who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has ordered me to build Him a Temple in Jerusalem, in the land of Judah.”

“To everyone belonging to His people, may his God be with him! Let them go up to Jerusalem with the help of their God and, there, build the House of YHVH, the God of Israel; the God Who is in Jerusalem. In every place where the rest of the people of YHVH live, let the people of those places help them for their journey with silver, gold and all kinds of goods and livestock. Let them also give them voluntary offerings for the House of YHVH which is in Jerusalem.”

Then they rose up – the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites, and all those whose spirit God had stirred up – and they decided to go and build the House of YHVH. And all their neighbours gave them all kinds of help : gold, silver, livestock and precious objects in great quantity, besides every kind of voluntary offering.

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Sunday, 24 September 2017 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of God through the Scriptures speaking to us about the importance for us to put the Lord above ourselves, that we should not forget of His love and kindness, all the days of our life. All of these have been shown to us through the readings we have just heard, and we should spend some time to reflect on them.

First of all, we listened to the Gospel passage today in which Jesus told His disciples the parable of the workers of the vineyard, who were employed by the master of the vineyard, gathering them from the streets and employing them to work at his vineyard for a wage promised to them. And each and every one of them were paid a silver coin regardless of the time when they started working for the day. Some of the men started working early in the day while others only in the last hour.

The men who started working earlier in the day complained against the master of the vineyard, alleging that they should have been paid more, since they have laboured much more and harder than those who just worked barely an hour at the last hour when the master got the last of those whom he called to work in his vineyard. They thought that it was unfair for those people to get the same amount for the lesser amount of work they have done.

But the master of the vineyard rebuked the workers who grumbled and complained, saying that the amount of wage had been agreed with them beforehand, and as he was the master of the vineyard and the employer, it was also his right to decide what to give as a fair and just compensation for the employees. In reality, as we heard this story, we are actually looking at the story of mankind itself.

In that parable, the workers represent each and every one of us, the people of God, whom He had called from the world, and into His vineyard, that represents His Church and His kingdom. The master of the harvest is God Himself, Who called all of us mankind to follow Him and to become His disciples. Those who came to work earlier are those who have been called by God earlier, and have received the promise of His salvation earlier, with the pay being the salvation promised to us.

Meanwhile, those who came later and those who came on the last hour are those who the Lord eventually managed to call into His embrace, after long period of waiting and searching. They might have taken a different path and time to come to the Lord, but nonetheless, all of them are promised the same gift, that is the gift of salvation and eternal life.

What is then, the meaning of today’s readings? It is a reminder to each one of us that as Christians we must always be concerned about others, be caring and loving towards others, be selfless and humble, and be obedient towards God, and not to be selfish and haughty. What we have heard in the Gospel, is the animosity that the workers who came earlier had on the latter workers, because they thought that their labours made them to deserve more pay.

In the end, everything was about the self, the ego, and the desire that we have to please ourselves, to satisfy ourselves, and to fulfil our wants and wishes. That is our way, the way that we are familiar with, but not the way that God wants each one of us as Christians to follow in our lives. In the first reading today, the prophet Isaiah mentioned in his book, that our ways are not God’s ways, and His ways are far greater than ours, and His thoughts are different from our thoughts.

It is this same message which in our second reading today, St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Philippi, about the choice that we must make in life, between following our human desires and wants, or following God’s ways and will. We may even be torn between the two choices, and coerced or pressurised to do what the world wants us to do. Yet, as Christians all of us must persevere through these and stand up for our faith.

Are we able to overcome the desire to be pampered and the sense of privilege and the desire to be satisfied? Are we able to get rid of our greed for money and the wish to be rewarded for our work? Many of us tend to look down on others whom we deem to be less holy and not as good as us, and we tend to despise them and even become angry when they were counted among us the faithful, because we think that we deserve better than that.

And that is because we think and act in terms of the world, in terms of our own standards and ways. But we often forget that God does not work upon the same way and standard as ours, as He does not differentiate us based on how much we have done, and how great we have become in the sight of this world, but rather, whether each one of us have that genuine love and commitment to Him, from our hearts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listen to these words of the Scripture and the reminders given to us by the Church, let us all strive to become what the Lord had wanted us to be, that is to become smaller in our pride and instead become greater in our humility. The more devout and faithful we are to the Lord, the more humble we should become, and the more love we should show, not just for the Lord but also for our fellow brethren, especially those who are still in the darkness and have not yet heard of the Lord’s salvation.

Therefore, let us all rejoice whenever the Lord brings one of our brothers and sisters to salvation through His Church. Let us welcome them with love and care, compassion and mercy, and let us also not become obstacles in the works of God’s love, but instead give our very best to help those who are still separated from God’s love, that they too may be saved, and together we may give glory to God forevermore. May God bless us all and our endeavours. Amen.

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Sunday, 24 September 2017 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 20 : 1-16a

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven : A landowner went out early in the morning, to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay each worker the usual daily wage, and sent them to his vineyard.”

“He went out again, at about nine in the morning, and, seeing others idle in the town square, he said to them, ‘You also, go to my vineyard, and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went. The owner went out at midday, and, again, at three in the afternoon, and he made the same offer.”

“Again he went out, at the last working hour – the eleventh – and he saw others standing around. So he said to them, ‘Why do you stand idle the whole day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said, ‘Go, and work in my vineyard.'”

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had gone to work at the eleventh hour came up, and were each given a silver coin. When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received one silver coin. On receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.”

“They said, ‘These last, hardly worked an hour; yet, you have treated them the same as us, who have endured the heavy work of the day and the heat.’ The owner said to one of them, ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on one silver coin per day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Why are you envious when I am kind?'”

“So will it be : the last will be first.”

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Sunday, 24 September 2017 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Philippians 1 : 20c-24, 27a

Christ will be exalted through my person, whether I live or die. For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I am to go on living, I shall be able to enjoy fruitful labour. Which shall I choose?

So I feel torn between the two. I desire greatly to leave this life and to be with Christ, which will be better by far, but it is necessary for you that I remain in this life. Try, then, to adjust your lives according to the Gospel of Christ.

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Sunday, 24 September 2017 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 2-3, 8-9, 17-18

I will praise You, day after day; and exalt Your Name forever. Great is YHVH, most worthy of praise; and His deeds are beyond measure.

Compassionate and gracious is YHVH, slow to anger and abounding in love. YHVH is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

Righteous is YHVH in all His ways, His mercy shows in all His deeds. He is near those who call on Him, who call trustfully upon His Name.

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Sunday, 24 September 2017 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 55 : 6-9

Seek YHVH while He may be found; call to Him while He is near. Let the wicked abandon his way, let him forsake his thoughts, let him turn to YHVH for He will have mercy, for our God is generous in forgiving.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways, says YHVH. For as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts.

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Saturday, 24 September 2016 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the readings of the Scripture may not show clearly their intentions to us, but the intention of the Church for selecting these particular passages from the Scripture is actually so that we may understand that for all that we have prepared for, planned for, looked forward to, and anticipated in this life, nothing will come to fruition unless it is in accordance with God’s will.

In order to understand fully what the Scripture readings today brought to us, we have to understand the mentality and the thinking behind those people who followed Jesus at that time, His Apostles, disciples and all the throng of people who came to see Him and to listen to His preachings. At that time, many had the opinion that the Messiah would come to liberate the people of Israel from the tyranny of their oppressors, the Romans for example, and reestablish the old kingdom of Israel, with the Messiah as the King over Israel.

Many had attempted over the years to restore the glory of the kingdom of Israel, claiming to be the Saviour sent by God and rose up in insurrection and rebellion, but these were all crushed and defeated, for they did not come from God, but instead from mankind and their efforts and desires alone. That was why they have been hindered and did not find success in their endeavours. Mankind can plan all the things they want, but often, things will not go their way, no matter how well planned everything are.

For the disciples of Jesus, for their Master and Saviour to have uttered not just once, but many times about the future fate that awaited Him must have been hard to accept, and some might have found it to be utterly bizarre for someone like Jesus, Whom God had sent to be the Saviour and Messiah of all, to be rejected, and ultimately to suffer and to perish in a humiliating death on the cross, handed over to the pagans to be humiliated and punished for causes that were not His to begin with.

But that is how the Lord did His works, by submitting humbly to the will of the Father and Creator, that He, the Divine Word Who had descended into the flesh to the world, may be able to bear the burden of the wholeness of all of our sins, as many and countless as they are. He bore all the sufferings, consequences, punishments and all that came about because of our wickedness and disobedience, that all of us who come to put our faith in Him may be saved and be spared from the eternal damnation.

In all these, let us all spend some time to reflect on what our life has been to us and how our actions and deeds have been shaped by mostly our concerns in this life, our worldly and human desires, that have made us to neglect our faith and devotion to the Lord. Many of us are too bogged down and distracted by our worldly concerns, desires, and all the temptations that the devil and his allies are placing ahead of us and on our journey in order to pull us away from our effort to find the Lord and His salvation.

Instead, let us all abandon all these meaningless and useless acts, all the preoccupations we have in gathering fame, honour, wealth, renown and all the other worldly glories to ourselves. The Lord will bless all those who are righteous and just in their deeds, and He will care for all of us, giving us all that we need in due time. We have no need to worry about anything if we are truly faithful to our Lord.

We have to learn to put our trust in the Lord, in His blessings and in His ways. Let us not be discouraged but continue to believe in our Lord despite all the challenges and the difficulties that we have faced, are facing, or will face because of our faith in Him. It is not safe for us to build for ourselves treasures in this world, for anything in this world can be easily destroyed and perish without a trace.

But building up for ourselves treasures in heaven is guaranteed and safe, for the Lord Himself has assured us that all of His faithful ones will receive rich graces and the gift of everlasting life in pure joy and bliss. Therefore, let us all from now on seek to do what is right and just in the sight of God, and learn to tame and resist our desires and human greed, that we will not be swallowed by these and therefore, will be able to persevere well in our journey to find justification and salvation in the Lord. May the Lord help us and bless us in this journey. Amen.

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Saturday, 24 September 2016 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Luke 9 : 43b-45

At that time, while all were amazed at everything Jesus did, He said to His disciples, “Listen, and remember what I tell you now : The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men.”

But the disciples did not understand this saying; something prevented them from grasping what He meant, and they were afraid to ask Him about it.

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Saturday, 24 September 2016 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Psalm 89 : 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17

You turn humans back to dust, saying, “Return, o mortals!” A thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has passed, or like a watch in the night.

You sow them in their time, at dawn they peep out. In the morning they blossom, but the flower fades and withers in the evening.

So make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. How long will You be angry, o Lord? Have mercy on Your servant.

Fill us at daybreak with Your goodness, that we may be glad all our days. May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us; may He prosper the work of our hands.