26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Tuesday, 1 October 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, Patroness of all Missionaries and the Missions (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we mark the beginning of the Extraordinary Mission Month as promulgated by Pope Francis earlier last year and it is fitting that this month of October begins with the feast of the Patroness of all Missionaries and Missions, namely St. Therese of Lisieux, also known as St. Therese of the Child Jesus, a great visionary and saint, and through her many excellent writings, a great Doctor of the Church and inspiration to all of us.

St. Therese of Lisieux was a Discalced Carmelite nun who was renowned for her ‘Little Way’ or the ‘Little Way of St. Therese of Lisieux’, which is why she was also known as the ‘Little Flower of Jesus’. St. Therese of Lisieux faced a lot of difficulties during the early years of her life and in embracing her calling into religious life as even though she was raised in a pious and virtuous family, her parents being just recently canonised as saints as well, St. Louis Martin and St. Marie-Azelie Guerin, but she had a frail condition and health.

Nonetheless, this did not stop St. Therese of Lisieux from listening to God’s call and embracing her calling, which in a way inspired her own family to also embrace their calling, as eventually the siblings of St. Therese of Lisieux also embraced and committed themselves to religious life like St. Therese had been. She received many visions throughout her life, from the Lord and His blessed Mother Mary, both before and after she joined the religious life.

That was how she began to journal her experiences and wrote extensively about those spiritual experiences and her thoughts, which made her own incredible piety and devotion to God even more amazing. She spent a lot of time praying for priests and many of the people whose faith were weak and lukewarm, hoping that through her prayers those people would be fortified further in their own faith and devotion to God.

And despite the tough circumstances and conditions she had to bear as a member of the strict Carmelite order, and the bullying and challenges she actually experienced during her years in the service of God, St. Therese continued to devote herself to God ever more strongly through prayer and through her love for her community, and by her examples and inspiring faith, eventually many would be strengthened in their own faith and others became converts through her many works and writings.

Truly, this is the essence of what missionary work is all about, and the Lord in our Gospel passage today wants to remind us of both our obligation as Christians as well as how we should approach this responsibility we now have in being witnesses of our faith and as missionaries of the Gospels of Christ. We must not be afraid to embrace God with all of our strength and love Him with all of our abilities as St. Therese of Lisieux had done.

And we should not think that it is impossible for us to devote ourselves just because we think that we are unworthy or incapable of doing what our holy predecessors had done. To be a good missionary does not need us to do great and wonderful deeds, or to perform miracles and doing seemingly superhuman feats. We tend to think too much, worry too much and have too many things in our minds and in the end, our fears, worries and uncertainties will become our undoing.

In today’s Gospel and also through the life and philosophy of St. Therese of Lisieux, we are all called to change our mindset and perspective of life, in how we should devote ourselves to the Lord. We are called to reflect on what it means for us to welcome the Lord like that of little children and how to love Him like those children had loved Him. A children’s love and faith are pure, and they are pure because they have not yet been corrupted by worldly desires and thoughts.

Therefore, our love for God must also be pure and unconditional just as how He Himself has loved us first. God has not reserved or held back His love towards us at all, and He gave us everything through Christ, His Son, Who suffered grievously and died on the Cross for the sake of our salvation. And as St. Therese of Lisieux famously put in her ‘Little Way’ as I mentioned earlier, that is for us to be faithful to God, it does not need us to be great or to do superhuman feats.

Rather, what we need to do, according to St. Therese of Lisieux, is to become small and humble, recognising our faults and shortcomings that we may empty ourselves of ego, pride and desires so that we may truly be able to love God and give ourselves to Him wholeheartedly, and doing this in a manner that we take a small, little step one at a time, and not a giant leap. Ultimately, all those small little steps will add up together and become a great progress for us in our journey of faith.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called today to be missionaries of our faith, to become the witnesses of Christ, in every little and small things we do in our lives, in everything that we say and we do, in all of our interactions with our fellow brethren, that we should commit ourselves to the path of righteousness and do only what pleases God from now on. Let us all be inspirations for one another and encourage one another to live more faithfully from now on.

May the Lord continue to bless us all and guide us in our journey of faith, and may He empower us all to live more courageously in His presence. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Tuesday, 1 October 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, Patroness of all Missionaries and the Missions (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 18 : 1-5

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.”

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Tuesday, 1 October 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, Patroness of all Missionaries and the Missions (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 131 : 1-3

O YHVH, my heart is not proud nor do I have arrogant eyes. I am not engrossed in ambitious matters, nor in things too great for me.

I have quieted and stilled my soul, like a weaned child, on its mother’s lap; like a contented child is my soul.

Hope in YHVH, o Israel, now and forever.

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Tuesday, 1 October 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church, Patroness of all Missionaries and the Missions (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Isaiah 66 : 10-14

Rejoice for Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her. Be glad with her, rejoice with her, all you who were in grief over her, that you may suck of the milk from her comforting breasts, that you may drink deeply from the abundance of her glory.

For this is what YHVH says : I will send her peace, overflowing like a river; and the nations’ wealth, rushing like a torrent towards her. And you will be nursed and carried in her arms and fondled upon her lap. As a son comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you. At the sight of this, your heart will rejoice; like grass, your bones will flourish.

For it shall be known that YHVH’s hand is with His servant, but His fury is upon His enemy.

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Monday, 30 September 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scriptures reminding us about the matter of welcoming God into our midst, as we heard in our Gospel passage today, of the Lord speaking to His disciples on how they should welcome Him like that of a little child. And He made this comparison because a young child’s faith, unlike that of adults, is truly pure and genuine and not masked by other worldly desires.

That is why He reminded His disciples that they should welcome Him in the manner that those little children have welcomed Him. In that occasion, when the people brought little children to the Lord, His disciples wanted to prevent them and push the children away from Him, but the Lord rebuked them for doing something like that. For He wanted them to know that the Lord truly loves everyone without exceptions and His love for them is such that no one should ever be prevented from coming to Him.

And in the same way, we should not let ourselves to be prevented from coming towards God and loving Him, although the reality is such that we often keep God away from us and this is caused by our own preoccupations and attachments to the many temptations and desires present in this world. We are often too busy thinking about other things to be able to think about God or to love Him, because we love ourselves and the world so much more than we love Him.

That is why many of us are struggling in our faith, and we are unable to love God as we should have loved Him. We are unable to reach out to God with the fullness of sincerity and genuine love, as long as we allow ourselves to be tempted and pulled away from God’s loving and tender care. But God has always continued to love us all regardless, and He has always been faithful to the Covenant which He had made with us all.

In what He revealed to us all through His prophet Zechariah in our first reading today, we have heard just how much He loves each and every one of us, His beloved people, and how He wants to restore us and to bless us tremendously once again. God has always thought about us and committed Himself to us all by giving us again and again the wonders of His love, and there is no greater gift than the gift of His own beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

For through Christ, God has given us all the surety of salvation and new life in Him. Through Christ, God has showed us all what it truly means to love, and to love generously and tenderly, giving us His all in love, even if it means for Him to take up the unimaginably heavy burden of the Cross and enduring all those sufferings just so that He can save us from certain destruction because of our sins.

Are we able to love God in the same way that He has loved us all? Perhaps we should look at the examples set by His saints, those who have lived and gone before us, leading the path for us in holiness. And today we celebrate the feast of St. Jerome, a great saint and a very important Church father, one of the very influential leaders of the early Church, as one of the original Doctors of the Church.

St. Jerome was renowned for his great dedication to God, spending many years and decades in solitary isolation, loving God and devoting himself in prayer to God through an ascetic lifestyle. And it was also then that St. Jerome completed the Latin translation of the Scriptures, from the Greek Septuagint Scriptures into what would eventually be known as the Latin Vulgate Bible.

Through his many years of dedication to the Lord, St. Jerome showed us all what it truly means to love God with all of his heart and strength, and it was indeed certainly not easy, as he had to endure so many challenges, temptations and difficulties throughout his life. Yet, he made the effort to resist those temptations and strive to love God as best as he could. Are we able to do the same in our own lives, brothers and sisters in Christ?

Let us all draw closer to God and let us love Him sincerely from our hearts, doing our very best to serve Him and to be His beloved children once again. May the Lord continue to bless us in all of our endeavours and may He continue to guide us in our journey of faith. Amen.

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Monday, 30 September 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 9 : 46-50

At that time, one day, the disciples were arguing about which of them was the most important. But Jesus knew their thoughts, so He took a little child and stood him by His side. Then He said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in My Name, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One Who sent Me. And listen : the one who is found to be the least among you all, is the one who is the greatest.”

Then John spoke up, “Master, we saw someone who drives out demons by calling upon Your Name, and we tried to forbid him, because he does not follow You with us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him. He who is not against you is for you.”

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Monday, 30 September 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 101 : 16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23

O Lord, the nations will revere Your Name, and the kings of the earth Your glory, when the Lord 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, “The Lord will be praised by a people He will form.” From His holy height in heaven, the Lord has looked on the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.”

Your servants’ children will dwell secure; their posterity will endure without fail. Then the Name of the Lord will be declared in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship Him.

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Monday, 30 September 2019 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Zechariah 8 : 1-8

The word of YHVH, the God of hosts was directed to me in this way, “I am intensely jealous for Zion, stirred by a burning anger for her sake. YHVH says : I will return to Zion and live in her midst. Jerusalem shall be called the city of faithfulness and the mountain of holiness.”

YHVH, God of hosts speaks, “Old men and women will again sit in the squares, each with a stick in hand on account of their great age. The squares of the city will be filled with girls and boys playing.”

YHVH, God of hosts declared, “If that seems impossible in the eyes of those who have returned from exile, will it be impossible for Me as well?” – word of YHVH. YHVH, God of hosts says, “See, I am going to save My people, bringing them from the east and from the west; and they will live in Jerusalem. They will be My people and I shall be their God, in truth and in justice.”

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Sunday, 29 September 2019 : Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, all of us are all called to live a holy and virtuous life that is centred not on worldly possessions and the many temptations present in this world, but rather on God alone. We have to remember this at all times, lest those same temptations pull us into the wrong path, as the evil one is always ever ready and ever busy to strike at us with all of his capabilities.

In our first reading today, we heard the words of the prophet Amos being directed at the Israelites conveying the anger of God at those people because of their refusal to believe in Him and His prophet, their refusal to listen to those whom God had sent into their midst to remind them to follow His path. They have hardened their hearts and closed their minds to God, and they preferred to live in sin and worshipped pagan idols and gods instead of the One and only True God they should have been worshipping.

The prophet Amos worked and ministered to the people during the last years of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was referred to in the first reading passage today as ‘Samaria’, which was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was a foreboding and warning to those people that should they continue to live in sin and refused to change their ways, they would see the end of their kingdom and had to endure exile, as how it actually happened in the end.

And this is related to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus used the parable of Lazarus and the rich man to highlight how important it is for us to live a truly God-centric life and resist the many temptations found in this world. In that well-known parable we heard how the Lord Jesus told His disciples the story of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus, who was always by the gate of the house of the rich man, hungry and suffering while the rich man feasted and dressed well every single day.

Through this parable, the Lord wanted us all to know that it is not that He is against us having wealth or that being wealthy is something that is sinful and wrong, but rather, it is our unhealthy and dangerous attachment to those worldly possessions, be it wealth in any forms, in money and other goods of pleasures, even in matter of dress and food that we must be wary of. Those goods on their own are not evil or bad by nature.

In fact, having greater wealth and possessions is actually a blessing from God, that God has given us more and provided us with greater blessings in our own unique way. However, we must also remember what the Lord Himself also said in another different occasion, that ‘To those who have been given a lot, a lot is also then expected from them’. This means that the more blessings we have received from God, the more that we are actually challenged to make good use of them.

The very fact that Lazarus, the poor man stayed at the gate of the rich man’s house day after day, again and again showed just how oblivious the rich man and his household had been to the plight of Lazarus. The rich man and his household partied and celebrated without end, with all the goodness the world could have offered, enjoying to the fullest all of earth’s wonderful pleasures, satisfying themselves in great excess.

That poor man did not ask for much, just for food to alleviate his hunger and basic human needs and dignity. Yet, no one would give him what he deserved, and left him all alone to suffer until the day he died and went into heaven in the presence of God and Abraham, his forefather. Then as mentioned, the rich man also died, and he went into the eternal suffering in hell, suffering as the Lord said because during life, he had done what is wicked and enjoyed life as it was, while Lazarus suffered so greatly.

Being rich is truly not something that is inherently evil or bad. God does not despise the rich and the powerful as I have just mentioned. But when we misuse what God has given to us and blessed us with for our own selfish purposes, just as the prophet Amos spoke against the Israelites for their wicked and unjust actions towards one another, then we have committed a great sin against God.

But this is something that each and every one of us must always be wary about, as the temptations are always there, pulling us into the path of disobedience and sin. By our exposure to sin, and by the frailty of our body, mind and flesh, we are naturally predisposed to various desires, be it for wealth, money, for worldly things and possessions, for glory and power, for other pleasures of this world, to satisfy our own selfish desires.

This is where we must always stand ready to resist those temptations, which Satan and all the evil forces ever present around us are always ready to push onto us, trying to lure us away from the path of righteousness. And this is where in our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy, the Apostle reminded us that each and every one of us must strive to be holy and godly, and strive to resist all the negative emotions and temptations that threaten to take us away from God.

And looking again at the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, let us remember and realise just how futile our pursuits for worldly things and glories have been. For all of his wealth and power, his popularity and all the fame he had, the rich man was left with nothing when he entered into death and thrown into hell. In the end, he was just left by himself, in despair and total hopelessness, and no matter what he is doing and how he want to get out, once he is in hell, there is absolutely no hope for him, for he has rejected God completely and refused His love totally.

Satan purposely wants us to indulge in all those wicked things, and to be tempted to sin so that we will in the end lose everything, and he will never cease to tempt us and to push us into sin, and we should resist his efforts and seek for help in this constant battle raging daily for our souls. And today, as it happens, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.

Today, let us all ask for the help and protection from the three Holy Archangels, who is always ready to help us with the legions of Angels and our own Guardian Angels to protect us all from the attacks of the evil ones. But we also have to make the conscious effort to resist those temptations and realise that we have to hold onto the right things in life, that is not the false joys and happiness in worldly things, but rather to trust in God.

Let us all therefore make best use of whatever God has blessed us with, for the benefit of our fellow men and not be selfish like the rich man or the Israelites of the time of prophet Amos, who put themselves, their ego and pride ahead of their love for God and for their fellow men. Let us seek to be humble in all things and love God and place Him at the very centre of our lives and our existences. Let us not be ignorant of the needs and the plight of those who are less fortunate than us, but instead, let us be generous in sharing whatever happiness, joy and blessings we have received from God.

May the Holy Archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael protect us all and may they intercede for us and be our guardians in this constant, daily spiritual warfare that we may emerge triumphant, keeping ourselves away from unworthy and wicked attachments to false pleasures, joys and temptations of this world so that in all things we may become ever closer to God and be worthy of His promised inheritance and glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 29 September 2019 : Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 16 : 19-31

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Once there was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted every day. At his gate lay Lazarus, a poor man covered with sores, who longed to eat just the scraps falling from the rich man’s table. Even dogs used to come and lick his sores.”

“It happened that the poor man died, and Angels carried him to take his place with Abraham. The rich man also died, and was buried. From hell where he was in torment, the rich man looked up and saw Abraham afar off, and with him Lazarus at rest. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me, and send Lazarus, with the tip of his finger dipped in water, to cool my tongue, for I suffer so much in this fire.'”

“Abraham replied, ‘My son, remember that in your lifetime you were well-off, while the lot of Lazarus was misfortune. Now he is in comfort, and you are in agony. But that is not all. Between your place and ours a great chasm has been fixed, so that no one can cross over from here to you, or from your side to us.'”

“The rich man implored once more, ‘Then I beg you, Father Abraham, to send Lazarus to my father’s house, where my five brothers live, let him warn them, so that they may not end up in this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.'”

“But the rich man said, ‘No, Father Abraham; but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead.'”