31st Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Monday, 6 November 2017 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 11 : 29-36

Because the call of God, and His gifts, cannot be nullified. Through the disobedience of the Jews, the mercy of God came to you who did not obey God. They, in turn, will receive mercy, in due time, after this disobedience, that brought God’s mercy to you. So, God has submitted all to disobedience, in order to show His mercy to all.

How deep are the riches, the wisdom and knowledge of God! His decisions cannot be explained, nor His ways understood! Who has ever known God’s thoughts? Who has ever been His adviser? Who has given Him something first, so that God had to repay him? For everything comes from Him, has been made by Him and has to return to Him. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.

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Sunday, 5 November 2017 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us heard from the Scriptures contrasting between what we heard from the prophet Malachi in our first reading today and what we heard in the Gospel, speaking about a warning given from God through His prophet Malachi, about those who have not obeyed the Lord and misled His people, particularly the priests and elders, on whom had been granted the responsibilities of shepherding God’s people to the right path.

In the Gospel passage, we heard about the Lord Jesus Who spoke to the people about listening and obeying the Pharisees and the elders in their teachings. Jesus exhorted the people to listen to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in their teachings, but not to follow them in their actions, for those leaders did not practice what they had preached. And even though they sat on the chair of Judgement, but they misused their authorities to abuse the power entrusted to them.

In the Gospel, it was mentioned how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law liked to boast about their faith by making lots of outward expressions of the faith, through public prayers and expositions of their faith life, by parading around in prayer garments with wide prayer tassels and shawls. Jesus our Lord criticised the behaviour of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because when they did all those, they did not do them for God or for His people, but for themselves.

This passage was often misused and misunderstood, especially by those who were against the Church and against God’s teachings. There were those who attacked and criticised the Church, for the riches and the greatness exhibited and shown in our churches, in our liturgical celebrations, in all the sacred vestments and vessels we used for the Holy Mass and many more. They criticised us by misunderstanding the purpose and intentions of these things, through which in fact the Church proclaims its faith in God.

Why is that so? That is because all that the Church has done, in using beautiful and appropriate vestments, precious materials for the sacred vessels and all the things used in the celebrations of the Holy Mass and Liturgy are designed to recreate Heaven itself on earth, to bring mankind, all the faithful people of God into the authentic experience of worship, so that they may be able to centre their focus and attention towards God.

In the first reading and the Gospel, the prophet Malachi and Our Lord Jesus criticised and warned all those who have misled the people by false teachings and by their personal ambitions, trying to supplant God with their personal desires and ambitions, ego and pride, even though outwardly they might appear to be pious and devoted to God. Thus, the Lord criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, because their prayers and all the external signs of their faith were ultimately directed to themselves, and not to God.

But in the case of our Church, the purpose of our use of sacred architecture, vestments and all the liturgical paraphernalia is completely different, and in fact, they are, as mentioned, designed to help all of us to focus on God. When the priest celebrates the Holy Mass, he has been ordained to be the very representation of Christ Himself, that in ‘persona Christi’ or in the person of Christ Himself, the priest enacts the same Sacrifice at Calvary on the Altar of God.

The vestments worn by the priests and the other ministers ought to be richly decorated with the symbols of the faith, not so as to glorify the person of the priest, but rather to emphasise the divine ministry to which he has been ordained for, to be the one through whom the Lord exercises His power, as the priest turns the bread and wine into the Real Presence of our God Himself, and therefore, bringing the Lord directly to His people in the Eucharist.

The sacred vessels, the ciborium and the chalice, as well as other sacred vessels, particularly the former two use precious materials for the very simple reason that because we believe that the Lord Himself is really present in the Eucharist, in the bread and wine transubstantiated or transformed completely in matter and nature to the Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. If we believe that the Lord Himself is present, then, we mankind are just doing our very best to provide the most precious vessels to contain the Lord.

Thus, in fact, with proper instruction and understanding, of why we do certain things in our worship of God, we can even proclaim our faith and what we believe to others. On the other hand, when we end up focusing on the wrong things because of the abuses we often witness in many occasions, when the liturgy was not properly followed in the celebration of the Holy Mass, when the priests end up focusing the people not towards God but towards themselves, these are truly lamentable and regrettable.

And then again, in the Gospel today, the Lord Jesus spoke of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who enjoyed themselves being called ‘fathers’ or ‘leaders’ or ‘masters’, and criticised them for that. This is what has also been misused and misunderstood in what people had criticised about the Church, because we call our priests as fathers. Yet, we must understand it in the whole picture and the true intent of what Jesus told the people, lest we also misunderstand it.

We call our priests as fathers not because we idolise the person or because we find him greater than the Lord God, the Father of us all. As I have mentioned earlier, the priests have been called to a great vocation in life, as they gave it all, surrendering themselves completely to God, and they have been ordained to be the representative of Christ Our Lord Himself in the Holy Mass. Therefore, we call them fathers because we believe that they represent the Lord Himself, Our Father, in this world.

The Lord criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, as well as the priestly caste of Judea because they prided themselves as the leaders and elders of the people, placing their own ego and greed ahead of their duty as the shepherds appointed by God to take care of His people. Their hubris and ambition is what the Lord Jesus rebuked them against in the Gospel passage today, not their position as shepherds or priests.

In the end, what does this mean for all of us, brothers and sisters in Christ? First of all, it means that for all of us Christians, be it we are members of the laity or of the priesthood, all of us must not put our own desires and wants before that of God in our hearts and minds. We must place God as the priority and as the focus of our lives. Otherwise, if we allow our pride, ego, ambition and desire to take control over us, we will end up falling into the same condition that happened to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, where their faith became merely superficial and not truly founded on genuine faith and love for God.

Secondly, it means that all of us ought to pray for our priests and all those who have given themselves to the service of God in the Church. They are always under unjust and unfair criticism and attacks from those who misunderstood or misjudge the missions of the Church and its teachings, its intent and purpose in this world. Let us also help them in whatever way we can, so that they may continue to persevere amidst the challenges and difficulties they have to face daily.

And last of all, let us all be genuinely devoted to God, that in our every actions, our deeds and our words, in our prayer life, in our charitable works, in our outreach to our less fortunate brethren, we will always do them for the pure love and concern for our brothers and sisters, and by doing so, we glorify God’s Name and grow to love Him all the more with our lives. May God be with us always, and may He continue to guide us in our endeavours.

May the Lord also be with our priests, bishops, Cardinals and Pope, and may He bless them with an enduring faith and ever increasing love for Him. May He guide His Church through the turbulent times and help us through all these challenges we face together as one Church. Amen.

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Sunday, 5 November 2017 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 23 : 1-12

At that time, Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees have sat down on the chair of Moses. So you shall do and observe all they say; but do not do as they do, for they do not do what they say. They tie up heavy burdens and load them on the shoulders of the people, but they do not even lift a finger to move them.”

“They do everything in order to be seen by people : they wear very wide bands of the Law around their foreheads, and robes with large tassels. They enjoy the first places at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and they like being greeted in the marketplace, and being called ‘Master’ by the people.”

“But you, do not let yourselves be called Master, because you have only one Master, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Neither should you call anyone on earth Father, because you have only one Father, He Who is in heaven. Nor should you be called Leader, because Christ is the only Leader for you.”

“Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.”

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Sunday, 5 November 2017 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Thessalonians 2 : 7b-9, 13

We were gentle with you, as a nursing mother, who feeds and cuddles her baby. And so great is our concern, that we are ready to give you, as well as the Gospel, even our very lives, for you have become very dear to us.

Remember our labour and toil; when we preached the Gospel, we worked day and night, so as not to be a burden to you. This is why we never cease giving thanks to God for, on receiving our message, you accepted it, not as human teaching, but as the Word of God. That is what it really is, and, as such, it is at work in you who believe.

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Sunday, 5 November 2017 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 130 : 1, 2, 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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Sunday, 5 November 2017 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Malachi 1 : 14b – Malachi 2 : 2b, 8-10

For I am a great King; and My Name is respected through all the nations, says YHVH of hosts.

This warning is also for you, priests. If you do not listen to it, or concern yourself, to glorify My Name, says YHVH of hosts. But you, says YHVH of hosts, have strayed from My way, and, moreover, caused many to stumble because of your teaching. You have broken My Covenant with Levi.

Therefore, I let all the people despise you and consider you unworthy, because you do not follow My ways; and you show partiality in your judgments. Do we not all have the same Father? Has the same God not created all of us? Why, then, does each of us betray his brother, defiling the Covenant of our ancestors?

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Sunday, 30 October 2016 : 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard that well known story of Jesus and Zaccheus, one of the stories that many of us must have heard while we were having our catechism classes, where we heard about how Zaccheus, the rich tax collector but a short man, desired to see Jesus and endeavoured to climb a tree just so that he could see Him, and for that, the Lord rewarded him with the privilege of Him coming to his house to eat with him and the other tax collectors.

And through that story, we heard the loving kindness, compassion and mercy of our Lord, Who loves each and every one of us equally, from the greatest of sinners to the greatest of the virtuous and righteous ones. God showed us all His love and mercy even though we have disobeyed Him and have been rebellious and delinquent in our ways. It is His desire that we are able to find our way to His loving mercy and be forgiven for our trespasses and sins.

That is the essence of our Gospel passage today, as well as some other stories of Jesus’ works, where He showed mercy to the woman caught in adultery, whom the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law wanted to stone to death. And that is also what He told His disciples when He related to them the parable of the prodigal son, telling them about a son who have disobeyed his father, and following his own desires, committed wicked lifestyle and eventually after having suffered, decided to repent and return to the house of his father, and the father accepted him back with love.

All of these showed to us the infinite mercy of our Lord, how great an extent He is willing to go in order to regain us back, all of us who have been sundered from Him because of our iniquities and sins, which resulted in our estrangement and fall into sin. But at the same time, as was the case when Jesus forgave the woman caught committing adultery, He told her not to sin anymore and go in peace from then on.

This is a reminder for us that while God’s mercy is given to us freely and unconditionally, but whether we will receive the fullness of His love and mercy depends solely on our desire to be forgiven, that is through genuine repentance and desire to change ourselves. No mercy and forgiveness can take place without repentance just as much as we cannot clap using only one hand. We have to have mercy and repentance working in tandem and only then we will be shown mercy and forgiveness.

After all, let us look at the examples of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, the scribes, elders and the chief priests themselves. God came into this world not just to save the prostitutes, tax collectors and all considered as sinners, since it is one misconception that can easily be made when we read today’s Gospel and other passages from the Sacred Scriptures.

Rather, God came to save all, be it those who are righteous or those considered as sinners, or those who have high and noble birth, and those who have low and common birth. He does not look at appearances, status or other worldly classifications of ourselves, but instead, He is looking deep into our hearts in order to see if we are truly worthy of His salvation.

Jesus forgave His enemies and those who have made Him to suffer from the cross, by saying to God His Father, ‘Father, do not hold this sin against them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ And through these words we can see that even Jesus came to deliver these people from their sins, and showed mercy as well as compassion to them, instead of cursing them and being angry with them. Now then the question is, did they take up His offer of mercy? Did they change their ways and repent? Or did they go on with their lives as how it was?

Therefore, we can see here that while God came for all of His people, to the Pharisees, to the tax collectors, to the chief priests, to the prostitutes, to people big and small in statures and status in the society, to those who have good appearances and bad appearances, all ultimately depend on their acceptance of that mercy and forgiveness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the same applies to us as well. We have lots of opportunities given to us by God to be redeemed and to be forgiven our sins in this life we are now enjoying in this earth. However, are we doing something in order to accept that salvation offered freely to us and do what is required of us? As Christians, all of us have been accepted by God to be members of His own Sacred Body, the Church, and we have been brought into one people, to be God’s own chosen ones, and be cleansed of the taints of original sins of our ancestors, but this does not mean that we can be complacent.

In fact, there are many Christians out there who are complacent and lukewarm in their faith, thinking that they are justified on the account of their faith alone, but then let me ask you, ‘What is faith?’ There may be many among us who do not really know or understand what is faith truly about, that is what is our faith is about. Can we truly say that we believe in God if we do not even act in the way that our faith requires of us, and which our Lord had taught us through His Church?

Just as Jesus Himself said, that not all who said ‘Lord, Lord’ will be saved, and also all who claimed to know Him and have indeed sat with Him and knew Him will be saved, just because they did not do as He had commanded them to do, and rather than doing what is good in the sight of God, through their wickedness and evil, they have besmirched and stained the good Name of the Lord in the sight of many people.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, our faith requires active participation in good works and commitment to love, loving our brethren and showing our faith through true and living commitment in our words, actions and deeds, that we then shall be found just and worthy by the Lord, Who will then welcome us into His promise of eternal life, true joy and glory with Him in His heavenly kingdom, where we shall enjoy forever the joy of everlasting life without end.

But all of these, as mentioned earlier today, requires us to devote ourselves to do what is good and righteous before God, shunning evil and repenting from our sins. All of us are sinners, and all of us have disobeyed the Lord in one way or another, but that does not mean that any of us are beyond God’s salvation or hope. As long as we are still alive in this world, and desiring for a complete change of our own sinful life, there is always hope for us.

That is where we as Christians should contribute to the good works of our Lord’s salvation. There are many out there who have given up the hope of God’s salvation, and even many more who are still living in darkness and in ignorance of God’s truth and salvation. It is up to us then to help them, and to guide them that they may find their way to the Lord and thus be saved.

And as such, shall we not, brethren, commit ourselves anew to do the will of God and to obey Him in all things? And as St. Francis of Assisi was famous through his prayer, let us also pray it together, that when there is hatred, let us all sow love, and when there is injury, let us pardon, when there is doubt, let us all bring faith, when there is despair, let us all bring hope to each other, and when there is darkness, let us be light to one another, and finally when there is sadness and sorrow, let us bring joy to each other.

May God help us all to become better Christians and role model for one another, that in all the things we do and say, we always proclaim the Lord’s glory and be ever faithful to His ways and commandments, by showing mercy to sinners, and by seeking genuine repentance and regretting sincerely all of our sins, that all of us may eventually find our way to the Lord. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 October 2016 : 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 19 : 1-10

At that time, when Jesus entered Jericho and passed through the city, a man named Zaccheus lived there. He was a tax collector and a wealthy man. He wanted to see what Jesus was like, but he was a short man and could not see Him because of the crowd.

So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree. From there he would be able to see Jesus, Who was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, Zaccheus, come down quickly, for I must stay at your house today.” So Zaccheus climbed down and received Him joyfully.

All the people who saw it began to grumble, and said, “He has gone as a guest to the house of a sinner.” But Zaccheus spoke to Jesus, “Half of what I own, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone, I will pay him back four times as much.”

Looking at him Jesus said, “Salvation has come to this house today, for he is also a true son of Abraham. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

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Sunday, 30 October 2016 : 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Thessalonians 1 : 11 – 2 Thessalonians 2 : 2

This is why we constantly pray for you; may our God make you worthy of His calling. May He, by His power, fulfil your good purposes and your work prompted by faith. In that way, the Name of Jesus our Lord will be glorified through you, and you through Him, according to the loving plan of God and of Christ Jesus the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, let us speak about the coming of Christ Jesus, our Lord, and our gathering to meet Him. Do not be easily unsettled. Do not be alarmed by what a prophet says or by any report, or by some letter said to be ours, saying the day of the Lord is at hand.

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Sunday, 30 October 2016 : 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 144 : 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13cd-14

I will extol You, my God and King; I will bless Your Name forever. I will praise You day after day and exalt Your Name forever.

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

All Your works will give You thanks; all Your saints, o Lord, will praise You. They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your power.

The Lord is true to His promises and lets His mercy show in all He does. The Lord lifts up those who are falling and raises those who are beaten down.