5th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Thursday, 13 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 11 : 4-13

In Solomon’s old age, his wives led him astray to serve other gods and, unlike his father David, his heart was no longer wholly given to YHVH his God. For he served Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians, and Milcom, the idol of the Ammonites.

He did what displeased YHVH and, unlike his father David, was unfaithful to Him. Solomon even built a high place for Chemosh, the idol of Moab, on the mountain east of Jerusalem and also for Molech, the idol of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives who burnt incense and sacrificed to their gods.

YHVH became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from YHVH, the God of Israel. YHVH appeared to him twice and commanded him not to follow other gods. But he did not obey YHVH’s command. Therefore, YHVH said to Solomon, “Since this has been your choice and you have kept neither My Covenant nor the statutes I commanded you, I will take the kingdom from you and give it to your servant.”

“Nevertheless, I will not do this during your lifetime for the sake of your father David; I will take it from your son. But I will not take it all; I will reserve one tribe for your son for the sake of David My servant, and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen.”

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Wednesday, 12 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of God in the Scripture that speak to us of the importance of our external and even more so, internal orientation towards God in our respective lives. If our internal orientation towards God is not proper and we are instead distracted and scattered by the many temptations in this world, we will likely fall into sin and away from God’s grace.

In our first reading today, we begin with the story of the greatness of Solomon, Israel’s greatest king and son of David, who together with his father ushered the golden age of the old kingdom of Israel. Solomon’s glory, wealth and power were legendary and everyone honoured and praised him for his great wisdom and might, that as we heard in today’s passage, even the Queen of the distant country of Sheba troubled herself to go all the way to Jerusalem just to meet with Solomon.

God had granted Solomon his great wisdom, his wealth, power and glory because earlier on at the start of his reign, when Solomon was still young and new to the throne, inexperienced and weak, he prayed to God asking for wisdom to help him in ruling over the kingdom of his great father David. God blessed Solomon because of his great humility and also his uprightness, his desire not for worldly power but instead for wisdom and guidance.

However, in time, as Solomon grew increasingly older, as the Scriptures would show us, he became more and more influenced by his many wives and concubines, who still kept their pagan ways and practices. Solomon was probably consumed by his pride and greed, and he allowed all those things to cloud his judgment and led him and the Israelites into sin during the last years of his reign as king over Israel. And comparison was made between David and Solomon, how the latter did not remain faithful to God while David did, despite also having sinned against God a few times.

That is because David truly loved God with all of his heart, and his heart was aligned with God, and he maintained that love and devotion throughout his life to the very end. Although he, as a man, was also tempted to sin and fell on a few occasions, David has always put the Lord as his priority and sincerely repented from his sins and shortcomings. As a result, he remained firmly in God’s grace, and his reign remained good and strong by God’s providence.

Let us all compare this to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in which Our Lord Jesus had just had an exchange with the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who criticised Him and His disciples for not following and adhering to the commandments of the Law of Moses, on the matter of ritual cleansing and purification. At that time, according to the Law, everyone were to clean themselves before they ate food, and the Pharisees observed that the Lord’s disciples did not do so.

The Lord rebuked the Pharisees by being critical over their obsession on the wrong aspect of the Law, their focus on the trivial details and the way of the observance of the Law which they prescribed to, in being overly critical of those who did not adhere to their way of observing the Law. And Jesus also rebuked many of those Pharisees for their lack of genuine faith and for being hypocrites because they showed off their piety and actions to be praised by others rather than because they truly loved God with all their hearts.

This is related to what we have heard in the case of king Solomon, because it is likely that all of his glory and greatness eventually affected and influenced him, and as a result, he neglected his interior disposition and orientation towards God, allowing the devil to enter into his heart and mind, sowing the seeds of rebellion and sin, just as what had been done to the Pharisees. The latter’s insecurities and fear of losing their influence over the people made them vulnerable to the temptation of pride and desire which made them stubborn in opposing the Lord and His many good works.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the lesson that each and every one of us as Christians must take is that we are all called to be vigilant in our lives that we must make sure that our faith in God is truly genuine and sincere, that God must be at the centre of our lives, as the reason and purpose of our every words and actions. We must not do things just because we want to be seen as better than others or to be praised, for our faith is not for ourselves to boast about, but rather for us to grow in our relationship with God.

If we allow pride and desire to interfere with our faith, as king Solomon and many of the Pharisees had done, it showed that we do not love God as much as we should have, and despite our apparent and external show of faith, in truth, we love ourselves more than we love God. And in time, this attitude will lead us to walk further and further away from God and from His righteousness. Let us all ponder about this and discern carefully how we will carry on living our lives with faith from now on. May God be with us all, and may He bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 12 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 14-23

At that time, Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. Let everyone who has ears listen.”

When Jesus got home and was away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about this saying, and He replied, “So even you are dull? Do you not see that whatever comes from outside cannot make a person unclean, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and is finally passed out?”

Thus Jesus declared that all foods are clean. And He went on, “What comes our of a person is what defiles him, for evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

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Wednesday, 12 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 36 : 5-6, 30-31, 39-40

Commit your way to YHVH; put your trust in Him and let Him act. Then will your revenge come, beautiful as the dawn, and the justification of your cause, bright as the noonday sun.

The mouth of the virtuous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks of what is right. His steps have never faltered, for the Law of God is in his heart.

YHVH is the salvation of the righteous; in time of distress, He is their refuge. YHVH helps them, and rescues them from the oppressor; He saves them, for they sought shelter in Him.

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Wednesday, 12 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 10 : 1-10

The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon’s fame, and came to test him with difficult questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a vast retinue and with camels loaded with spices and an abundance of gold and precious stones.

When she came to Solomon, she told him all that she had on her mind and Solomon answered all her questions. There was nothing that the king could not explain to her. And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the palace he had built, the food on his table, the residence of his officials, the attendance of his servants and their clothing, his cupbearers, and the burnt offerings which he offered at YHVH’s House, it left her breathless.

Then she said to the king, “All that I heard in my own land concerning you and your wisdom was true. But I did not believe the reports until I came and saw with my own eyes. And what did I see! I was told only half the story; for your wisdom and wealth surpass the report I heard.”

“Fortunate are your wives! Fortunate are your servants who are ever in your presence and hear your wisdom! Blessed be YHVH your God, Who has looked kindly on you and has put you on the throne of Israel! Because of YHVH’s eternal love for Israel, He has made you king so that you may dispense justice and righteousness.”

Then she gave the king a hundred and twenty talents of gold, spices in abundance, and precious stones. Such an abundance of spices as those which the queen of Sheba gave to king Solomon was never again seen.

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Tuesday, 11 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, celebrating one of the most famous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes in southern part of France. At that time, Mary appeared to a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous in a grotto within the forest nearby the small village town of Lourdes. The Blessed Virgin revealed herself to be the Lady of the Immaculate Conception. But before that revelation, she appeared as a figure of a woman dressed in white and bedazzled with light.

Bernadette Soubirous, later on to be known as St. Bernadette Soubirous was an uneducated peasant young girl, whose words no one initially took seriously, including the local parish priest to whom St. Bernadette had reported her vision of the apparition. Initially the priest was skeptical as was others, who thought that the young St. Bernadette must have been hallucinating. Yet, more and more apparition came through and the Blessed Virgin continued to make herself visible to St. Bernadette and some others who came to visit the grotto with her.

In one occasion, St. Bernadette was asked to show a sign by the people, and the Blessed Virgin guided her by asking her to dig the ground at a spot that she showed her. As St. Bernadette dug the ground, the ground felt damp and wet, and immediately a gush of spring water came out of the ground. This would eventually become the origin of the now famous Lourdes holy springs of water that had healed many people who came to Lourdes seeking to be healed by the grace of God through His mother Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes.

When the local priest and others still doubted the authenticity of the apparition, St. Bernadette asked the apparition of her name, and the Lady responded with ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’ as I mentioned earlier. St. Bernadette brought this response to the priest who was completely taken by surprise at what he had heard. For at that time, in the year 1858, the year of the apparition, it was just four years after the declaration of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Blessed Pope Pius IX.

As such, due to the constraints of technology and communication at that time, as well as the obvious fact that St. Bernadette was just an illiterate, poor, uneducated young peasant girl, there could have been no way that St. Bernadette could have known of that fact beforehand if not for the fact that the apparition was indeed of the Blessed Virgin Mary herself. And since then, the priest would become a great champion for the cause of the apparition to be made officially approved and recognised by the Church, with the cooperation with the local bishop.

In the meanwhile, the crowds of people coming to the site continued to grow especially as several miracles were attributed to the spring water of Lourdes. Several people were healed of their illnesses and became perfectly well again. And eventually when doctors and psychologists came to investigate the miraculous occasion, the apparition and St. Bernadette herself, they could not explain all that happened there except with the eyes of the faith.

It would be several more years before the Church officially recognised the apparitions at Lourdes by the Blessed Virgin Mary, but ever since then, Lourdes have always been popular with numerous pilgrims from all over the world, especially the sick and the dying who were seeking God’s help through the intercession of His blessed Mother, Mary, who had made this recourse available for us mankind. And all of these indeed have its roots in what we have heard in our Scripture readings today.

In today’s Gospel text, we heard the famous account of the Wedding at Cana, the moment when Our Lord performed His very first miracle, turning water into wine for the sake of the couple who were married that day. As mentioned, the couple ran out of wine, and we have to understand that in the Jewish tradition, for a wedding to run out of wine while the celebration was still ongoing, it would be a terrible shame and embarrassment for the couple.

That was why the couple was having such a predicament, and Mary noticed their trouble, and she went to her Son Jesus, asking if He could do something to help the couple out of their trouble. The Lord responded that it was not yet His time, but nonetheless, Mary still went out of her way and told the servants to listen to whatever Jesus would be saying to them. Most likely moved by His mother’s compassion and concern for the couple, her plea for Him to help, Jesus moved and told the servants to follow His instructions, and as we all know, the water in the jars turned miraculously into the finest wines.

From what we have heard in this account from the Wedding at Cana and also what we have just talked about, the story of the apparition of Mary at Lourdes, we can clearly see how Mary, God’s own Mother, has always been concerned for us, and she has always tried to show us compassion and getting her Son, Our Lord, to help us from our troubles and predicaments. Just as the wedding couple faced potential shame and embarrassment from having not enough wine in their wedding, we too are beset by many troubles, including sickness and sufferings from many diseases.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remember that at the moment of His crucifixion and as He was about to die, the Lord Jesus entrusted His own mother Mary to St. John, His Apostle, and in doing so, He symbolically entrusted her to all of us His disciples and His Church. And at the same time, we have all also been entrusted to her as her own adopted children as well. That is why our Blessed Mother always looks upon us with loving and tender care, seeking our happiness and true joy in God, her Son.

And because Mary is the mother of God, by our faith we believe that she sits even now by the side of her Son’s throne in heaven. Historically, the mother of the king has always held great influence in the court and the king has also often listened to his mother’s counsel and words. In the same way therefore, Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, is always interceding and praying for us, and her Son, Our Lord and King, will listen to His own mother’s words and prayers.

That was how so many people who had faith in God and in the intercession of His mother, Our Lady of Lourdes, were healed from their many afflictions and sicknesses. Let us therefore today, which is also designed as the World Day of the Sick, focus our prayer and intentions on all our sick ones, for all those who are suffering from all sorts of physical, mental and spiritual sicknesses of all kinds. Let us also pray especially for this moment, those who are currently suffering from the terrible effects of the current novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCov, that all those who suffer may, by the grace of God and through the intercession of Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes, be healed from all of their sufferings, pains and troubles.

May the Lord continue to watch over us, and may His blessed mother, Mary, Our Lady of Lourdes continue to look after us, that each and every one of us who are suffering from sickness one way or another, may be healed and made whole, and having been made good and whole again, may we all be brought together in God’s love and embrace, forevermore. Amen.

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Tuesday, 11 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

Mark 7 : 1-13

At that time, one day, the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews, never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : ‘This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules.’ You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

And Jesus commented, “You have a fine way of disregarding the commandments of God in order to enforce your own traditions! For example, Moses said : Do your duty to your father and your mother, and : Whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death. But according to you, someone could say to his father or mother, ‘I already declared Corban (which means “offered to God”) what you could have expected from me.’”

“In this case, you no longer require him to do anything for his father or mother; and so you nullify the word of God through the tradition you have handed on. And you do many other things like that.”

Alternative reading (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

John 2 : 1-11

At that time, three days after Jesus called Nathanael, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with His disciples. When all the wine provided for the celebration had been served, and they had run out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”

Jesus replied, “Woman, what concern is that to you and Me? My hour has not yet come.” However His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.” Nearby were six stone water jars, set there for ritual washing as practiced by the Jews; each jar could hold twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them to the brim. Then Jesus said, “Now draw some out and take it to the steward.” So they did. The steward tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing from where it had come; for only the servants who had drawn the water knew. So, he called the bridegroom to tell him, “Everyone serves the best wine first, and when people have drunk enough, he serves that which is ordinary. Instead you have kept the best wine until the end.”

This miraculous sign was the first, and Jesus performed it at Cana in Galilee. In this way He let His glory appear, and His disciples believed in Him.

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Tuesday, 11 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

Psalm 83 : 3, 4, 5 and 10, 11

My soul yearns; pines, for the courts of YHVH. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, at Your altars, o YHVH of Hosts, my King and my God!

Happy are those who live in Your House, continually singing Your praise! Look upon our shield, o God; look upon the face of Your Anointed!

One day in Your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be left at the threshold in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Alternative reading (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

Judith 13 : 18bcde, 19

My daughter, may the Most High God bless you more than all women on earth. And blessed be the Lord God, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who has led you to behead the leader of our enemies.

Never will people forget the confidence you have shown; they will always remember the power of God.

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Tuesday, 11 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Lourdes and World Day of the Sick (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

1 Kings 8 : 22-23, 27-30

Then Solomon stood before the Altar of YHVH in the presence of all the assembly of Israel. He raised his hands towards heaven and said, “O YHVH, God of Israel, there is no God like You either in heaven or on earth! You keep Your Covenant and show loving kindness to Your servants who walk before You wholeheartedly.”

“But will God really live among people on earth? If neither heavens nor the highest heavens can contain You, how much less can this House which I have built! Yet, listen to the prayer and supplication of Your servant, o YHVH my God; hearken to the cries and pleas which Your servant directs to You this day. Watch over this House of which You have said, ‘My Name shall rest there.’ Hear the prayer of Your servant in this place.”

“Listen to the supplication of Your servant and Your people Israel when they pray in this direction; listen from Your dwelling place in heaven and, on listening, forgive.”

Alternative reading (Mass of Our Lady of Lourdes)

Isaiah 66 : 10-14c

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.

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Monday, 10 February 2020 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us through the Sacred Scriptures, in which we began with the accounts from the Book of Kings on the completion and the Dedication of the Temple of Jerusalem built by king Solomon for God. In that account, we heard how the king and the whole people rejoiced as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Temple of God, and placed at its centre, the Holy of Holies where God Himself would dwell.

The Ark of the Covenant has been the centre of the whole community of Israel since the time of the Exodus from Egypt, as its name was linked to its role as the container of the actual Covenant which God has made with His people and written on the two slabs of stone, which together with the manna gathered from the time when God had fed His people and the staff of Aaron with which God had performed many wonders and miracles before the people of Israel, symbolise the very presence of God among His people.

And that moment when the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Temple signified the moment when the Covenant of God was renewed, which king Solomon celebrated with the large offering of sacrifices to God as described in the account of the Book of Kings, numbering in the tens and thousands and more. The whole people of Israel rejoiced because God has willingly dwelled among His people and blessed the Temple that King Solomon has built in Jerusalem.

What we have heard in our first reading on the dedication of the Temple and the arrival of the Ark of the Covenant is a prefigurement of what would then come at the moment when God renewed His Covenant with His people, one final time, and this time with a new Covenant that He would seal with His people with a new sacrifice, and this one is the sacrifice which Our Lord Jesus would make on the Altar of His Cross at Calvary. For Christ is indeed the Mediator and Bearer of God’s New Covenant.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the works of the Lord Jesus and His disciples who were then at Galilee, ministering to the people and caring for many people who came to Jesus seeking to listen to Him and His teachings, or to be healed from their various illnesses, diseases, afflictions and troubles. People kept on bringing their sick ones to Him and many were healed by His touch and works, and the people who had faith in Him were healed by merely touching His cloak.

In the Lord Jesus, we ourselves have seen the Lord coming to dwell among us, and this time, not just in the intangible form of the slabs of stone of the Commandments and the Law, or the manna or the staff of Aaron or the container which is the Ark of the Covenant mentioned earlier. Here is the One Who is the Lord Himself Incarnate in the flesh, the Divine Word and Son of God, Who took upon Himself the nature and appearance of Man, that He is able to dwell in our midst in the flesh, in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

He came into our midst and dwell among us as He promised because He loves each and every one of us very dearly. After all, He created us all out of love and He wants nothing less than happiness and joy for us, which has been barred for us because of our sins and disobedience against God. Our sins have made us to be separated from God and His fullness of grace and love, which is precisely why He sent us His own Son, Jesus Christ.

When the Lord Jesus came into our world and touched us His people, and then ultimately fulfilled His mission by taking up His Cross and suffered for our sake, becoming the very sacrificial Lamb on the Altar for our sake, and being sacrificed for us, renewing forever the Eternal Covenant of Love that God has made with us, affirming with this act of supreme love of the desire that God has in being reconciled with us. By the forgiveness of our sins, we can be reunited with God once again.

Today, all of us are therefore reminded of just how fortunate each and every one of us that God has always loved us all despite all of our infidelities and lack of faith, for all of our rebelliousness and our failures to obey His will. God still loves us all and wants to forgive us all, and He has done so by sending us His Son to be Our Lord and Saviour, suffering and dying a most painful death on the Cross for our sake.

How do we then appreciate God’s love and love Him back, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is by opening ourselves to His love and allow His grace and forgiveness to touch us and our lives, that we may be healed by His compassionate love. Just as those people who came seeking Him to be healed from their various sickness and diseases, we are all also called to seek Him to heal us from the disease within us, within our heart, mind and soul, that is our sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, perhaps we should be inspired by the good examples led by one of our holy predecessor who had lived her life with great faith in God, that we too may know how to live our own lives with faith from now on. St. Scholastica, a renowned saint and holy woman, also the twin sister of St. Benedict of Nursia, is a great role model for us in faith as she led a devout life and inspired many others to follow her example mirroring what her brother had also done in establishing what would eventually become the Benedictines.

St. Scholastica lived a virtuous and prayerful life, dedicated wholly to God and committed herself to live an upright life of piety and charity, inspiring others in her community to be more dedicated and faithful to God. St. Scholastica showed us all what it truly means for us to be Christians, as those who believe in Christ and in His love, and because of that, we have to really show our love for Him by our action, our commitment to love Him and serve Him each and every days of our lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all seek to renew our faith in God and grow stronger in our love and devotion towards Him. Let us all be more Christian-like in our way of life from now on, and let us seek to glorify God at all times through our words, actions and deeds for His such great love for us that He has done with us everything He has done through His Cross. May God be with us always, and may He bless us all in our every endeavours. Amen.