6 July 2019

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Saturday, 6 July 2019 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the story between the brothers Esau and Jacob who were the two sons of Isaac and therefore were the grandsons of Abraham. Esau and Jacob were rivals for their father’s affection, and Esau as the elder child was destined to be the recipient of his father’s inheritance, but fate and God’s will eventually showed that it was Jacob, the father of the Israelites who was the one to receive the fullness of God’s promised inheritance.

Esau and Jacob were very different from each other although they were brothers, as the former was a hunter and lived among the hunters in the fields, and tradition told that Esau married the local Canaanite women, despite the disapproval from his parents, and his less than faithful ways were the reasons why Rebecca in particular, the mother of the two brothers, sought to have Jacob to be the one to succeed his father Isaac.

Jacob was however uncertain of the prospect, and was afraid that his father would discover the ruse. But his mother supported him, and by God’s providence, Jacob succeeded in getting what his brother Esau had carelessly abandoned. First of all, Esau easily traded his birthright just over a pot of food that Jacob cooked, and then, he managed to gain the blessing which Isaac reserved for his firstborn and heir.

Eventually, this would lead to friction and division among the two brothers, and Jacob was forced to flee to a faraway land, going to the land where his forefathers came from in order to escape the wrath of Esau, his brother. It was many years before Jacob was to return with his own family in tow, and was reconciled with his elder brother. And from here, let us all link what we have heard with our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord spoke of the parable of the new and old cloth, and the old and new wine and wineskins.

In that parable, the Lord showed the incompatibility between new cloth and old cloth, and new wine and old wineskin and vice versa. One cannot use one with the other, or else they will end up destroying each other. What this parable means for us is that old ways of our life is not compatible with the new ways that we should be embracing in our lives either. And these old ways refer to the ways of sin, our disobedience against God.

This means that we cannot continue to live the way we are, and at the same time profess to believe in God. We cannot be sinful and be righteous at the same time, as the two of them are just as polar opposites as Esau and Jacob had been different from each other. Eventually this will end up in conflict and dilemma within us, and unless we make the conscious effort to change our ways in life into the way which God has shown us, that is the way of righteousness and holiness.

Today, we celebrate the life and memory of a saint whose life and death will remind us of this exact incompatibility between our old and new way of life, that is between wickedness and righteousness. This saint is St. Maria Goretti, the famous saint renowned for her defence of her own chastity and holiness, her virginity and obedience to God rather than submitting to the desires of man. She was martyred defending her own holiness against the advances of a young man who wanted to defile her.

At that time, St. Maria Goretti, who was still a young girl, lived with her mother together with another family, who had a young boy named Alessandro. Alessandro who was a few years older than St. Maria Goretti, desired her and made sexual advances on her, which was flatly and firmly refused by St. Maria Goretti. St. Maria Goretti remained strong and firm, even as Alessandro became angry and stabbed her many times.

And despite of all that the young man had done to her, St. Maria Goretti forgave Alessandro and told the people that he should not be punished for what he has done. Clearly, we see here, what a virtuous Christian she has been, as contrasted to the actions that Alessandro had done. But Alessandro eventually also regretted all that he has done, and, helped by a vision of the saint, St. Maria Goretti who came to him and talked to him in prison, he became a better man, and devoted himself to serve God from then on.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are called to reflect on our own lives. Are we able to follow the Lord wholeheartedly as St. Maria Goretti and many others of our holy predecessors had done? Are we able to commit ourselves to a new life of holiness and righteousness, abandoning all of our past disobedient and wicked ways, and seeking a new path of holiness in God?

May the Lord help each and every one of us to be faithful to Him, and devote ourselves to Him ever more each and every days in this life. Let us all draw ever closer to Him, from now on, that we may truly be worthy to be called His beloved children. Amen.

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Saturday, 6 July 2019 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Matthew 9 : 14-17

At that time, the disciples of John came to Jesus with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not Your disciples?”

Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then, they will fast.”

“No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for the patch will shrink and tear an even bigger hole in the coat. In the same way, you do not put new wine into old wine skins. If you do, the wine skins will burst and the wine will be spilt. No, you put new wine into fresh skins; then both are preserved.”

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Saturday, 6 July 2019 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Psalm 134 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Alleluia! Praise the Name of YHVH. O servants of YHVH, praise Him, you, who serve in the house of YHVH, in the courts of the house of our God.

Praise YHVH, for He is good; praise His Name, for it is beautiful; for YHVH has chosen Jacob as His own, Israel as His possession.

I know that YHVH is great, that our YHVH is above all gods. Whatever YHVH pleases, He does – in heaven and on earth, in the seas and in their depths.

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Saturday, 6 July 2019 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Genesis 27 : 1-5, 15-29

When Isaac was old and his eyes so weak that he could no longer see, he called Esau, his older son, and said to him, “My son.” “Here I am,” he answered. Isaac continued, “You see I am old and I do not know when I shall die; so take your weapons, your bow and arrow, go out into the country and hunt some game for me. Then prepare some of the savoury food I like and bring it to me so that I may eat and give you my blessing before I die.”

Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. When Esau went into the country to hunt game and bring it back, she took the best clothes of her elder son Esau that she had in the house and put them on Jacob, her younger son. With the goatskin she covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck, and she handed to him the bread and food she had prepared.

He went to his father and said, “Father!” He answered, “Yes, my son, who is it?” And Jacob said to his father, “It is Esau, your firstborn; I have done what you told me to do. Come, sit up and eat my game so that you may give me your blessing.” Isaac said, “How quick you have been my son!” Jacob said, “YHVH, your God, guided me.”

Isaac said to Jacob, “Come near and let me feel you, my son, and know that it is you, Esau my son, or not.” When Jacob drew near to Isaac, his father felt him and said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau.” He did not recognise him, for his hands were hairy like the hands of Esau his brother and so he blessed him.

He asked, “Are you really my son Esau?” And Jacob answered, “I am.” Isaac said, “Bring me some of your game, my son, so that I may eat and give you my blessing.” So Jacob brought it to him and he ate. And he brought him wine and he drank. Then his father Isaac said to him, “Come near and kiss me, my son.” So Jacob came near and kissed him.

Isaac then caught the smell of his clothes and blessed him, saying, “The smell of my son is like the smell of a field which the Lord has blessed. May God give you the dew of heaven; and of the richness of the earth; and abundance of grain and wine. Let peoples serve you and nations bow down before you. Be lord over your brothers, and let your mother’s sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone that curses you and blessed be everyone that blesses you!”