6th Sunday of Ordinary Time

by

Friday, 21 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Psalm 111 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Alleluia! Blessed is the one who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commands. His children will be powerful on earth; the upright’s offspring will be blessed.

Wealth and riches are for his family, there his integrity will remain. He is for the righteous a light in darkness, he is kind, merciful and upright.

It will be well with him who lends freely, who leads a life of justice and honesty. For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered and loved forever.

by

Friday, 21 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

James 2 : 14-24, 26

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, to profess faith, without showing works? Such faith has no power to save you. If a brother or sister is in need of clothes or food, and one of you says, “May things go well for you; be warm and satisfied,” without attending to their material needs, what good is that? So, it is, for faith without deeds : it is totally dead.

Say to whoever challenges you, “You have faith and I have good deeds; show me your faith apart from actions and I, for my part, will show you my faith in the way I act.” Do you believe there is one God? Well enough, but do not forget, that the demons, also, believe, and tremble with fear!

You foolish one, do you have to be convinced, that faith without deeds is useless? Think of our father Abraham. Was he not justified by the act of offering his son Isaac on the Altar? So you see, his faith was active, along with his deeds, and became perfect by what he did. The word of Scripture was thus fulfilled, Abraham believed in God so he was considered a righteous person and he was called the friend of God.

So you see, a person is justified by works, and not by faith alone. So, just as the body is dead without its spirit, so faith, without deeds is also dead.

by

Thursday, 20 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we listened to the Scriptures, we are reminded that we should be careful not to indulge in ourselves and our desires, that is to indulge in our desires and pride, so that we will not end up being swallowed by them and fall therefore into sin. We are reminded that as Christians we should instead be humble and allow God to work His wonders through us and our lives, opening ourselves to His truth and love.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. James, St. James mentioned how as Christians we should not seek worldly glory and attention, hubris and ambition, ego and desires. St. James made a mention of the discrimination that people often make based on status, wealth, prestige, fame and all sorts of parameters by which we classify and categorise people. We tend to look down on those whom we deem to be inferior to us, while we honour and praise those whom we deem to be powerful and mighty.

And all of that were because we ourselves sought acceptance, recognition and status. We honour and welcome those who are rich and those who have important status because we want to gain benefit and satisfaction from the relationship we build with those who can benefit us and provide us with material sustenance and worldly benefits. Those who are of no status and importance in the eyes of the world are often ostracised and put aside because we perhaps think that we can gain nothing from them.

We need then to take note that St. James was not against the rich or the powerful, but rather our prejudices and our bias against those who are weak, poor and those who we are often judgmental against. And all these are caused by our own inability to resist the temptation of power, of wealth, of fame, glory and renown, of pleasure and many other worldly desires that often lead us down the path of sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what St. James wrote in his Epistle is a kind reminder to all of us Christians to be charitable in our words, actions and deeds. In everything we say and do, we should reach out to everyone, and love everyone equally without discrimination. We should also resist those temptations of power, of glory, wealth and fame, praise and vanity, all the things that will lead us astray from God and from His path.

We have to look at the example set by Christ Himself, as described in our Gospel passage today. The Lord Jesus asked His disciples Who they think or say He was, and while some said that He was a prophet and the One promised by God to come, St. Peter spoke firmly that he believed that Jesus was the Messiah and Holy One of God. What St. Peter spoke was the truth, but then we see just how cunning the devil can be, as he used that opportunity to strike and tempt Christ Our Lord.

St. Peter immediately rebuked the Lord when He mentioned how He would have to suffer and die at the hands of His enemies, which was indeed part of His ministry in this world. St. Peter rebuked the Lord saying that He should not have said such things and that He would not die as He had said. In fact, the devil tried to tempt Jesus again, by saying that because He is the Son of God and King of Kings, He should not have to suffer and die in such a manner, which befitted a slave more than a King.

Yet, that was what the Lord had exactly done, in accepting humbly His mission to save us all, out of His great compassion and love for each and every one of us. He resisted that temptation to leave His mission and be spared of the suffering that He was about to undertake for our sake. Although He was great and mighty, the Divine Lord and God, King of all kings, He willingly humbled and emptied Himself, so that by offering to His heavenly Father, His own worthy offering of His Most Precious Body and Blood, on the Altar of the Cross, He could save all of us mankind from our sins and from certain annihilation.

As Christians, all of us are called to imitate the love which Christ has shown to all of us, His ever generous love and compassion by which He has touched each one of us, calling us to repent from our sins and to embrace His wonderful mercy. We are called to love everyone equally, for we must also not forget how Christ loved us all even when we are still sinners, wicked and unworthy, disgusting and terrible because of all of our sins. Christ is still willing to forgive us despite all of that, provided that we make the commitment to change our way of life and follow Him with all of our heart.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore deepen our faith and grow further in our spiritual relationship with God. Let us all spend more time with God and do our best in our lives to serve Him and to glorify Him by our actions at all times. Let us resist the temptations put in our path by the devil, who sought our downfall by appealing to our pride, ego and desire. May the Lord be with us always and may He bless us in our every good works and endeavours. Amen.

by

Thursday, 20 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 8 : 27-33

At that time, Jesus set out with His disciples for the villages around Caesarea Philippi; and on the way He asked them, “Who do people say I am?” And they told Him, “Some say You are John the Baptist; others say You are Elijah or one of the prophets.”

Then Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” And He ordered them not to tell anyone about Him. Jesus then began to teach them that the Son of Man had to suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. He would be killed, and after three days rise again.

Jesus said all this quite openly, so that Peter took Him aside and began to protest strongly. But Jesus turning around, and looking at His disciples, rebuked Peter, saying, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are thinking not as God does, but as people do.”

by

Thursday, 20 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 33 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7

I will praise YHVH all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in YHVH; let the lowly hear and rejoice.

Oh, let us magnify YHVH; together, let us glorify His Name! I sought YHVH, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, YHVH hears and saves them from distress.

by

Thursday, 20 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 2 : 1-9

My brothers and sisters, if you truly believe in our glorified Lord, Jesus Christ, you will not discriminate between persons. Suppose a person enters the synagogue where you are assembled, dressed magnificently and wearing a gold ring; at the same time, a poor person enters dressed in rags. If you focus your attention on the well-dressed and say, “Come and sit in the best seat,” while, to the poor one you say, “Stay standing, or else sit down at my feet,” have you not, in fact, made a distinction between the two? Have you not judged, using a double standard?

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, did God not choose the poor of this world to receive the riches of faith, and to inherit the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him? Yet, you despise them! Is it not the rich who are against you, and drag you to court? Do they not insult the Holy Name of Christ by which you are called?

If you keep the Law of the kingdom, according to Scripture : Love your neighbour as yourself, you do well; but if you make distinctions between persons, you break the Law, and are condemned by the same Law.

by

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 : 6th 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 Scriptures through which we are reminded that all of us need to be righteous in God’s eyes and have genuine faith in Him. We must not give in to the temptations of our pride, ego, ambition and desire which are great obstacles in our journey of faith towards God. St. James reminded us of this in his Epistle in our first reading passage today.

In that passage, St. James reminded all of us as Christians to keep ourselves pure and blameless from all the corrupting power of sin and evil. And as he described it to us, he was actually making a reference of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law of that time, who were the religious elites of the community that were deeply engrossed in maintaining their way of observing the laws of Moses, and enforced it to great detail.

They prided themselves in their pious observance of those laws, their supposed righteousness and uprightness, praying openly in public places and seeking praise and honour from the people of God. They were also quick to judge all those whom they deemed to be unworthy, or those whom they saw to be less pious than they were. They opposed the Lord Jesus and His disciples for the same reason, persecuting Christians in the early Church for their faith.

Yet, as St. James mentioned in his Epistle, they failed to look upon themselves in the mirror. They were so caught up in their vanity and pride, greed and ego that they failed to see how they were sinners too, and in fact, their desires and pride made them to be sinners even greater than those whom they had persecuted and judged against. They were busy pointing out the flaws and faults in others, that they failed to see how their own pride and ego brought them to love themselves much more than they loved God, and their treatment of their brethren was not what the Lord had commanded us all to do.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why we need to learn from this experience and from what St. James had shared with us. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were blinded by their pride, their attachments to worldly pleasures and pursuits, their fears and jealousy, their insecurities and their desires that caused them to act in the manner that led them further and further into the slippery path of sin.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the miracle which Our Lord performed as He healed a blind man from his trouble, restoring his sight completely to him. The man could see again and was overjoyed, but the Lord told him not to tell of that to anyone. The Lord did not want unwanted attention because of what He has done, which may cause difficulty for Him and His disciples, especially because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were always after Him and seeking for the opportunity to attack and accuse Him.

In addition, He also does not want the publicity to make Him to be distracted from His works, as He humbly obeyed the will of His heavenly Father, in ministering to the people, healing and making them whole once again. We can see how this is in contrast to the attitude of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who succumbed to their pride and desire. And the Lord showed us all that as long as we are blinded by those things, it will be difficult for us to progress in our faith journey.

We should seek the Lord, just like the blind man, who was healed from his blindness. But instead of being healed from physical blindness, we seek to be healed from our spiritual blindness instead. We should seek the healing of our souls and minds, our hearts and our beings that have been blinded by pride, ego, ambition, desire and human greed that led us into sin against God. Let us all be touched by God’s healing and compassionate love, that in His wonderful and generous mercy, we may be forgiven our sins and be made whole again.

May the Lord bless each and every one of us, and may He strengthen us in faith, that we may live courageously and faithfully from now on, as God’s faithful disciples and as true witnesses of our faith in Him in everything we say and do in our lives. Amen.

by

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 8 : 22-26

At that time, when Jesus and His disciples came to Bethsaida, He was asked to touch a blind man who was brought to Him. He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When He had put spittle on his eyes and laid His hands upon him, He asked, “Can you see anything?”

The man, who was beginning to see, replied, “I see people! They look like trees, but they move around.” Then Jesus laid His hands on his eyes again and the man could see perfectly. His sight was restored and he could see everything clearly. Then Jesus sent him home, saying, “Do not return to the village.”

by

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 14 : 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, who speak truth from their heart and control their words, who do no harm to their neighbours.

Those who cast no discredit on their companions, who look down on evildoers but highly esteem God’s servants; who, at all costs, stand by a pledged word.

Those who do not lend money at interest and refuse a bribe against the innocent. Do this, and you will not be shaken.

by

Wednesday, 19 February 2020 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 1 : 19-27

My beloved, be quick to hear but slow to speak, and slow to anger, for human anger does not fulfil the justice of God. So get rid of any filth, and reject the prevailing evil, and welcome the word that has been planted in you, and has the power to save you.

Be doers of the word, and not just hearers, lest you deceive yourselves. The hearer, who does not become a doer, is like that one, who looked at himself in the mirror; he looked, and then promptly forgot what he was like. But those who fix their gaze on the perfect law of freedom, and hold onto it, not listening and then forgetting, but acting on it, will find blessing on their deeds.

Those who think they are religious, but do not restrain their tongue, deceive themselves, and their religion is in vain. In the sight of God, our Father, pure and blameless religion lies in helping the orphans, and widows in their need, and keeping oneself from the world’s corruption.