ad maiorem dei gloriam

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Sunday, 19 July 2015 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, we have heard, we have seen and witnessed the great and boundless love of our Lord and God, who is our Shepherd and Guide, the One who provides us all with all the things that we need. He is the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep, and cared for nothing else than the well-being of His sheep, of His flock.

From the first reading today, taken from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, God made it clear through His servant Jeremiah that He would bring back His people to His presence, just like a shepherd gathering back his lost sheep. He would punish all those irresponsible and bad shepherds who had failed in their duty to govern the people of God and lead them in righteousness.

The shepherds that God had appointed over the people at that time, the kings and their associates, failed to live up to the tasks entrusted to them. Rather than leading their people by example, they have abused their power and positions of privilege, which led to great sorrow and suffering for the people, who were therefore leaderless and without guidance, lost and trapped in the darkness of this world.

But God did not let His people to suffer alone without hope, or without succour. On the other hand, through His generous love and care which He had shown us, He endeavoured to help us, for He is a true and good shepherd, whose eyes, mind, heart and attention is always on us, His sheep. He therefore promised the coming of a Saviour, a King who would reign forever over the people who were once scattered over the nations, and the Shepherd shall make them whole again.

And all these were fulfilled through Jesus, our Lord, the Messiah, Saviour of all mankind, Son of God, the Heir of David, the King and Good Shepherd who came to announce to all the fulfilment of God’s faithful promise to us. And He did it not just by words, but also through example. He taught the people, that God is the Good Shepherd, and He is that Good Shepherd, who led His people out of darkness and into the light.

In the Gospel today, we see how Jesus showed pity on the people who followed Him, because they were truly like ‘lambs scattered without a shepherd’, and this was the reality at that time, for as long as years and ages had passed, the people of God had no guide or destination to guide them, for all the shepherds who had come and go from them, all have not been good shepherds.

An example was the Pharisees, the elders and the teachers of the Law during the time of Jesus. These people were respected greatly by the people and they were also feared, for they policed the actions of the people and enforced with great severity the laws of Moses. However, as they enforced these laws, they failed to understand the true purpose and meaning of those rules, and end up following them blindly.

These shepherds appointed over the people of God have also not done what they were expected to do. They did not care about them and their well-being, and instead, they cared about themselves first. They worried more about their own stomachs and their own concerns first before that of the others entrusted to their care. This is the attitude of bad and irresponsible shepherds whom the Lord had rebuked through the prophet Jeremiah as we heard in the first reading today.

Those bad shepherds did not care for the sheep entrusted to them, and at the very first indication of danger, they would run away and let the sheep be destroyed, for they had no love for the sheep. But the Good Shepherd loves all of His sheep equally and with perfect love, so that through the love which He had shown them, the sheep may be reunited to their Shepherd in love.

This is what Jesus, our Good Shepherd had done. He had led by example, loving all of us from the depths of His heart, even to the point of laying down His own life for the sake of His people. He shed His Blood for the people, dying on the cross for the sake of all of us, for we have been swallowed by the darkness of this world, and have been defiled with the wickedness of our sins, and yet our Lord and Shepherd went forth to reclaim us from that darkness and back into the light.

Remember what Jesus told His disciples about the parable of the lost sheep? In that parable Jesus told how if a shepherd has a hundred sheep and one of them is lost, the shepherd would go and make use of all within his ability and disposal to regain the one who has been lost, and leave the other safe ninety-nine sheep behind. That is what a good shepherd would do, and what our Lord who is our Good Shepherd had done for our sake.

We have been lost, and naturally we would have gone on to annihilation, had it not for the Lord who had shown His mercy to us all. He stretched forth His hands and reached out to us, and He called on us to repent and to change our sinful ways. If we continue to walk on this path of sin, what lies there in the end for us will only be despair and eternal suffering of hell.

If our Lord had done so much for us, to gather us back as His sheep, to be part of His flock once again, then we too should make a conscious effort to reach out to His extended hands, which He had given to us for our salvation. And there is yet also another dimension to today’s Scripture readings as well. All of us have been saved by the Lord and we have become part of His blessed flock, gathered from among the nations, and yet there are still so many others that lie beyond the salvation He has given.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we too are shepherds to one another, and especially to all those lost sheep still lying around deep in the darkness of this world. We have the share of responsibility to gather all the lost sheep of the Lord, calling them to reunion with our Good Shepherd, who will then bring us all together in love and give us His grace. We have to inspire many others to come to our Lord by our own actions, words and deeds.

If we do not do things and say things in the way that would identify us as those belonging to the Lord, then who would believe us and who would come to the presence of the Lord? They would remain lost and then the responsibility for their loss would hung heavily on our heads. We have this responsibility to help each other, and to guide one another to reach out to the Lord, our loving and devoted Shepherd, whose gaze is always directed on us.

May the Lord, our Good Shepherd, guide us in our lives, so that in all that we do, He may help us to keep our paths straight that we will remain always in His favour and in His grace, and may all of us embrace the love which our Shepherd had shown us, His lost sheep now lost no more but had been found. Let us forever live in the grace of our Lord who will bless us and keep us in His grace. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 July 2015 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 6 : 30-34

At that time, the Apostles returned and reported to Jesus all they had done and taught. Then He said to them, “Go off by yourselves to a remote place and have some rest.” For there were so many people coming and going that the Apostles had no time even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a secluded area by themselves.

But people saw them leaving, and many could guess where they were going. So, from all the towns, they hurried there on foot, arriving ahead of them. As Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He had compassion on them for they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began a long teaching session with them.

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Sunday, 19 July 2015 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 2 : 13-18

But now, in Christ Jesus and by His blood, you who were once far off have come near. For Christ is our peace, He who has made the two peoples one, destroying in His own flesh the wall – the hatred – which separated us. He abolished the Law with its commands and precepts.

He made peace in uniting the two peoples in Him, creating out of the two one New Man. He destroyed hatred and reconciled us both to God through the cross, making the two one body. He came to proclaim peace; peace to you who were far off, peace to the Jews who were near. Through Him we – the two peoples – approach the Father in one Spirit.

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Sunday, 19 July 2015 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 22 : 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters, He restores my soul.

He guides me through the right paths for His Name’s sake. Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are beside me : Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of my foes. You anoint my head with oil; my cup is overflowing.

Goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

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Sunday, 19 July 2015 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Jeremiah 23 : 1-6

Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the sheep of My pasture! This is the message of YHVH, God of Israel, to the shepherds in charge of My people, “You have scattered My sheep and driven them away instead of caring for them. Now I will deal with you because of your evil deeds.”

“I will gather the remnant of My sheep from every land to which I have driven them and I will bring them back to the grasslands. They will be fruitful and increase in number. I will appoint shepherds who will take care of them. No longer will they fear or be terrified. No one will be lost.”

YHVH further says, “The day is coming when I will raise up a King who is David’s righteous successor. He will rule wisely and govern with justice and righteousness. That will be a grandiose era when Judah will enjoy peace and Israel will live in safety. He will be called YHVH-our-Justice!”

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Saturday, 18 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how God brought out His people out of Egypt, after four hundred and thirty years of slavery. This showed the eminent love and goodness of God who did not forget the suffering of His people, and who did not turn a deaf ear against the pleas of His faithful ones. He is always listening to us, and His heart is forever always turned to us, waiting for us to receive His love and then return to Him the same love.

In the Gospel we heard how Jesus went from place to place, from towns to towns and from villages to villages, bearing healing, goodness and mercy. Through the works of His hands, He rejuvenated a people who had once been overwhelmed by darkness, evil, malice, greed, and all things that had brought about injury and disease to them, the disease and affliction of the soul.

He laid their hands of them, curing them all from the sickness of the flesh, awakening the sick and even raising some of them from death. These great occasions and evidences all led to the very fact that our Lord is a loving and caring God, who is always concerned about our well-being, whose ears and hearts are always directed at us, at all times.

But now then, we have to ask ourselves. What have done then, in order to repay the love which our Lord had shown us? What kind of love have we shown Him, for all of the goodness He had showered us with? Unfortunately, most of the time, what we have shown Him is indeed indifference, lack of love, ignorance, stubbornness, and refusal to acknowledge the love He has shown us. We went and sought other gods and idols, seeking pleasures and goodness through venues other than through the Lord.

God has given us so much good things, and yet we respond to Him with bitter scourges and vitriolic replies, and we rejected His grace right in front of Him many, many times. He has blessed us with so many things, and yet we took them for granted and did not thank Him when we should. This is the fact of what is happening to us today, and truly in many aspects we have not learnt from the example of our predecessors, those who went before us.

The Israelites were indeed brought out of Egypt as we all knew, but certainly we should also be aware of how they constantly rebelled against the Lord during their journey in the desert. Although God has given them much food and water to drink, they still complained of how good their lives were in Egypt, even though they were enslaved and oppressed. Truly, they had no gratitude for what the Lord had done for them.

And the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the elders of Israel rejected Jesus and His teachings, constantly hounded Him and His disciples at every possible opportunities to find fault in them and therefore to accuse them of any wrongdoing. They failed to see how the Lord had done so much for them, for the people of God, by all the miracles He had done publicly for all of them to see, and yet they still refused to believe.

Is this what we want to be, brothers and sisters in Christ? To be a people whose stubbornness and indignant behaviour made them to commit great sins before God? Or should we instead recognise first how feeble and vulnerable we are to the mercy of the forces of this world arrayed against us, and yet God is raising His hand at all times to protect us from all of them? Do we realise how much God had done for us in His own way, even when we do not realise it?

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, let us all reflect and pray, and pray so that we all may find the grace to love the Lord ever more as the time goes by, and the grace that we may see how much He has blessed us, and the humility to be able to thank Him for all the things He had done for us. Let us all also from now on commit ourselves to love Him all the more and devote ourselves through our own actions and deeds rooted in His love. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Saturday, 18 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Matthew 12 : 14-21

At that time, the Pharisees went out, and made plans to get rid of Jesus. As Jesus was aware of their plans, He left that place. Many people followed Him, and He cured all who were sick. Then He gave them strict orders not to make Him known.

In this way Isaiah’s prophecy was fulfilled : ‘Here is My Servant whom I have chosen, the One I love, and with Whom I am pleased. I will put My Spirit upon Him and He will announce My judgment to the nations.’

‘He will not argue or shout, nor will His voice be heard in the streets. The bruised reed He will not crush, nor snuff out the smouldering wick. He will persist until justice is made victorious, and in Him all the nations will put their hope.’

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Saturday, 18 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Psalm 135 : 1, 23, 24, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Alleluia! Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His kindness endures forever.

He remembered us in our humiliation, His kindness endures forever.

And He freed us from our oppressors, His kindness endures forever.

He slew the firstborn of Egypt, His kindness endures forever.

And He brought Israel out, His kindness endures forever.

With strong hand and outstretched arm, His kindness endures forever.

He split the Sea of Reeds, His kindness endures forever.

And He made Israel pass through it, His kindness endures forever.

Drowning Pharaoh and his army, His kindness endures forever.

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Saturday, 18 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Exodus 12 : 37-42

The Israelites left Rameses for Succoth, about six hundred thousand of them on the march, counting the men only, and not the children. A great number of other people of all descriptions went with them, as well as sheep and cattle in droves.

With the dough they had brought with them from Egypt, they made cakes of unleavened bread. It had not risen, for when they were driven from Egypt they could not delay and had not even provided themselves with food.

The Israelites had been in Egypt for four hundred and thirty years. It was the end of these four hundred and thirty years to the very day that the armies of YHVH left Egypt. This is the watch for YHVH who brought Israel out of Egypt. This night is for YHVH, and all the Israelites are also to keep vigil on this night, year after year, for all time.

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Friday, 17 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about Jesus who contended with the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, on the matter of the observance of the Sabbath day and its laws. The teachers of the Law contended that the disciples of Jesus violated the Sabbath law by crushing grains of crop and eating them.

We have to understand first what the situation was all about. The Law of the Sabbath was one of the many laws and ordinances which God had given unto men, since the time of Moses His servant, beginning with the law that prescribed the celebration of the Passover, the first Passover when Israel was about to be liberated from slavery under the Egyptians. This is what we heard in our first reading today.

Ultimately, in order to understand what Jesus had reasoned with the Pharisees in today’s readings, we have to understand the purpose of such laws in the first place. Jesus showed that the Law is created not to subjugate men under blind obedience and new oppression, but rather to help men to liberate themselves instead from the oppression of sin and disobedience.

The first reading today taken from the Book of Exodus is about the details of the celebration of the first Passover which took place at the land of Egypt, when at that night which was different from any other previous nights, God Himself descended and with His might saved His own people by the blood of unblemished lambs, which marked the houses of the faithful.

The focus here should not be on how the occasion was celebrated, as with the law of the Sabbath, it is very easy for someone to follow the rituals and the celebrations while forgetting the true intent for such commemorations. The Law of the Sabbath is for God to remind His people, that just as He had loved them so much by liberating them from their oppressors and slavers, then they too should devote their time for Him, at least for one day.

But the application of this law had become screwed in the end, as something intended for the benefit of men, that they can find time to spend with the Lord their God, became in itself an oppression, for the elders and the leaders of the people failed to understand the significance of the Law, which is not for God to punish or oppress men but truly to love them even more.

God knows how lawless we can be, and how disobedient we can be. He knows the extent of our rebelliousness ever since the day when we mankind first committed sin before Him, and yet, in His tender mercy and great love for us all, He still endeavoured to give chance after chances, and opportunity after opportunities. It was because of His great love that He had rescued us time and again from ourselves, from our sins and wickedness, from our selfishness and evils.

And continuing from the first reading today, where we talked about the Passover, the very first Passover when God passed over His people marked with the blood of the unblemished lambs so that all those marked were not to suffer death unlike the Egyptians, then do we all realise that God had given us an even greater Passover, a new Covenant which He had established with us?

This new Passover, the new Covenant is the covenant with the Blood of the one True Lamb, the Lamb of God, who became the Paschal sacrifice. Instead of the blood of the mortal lambs, God had given Himself to be the Lamb for the slaughter, so that by the outpouring of His Blood on us, we who share in this Sacred Blood may share the salvation and life which He had given all who are faithful to Him.

The Blood of the Lamb of God is the mark of the new Covenant, which all of us believers and faithful ones have received through the Church. We all share in the Body and Blood, the Most Holy and Real Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. It was indeed the love of God that made all these possible. Without God’s love, then there would have been no hope for us all.

Therefore, on this day, as we reflect on the Scripture passages, let us all keep in mind, the fact that God loves us, and He does not give us something too heavy a burden for us to endure. What He wants from us is just simply our love and our obedience, and nothing more. For He who have loved us so much and given us so much, is truly worthy of being loved.

May Almighty God be with us and guide us on our path, so that in all the things we do, we may avoid becoming blinded to the will of God, and following our faith to God emptily without meaning and reason. We must go forth and understand our faith more so that we may truly serve our Lord with all of our hearts and with all of our strength.

Let our minds and hearts be filled with genuine love for our Lord and whenever we do something let us do it because we love the Lord, and not because we think that we are just following a law and commandment, for the sake of doing it, which is meaningless and empty. May God bless us in this endeavour, and remain with us always, our loving God who gave us life and freed us from the darkness of our sins. Amen.