after Pentecost

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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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Saturday, 4 November 2017 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scriptures in which first of all we heard St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, speaking about the matter between the salvation of the Jews and the pagan peoples. It was mentioned how the Jews stumbled so that the Lord might be able to save the pagan peoples, and through that, the Jews themselves might be saved.

This is related to what we have heard in the Gospel passage today, the familiar words of the Lord Jesus in which He related the story about the people who were clamouring and fighting over places of honour, using a wedding banquet or event as an example. He related to the people how it is often that many are seeking for the most important places, desiring prestige and honour, but only later humiliated because even more important guests came and took over their seats.

How does this relate to what we heard in the first reading? The Jews or the people of Israel were the ones whom God had first chosen and called from among all of mankind. He called their forefather Abraham and made a Covenant with him. As a result, the Israelites became a race that God had chosen to be His own, especially from the time when He directly intervened to bring them out from slavery in Egypt and into the land He has promised to them.

The Jews took great pride in this and they were always ready to boast that they were chosen by God to be His people, to the point that they actually looked down on the pagans and the non-Jewish people, whom they deemed to be less worthy of the Lord, because they were not chosen by God. Yet, they themselves were blind to their own shortcomings and faults, and through their constant disobedience and lack of faith, they have been punished many times.

And God did not intend to just call the Israelites and exclude all the other races and peoples. Ultimately, God wants everyone, every mankind to be reconciled to Him, for He created each and every one of us out of His great love for us, and because of that great love, He does not want any of us to perish in sin and in the darkness. Rather, He wants that each and every one of us can come into the light.

This is exactly the opposite of what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. They prided themselves in obeying the tenets of the Law, and as Jesus mentioned, they liked to the praised and to be honoured. They were the epitome of those who came to the wedding banquet and sought the first and most important place in the room. Yet, the room and the place has not been given to them, because they have no God in their hearts, and in their pride, they have placed their own interests ahead of God’s interests.

That was why the Lord Jesus chided them and rebuked them, and saying that the tax collectors and the prostitutes were going faster towards the kingdom of heaven than them, even though these people were often seen and labelled as sinners and unworthy people, least of all those who were thought to be worthy of God and the heavenly glory He promised to all His faithful ones.

Why is that so? That is because, those people as we witnessed throughout the Gospels, were willing to listen to Jesus and His teachings, and many of them, in tears, turned themselves to the Lord in repentance for their old ways of sin, and recognising their sinfulness, they desired to be forgiven by God. They have been the last ones, but because of their humility and willingness to listen to God and to obey Him, God had raised them to greater glory.

As I have just mentioned earlier, the great problem that we now can see as the great obstacle preventing us mankind from reaching out to God, is pride. Our human pride, our ego and ambition makes us to be non-receptive to God’s love and mercy, and many of us had ended up hardening our hearts against Him, closing Him out of our hearts and minds, not letting Him to speak to us that we might know His will. Instead, often it is always about ‘I’ or ‘Me’.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all look at the examples of the holy predecessors, particularly, St. Charles Borromeo, the saint whose feast we celebrate today, as role models for us to follow, that we may know how to live a good and virtuous Christian life, and not engulfed by our pride and ego. St. Charles Borromeo was renowned as a great reformer of the Church, a Cardinal of the Church, as well as the influential and powerful Archbishop of Milan, perhaps second in its importance as compared to Rome.

Yet, St. Charles Borromeo, who was born to one of the most influential noble families in the region, who enjoyed close relationship with both the Church and the ruling class, did not let all these things to corrupt him or to make him proud of his lineage and position. When he was made a Cardinal and entrusted with the role of managing the Roman Curia, or the governance of the Universal Church in Rome, he lived in austerity and ordered the members of the Curia to do the same.

He helped to organise the great reforms of the Church through the Council of Trent, which helped to rejuvenate the faith in the Church and destroy or remove the impurities and excesses of the previous decades and centuries when the Church was filled with many corrupt individuals seeking for power, wealth and influence through the Church. And later on, as the Archbishop of Milan, he was also credited with the enforcement of the reforms among the clergy and laity in his Archdiocese.

He cared for the poor and the sick in his Archdiocese of Milan, and it was told that in one occasion, when the governor and the ruling class of Milan fled the city because of a great pestilence that struck it, St. Charles Borromeo remained behind to care for the people who were sick and provided for their needs. He was also known for leading a procession barefooted through the streets of Milan with a rope around his neck, as a sign of penitence and humility before God, asking Him to forgive the sins of His people.

The examples of St. Charles Borromeo should be an inspiration for all of us Christians today, that in all of our actions and deeds, we should be humble and not to listen to the voice of our ego, pride and human ambition. Let us all seek to be the last in worldly matters, but the first in the eyes of God, as the Lord Jesus reminded us in the Gospel passage today. Let us also not build for ourselves a temporary treasure in this world, but instead seek the eternal glory of heaven. St. Charles Borromeo, pray for us! Amen.

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Saturday, 4 November 2017 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 14 : 1, 7-11

At that time, one Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and He was carefully watched. Jesus then told a parable to the guests, for He had noticed how they tried to take the places of honour.

And He said, “When you are invited to a wedding party, do not choose the best seat. It may happen that someone more important than you has been invited; and your host, who invited both of you, will come and say to you, ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!”

“Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that you host may come and say to you, ‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honour for you in the presence of all the other guests. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

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Saturday, 4 November 2017 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 93 : 12-13a, 14-15, 17-18

Fortunate the one You correct, o YHVH, the one You teach Your Law; You give them relief from distress.

YHVH will not reject His people, nor will He forsake His heritage. Justice will return to the just; and the upright will follow, in its wake.

Had YHVH not helped me, I would have fallen into the silence of death. No sooner did I say, “My foot is slipping,” Your kindness, o YHVH, held me up.

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Saturday, 4 November 2017 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Romans 11 : 1-2a, 11-12, 25-29

And so I ask : Has God rejected His people? Of course not! I, myself, am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin. No, God has not rejected the people He knew beforehand.

Again, I ask : Did they stumble so as to fall? Of course not. Their stumbling allowed salvation to come to the pagan nations, and, this, in turn, will stir up the jealousy of Israel. If Israel’s shortcoming made the world rich, if the pagan nations grew rich with what they lost, what will happen when Israel is restored?

I want you to understand the mysterious decree of God, lest you be too confident : a part of Israel will remain hardened, until the majority of pagans have entered. Then, the whole of Israel will be saved, as Scripture says : From Zion will come the Liberator, Who will purify the descendants of Jacob from all sin. And this is the Covenant I will make with them : I will take away from them their sins.

Regarding the Gospel, the Jews are opponents, but it is for your benefit. Regarding election, they are beloved, because of their ancestors; because the call of God, and His gifts, cannot be nullified.