Liturgical Colour : Red
Ephesians 2 : 19-22
Now, you are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the holy people : you are of the household of God. You are the house, whose foundations are the Apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus. In Him, the whole structure is joined together, and rises, to be a holy Temple, in the Lord.
In Him, you, too, are being built, to become the spiritual Sanctuary of God.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we heard a very important reminder for each one of us, that as Christians we must be ever vigilant in our lives, that in our actions and every deeds we will be able to stay faithful to the Lord, regardless the temptations to do otherwise. We cannot be lukewarm or be hypocrites in our faith.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the first reading today, all of us heard how St. Paul in his Epistle and exhortation to the Church and the faithful in the city of Rome spoke of how the people of God must be vigilant against the temptation of their flesh, as their bodies are vulnerable to corruption by sin, by the wickedness of the darkness of Satan, who sowed the seeds of sin in our hearts and minds.
Indeed, we may have experience it ourselves, on how even though deep in our hearts we want to be righteous and good, faithful and committed to the Lord, yet our flesh is unwilling, and the pressures of our flesh cause us to stumble and falter in our journey of faith, as Jesus Himself said to His Apostles, Peter, James and John, whom He called to accompany Him at the Garden of Gethsemane just before His Passion.
In that occasion, the Apostles were supposed to stay awake and keep the Lord company, throughout the time when Jesus was praying, and yet they fell asleep because their eyelids were heavy, and the effects of the full meal they ate at the Last Supper bore down upon them. And the Lord woke them up a few times, as He went back to them to check on them, and said to them, “While the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
This is something that perhaps all of us should keep in mind, as we reflect on our own lives and actions today. Perhaps we should begin with very simple comparison with what we have just discussed about the Apostles. How many of us feel very drowsy and lethargic after eating a heavy meal, because all the blood in our system goes down to our digestive system, and our brains not getting enough blood.
And that made us very reluctant to do anything, as our bodies feel very tired and we just want to lay down and rest. Similarly, I am sure that there were many occasions when we were moved in our hearts and minds, wanting to reach out to those others around us when we see them being wronged, persecuted or unjustly treated. Yet, our flesh, our limbs and bodies deterred us from going forth to help, because of this inertia, this laziness, this unwillingness of the flesh, corrupted by sins and the temptations to sin.
This is why many Christians have not led a very Christian life. Instead, in fact, some have been very un-Christian in nature, because of the things that we failed to do, for the sake of our brethren, and also in what we have done. There were Christians who claimed that they were the followers of Christ, and yet have acted in a manner that showed just how selfish they were, caring for their own needs, and also committed acts that were contrary to the teachings of the Lord, and instead, indulging in all sorts of the pleasures of the flesh and the body.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, all of us must strengthen our relationship with God. And how do we do that? It is by drawing ourselves closer to God through fervent and genuine prayer life, and also through active participation in the faith. We have to realise that the devil is always active, prowling about trying to snatch us from God’s salvation. And therefore, the less involved we are in the Church and in living our faith, the more likely that he will be able to strike at us.
Let us all therefore help one another in our journey of faith, so that we may do our best to resist the temptations of Satan which he had made through sin, and through the temptations of the world and the pleasures of the flesh. Let us all resist these wicked abominations, and seek to purify ourselves from all that are unworthy, and which had separated us from the fullness of God’s love and grace.
May the Lord be with us always, and may He give us the courage to live faithfully day after day, doing our best to live according to His will, and following the message and the teachings of His Word in the Gospels and according to the teachings passed down through the Church. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 12 : 54-59
At that time, Jesus said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it happens. And when the wind blows from the south, you say, ‘It will be hot’; and so it is. You superficial people! You understand the signs of the earth and the sky, but you do not understand the present times.”
“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is fit? When you go with your accuser before the court, try to settle the case on the way, lest he drag you before the judge, and the judge deliver you to the jailer, and the jail throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the very last penny.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 118 : 66, 68, 76, 77, 93, 94
Give me knowledge and good judgment, for I trust in Your commands.
You are good, and Your works are good; teach me Your decrees.
Comfort me then with Your unfailing love, as You promised Your servant.
Let Your mercy come, to give me life; for Your Law is my delight.
Never will I forget Your precepts; for with them, You give me life.
Save me, for I am Yours, since I seek Your statutes.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 7 : 18-25a
I know, that what is right, does not abide in me, I mean, in my flesh. I can want to do what is right, but I am unable to do it. In fact, I do not do the good I want, but the evil I hate. Therefore, if I do what I do not want to do, I am not the one striving toward evil, but sin, which is in me.
I discover, then, this reality : though I wish to do what is right, the evil within me asserts itself first. My inmost self, agrees and rejoices with the Law of God, but I notice in my body, another law, challenging the Law of the Spirit, and delivering me, as a slave to the law of sin, written in my members.
Alas, for me! Who will free me from this being, which is only death? Let us give thanks to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord!
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us heard how the Lord’s coming would create contradictions and conflicts, because of the incompatibility between the ways of the Lord and the ways of Satan, that is sin. That is because for us to be faithful to God, and to be steeped in the ways of sin are mutually exclusive and incompatible with each other.
Just as the Lord mentioned in another occasion in the Gospels, that we mankind cannot serve both God and money, as He related the parable of the wicked and untrustworthy servant to the people, therefore as Christians we cannot be half-hearted in our faith, or else, we will end up being lukewarm and be tempted to sin against God. And if we disobey God through sin, how can we then be truly faithful to Him?
Basically, as St. Paul mentioned in today’s first reading, which was taken from his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, all of us have two choices in life, on whether we want to embark down the path of sin, or whether we want to commit ourselves to the path of the Lord, that is righteousness and justice. And it is these choices we made, or are going to make, which eventually cause the difficulties and challenges we heard in the Gospel passage today.
It is because if we try to be righteous, those who have not chosen the righteous path will despise us, and they will rise up against us. It has happened before at the time of Jesus, when those who spoke the truth of God were silenced, just as the prophets from the earlier times were persecuted and silenced for speaking God’s words. If the world has persecuted the Lord Himself, then surely they will persecute us all the more and make things difficult for us.
On this day, all of us as Christians are asked to reflect and to spend some time to consider how our actions in life all these while have been, on whether they have been faithful and in accordance with God’s ways and teachings, or whether they have been unfaithful and as show of disobedience against God’s will. We will realise that in certain occasions, be it occasionally or frequently, we might have chosen to disobey God in the choices we made throughout life.
In fact, there are many Christians out there, among us, who often pick and choose what we want to believe in, and what we do not want to believe in. And hence, they are those who are so called ‘Cafetaria Christians’, those who refuse to believe wholeheartedly and completely to the Lord, and instead, choose what they want to do. Then, it is no longer faith, but our own selfish desires.
Let us all throw away all these attitudes, and become true Christians, that in our every actions, words and deeds, we will always stand up for the true faith, and not to discount it in any way. We must be ever more committed to the Lord, and resist the temptation to do otherwise. This will not be easy, but if we do not do anything, we will fall easily into the pressure to sin, as many of those around us will be pressuring us to conform to their worldly ideals.
Therefore, as Christians, we really must be able to stand up for our faith, not through being confrontational, but instead through dedication and real works, through actions showing how we are truly faithful to God. And hopefully, through our works and actions, we may even convince many others to follow our footsteps, and thus, through us many more can be saved from their fated destruction.
Let us draw ever closer to God, and ask Him for His protection, that despite the oppositions from the world, and despite the challenges and difficulties we may face throughout these lives, we may be able to persevere through them all, and find our way towards God and His salvation. May the Lord be with us always, and may He empower us to become His good disciples and followers. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 12 : 49-53
At that time, Jesus said to the people, “I have come to bring fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what anguish I feel until it is finished! Do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, in one house five will be divided : three against two, and two against three.”
“They will be divided, father against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6
Blessed is the man who does not go where the wicked gather, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit where the scoffers sit! Instead, he finds delight in the Law of YHVH and meditates day and night on His commandments.
He is like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering. Everything he does is a success.
But it is different with the wicked. They are like chaff driven away by the wind. For YHVH knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 6 : 19-23
You see, that I speak in a very human way, taking into account that you are not fully mature. There was a time, when you let your members be slaves of impurity and disorder, walking in the way of sin; convert them, now, into servants of righteousness, to the point of becoming holy.
When you were slaves of sin, you did not feel under obligation to righteousness, but what were the fruits of those actions, of which you are now ashamed? Such things bring death. Now, however, you have been freed from sin and serve God. You are bearing fruit, and growing in holiness, and the result will be life everlasting.
So, on one side is sin : its reward, death; on the other side, is God : He gives us, by grace, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord through the Sacred Scriptures reminding us all to be always ready and to be vigilant in living our lives, so that we may be always ready for the Lord when He comes again suddenly at the time of His own choosing. Otherwise, we may end up being caught unprepared and be considered unworthy in the end.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day through the Scriptures we are reminded that sin is our very dangerous enemy, which has always been present from the moment when our ancestors disobeyed the Lord and thus fell into sin. Sin has enslaved us and kept us under its tyranny for many ages, until the time when the Lord came unto us and brought us His salvation.
The Lord came, bearing His truth and offer for mercy and forgiveness of our sins. And through His many parables and teachings, the Lord Jesus wanted to remind each one of us to be holy and good in all of our actions and deeds, in all the things which we say and show to others. And we have been given these bodies, minds and hearts that we may use them for the good and faithful purposes in God.
Yet, many of us would rather allow sin to enter into our minds, into our hearts, into our bodies, our whole being, that those sins brought about corruption and wickedness. Sin is indeed a disease, like cancer, that is slowly eating us from within. And many of us do not realise that we have this affliction in us because we have often been desensitised to sin. We have committed sins and disobedient acts in our lives so much that they become somewhat like our second nature.
But if we do not do anything about this, we will end up falling into condemnation, when Our Lord and Master comes, and He will reject us because He is disgusted by our sins and wickedness. It is by our sins and by our righteousness that we will be judged, and should we be complacent in living our lives according to our faith, instead falling into the many temptations of this world, we are all in great danger, of losing our eternal souls to eternal torment in hell.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, many of us tend to take our faith for granted, just because we often think that because of that faith, then we are fine and that there is nothing else that we need to do. That is why there are so many of us Christians who have been lulled into a false sense of security and safety, and we end up becoming lapsed in the practice of our faith. This is also how sin ends up having a way with us, anchoring itself in our hearts and minds.
We have been freed from the tyranny and enslavement by sin through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose death on the cross broke forever the hold and power which sin and the devil have over us, and through His loving sacrifice, He has liberated us from the darkness and kept us from our fated destruction. Yet, many of us are tempted again and failed to resist those temptations, and many was such because they were incapable of resisting the temptation to sin and disobey God for our own personal gain.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all reflect on these matters, and let us think about what each and every one of us as Christians can do in our lives in order to change ourselves for the better, so that while once or indeed now, we may still experience the corruption of sin, through our thoughts, words or actions, we may then seek to be forgiven from our sins, and to sincerely repent from them, that we may gain true righteousness in God.
Let us delay no longer, but from now on devote ourselves completely to the Lord, so that through all the things we do, we will draw ever closer to Him. Let us not think that we still have time, and that the Lord will forgive us nonetheless. Any sins that remain unconfessed and unforgiven before God will become great obstacles in our path towards God’s salvation and grace.
May the Lord inflame us with the spirit and courage in order to live faithfully according to the Gospels of Christ, so that in our actions, we may show true faith and commitment to that same faith, that we may draw ever closer to God and be worthy of His eternal life and glory. May God bless us all. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 