afterlife

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Thursday, 28 November 2013 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we approach the beginning of the Advent season and the end of the current liturgical year, we are reminded yet again, on the imminence of the coming of Christ, that is His glorious and final, second coming, in which He will judge all things and all creations living and dead, in one final judgment for the souls of all mankind.

The time will come indeed, for the enemies of the faithful ones in God to gather and plot against the people of God, with their chief and lord, that is Satan the deceiver, for a final attempt to wrest victory from the hands of God. Just like in our first reading, where Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den by the machinations of his enemies, who pushed hard for his imprisonment and punishment, the same too will happen at the end of times, as Jesus Himself had mentioned.

Indeed, if we listen to the readings today, our fate as the faithful ones of God seems to be very bleak indeed, as we know that there will be lots of opposition, lots of suffering, and lots of tough times for us to go through. There will be oppression, and when we will be facing insults and anger of the people shown against us, for keeping the faith in God alive and strong in us. Well, to be honest, even these days, we all know that all of these are already happening, even daily these days!

Difficult times will certainly be upon us, but we should not be overly worried or give in to fear. Remember that the Lord protects all who are faithful to Him, and He cares for all of them, that is us. He will not leave us in jeopardy, nor will He abandon us to the evil one. It is we who often abandon Him, to choose the better and easier way out, taking the shortcut of the world, thinking that it will lead us to an easier and more enjoyable life later on.

Such is the delusion the enemy is trying to put to us, in order to bring us away from the Lord, and therefore from salvation. Through this world, the enemy has made his move, intended to bring many souls into damnation, a state where eternal suffering without hope and love will be upon us who stumble on our path towards the Lord. We must stand strong, and we cannot give in to the temptations of the devil.

It is not, however, that we should shun the world, hate the world, or anything like that. Rather, hate the developments that had grown accustomed in our society, where consumerism and excessive greed has eaten ever deeper into the hearts of mankind. Our modern day society is one where we can say that money is god, money is everything. Yes, money is indeed important, and we cannot deny that. We need money and other things which money can buy, so that we can sustain ourselves and continue living.

However, needing money does not equate the glorification of money, and the corruption of our hearts by greed. Yes, the greed for possessions and material wealth. It is pervasive in many in our world today. How many people have you known that enslaved themselves to their work and their career? How many people are obsessed with getting more wealth and possessions? How many people spent hours or even days of their time gambling and playing in casinoes in order to gain fast money? How many people did illegal jobs and corrupt funds just so that they can fill their coffers with more money?

Yes, these are the realities of our world. So many people have been ensnared by the temptations of the world, the allures of money, wealth, and worldly pleasures, which few indeed could resist. After all, given a choice, who in the right mind would choose suffering and difficulties over easy life and pleasure? And yet, brothers and sisters, the fact that you all are here today, is that, the very fact that we all still have faith and truly believe in the Lord our God and Saviour. We believe in Him and His promise, that at the end of all things, He will come again, and give us who remain faithful in Him, an eternal rest and glory with Him.

While we are living in this world today, we ought not to hide ourselves from the world and remain passive. We must not shield ourselves from criticism and persecution. Rather, go out and preach the Good News and the words of the Lord’s salvation, especially to those who did not believe, and those who persecutes you. We do not have to say a single word to do that. Our actions will do just the same. Remember what Jesus had said, and when we follow them, we will do fine.

Yes, for example, when someone insults us and our faith, do not insult them back. Instead, embrace them, love them, and pray for them. That is the way of the followers of Christ, the Christian way of life. Whenever people persecute us for our dedication and devotion towards the Lord, do not be angry at them. Rather, let love fill ourselves, and pray for them. Embrace them with your love. In doing so, not only that we do not corrupt ourselves with the anger and the negative emotions that the devil wanted to trap us with, but we may even help to bring more souls to salvation, to join us to be saved by God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, keep our faith up! Never fear, and keep the Lord always foremost in our heart. Let us all be loving children and disciples of our loving God, always loving and always forgiving, especially to those who hate us most, and to those who insult us and persecute us for our faith. Remember, they too need to be saved, just like us. God bless us all, and all peoples. Amen.

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Wednesday, 27 November 2013 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are told, on the risks facing those who are loyal and obedient to the Lord and to His laws. Jesus foretold the suffering that we will face as those who obey and follow Him. And just as the world had hated Him and persecuted Him and His followers, the disciples and the Apostles, we too will likely face the same opposition, suffering, and rejection from the world.

But we should not fear, brothers and sisters, for the Lord certainly will not remain silent or abandon us in our troubles and tribulations. He will send His help to us, and He will take care of us with gentle love and kindness, that only He, our Lord and God can provide. Remember what we had heard in our first reading today, taken from the Book of Daniel. The king of Babylon, Belshazzar, profaned and blasphemed against God by desecrating the sacred vessels that had been taken from the Temple of God in Jerusalem.

The king Belshazzar used those vessels, used for offering gifts and pure holiness to the Lord, for profane actions, in drunken stupor and feasting, with his nobles and his women. He desecrated the Lord further by invoking the name of his pagan gods, together with his guests, and praising these false gods instead of the One, True God, whose sacred vessels the king of Babylon had desecrated in His presence.

Belshazzar was reprimanded severely by the Lord Himself, and shown the wrath of God through His own hands, writing the prophecy of his ends, the overthrow of his person as king, and his replacement as the king of Babylon, by the Persian ruler, Cyrus, the one who later went on to free the Israelites from their bondage and servitude, allowing them to return to their land.

Such stories are told again to us, and we listen to them, so that we will always be reminded, on how the Lord will care for us and provide for us, even if the entire world is to turn against us. Yes, the forces that has power over this world, that is the forces of the evil one, hates the Lord and those who believe in Him. But this does not mean that we should entirely shun the world, hide ourselves from the world, and hate the world and all of its things.

Instead, we have to show our courage to stand up for our faith, and for God, that in all of our actions, our deeds, and our works, we proclaim the glory of God, the love of God, and the hope that God had brought mankind, to all the world, for all to see, witness, and hopefully, believe. Daniel did not hesitate to show the truth and the entire revelation behind the word on the wall, even if he risked his own life because he had said something bad about the king.

Jesus did not hesitate either, and He made it plain to all those who followed Him, that to be His disciples, and to belong to Him means suffering, plain and unadulterated suffering because there will be opposition and even oppression. Faith and salvation are not simple and easy to obtain, as they require complete and thorough dedication of ourselves.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are called yet again, to give of ourselves fully to the Lord in faith and love. Distance not ourselves from God’s love, but let us indeed draw closer to Him and towards His infinite love. We all have a choice, brethren. Will we choose to be closer to the Lord, and draw ever more closer towards His presence, even with suffering to pay in this world? Or will we instead choose to take the easy way out? By evading all the persecutions and the sufferings in this world, with the price of distancing ourselves from our Creator, and then to be thrown away into eternal suffering? The choice is ours.

May the Lord therefore continue to guide us, that in our hearts, He may continue to invigorate a spirit of love, that we will always continue to dedicate ourselves to Him, and in the end, receive the crown of glory and the entirety of the promised salvation He had promised us, in. Jesus His Son. Amen.

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Saturday, 23 November 2013 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr, and St. Columban, Abbot (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbot and Mass of our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the fact on the lack of faith that mankind has in the Lord. Mankind has grown feeble in the faith that they have in God, preferring their own reasoning, their own ideas and their own wisdom rather than putting their trust and faith in the One and True God. They refused to believe and hardened their hearts against God.

Yes, that was what the Sadducees had done, when they opposed Jesus and tried to test and challenge Him with questions about the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees are the moral and theological opposite of the zealous Pharisees, being influential Jews that in our modern terms can be equated as being secular in nature, even to the point of atheism, that is disbelief in the presence of the divine God.

They refused to believe in anything spiritual and otherworldly, preferring to trust in their own human senses and judgment. They did not believe in angels, in saints, and in the resurrection of the dead, and believe indeed that their lives in this world is to be savoured in its entirety, that they ought not to worry about the life that is to come. They thought of death as the end of our lives, a definitive end.

But to us, brothers and sisters in Christ, we know and believe that death is not the end of all things. Indeed, death marks the beginning of a new and eternal life in God. That is proven by none other than Jesus Himself, the One who rose from the dead in glory, and in the process, gaining mankind to Himself, and releasing them from the slavery of sin, providing them with an exit from death’s grasp.

For death is the fate of us all mankind, who had disobeyed the Lord and went astray from His laws and His precepts. Beginning from Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, mankind had been trapped in the cycle of death. Death is the punishment for disobedience, for our waywardness have led us away from God and His love. But the Lord loves us so much, that He would not let death have the final word.

He sent deliverance into this world, pretty much as what He had done as witnessed in our first reading, from the Book of the Maccabees, which retells the story of how a people was saved from the hands of evil. The forces of the world struck against the faithful ones of the Lord, through the hands of the Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes. And yet, the Lord raised up the Maccabees family, beginning with Judas, who led the people in a sort of holy war, in order to preserve their purity and sanctity against the forces of evil arrayed against them.

They rose up, cast out the forces of the Greeks, and regained their righteous freedom. And in the same way therefore, the Lord has come as the source of deliverance for all, through Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. He led the salvation of all and dealt the forces of evil a final defeat, and gained a final victory for all creations. And this, most importantly will not happen, without resurrection.

For resurrection is the Lord’s answer to death, and therefore, is His answer to sin, and to evil that had engulfed our world, and all of us, that through the resurrection of Jesus, which happened on the Easter Sunday, three days after His death on the cross, the sovereignty and power that death has over us is cast down. Without the resurrection, there is no hope for all of us. With it, and the with the Risen Christ, we have a new hope, that at the end of our journeys in this world, if we keep faith in God and attach ourselves to His ways, we will be saved.

Today, we celebrate the feast of Pope St. Clement I, one of the early and direct successor of St. Peter the Apostle as the leader of the entire Universal Church. He was also a holy martyr and a dedicated leader of the faithful, who dedicated his life in the complete service to the Lord. And in him today, we rejoice. That is because, if not Pope St. Clement I’s death in holy martyrdom would have been in vain, if there is no life after death.

Pope St. Clement I was one of the great early leaders of the Church, leading the faithful through difficult times, both against external oppositions and challenges, as well as internal disputes and rivalries. Pope St. Clement I wrote extensively many letters to the Universal Church, giving them encouragement and directions to keep strong and true the faith in God. And the core of that faith in God is the faith in the resurrection, for it is from the resurrection that our Faith is born.

Pope St. Clement I faithfully served the people of God, and he followed them even into custody, prison, and persecution. He was tortured by the Roman authorities who persecuted Christians, sent him into exile, and finally he was executed by drowning. Pope St. Clement I did not back down, and he kept his faith to the end, the faith in the Risen Lord. For he knew that there is hope in the Risen Christ, and through his hard works he had been rewarded with life eternal in the fullness of the glory of God.

St. Columban is another saint whom we commemorate today. He was an abbot and a pious worker of the faith who travelled across different areas and territories for many years, spreading the Good News and the teachings about the faith in those areas. St. Columban is a great missionary, who went around many areas of Western Europe, converting many to the cause of Christ, and bringing people closer to the salvation in the Risen Lord.

St. Columban worked hard and laboured for the faith, across the modern day France, and went on to many parts of Celtic Europe in the British islands. St. Columban worked in the islands and spread zealously the word of God as far as Ireland, where he spent significant amount of time in. He led the example for many to follow a dedicated religious life to God, giving of oneself in prayerful service to God and the fellow men.

Both the saints we celebrate today, in their own ways, proclaim the greatness of the Lord and testify for His glorious resurrection, through which the salvation of this world came about, delivering many souls from their intended path towards doom and eternal death. Through the hard works of these two saints therefore, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is therefore brought even closer to us, as Pope St. Clement I himself showed through his martyrdom, how he did not fear the suffering at the hands of men nor death, because he knew that, as St. Columban and all the other saints and holy men and women knew, that the glory of God and all the rewards are awaiting us at the other end of the tough road, if they remain faithful to the end.

We are shown how, death did not have the final say. For Jesus had made His appearance and through His own death, He had definitively proven to the entire creation, that the One with all the authority and power over life and death is God, and just as God did not intend us for death, for we have been made for perfection, so for those who remain true to His ways, God will grant everlasting life, if we will just believe, and keep on strongly to that faith. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brethren in Christ! Today we revisit and reiterate again a centre component of our faith, that is the faith in the resurrection of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, who died for our sake and rose up on the third day after His death. This concept of thr resurrection is so crucial and central for all of us, firstly because without the resurrection of Christ, we have no hope for salvation, and death will claim us all, as our eternal fate and punishment.

Then, secondly, without resurrection, we will also have no hope. Why so? This is because, to all of us, Christ has promised all who believe in Him, and those who accept Him as their Lord and Saviour and profess His death and resurrection from the dead. This is why the belief and faith in the resurrection is essential to all of us, for if we do not believe in it, we can never have a part in God and in His salvation.

The Sadducees in today’s Gospel reading was a group of highly educated people in the Jewish society, who were adamantly against any notion or idea of resurrection. They believed that resurrection is a myth, and resurrection is impossible, in their highly ‘educated’ and logical mind. That was why they, besides the Pharisees, were one of the two major opponents against Jesus.

The Sadducees used the example of seven brothers to highlight the issue of resurrection, and how for them it does not make sense, and even linked it to the Law of God itself, given through Moses. They did not believe in anything spiritual and otherworldly, and they prefer to believe what they can see and what they can reason or use their logic in. They did not believe in angels, spirits, and the resurrection itself. It was a very nihilistic viewpoint and a belief where human existence is nothingness.

The Lord rebuked them hard, by pointing to them the nature of salvation and the promised eternal life He had promised to all those who believe in Him. The world of the afterlife is not a world of pleasure and worldly desires. We will receive and experience eternal joy and happiness in heaven, but this joy is not expressed in the physical terms, and neither will we have joy as in our human and worldly understanding.

In the afterlife, in our eternal bliss and happiness, we are happy and we rejoice because the Lord is with us, and we are with the Lord. The barrier that once had separated us from His love and presence had been completely removed. Upon our resurrection, we are reunited with God in perfection. No more shall sin have any power over us. The Lord is in us and we are in God.

Nowadays, we too see the same phenomenon happening around us. How our society has gradually been transformed, from one that is truly faithful and devoted in God, into one that is increasingly skeptical and unbelieving in God. Mankind prefer to trust what they see and observe more than the faith that is in their hearts. And over time, they grow to even doubt the existence of God Himself, who has loved us all these while.

Many people would like to try to contradict the faith in God and things like science and knowledge, making it as if faith in God is exclusive of wisdom, knowledge, and science itself. They try to make it as if, if you are to believe in God, that you are backwards, that you are against the betterment of mankind through science, and so on and so forth.

Yet, they got it all wrong, just as the Sadducees had in the past, during the time of Jesus. They who preferred reason and sense over faith failed to realise that their very wisdom, their very ability to deduce and sense things around them, came from God Himself, as gifts to all of us. It is the Lord who is the font of all wisdom and truth, and by believing in Him, we are taken away from all falsehoods and remain in the truth.

There are things in this world that is beyond, and indeed far beyond our comprehension, and our ability to understand them. That is why we need faith in us. We cannot always depend on our thinking ability to deduce things around us. Our human ability is limited, and we cannot always think that we are always right, if we think that something is so and so. Worse still is that many of us, just because we lack faith, and we based our judgments on flawed human observations, dismiss the greatness of our God wholesale, refusing to believe in our Lord, much like the Sadducees of old.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord has chosen to come down to us in human form, in Jesus Christ. He did that so that through His own death and resurrection, He can bring mankind out of the chasm they have led themselves into. It is because of sin that mankind has fallen and were distanced from eternal glory and the life destined for us.

Resurrection, my dear friends, is a powerful statement against sin and death. Just as Adam’s sin had brought mankind from eternity into a life conquered by death, and where the devil and sin had authority over us once, with the coming, the death, and the resurrection of Christ as the new Adam, He showed all creation that death does not have the final say. Definitely not the final say over us.

If we do not believe in the resurrection, then what is our life about? We have no hope beyond death, since to us, death is the end to all things. That is why, many of us today fear death so much, and tried our best to avoid it, through various means, seeking to avoid death as best as possible. We fear death, but in the end the irony is that for those who fear death, death will claim them ever more.

We should not fear death, because death is not the end of all things. Many of us fear death, because we are too happy with what we have in this world now, in our material possessions and our exposure to worldly pleasures. We do not realise that true joy and happiness can only lie in the glory of the resurrection, and the promised new and eternal life with God.

This is what the seven brothers martyred for their faith, in the Book of the Maccabees fought for. They sought not the glory of this world, which they could have easily gained from the king if they abandoned their faith. Instead, they persevered and suffered, and fought for the everlasting gift of heaven.

Hence, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all not be doubtful as the Sadducees and many of us today had done. Let us deepen our faith in God and do not fear to proclaim Him as our Lord and rejoice in His resurrection, just as we are made worthy and promised resurrection for ourselves. God be with us all, watch over us, till the day when He calls us back to Him, raising us up from this world, body and soul, in glorious resurrection. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 20 : 27-38

Then some Sadducees arrived. These people claim that there is no resurrection, and they asked Jesus this question, “Master, in the Law Moses told us, ‘If anyone  dies leaving a wife, but no children, his brother must take the wife, and any child born to them will be regarded as the child of the deceased.'”

“Now, there were seven brothers; the first married a wife, but he died without children; and the second and the third took the wife; in fact, all seven died leaving no children. Last of all the woman died. On the day of the resurrection, to which of them will the woman be a wife? For all seven had her as a wife.”

And Jesus replied, “Taking a husband or a wife is proper to people of this world, but for those who are considered worthy of the world to come, and of resurrection from the dead, there is no more marriage. Besides, they cannot die, for they are like the angels. They are sons and daughters of God, because they are born of the resurrection.”

“Yes, the dead will be raised, as Moses revealed at the burning bush, when he called the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For God is God of the living, and not of the dead, for to Him everyone is alive.”

Alternative Reading (Shorter version)

 

Luke 20 : 27, 34-38

Then some Sadducees arrived. These people claim that there is no resurrection, and Jesus replied, “Taking a husband or a wife is proper to people of this world, but for those who are considered worthy of the world to come, and of resurrection from the dead, there is no more marriage. Besides, they cannot die, for they are like the angels. They are sons and daughters of God, because they are born of the resurrection.”

“Yes, the dead will be raised, as Moses revealed at the burning bush, when he called the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For God is God of the living, and not of the dead, for to Him everyone is alive.”

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Saturday, 2 November 2013 : Solemnity of All Souls (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Violet or Black

Isaiah 25 : 6, 7-9

On this mountain YHVH Sabaoth will prepare for all peoples a feast of rich foods and choice wines, meat full of marrow, fine wine strained. On this mountain He will destroy the pall cast over all peoples, this very shroud spread over all nations, and death will be no more.

The Lord YHVH will wipe away the tears from all cheeks and eyes; He will take away the humiliation of His people all over the world; for YHVH has spoken. On that day you will say : This is our God. We have waited for Him to save us, let us be glad and rejoice in His salvation.

 

Alternative Reading

 

Wisdom 3 : 1-9

The souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the unwise they appear to be dead. Their going is held as a disaster; it seems that they lose everything by departing from us, but they are in peace.

Though seemingly they have been punished, immortality was the soul of their hope. After slight affliction will come great blessings, for God has tried them and found them worthy to be with Him; after testing them as gold in the furnace, He has accepted them as a holocaust.

At the time of His coming they will shine like sparks that run in the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their king forever. Those who trust in Him will penetrate the truth, those who are faithful will live with Him in love, for His grace and mercy are for His chosen ones.