Alleluia

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Saturday, 17 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 44-52

The following Sabbath almost the entire city gathered to listen to Paul, who spoke a fairly long time about the Lord. But the presence of such a crowd made the Jews jealous. So they began to oppose with insults whatever Paul said.

Then Paul and Barnabas spoke out firmly, saying, “It was necessary that God’s word be first proclaimed to you, but since you now reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we turn to non-Jewish people. For thus we were commanded by the Lord : I have set you as a light to the pagan nations, so that you may bring My salvation to the ends of the earth.”

Those who were not Jews rejoiced when they heard this and praised the message of the Lord, and all those destined for everlasting life believed in it. Thus the Word spread throughout the whole region.

Some of the Jews, however, incited God-fearing women of the upper class and the leading men of the city, as well, and stirred up an intense persecution against Paul and Barnabas. Finally they had them expelled from their region. The Apostles shook the dust from their feet in protest against this people and went to Iconium, leaving the disciples filled with joy and Holy Spirit.

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Friday, 16 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Do not worry, brothers and sisters, and that is the key message of today’s readings. And why? This is because our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God is firmly on our side, and He will not abandon us, especially not to the forces of evil. He will safeguard us, protect us, shield us, and empower us, that we all will be safe at the end of our lives, and death will not be able to claim us, and nor will Satan have any power over us.

Brethren, God had prepared the places for us, which He made known to us through Jesus, He revealed to us that so long as we believe in Him and remain on the path which He had shown us, we will be safe. And what is this way? Jesus, and none other. Remember when Christ said that He is the way the truth and the life? That is because only through Jesus we can reach out to the Father, as He is the bridge between us and the Lord.

Mankind had long been sundered from the Lord due to their rebelliousness and sin, which prevented them from ever being able to reach out to the Lord. If you recall the story of Lazarus the poor and the rich man, told by Jesus, then you will realise that when the rich man died, he begged Abraham and Lazarus to come over to hell to ease his sufferings there, but as mentioned, there exists an immense and uncrossable chasm that exists between the two, that prevented either side from going to the other side.

The same chasm therefore, also exists between us and God, and this chasm is the consequence of our sins. God did not intend for mankind to suffer all these and to bear all the punishments intended for us, for He created us in all perfection, on that day when the first of our ancestors were still pure and unblemished, when they still walked without guilt in the garden of Eden with God.

It was because of the sins of Adam the first man, and his partner and wife, Eve, the first woman, that mankind were sundered away from the Lord and His love. We were cast out of the life in bliss and eternal happiness that God had prepared for us, away from the eternal companionship with God that He had intended for us and for our ancestors.

But, as I have often mentioned, God did not give up on us. That was why He was willing even to send a part of Himself, the Word who is Son, to assume flesh and be one of us, and finally to bring all mankind back to God through His death and glorious resurrection. That is God’s love for us, and He dedicated Himself completely for our sake.

The suffering of Jesus is due to our sins, and He volunteered to take upon our sins and all of their weight, and bear them dutifully as He walked on that path to Calvary, obeying the Father in all that He did. He was lifted up between the heavens and the earth, and on the cross, He offered His life and perfect obedience in exchange for our salvation and the remission of our sins, for those who believe in Him.

In doing so, Christ became the bridge that closes the gap between the Lord and us, but the chasm continue to remain there. For as long as we sin and continue to commit things that are displeasing to God, we will not be able to cross that chasm and reach the Lord. Jesus is the only way through whom we may reach out to the Father.

Yet, it is not just as simple as that, because for us to go to the Lord through Jesus, we must follow Him in all of His ways. We cannot be half-hearted in following Jesus, or as we cross that chasm, we will falter and fall into chasm, and thus into sin and damnation. If we allow even a single laxity in our faith in Jesus our Saviour, we allow sin to make its way back into is and corrupt us once again, separating ourselves once more from the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray fervently and sincerely, that in all the things we do, we will always follow the Lord with all of our heart, without  turning left or right, and without being influenced by the various temptations and pleasures which Satan had placed on our path. Be courageous to say no to him and ignore all the offers that he made, no matter how attractive they are. Do not let him distract us and make us fall on our way to the Lord.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, that He may make our faith in Jesus stronger, that we will cling closely unto Him and put in Him all of our trust. Let us never again be separated from God, and let us continue to walk faithfully with Him towards the Lord our loving God. Amen.

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Friday, 16 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 14 : 1-6

Jesus said, “Do not be troubled! Trust in God and trust in Me! In My Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to Me, so that where I am, you may also be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

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Friday, 16 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 2 : 6-7, 8-9, 10-11

Behold the King I have installed, in Zion, upon My holy hill! I will proclaim the decree of the Lord. He said to Me : You are My Son. This day I have begotten You.

Ask of Me and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall rule them with iron sceptre and shatter them as a potter’s vase.

Now therefore, learn wisdom, o kings; be warned, o rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and fall at His feet; lest He be angry and you perish when His anger suddenly flares. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him!

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Friday, 16 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 26-33

Paul said, “Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham, and you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognise Jesus. Yet in condemning Him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath but not understood.”

“Even though they found no charge against Him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.”

“But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days thereafter He showed Himself to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become His witnesses before the people. We ourselves announce to you this Good News : All that God promised our ancestors, He has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm : ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.'”

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Thursday, 15 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has planned His coming into this world since a very long time ago. He had revealed His plans to the prophets who proclaimed the Lord’s coming, and yet the people failed to appreciate and understand in its fullness, the message passed down by the prophets of the Lord. In Jesus, all of God’s long awaited promise is fulfilled in its perfection.

The coming of the Lord is intended to be the end of the suffering of mankind in darkness, for through the Lord, a new light has dawned, and that light is not to be put out, and become the source of salvation and inspiration on all the people who sees Him. But not all the people welcomed the Lord when He came, and some of them even rejected Him and closed their hearts to Him when He came to knock at their doors.

Today’s first reading showed us the history of the Lord’s work of salvation, which He had long planned ever since mankind first fall to the temptations of Satan. St. Paul told the people of God the entirety of the history of salvation summarised in short words, but yet still clear enough to show the sincerity of God, and His seriousness to help us to return to His embrace.

God sent His Son to be with us, and to walk among us, so that we may see the Lord in Jesus, and walk in His ways, and therefore, obey the will of God and hence, be in the favour of God and be saved from their afflictions. Jesus is the true and real manifestation of God’s love for us, and the reminder to God’s people how they were saved from their various afflictions and persecutions, as He had done when He liberated them from the bonds of the Egyptians.

The Son of God came to perfect all the laws of the land, which He had revealed through Moses, the Law of God. He made everything clear through His explanations, and on the real and true purpose of the Law, that is love, God’s love for all of His creations, particularly mankind, the most beloved out of all His creatures. He explained with love, how much the Lord wants His children to be reunited and reconciled with Him, and showed them how to do so.

Jesus showed by example, encouraging His disciples to love one another just as He had first loved them. He sought sinners and fornicators, and those looked down upon by the society, gathering them and bringing them back to His loving embrace. He showed God’s love for them through His own love, and brought many of them back to the Lord and redeemed them.

Jesus shows how God’s mercy and love is available to everyone, even to the greatest of sinners and the most unworthy of the faithful. But this requires us to be open to this mercy and love, or otherwise, the Lord’s works will not be able to make a concrete change in us and transform us from creatures of sin into creatures of holiness and hope.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we commit ourselves to the Lord, that in all the things that we do, we do it for the sake of the Lord? Shall we focus all our attentions to the Lord and turn our ways to align with His? May the Lord guide us ever in our path, that in all things we do we may always bring glory to God. May our hearts always be open to the love and mercy of God, that we may ever seek the Lord’s mercy and forgiveness whenever we sin and therefore gain the grace and blessings of the Lord. Amen.

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Thursday, 15 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 13 : 16-20

Truly, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than he who sent him. Understand this, and blessed are you, if you put it into practice.

I am not speaking of you all, because I know the ones I have chosen, and the Scripture has to be fulfilled that says : The one who shared My table has risen against Me. I tell you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may know that I am He.

Truly, I say to you, whoever welcomes the one I send, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One who sent Me.

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Thursday, 15 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 88 : 2-3, 21-22, 25 and 27

I will sing forever, o Lord, of Your love and proclaim Your faithfulness from age to age. I will declare how steadfast is Your love, how firm Your faithfulness.

I have found David My servant, and with My holy oil I have anointed him. My hand will be ever with him and My arm will sustain him.

My faithfulness and love will be with him, and by my help he will be strong. He will call on Me, “You are my Father, my God, my Rock, my Saviour.”

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Thursday, 15 May 2014 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 13-25

From Paphos, Paul and his companions set sail and came to Perga in Pamphylia. There John left them and returned to Jerusalem while they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they entered the synagogue and sat down.

After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent this message to them, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the assembly, please speak up.”

So Paul arose, motioned to them for silence and began, “Fellow Israelites and also all you who fear God, listen. The God of our people Israel chose our ancestors, and after He had made them increase during their stay in Egypt, He led them out by powerful deeds. For forty years He fed them in the desert, and after He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance.”

“All this took four hundred and fifty years. After that, He gave them Judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was king for forty years. After that time, God removed him and raised up David as king, to whom He bore witness saying : ‘I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all I want him to do.'”

“It is from the descendants of David that God has now raised up the promised Saviour of Israel, Jesus. Before He appeared, John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for all the people of Israel. As John was ending his life’s work, he said : ‘I am not what you think I am, for after me another One is coming whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.'”

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Wednesday, 14 May 2014 : Feast of St. Matthias, Apostle (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of St. Matthias, one of the Twelve Apostles, although originally he was not included among the Twelve, until after Judas Iscariot had betrayed the Lord and committed suicide for his sins against the Holy One of God. Only then that Matthias was selected, as we heard how it went in the first reading today, to replace Judas so that the number of the Apostles will always be full, that is twelve.

There are great symbolisms behind the number twelve chosen by the Lord to be the chief among His disciples and followers, and He set them aside to become His Apostles, to be the ones who led in the evangelisation of the Gospel and the spreading of the Good News to many nations. The number twelve is often associated with the number of the tribes of Israel, the sons of Jacob to whom the Lord had bequeathed the Promised Land long ago after their exodus from the land of Egypt.

The Apostles, if we read the Book of Revelation, are the ones who will judge the people and the tribes of Israel, at the end of time, and Jesus Himself said that they will be the judges of the people of God. They were the chief assistants of the Lord, to whom Jesus even promised that He went ahead of them to prepare the places for them. Such a good life for them, is it not?

But, brethren, you have to look at what they have to face in life, as they proceed on with what they had been entrusted with. They were charged to bring the people of God from many nations and return them to the embrace of God, their loving Father. This was no easy task, and they had enormous challenges in their ministry, facing rejection after rejection, and the open and blatant hostility of the Jewish leaders and priesthood, as well as opposition from various groups of people who refused to listen and believe in the truth.

And eventually they also met their end in various means, through martyrdom and suffering, in different parts of the world, when the people to whom they had dedicated themselves to, turn their back on them, rejecting them, and murdered them, shedding the Apostles’ blood, which in turn became the seed for the faith of more Christians, as inspirations for even more martyrs to rise up and defend their faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what St. Matthias had been chosen for. It was not an easy task, but he and the other Apostles persevered nonetheless, and  they served as an inspiration for all of us. So how is this relevant to us who live in this modern era, in this modern day world? It is relevant because we are all also charged with the same mission to evangelise the world, to spread the Good News to all men.

And even these days, it does not mean that this work is getting any easier. On the contrary, it is getting more and more difficult, with challenges and oppositions from every possible sources and corners of the world, from both outside the Church and even from within the Church. Being a missionary and a worker of the Lord like the Apostles is not easy, but arguably, it is truly worth doing. Why? Because the Lord takes good care of all those who believe in Him and those who do His will, like the Apostles did.

Let us therefore be encouraged, that we will be faithful and committed to the cause of the Lord, that we may be fruitful in our attempts at evangelisation, and bring more souls closer to the salvation in God. May the Lord protect and guide us on our way, that through the help and intercession of St. Matthias the Apostle, we may become ever better disciples of God. God bless us all. Amen.