Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 23 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
The earth and its fullness belong to YHVH, the world and all that dwell in it. He has founded it upon the ocean and set it firmly upon the waters.
Who will ascend the mountain of YHVH? Who will stand in His holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain.
They will receive blessings from YHVH, a reward from God, their Saviour. Such are the people who seek Him, who seek the face of Jacob’s God.
Liturgical Colour : White
Revelations 7 : 2-4, 9-14
I saw another Angel, ascending from the sunrise, carrying the seal of the living God, and he cried out with a loud voice, to the four Angels empowered to harm the earth and the sea, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads.”
Then, I heard the number of those marked with the seal : a hundred and forty-four thousand, from all the tribes of the people of Israel. After this, I saw a great crowd, impossible to count, from every nation, race, people and tongue, standing before the Throne, and the Lamb, clothed in white, with palm branches in their hands, and they cried out with a loud voice, “Who saves, but our God, Who sits on the Throne, and the Lamb?”
All the Angels were around the Throne, the elders and the four living creatures; they, then, bowed before the Throne, with their faces to the ground, to worship God. They said, “Amen, Praise, glory, wisdom, thanks, honour, power and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen!”
At that moment, one of the elders spoke up, and said to me, “Who are these people clothed in white, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, it is you who know this.” The elder replied, “They, are those who have come out of the great persecution, they have washed, and made their clothes white, in the Blood of the Lamb.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded of the calling for us as Christians to be always filled with love, most importantly the love for God, our faith and trust in Him, and then, equally important is our love for our fellow brothers and sisters. As Christians we are always reminded of the love that we should have for our fellow men and women, and we should not be ignorant of this calling and mission we have in our daily lives as God’s beloved ones. The Lord has always shown us His love, to each one of us, no matter how we have treated Him and how we have been stubborn in rejecting Him and refusing to listen to His voice.
Therefore, just as the Lord has tirelessly and patiently reached out to us with love, and even sending His only Begotten Son to be our Lord and Saviour, each one of us as Christians are also expected to do the same, that is to be filled with genuine and most tender and generous love for our fellow brothers and sisters. We must always put ourselves and our love for ourselves as secondary to our love for God and for our fellow brothers and sisters. Of course we still have to love ourselves and we should not despise who we are, but we must not let our self-love to become a distraction and preoccupation or even obsession which may end up causing us to ignore the needs of others around us, especially those of us who are lacking and in need of love. Each one of us have been called and indeed challenged to bear the love of God to our brethren.
In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Philippi, in which the Apostle spoke of how all Christians ought to live together harmoniously and in loving relationships as the members of the same one Church of God. The Apostle likely referred to the divisions and disagreements that had inevitably appeared between the members of the Church because of their diverse origins. St. Paul said that the people of God should not be divided and placed one against another. The people of God should put their brethren ahead of themselves, ahead of their own selfish ego and desires, all of which had caused so much suffering and hardships, and which had made the relationships between the faithful to be bitter and uncomfortable.
That is what happened when we mankind allowed our prejudices and desires to get ahead of us. The people of God could be divided by their prejudices and unwillingness to cooperate and live harmoniously with each other, and also by their desires and demands to satisfy their own selfish wants and all the things that caused the rupture in the harmony of the people and the community of the faithful Church of God. When everyone began to prioritise themselves and their selfish wants ahead of the needs of others, that is when we may end up with people who manipulated and mistreated others simply because they wanted to gain more for themselves. And history has proven that we can be very selfish, and many had suffered at the hands of those who sought to enrich themselves with more of worldly riches and grandeur.
This is why in our Gospel passage today the Lord again reminded us that as Christians we cannot be people who are filled with worldly desires and arrogance, ambition and wants. We cannot be greedy and filled with the attachments and the obsession for worldly goods, for glory and fame, for status, power and for human praise and acceptance. Otherwise, sooner or later we will realise that we will end up trying to satisfy our own needs and desires above that of helping others who are in need, and we may end up being distracted and blinded, that we cannot see the plight of all the others around us simply because we have been too busy in seeking to satisfy ourselves, our wants and our greed.
Instead, the Lord has called all of us to look beyond our own selfish needs and ambitions, and turn towards the Lord Himself once again, full of love and desire to serve Him and glorify Him, putting Him at the centre of our lives. We must not let the temptations of worldly pride to distract us in our journey towards God, towards His grace and salvation. And as long as we continue to allow those temptations to be around us and to tempt us, then we are likely going to end up falling deeper and deeper into the path of selfishness, pride and sin. As Christians, and as members of God’s one united Church, each one of us have been given the calling, mission and responsibilities to proclaim the truth and love of God by our lives and examples.
Let us all ask ourselves then, whether we have been truly obedient to God and whether we have walked faithfully in His ways, or whether we have instead walked down the path of selfishness, ambition, pride and greed, as many among our predecessors had done. Let us remember that we are all called to be holy and loving just as our Lord Himself is full of holiness and love. We are all called to model ourselves upon the ever generous love of God, Who has loved us all so greatly all these while despite everything that we had done in resisting and rejecting Him. We are all called to embody God’s love, mercy and compassion in each and every one of us, in our every words, actions and deeds.
Today as we mark All Hallows’ Eve or the Eve of the All Saints’ Day, we are also especially reminded that we should also look upon the examples of the great saints, the innumerable holy men and women of God who have gone before us to the glory of Heaven. Each and every one of them in their unique lives and works have many things to show us and inspire us, in showing us how we should live our lives with faith and dedication. The saints of God, if we read upon their life stories and examples, are people who place others before themselves, and they practiced what the Lord Himself had done and taught us all to do, that is to love generously, God first and foremost, and then also their own fellow brothers and sisters, especially the least unloved and those who were in most need of God’s love.
May the Lord continue to guide us in our journey of faith and may He empower each one of us with the courage and strength to resist the temptations of the world, and so that we may be more loving, compassionate and concerned with the plight and the needs of our fellow brothers and sisters around us. May God be with us, His Church, His flock and people at all times, may His saints be great inspiration for us and intercede for us at all times, and may He bless us in our every efforts and endeavours, now and always, forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 14 : 12-14
At that time, Jesus also addressed the man who had invited Him, and said, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives, or your wealthy neighbours. For surely they will also invite you in return, and you will be repaid.”
“When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they cannot repay you; you will be repaid at the resurrection of the upright.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 130 : 1, 2, 3
O Lord, 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 the Lord, o Israel, now and forever.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Philippians 2 : 1-4
If I may advise you in the Name of Christ and if you can hear it as the voice of love; if we share the same Spirit and are capable of mercy and compassion, then I beg of you, make me very happy : have one love, one Spirit, one feeling, do nothing through rivalry or vain conceit.
On the contrary let each of you gently consider the others as more important than yourselves. Do not seek your own interest, but rather that of others.
Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us come together to mark the occasion of All Souls Day, on which day we remember our brothers and sisters who have departed from this world before us. Today we remember all those who have left their worldly existence in the flesh, and who have died in the Lord, as those who are not considered as saints, whose feast we celebrate yesterday in All Saints Day, but are still probably in Purgatory, waiting to enter the glory of Heaven.
What is Purgatory, brothers and sisters in Christ? Purgatory is a place where the holy souls who have passed on from this world are in, in a time and existence between that of this world and Heaven. They are not yet able to enter Heaven, because unlike the saints whose faith and virtues had deemed them to be worthy, over their venial sins, to enter Heaven directly at the moment of their passing from this world, those holy souls in Purgatory are still burdened by the residual sins that they had not been forgiven from.
One may then think that if God is so great and merciful, then He could have forgiven all of us all of our sins at His will and whim alone, and that isn’t it because of His suffering and death on the Cross that He has liberated all of us mankind from sin and evil, and freed us from our bondage? Then, why is it that Purgatory exists? The same question then can be asked of why does hell still exist then. If God has redeemed and saved us all, then should not all mankind free to enter Heaven at the end of their lives in this world?
This is where many of us often lack the proper understanding of our faith and how the afterlife works. Many aspects of what will happen after death remains a mystery to us, but through the teachings of the Lord, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit given to us through the Apostles and many other saints, including visionaries and all those who have witnessed Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, the Church therefore had revealed to us from what it had kept in the treasures of the faith, of what happens to us after we pass on from this world.
Essentially after we pass on from this world, a certainty for all of us due to our mortality, as no one can ever evade death, then there are three paths for us. Those as mentioned earlier who have lived their lives with great virtue and devotion to God, or even had shed their blood, suffered and died a martyr’s death, all of them are deemed worthy to enter into the glory of Heaven, to enjoy the beatific vision and the joy of being with God, as the innumerable saints that we have, and of which some have been officially recognised by the Church.
Then, for those who have died rejecting the Lord and His mercy to the very end, refusing to repent and continuing to live a life of sin and wickedness to their last moment, then they most likely end up in Hell, to suffer with the devil and all of his fellow fallen angels, the demons and evil spirits that dwell there, as a consequence of their conscious rejection of God’s love, compassion and mercy. Hell as the Church teaches us, is not as much a place as a state of existence, where the rejection of God led to a most bitter and terrible suffering.
Then, for many others, if not the vast majority of us, then we will end up in Purgatory, as our sins are not that terrible and horrendous that it merits us Hell, but at the same time, sin is still sin, no matter how small and insignificant it may be, and as long as our souls are still tainted by the residual sins that we have, then we cannot yet enter into Heaven, to where God dwells and be in His presence. And why not? That is because God is so good and perfect, that no sin can be in His presence.
That is why, in Purgatory, those holy souls are still suffering not because of the suffering that is like those who are in Hell are suffering, as they all suffer while knowing that Heaven is their ultimate destination. Their suffering came about because they have regretted still having those sins preventing them from immediately coming to be in the presence of God, and those sins have to be purified before they will be able to enter the glory of Heaven.
The Church has offered us all many opportunities to be forgiven from our sins, just as the Lord has given His Church the authority to forgive sins, the same power that He Himself has shown, as God alone can forgive sin. He has delegated that power and authority through the Church and the Apostles, and from them to our bishops and priests. The Sacrament of Reconciliation or Penance is the means by which the Church offers us this chance of forgiveness and reconciliation with God.
As such, when we confess our sins before the priest and are truly regretful of those sins that we confessed, then the Lord will forgive us through the priest, who is acting in the person of Christ, or ‘in persona Christi’, to forgive us our sins through Christ acting through him, as the triumphant Lamb of God and Saviour, Who had redeemed us from all sins and evils through His suffering and death on the Cross. Yet, not all of us have our sins confessed and some of us have carried our sins with us even to the afterlife.
That is why probably many of us will end up in Purgatory, and today, we remember those holy souls, our very own brothers and sisters, who have gone before us and are now there, suffering and waiting for the complete purification of their residual sins, such that they may finally then enter into the glory of Heaven. And those souls cannot pray for themselves to end their time there faster, but we can do that for them. We, the Church Militant still living in this world, as well as the saints, the Church Triumphant in Heaven are able to pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, our fellow brethren in the Church Suffering.
Therefore today, on this All Souls Day, let us all remember all the holy souls in Purgatory, especially those souls who have no one to pray for them, that God may have mercy on them, and remembering His great love, compassion and kindness, may be moved to allow them to enter into His glorious kingdom at the soonest opportunity, and therefore enjoy the inheritance that we ourselves will one day enjoy too, if we remain faithful to God. We should pray for them, especially on this special day and also for the rest of the month of November, now that the Church had decided again for this year to extend the indulgence for the dead for a longer period of time.
And let us all also remember that we have to lead a life that is holy and worthy of God, or else we ourselves may end up in Purgatory. Let us all strive to follow the examples of the saints, and distance ourselves from sin and evil, helping one another in this world to live good Christian lives, while also helping those in Purgatory to be closer to God and their Heavenly inheritance and promise. Let us all, members of the same Church of God, the Church Militant, Church Triumphant and Church Suffering pray together as one and help one another in our journey towards the Lord, for us in this world and for those in Purgatory.
May God, our loving God and Father, bless us all and may He have mercy and compassion on the holy souls in Purgatory, that He may lead them all to Himself, gather them in, forgive them their sins and remembering their love for Him, that all the holy souls in Purgatory, our brothers and sisters may have eternal peace and true joy in the Lord’s Presence, one that we hope to share in the future ourselves, one day as is our hope as always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple/Violet
Mark 15 : 33-39 and Mark 16 : 1-6
At that time, when noon came, darkness fell over the whole land and lasted until three o’clock; and at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You deserted Me?”
As soon as they heard these words, some of the bystanders said, “Listen! He is calling for Elijah.” And one of them went quickly to fill a sponge with bitter wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to Him to drink, saying, “Now let us see whether Elijah comes to take Him down.”
But Jesus uttered a loud cry and gave up His Spirit. And immediately, the curtain that enclosed the Temple Sanctuary was torn in two, from top to bottom. The captain, who was standing in front of Him, saw how Jesus died and heard the cry He gave; and he said, “Truly, this Man was the Son of God.”
When the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint the Body. And very early in the morning, on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” But, as they looked up, they noticed that the stone had already been rolled away. It was a very big stone.
As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right, and they were amazed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth Who was crucified; He has been raised and is not here. This is, however, the place where they laid Him.
Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple/Violet
Romans 5 : 5-11
And hope does not disappoint us, because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the love of God. Consider, moreover, the time that Christ died for us : when we were still helpless and unable to do anything. Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very good person, perhaps someone would dare to die.
But see how God manifested His love for us : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us; and we have become just, through His Blood. With much more reason now He will save us from any condemnation. Once enemies, we have been reconciled with God through the death of His Son; with much more reason, now we may be saved, through His life.
Not only that, but we even boast in God because of Christ Jesus, our Lord, through Whom we have been reconciled.
Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple/Violet
Psalm 26 : 1, 4, 7-9, 13-14
YHVH is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? YHVH is the rampart of my life; I will not be afraid.
One thing I ask of YHVH, one thing I seek – that I may dwell in His house all the days of my life, to gaze at His jewel and to visit His Sanctuary.
Hear my voice when I call, o YHVH, have mercy on me and answer. My heart says to You, “I seek Your face, o YHVH.” Do not hide Your face from me nor turn away Your servant in anger. You are my protector, do not reject me; abandon me not, o God my Saviour!
I hope, I am sure, that I will see the goodness of YHVH in the land of the living. Trust in YHVH, be strong and courageous, yes, put your hope in YHVH!
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 