Almighty God

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Tuesday, 18 August 2015 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about how God sent His help and deliverance to His people through His messenger, an Angel, to bring the good news of liberation through the man, Gideon, whom He had appointed to be the one to save His people from the oppression and tyranny of the Midianites. Through Gideon, God would bring His people to remember what He had done to their ancestors when they were oppressed in Egypt.

The people of God had lived for quite some time by then in the land which He had promised them and their ancestors. The land of Canaan was a land that was superbly fertile and flourishing, flowing with milk and honey, and with bountiful harvests too. No other land on earth was comparable, and God gave His people the very best of land, because of the faith of their ancestors, and they inherit the good promise of God.

But in the process, the people of Israel forgot about the Lord and all the good things He has done for them. This is because, as is with human nature, all of us are easily tempted and corrupted by the many temptations and allures of this world. The bounty of goods and wealth that the land had brought them, had made the people of God overjoyed and even proud of what they had and what they had achieved, and in the end, they became like their neighbours, revelling in sin and merrymaking, and forgetting about God.

As a result, God allowed their neighbours to overpower them, to remind them that sin and worldliness lead to nothing but destruction and punishment suitable for that wickedness. And which in the Gospel today, our Lord Jesus Christ had also highlighted this fact, that it is difficult for someone with riches and wealth to enter into the kingdom of God, for their wealth and riches became their undoing.

It is just the same as what we heard in the Gospel yesterday on the young man who eventually did not follow the Lord even though He had faithfully obeyed all the Law and the commandments, because he was unable to part with his riches and wealth, when Jesus told him that the way to go was for him to let go of all that he had, and follow Him.

We have to take note that here, what Jesus is trying to tell us is not that wealth or riches are vile and wicked, and neither it is that rich people are wicked or evil, or that they are condemned. In fact, all people are equal before God, be it rich or poor, strong or weak, smart or foolish, great or small. What differentiates them is the love and devotion which they have for the Lord.

We are challenged today, to look beyond our earthly possessions and wealth that bound us to this world. Look at the disciples of the Lord, the holy Apostles, all of whom, like the many saints and martyrs who had abandoned everything to follow the Lord. They have no need to fear anything, and they were satisfied, for God provided all that they needed, and He cared for them in everything, and most importantly, they received the fullness of the promise of eternal life because of their faith.

Let us all also be able to resist the temptations of the flesh, and keep ourselves free from the allures of the devil and worldly goods. Let us all realise that whatever we have with us, we can use for the betterment of others around us, that all of us are well taken care of, and in love, all of us may be found worthy by our Lord, and be welcomed into His everlasting inheritance. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 18 August 2015 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 19 : 23-30

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you : it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Yes, believe Me : it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

On hearing this the disciples were astonished and said, “Who, then, can be saved?” Jesus looked steadily at them and answered, “For human beings it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”

Then Peter spoke up and said, “You see we have given up everything to follow You. What will be our lot?” Jesus answered, “You who have followed Me, listen to My words : on the Day of Renewal, when the Son of Man sits on His throne in glory, you also will sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.”

“As for those who have left houses, brothers, sisters, father, mother, children or property for My Name’s sake, they will receive a hundredfold and be given eternal life. Many who are now first will be last, and many who are now last will be first.”

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Monday, 17 August 2015 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard firstly about how God was angry at His people whom He had cared for so much during their Exodus and journey from Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan, which He had given to them for them and their descendants to dwell in. He had made a covenant with them, and yet, very quickly, they had broken their parts of the the covenant.

They were not fully faithful, although the Lord was faithful to them. They do not have the love for the Lord in their hearts, and their faith for the Lord was superficial and without strong foundation. They love only themselves and think about only their own security and try to satisfy their own desires, the desires of their stomach and their bodies before they would try to obey the Lord and His commands.

In the Gospel today, Jesus spoke about how someone who have followed the commandments of God, His Law and precepts cannot be fully His disciples if they did not learn to let go of their earthly temptations and the allures of the devil, which he had placed on our path to keep us ensnared and trapped in the darkness of sin. He showed us this truth and fact when He spoke with the young man on what he needs to achieve eternal life.

The young man had followed the Lord in all of His laws and commandments, and if we assume that this is referring to the laws as then practiced by the Jewish community, then we ought to know that this meant a very great accomplishment in some sense, as the Jews, particularly the Pharisees, were very stringent on following the laws to the very latter.

And there were very numerous rules and regulations in place, but the young man had obeyed them all, and yet what was it that hindered him from truly achieving the goal of salvation and eternal life? It was as mentioned, that his attachment and inability to separate himself from the worldly temptations was his undoing. He had a great wealth, and he would rather part with the Lord rather than part with those goods, as what we can imply from the Gospel.

This however does not mean that we ought to literally follow what Jesus had said, namely to sell all of our things and shun all forms of worldly goods. We still need to live in this world and in order to do so, we still need to use the goods of the world to sustain us. What we have to take note is that these goods, the wealth of the world is not inherently evil or bad, but instead, it is how we use them that can be considered as good or bad.

We have to learn to restrain our desires and how to use what we have meaningfully for the good of others around us, and that is what is important. Let us all pray that we will be given wisdom to discern good from bad, and how to love one another ever more, and not just to be concerned about ourselves and our need only. Let us be able to follow our Lord’s way of love, and be less selfish and be less focused on ourselves only.

May Almighty God help us, that we may overcome the temptations of the world, and find our way to His love, that in all of our actions, we may be true disciples and followers of His, and be found worthy of His eternal kingdom. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 16 August 2015 : Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about Wisdom, how it calls upon the foolish and the unenlightened, so that they may abandon their foolishness and embrace true wisdom and understanding. And what is this Wisdom about? It is the wisdom which can come from God alone, the understanding of all things and whatever happens around us, and not the false wisdom of men, or the false wisdom of the world.

If we read the exhortation by St. Paul in his letter to the faithful and the Church in Ephesus, then we would realise what is the distinguishing factor between the wisdom and ways of the Lord, and ways and the wisdom of this world, of mankind. The wisdom of God is far better than the wisdom of men, and the ways of the Lord are far beyond what men know in what they do.

But we are often too proud of what we know to let go of our own selfishness and pride, pride in the wisdom which we thought would lead us to greatness, to fame, to affluence and to might. And yet, these lead us only into destruction and annihilation in the end. For we have gained knowledge and wisdom through disobedience and sin, by our ancestors who wrongly ate of the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Satan tempted us to find a shortcut in life, by tempting them with knowledge and power. He tempted them by saying that if they follow what he said, then they would become like God. And in their foolishness, they believed in Satan and forgot or placed aside the restriction and prohibition which God had put in place, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and once they found out what happened, they were ashamed and they felt guilty.

In the Gospel today, we heard about how the Jews doubted about what Jesus said about Himself, and they refused to believe that He could give His flesh for them to eat, and His blood for them to drink. To them, to have such a notion or idea was totally repulsive, and they could not comprehend what He meant when He said those words.

As a result, they abandoned Him, and many of the disciples of Jesus rejected and renounced Him after they heard this truth from Him. They might have thought of Him as a crazy Man who ranted on something that is both impossible and repulsive, but they did not know or understand, that it was their human wisdom and presumptive behaviour that had prevented them from seeing the truth in Christ.

It was also the same with the people of Nazareth, who had rejected Jesus when He came and proclaimed Himself before them, telling them who He was and what He was about to do in their midst. They did not believe in Him because they thought that they knew who He was, namely the humble Son of a mere village carpenter. They thought that it was impossible for a carpenter’s Son, and Jesus was likely a carpenter Himself, such a menial and thankless job to be able to bring about such things as Jesus Himself proclaimed.

In their hearts, they were blinded by hubris and pride, thinking of themselves as better than others. It is in our human nature to be competitive and critical of others, as our ego and pride often fill us up to the extent that we are unable to think with good reason, and then we commit things that are wicked in the sight of the Lord, and made a fool of ourselves, piling up one sin after another.

Today we are all reminded that we are mere mortals, and our knowledge of things in this world is not perfect and neither it is comprehensive. Our knowledge is flawed and imperfect, and what we know is often marred and corrupted by our desires, by the lies of Satan and the temptations he had given us through this world, and our pride and arrogance also often became our undoing.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we learn to be humble and to accept our weaknesses as a reality? Shall we all acknowledge how we can often be wrong in our own human wisdom and intellect, and how we can commit mistakes and faults if we depend only on our own power and intellect. And this include doubting the Lord who is Himself truly and really present in the Most Holy Eucharist.

There had been many people who doubted this, and they like the Jews did not and refused to believe that Jesus had given Himself, in the form of bread and wine transformed completely in matter and reality to be the Body and Blood of our Lord and Saviour. It was by this giving of the Body and Blood, willingly shed and given, that we have received a new hope from the Lord, the hope of a new and everlasting life, freed from sin and all of its snares, and where the true wisdom is revealed to us.

It may seem to be impossible for us that this happens, but we have to remember that nothing is truly impossible for our Lord, as everything that seem impossible for us, is possible for God. Remember that His ways are far beyond our worldly ways, and His wisdom is far greater than our human wisdom and intellect. It is therefore naive for us to think that we can try to explain what happened with our mere human wisdom and intellect alone, if we do not have the wisdom which our Lord had given to us.

Therefore, let us all today commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and throw far, far away hubris, pride and haughtiness from our hearts and minds, and humble ourselves before the Lord, He who knows everything, and everything inside our hearts and minds as well. Let us not put our trust in our own strength but give it all to the Lord our God, whose wisdom shall guide our path to righteousness.

May Almighty God, Holy Wisdom and the Truth, the Way and the Life be our guide always, and may He awaken in all of us the strong desire to love Him and to follow Him, walking in His ways and remain righteous and true to the end. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 15 August 2015 : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we celebrate a great feast of the Church. It is a special solemnity in honour of the Assumption of the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is none other than the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Assumption refers to the moment when Mary did not suffer earthly and bodily death, but was lifted up by the power of God, or assumed, into heaven, body and soul altogether.

This is a great occasion, which the Church and faithful had believed in for quite some time, even since the days of the early Church, when the tradition of the Apostles and the Church passed down through the ages told us about how the Blessed Virgin Mary spent the rest of her earthly life after the death and resurrection of Jesus her Son, and how she was assumed into heaven at the end of her worldly existence.

This belief in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is presented richly in the Scripture readings which we heard during the Vigil Mass and the Mass of the Day of this special solemnity. We heard a lot about the Ark of the Covenant, crafted at the time of Moses from precious ornaments and materials, in order to contain the Law of God, the two stones containing the Ten Commandments God had given to His people.

And how is it relevant to today’s celebrations and festivities? This is because while the old Ark of the Covenant has been lost, especially at the time when the First Temple of God built by Solomon was destroyed by the Babylonians during the fall of Jerusalem about five hundred and eighty-six years before the birth of Christ, we now have a new and everlasting Ark of the Covenant, that is no longer something perishable and destroyable by fire and by human means.

The old Ark of the Covenant contained the two stones of the Law of God, the Ten Commandments which represents the Law. And besides the two stones, it also contained the manna, the bread which kept the people of Israel alive during their time in the desert where there is no life, for over forty years during the entirety of their journey. And then last of all, it also contained the staff of Aaron, the staff of priesthood and authority as given by God.

Do you know that Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, our God, is the new Ark of the Covenant? We may not be able to notice this, but let me elaborate in a while. She is the new Ark of the Covenant, because firstly, she contained all of the same things that the old Ark had contained, but all were even far better than the original Ark.

For she bore within her, in her womb, the Lord God Himself, Jesus Christ, who is the Bread of Life, the High Priest and the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets of God. In Jesus all the things that were stored in the first Ark of the Covenant, were also present. And through this comparison, we can already see what the purpose of Jesus and His coming into the world were.

He came to bring life and care to His people, by shedding for them His own Body and Blood, offering it as a perfect offering and sacrifice to the Lord, as the atonement for all of our sins, as the High Priest for all of us mankind, and by doing this, He fulfilled perfectly what the Law had said, and which the Prophets had prophesied about. And He made a new Covenant with all of mankind, a new Covenant sealed with His own Blood.

And He came into this world, in a vessel great and far purer than any vessel that this earth could have given Him. For while the original Ark of the Covenant was made with pure gold and precious goods of the earth, the new Ark of the Covenant, that is Mary, the bearer of the new Covenant made in Jesus Christ, is pure, immaculate, both body and soul, free from the taint of sin, as God had intended her to be, and in her life, her actions were flawless.

This is why, as the mother of our Lord, the Master and Lord of all life, and One who has conquered death, Mary did not suffer death nor the consequences of sin, which had brought death upon all mankind. And it is therefore fitting for the mother of the Master of Life, the new Ark of the Covenant, to be spared from death which all of us mortals have to endure, as the consequence of our sins. This is firstly because she has no sin to begin with, set aside from the rest of mankind as the bearer of the Lord.

And then, as the mother of God, it is completely comprehensible that the Lord would not let death to claim her, for He Himself had conquered death. Thus, this is why, we believe in the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as the symbol of triumph against death, as God Himself had prophesied at the beginning of time, when men first fall into sin.

The woman would crush the head of the serpent, and this is the triumph that man would bring to Satan and his forces, who have hounded us and endangered us for so long. This is the triumph against evil that God had promised us. Through Mary, we saw a great light and had hope once again. A world in darkness, a future of hopelessness, because of Mary who bear the new Covenant, the Promise of the Lord, had crushed forever our oppressor.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, however, one thing that we have to take note today is that all of us too, are in fact the Ark of the Covenant. Why is this so? That is because we have received the Lord into ourselves too! We who have received Him in the Eucharist, have the Lord Himself dwell inside us, because the bread we eat is His real Body, and the wine we drink, is the very Blood of our Lord Himself.

What is important for us to take note is that we have to be aware that just as the Ark of the Covenant was prepared with the best materials possible, and the new Ark, Mary, who bore our Lord in her womb, was prepared immaculate, holy and perfect, we too have to do the same with our own Ark, which is our body, our heart and our soul. Otherwise, truly we have sinned and blasphemed against our Lord.

Remember that St. Paul reminded us in his letter to the Church and the faithful in Corinth that we are all the Temple of the Holy Spirit? That mean we have been made the Temple of the Holy Presence of God Himself. And if we defile the sacredness and the sanctity of this Temple, then truly, we would make ourselves unworthy of our Lord and condemn ourselves to the eternity of suffering in hell.

Therefore, today, all of us ought to leave the Mass knowing that we all have been challenged, so that we can take note of our own words, actions and deeds, so that in all things we do and say, we can try to achieve and maintain the sanctity of our lives, our body, heart and soul. This is what we need to do, and what we can do, in order to keep ourselves worthy of our Lord, who does not tolerate sin, and yet He gives us chance after chance, for He is loving and merciful.

May Almighty God, and His mother, the Blessed Virgin assumed into heaven, body and soul, continue to be with us, and help to guide us, that we may find our way to Him, and so that we can keep ourselves holy and worthy, so that at the end of the day, we will be worthy of the eternal inheritance promised to us, God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 14 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about how Joshua, the leader of Israel and successor to Moses, the faithful servant of God, gathered the whole people of Israel and reminded them of the wonders and good things that God had done for them, from the time of their ancestors right down to their time, reminding them of how much God had done for them.

God had given so much to His people, even though from time to time, again and again they have disobeyed and refused to listen to Him and obey to Him. He has blessed them from time to time, and renewed His covenant and promise to His people yet again and again, but many rejected His offer of love and mercy, and many people continued to live in their ways of sin.

God is forever faithful and He is always ready to give His mercy and love to all those who seek them. But at the same time, it does not mean that He will let us to go our own path, that is He will not tolerate our sinfulness and our wayward behaviour, as if closing one eye against those sins. He is loving towards all of His people, but at the same time, He despises all forms of wickedness and sins.

In the Gospel today, Jesus spoke to the people about the importance, the sanctity and the nature of marriage, which is between one man and one woman, as decreed by the Lord since the beginning of creation, when He first created us mankind. Man and woman had been created to complement each other and to accompany each other, so that, as God had said, that man will join with woman and become one body, and that union is blessed and sanctified by God.

What God had made one, no man should ever separate or try to divorce. And that was what Jesus had said. He rebuked the people for their sinfulness and their refusal to open their hearts to admit the Lord into their hearts. He related this to how Moses had to allow the people to veer off from the true way to which God had led them, just so that the people might have their desires fulfilled.

The people of God always tried to bend the rules and challenge the order as established by the Lord, because they were easily tempted by worldly desires and by the sins they have committed. God has been very patient to endure from the people all the troubles and rejection which His people had given Him. They did not honour the holiness and sanctity of the sacrament of holy matrimony.

This is just as they did not regard the holiness and sanctity of life, which many of us should realise that in these days, more and more people treat life as if something that can be used and manipulated, no longer as something that is important and crucial. They trampled on life and the sanctity of marriage, dishonoured the Lord and the Law which He had given us for our sake.

God had given so much for us, and yet in our many actions, we showed how we despised and hated Him, and how we have not listened to Him calling us to be good and holy, just as He is holy. We have been immersed in this ‘culture of death’, where life to us, and the institution of the family is to us no longer important, and we rather place ahead, our desires and our selfishness.

Today, we celebrate the life of a great saint and martyr of the Faith, whose examples and life should inspire us to do differently from how we have done and how we have lived our lives so far. He is St. Maximilian Kolbe, the saint of the Holocaust, a Polish priest and missionary, whose many works and evangelising missions were known far and wide.

Bur best known to us was the action which he took during the terrible tragedy of the Holocaust, where the Germans under control of the NAZI party, led by Adolf Hitler, where many countless millions suffered in terrible conditions in various concentration camps and prisons, where their dignity as a human being is often completely ignored.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was among many of those who have been arrested by the NAZIs in their desire to destroy the dignity of many human lives. But he continued to minister to the people of God suffering and without dignity, raising hope and courage in their hearts. He celebrated the Holy Mass with them and encouraged them with his examples and words.

And his greatest act was, in imitation of the love of God for us, he volunteered to substitute himself with a man condemned to death because he failed in his attempt to escape from the concentration camp. He was willing to die in the man’s place, and especially after he knew that the condemned man had family waiting on the other side of the fence.

He willingly accepted death and became a martyr for the Faith, following the examples of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who had willingly given up His own life, laying it down on the cross, that through His ultimate sacrifice, all of us may be saved. Thus the examples of St. Maximilian Kolbe and ultimately the examples of Christ Himself should have inspired us all to love the Lord our God ever more, and shun all forms of wickedness and evil.

May the Lord our Almighty God help us to keep holy our lives, and awaken in all of us the desire to love all life, and the desire to keep the holiness found in all life and in marriage, the sacrament of Holy Matrimony. May He bless us and keep us faithful to Him always, so that we may be like His faithful servant, St. Maximilian Kolbe, whose memory and life we honour today. Amen.

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Thursday, 13 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Pontian, Pope, and St. Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard first in the first reading from the Book of Joshua, the continuation of the narration of the story of Israel’s passage from Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan after their Exodus. Moses who led them through the desert for forty years because of the disobedience and rebellion of many among the Israelites, had passed away, and now had been replaced as leader by Joshua.

The people of Israel had reached the vicinity of the River Jordan, which separated the Land of Promise and the other lands. And in a repeat of what He had shown to the people at the Red Sea, God made His people to cross the river Jordan on dry ground, opening the river before them and halting its flow so that they might pass unhindered and enter into the Promised Land of Canaan, which was to be their inheritance.

In the Gospel however, we heard about Jesus who spoke of a parable to His disciples and to the people, teaching them a story about a servant who had owed a large debt to his master, and he was supposed to be punished. But when the servant begged for mercy and forgiveness, the master’s heart was touched and moved, and he forgave the servant all of his debts.

But the servant did not follow the example of his master, and he confronted another servant who owed him a small amount of debt, a mere fraction of what the former owed his master and which he had been forgiven from. The master who knew what the wicked servant had done was very angry, and he did not let the wickedness to go unpunished. The punishment for the old debts were reinstated and the wicked servant went to his suffering without mercy.

How are these two readings related? They may seem to be distinct and unrelated, but in fact they are really very related in meaning, in reality as well as in symbolism. For we all have to understand that what we witnessed today in the Book of Joshua was the final part of the long journey of Israel through the desert, where they wandered for over forty years as mentioned.

They wandered so many years in the desert because of their disobedience, since they refused to listen to the Lord, and feared men more than God, and they did not put their full trust in the Lord, even though again and again, many times they had witnessed first hand the glory and power of God. They were too stubborn in their heart to appreciate the love and care with which God had taken care of them.

But God is at the same time also merciful and loving, just as He is filled with hatred and righteous anger towards all sorts of sin and wickedness. He shows mercy to all those who repented and those who committed themselves to change their way and follow Him. But those who were unrepentant and refused to listen to Him, He will cast away from His presence into the utter darkness and eternal suffering.

God is the master in the parable, and we are the servants whom the master has command over. The debts are our sins and wickedness, which have become our undoing. The debts bring with them punishment and justice, that is death, and we should have deserved death because we have sinned and disobeyed our Lord, the Master and Lord of all life.

But God heard our pleas and prayers, and He forgives us our sins, just as He had sent down to us His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that through Him, our sins may be destroyed and we may be freed from them. He has granted us pardon just as the master had pardoned the wicked servant from his debts. Now what matters is that, we have to heed the clear lesson from Jesus’s teaching and discourse on this matter.

We have to listen to the word of God, His teachings and His ways, and then practice it ourselves in our own actions and in how we live our lives in this world. The wicked servant did not imitate his master in his mercy and love, and instead, he oppressed others in his own ego and pride. As a result, he was punished severely for his wrongdoings. Thus, we too should not follow his ways, and rather, submit ourselves to the way of the Lord, loving one another and forgiving each other our sins.

Today we celebrate the feast of Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, who were at that time the rival Pope to St. Pontian, elected by rival camps in the Church, at a time when division could be ill-afforded, as the Roman Empire was stepping up its great and terrible persecution of both the Church and the faithful. The two camps bickered at who should have been the legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and much harm was done to the Church.

But by the grace of God, the two men were reconciled with each other, and the misunderstandings that happened and came between them were dispelled. As a result, the unity of the Church was restored completely. Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus were arrested by the authorities and were sentenced to death in the mines of Sardinia.

They were both martyred there, and before he went off to his death, Pope St. Pontian voluntarily relinquished the leadership of the Church, to allow others to step in and rebuild the community he left behind when he went to his martyrdom. And the forgiveness and reconciliation which Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus showed each other should be an inspiration for all of us, as the driving force behind our own conversion to the truth and reconciliation with our Lord and God.

Remember when the people of Israel passed through the River Jordan? It was there too that Jesus our Lord was baptised by St. John the Baptist. This is also a symbolic meaning, of how when we were baptised, we pass just as the Israelites through the waters of baptism, from a barren land, the desert, into the promised land of milk and honey, and so we are brought from our past state of sin into a renewed life filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

May Almighty God be with us always, and fill our hearts with the desire to seek Him and to find His mercy, that He may forgive our sins and trespasses, and make us worthy again of His love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 12 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about how Moses looked at a glimpse of the Promised Land from Mount Nebo, the place of his death. Moses finally saw the land to where he was leading the people of Israel for forty years, the fruits of his long labours. However, he was unable to enter the Land because he had not been fully faithful, and on one occasion, he disobeyed the Lord and His will because of his anger against the people.

At that time, the people of Israel grumbled against the Lord and against Moses. They complained because they were hungry and thirsty, and they demanded what they wanted. They refused to listen to the Lord, and Moses was hard pressed by their demands. God commanded Moses to show the people of Israel His power, by speaking to the rock to let water to gush forth out of it.

However, Moses was so angered by the people he had led with much patience and hard work, and he struck the rock with his staff instead of speaking to it. Water still gushed out of the water and the people were able to drink and be satisfied. But God was not happy at Moses because of his disobedience, and as a result, together with Aaron and Miriam, his siblings, who earlier on had also rebelled against the Lord and Moses, they would not enter the Promised Land.

Yet, God who loves those who show their faith and dedication to Him showed Moses His mercy, and He allowed him to have a glimpse of the Land of Promise before he died. And when he died, God took him up to heaven to be with him. It was said by Jewish tradition that when Moses died, Satan was trying to claim him for himself, but God sent His Archangel Michael to wrestle with Satan and prevented him from getting Moses.

In the Gospel today, we heard about how Jesus spoke to His disciples and to the people on how they ought to resolve a problem that arose among them. He spoke to them how to deal with those who have not followed the commandments of God, or otherwise, living in heresy. God did not condemn them directly, or punished them directly if we noticed it. God instead gives them chance.

Yes, it does not mean that God hates sinner through and through, and once we sin we are rejected by God totally and completely. This is a misconception which many of us often have about the Lord and about sin. However, we have to take note that what the Lord despise is not the sinners themselves, but the sin which they have committed.

Thus, what God wants from us is not to punish us or to oppress us, but instead to save us from harm and liberate us from our own desires and our own wickedness. That is why He sent us Jesus to be our Saviour, to deliver us from the certainty of destruction and annihilation that await us had we remained on our path of doom, that is if we continue to live in our state of sin.

What matters is that we have to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness, by humbly accepting and acknowledging our own sinfulness and weakness, that is our predisposition to sin and the wickedness that we have committed before God and men alike. We must aspire and seek to change our lives, our way of life, so that our actions are no longer based on worldly things and we no longer commit sin, but repent completely and turn ourselves perfectly to follow the Lord our God.

Today, we celebrate the feast of a saint whose life can be a great inspiration to all of us on how we live our lives. St. Jane Frances de Chantal was a noblewoman who had a normal life as were other nobility at that time, having four children in her family. However, she was widowed early because of an accident, and she eventually devoted the rest of her life to serve the Lord as a religious.

She established a religious order, Congregation of the Visitation, which was unusual among the other religious orders for women at the time, because they were very active in their works and outreach to the poor and the sick, whom they often ministered in many places, as more and more followed the examples of St. Jane Frances de Chantal and her sisters.

In her examples too, we can see the work of God in place in this world. God through her and her congregation, as well as through many other media, is trying to help all of us to liberate ourselves from the allures of this world, and from the entanglements of our sins. We too should also help in bringing one another closer to God and away from our past and present state of sin.

Let us all realise the love and mercy which God had shown us, and which we all should appreciate, because they were very great indeed. Let us all seek God’s mercy and love in all things. May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, welcome us all into His kingdom and bring us into everlasting life. Amen.

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Tuesday, 11 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Clare, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how God will guide His people against all odds and challenges, and He will go before them to protect them and provide them with all the things they need. He defeated their enemies and their persecutors before them, just as He had done with the Pharaoh and the Egyptians who once enslaved them, and with the Amalekites, the kings Sihon and Og who opposed them.

They have no need to fear or be worried, for the Lord was guiding them and leading them, and He blessed them beyond compare. And they received the blessings and the promise of God, settling down eventually in the Land which God had promised to them and to their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God did not backtrack on His promises and He did not ever break the promise He made.

On the other hand, it is His people who have often broken their part of the bargain and promise, for they have not always been faithful to the Law and to the commandments, preferring to follow their own ways and obey their own hearts’ desires. As a result, many, many times they had gone astray and thus committed sin before God and men alike.

This is also happening to us all as well, because many of us have also not been faithful to the Lord, and preferring to follow our own hearts’ desires, our wants and our ego, rather than humbly following the Lord and His ways, and listening to His will. And in this, we should again also heed what Jesus had said to His disciples, that they ought to look at the little children and imitate them in their faith.

Why is this so, brethren? That is because unlike adults around them, children up to a certain age were still innocent and pure, and they will believe everything that they are told and taught with. They are like pure and blank slate awaiting the moment for them to be filled up and written with. And therefore, their faith is truly genuine, and when they are faithful to something, they are not affected by the concerns or things around them. This is their innocence, and this is their genuine faith.

Compare this to ourselves, in our own faith. Whenever we say that we are faithful to the Lord, how often is it that we are distracted by the many worldly things around us? How often is it that we delay in doing something that pleases God, just because the world does not approve of it, or that we are afraid that our friends and family, or our society would denounce us?

This is because in our hearts and minds, we have been filled with much worldly things and concerns. We are unable to detach ourselves from them, and all of our actions are determined by whether we give in to these desires and influences or whether we are capable of resisting them and not to give in. And today we celebrate the feast of a saint, whose examples may be an inspiration for us to do just that.

St. Clare, also known as St. Clare of Assisi was one of the first followers of St. Francis of Assisi, and she was the founder of a religious order and tradition following the examples and the tenets of St. Francis of Assisi, focusing on the Lord and abandoning worldliness by living in poverty, so that in all things, those who followed that way may be able to better able to resist the temptations of the world.

She was born into a noble and wealthy family, but she abandoned them all in exchange for a life totally and completely dedicated to God in prayer and good works. She worked for the sake of the poor and the abandoned ones. She helped to inspire many others to also do the good works for the sake of all those who need it. And thus, she was renowned for both her works and for her great piety.

And many people venerated her after her death, and looked up to her, just as they did for St. Francis of Assisi, because of their role and works. And we too should walk in their footsteps. Let us all therefore pray so that we all may put our complete trust in God and obey Him in all of our actions and deeds. God bless us all and keep us safe from all harm. Amen.

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Monday, 10 August 2015 : Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God who has given us all so many good things, so many wonderful things that He had planted in us, as seeds that will germinate in due time, if we cultivate them and they will prosper. He has sowed many things in us, and He has given us the seeds of faith, the seeds of hope and the seeds of love.

All these are within us, inside our hearts, and await our action and work to awaken them. As Jesus said in the Gospel today, that the seed, that is the grain of wheat, if it does not die, then it remains alone and meaningless. Only when the grain of wheat falls onto the ground, then life can spring out from it and a new plant can grow from the seed.

This means that, by using the life of Christ as a comparison, we must take action and live our lives with faith and real action based on that faith in order that we may have the seeds inside us to bear much good fruits. If we do not do anything or do things that are contrary to what our Lord had taught us, then the seeds of faith, hope and love in us will not germinate and grow.

Jesus was faithful to the mission which He was entrusted with by His Father, that is to bring about salvation to all mankind, by teaching them the truth about the Lord and how to live their lives in accordance with the Law of God. And He was faithful to the very end, as He needed to endure all the sufferings and the punishments intended for our sins and wickedness, so that all of us may have a new hope of life.

He took up all of our iniquities and all the sufferings which should have been ours upon Himself, and bearing that great and heavy cross, He walked on and ascended patiently towards Calvary, faithful to the mission for which He came into this world and ultimately because of the great and boundless love which He has for all of us, and the pity and mercy which He has shown us, because He pitied our state, lost in the darkness of this world and not knowing which way to go to.

And He showed us all an example, on how to live our lives so that we too may share in the promises which He had given us and our ancestors, by leading an example Himself, showing that unless we take up our crosses and join Him, then we would have no part in the life and salvation which He will give all of His faithful. And just as He had died on the cross and rose again on the third day from the dead, we too must do the same.

This means that we should die to ourselves, to the temptations and desires of the flesh which have caused us to sin, and to throw far away all forms of worldliness and all sorts of selfish attitudes which remain in us. We should die to our desires, to the allures of the flesh and worldly pleasures, so that by sharing the death of Christ, we mah also share in His glorious resurrection, and be found worthy to receive the gift of eternal life He had promised all of us.

On this day, we celebrate together the feast of St. Lawrence the Deacon, who was also a great martyr of the Church and defender of the Faith. St. Lawrence was a deacon of the Church of Rome, appointed as such by Pope St. Sixtus II, whose feast we had just celebrated a few days ago. St. Lawrence was a hardworking servant of God, who gave his all in service to God and to His people.

St. Lawrence continued to remain faithful and committed to the tasks placed before Him. He ministered to the people of God, especially to the faithful ones during the persecution of the faithful and the Church by the Emperor Valerian. He ministered to the people of God, caring for them and kept a great and well-ordered system of distribution of goods to the faithful people of God.

And when he was arrested together with many other members of the Church, he remained true to his faith in God, and remained resolute and strong in his devotion to God until the end. He embraced the challenges and sufferings he was to face openly, and without fear, for he knows that, it is only by dying to his fears and placing his complete and full trust in the Lord that he will be saved and brought to the eternal glory promised by the Lord.

We can learn from his examples, in how we live our lives. We should follow his example in showing love to one another, caring for the poor and the less fortunate, and by loving those who are unloved and rejected, and then by also having a complete and full trust in the Lord, placing our trust in Him alone, and knowing that all who remain faithful to the Lord will not be disappointed.

May Almighty God be with us all always, and may St. Lawrence intercede for our sake always, that we may be helped on our path towards redemption and eternal life, that we may be righteous and just, and be found worthy at the end of our days. God bless us all. Amen.