Liturgical Colour : Green
Daniel 3 : 57, 58, 59, 60, 61
All the works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, exalt Him forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless Him, praise and glorify Him forever.
Heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
All the waters above the heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
All the powers of the Lord, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbot and Mass of our Lady)
Luke 20 : 27-40
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.”
Some teachers of the Law then agreed with Jesus, “Master, You have spoken well.” They did not dare to ask Him anything else.
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.
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.”
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.”
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 : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate an important Marian feast, a day dedicated to the Mother of God, Mary, the lady and our mother. Today, in particular, we celebrate an aspect of her that we often find to be ubiquitous in our faith and devotions, that is the holy rosary, the linked beads in chain, that we use to guide us in our prayer.
What is the rosary and what is its significance in our faith, and how does it affect us in our journey of faith in this world and beyond? The rosary is a weapon, a spiritual weapon in a spiritual warfare between the forces of evil led by the devil, against us, the children of the light, the beloved ones of God. This devotion was introduced by Mary herself, when she appeared to St. Dominic, who was then the first to recommend the devotion of the rosary to the people of God.
We often take the rosary for granted, and instead of taking the devotion seriously, we said the prayers without meaning and said the words faster than even the bullet trains! That is exactly what happened if we do not truly understand the usefulness and the purpose of the holy rosary, which is a potent weapon, a spiritual weapon, in the spiritual warfare constantly fought between us and the devil and his servants.
Then how did this feast of our Lady of the Rosary come about? This feast originated in the late sixteenth century, after the great victory of the forces of the faithful, fighting against the forces of the devil, represented by the Muslim forces of the expansionist Ottoman Turk Empire. This battle is the Battle of Lepanto, which happened on this date, today, in the year 1571.
This great victory marked a great turning point in the history of Christendom, where the faithful are no longer on the defensive, after the enemy was dealt a massive defeat by the power of God. Pope St. Pius V, the Pope at the time, decided to commemorate the great victory by dedicating it to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the victory over the enemy was made possible.
In the same way therefore, today, through the rosary as our weapon, the spiritual weapon, we would like to celebrate our victory and triumph against the evil one and his forces of darkness, as we, the children of the light, had triumphed against the darkness, much like the victorious Christian vanguards at the Battle of Lepanto more than four centuries ago.
Nevertheless, brethren, even though we have been victorious, as through Mary and her Son Jesus, whose sacrifice on the cross dealt the evil one a complete and thorough defeat, but the devil still has plenty of tools under his sleeves. He continues to marshall his forces of darkness to harass us, especially those who are most vulnerable, those whose faith are wavering and weakened.
The devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus our Lord and God, through the holy rosary is a potent tool to prevent this from happening, that is to prevent our brethren to fall into the temptation of Satan and his angels, the fallen ones. The rosary, as I mentioned, is a powerful weapon in this constant spiritual warfare raging daily around us, where angels and devils fight for the sake of our soul, for its salvation or damnation.
Through meaningful and devoted praying of the holy rosary, we invoke the protection of the angels sent by Jesus our Lord, through the intercession of His blessed mother Mary, hearing the prayer we have made through the rosary in complete devotion and love. The Lord will certainly not abandon us to the forces of the enemy. He will smite them and cast them away from us, His beloved children.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, the rosary, in which we pray the prayers dedicated to the Lord and His mother Mary, emulate the Marian virtues of obedience and love, which we ought to follow and emulate ourselves. Through her obedience and love, we have Jesus who came into this world, and we have a hope, hope of salvation and eternal life in Him.
This rosary is our spiritual weapon and also our spiritual defender, a breastplate of faith and devotion, protecting us from the threats of the evil one and his forces. Let us therefore, spread the habit of praying the rosary meaningfully and devoutly, to all around us, especially to those among us whose faith is wavering. May the Lord continue to watch over us, and may His blessed mother Mary continue to intercede for us, for our salvation, as we continue to offer her and her Son, our love and devotion through the rose of the holy rosary. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you that, unless you change and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes lowly like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child in My Name receives Me.”
“See that you do not despise any of these little ones, for I tell you : their angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you that, unless you change and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes lowly like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child in My Name receives Me.”
“See that you do not despise any of these little ones, for I tell you : their angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Timothy 3 : 14-16
I give you these instructions, although I hope I will see you soon. If I delay, you will know how you ought to conduct yourself in the household of God, that is, the Church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth. How great indeed is the mystery of divine blessing!
He was shown in the flesh and sanctified by the Spirit; presented to the angels and proclaimed to all nations. The world believed in Him : He was taken up in glory!
Liturgical Colour : Green
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we learnt an important lesson of our lives, and on the nature of God Himself. We are mortals brethren, and one day we will all die, and that is an important thing that we all will have to realise at one point of time in our life.
The Lord our God has His plans for all of us, ever since He created us and this universe. The way that God thinks is not in short moments or days or weeks in our human perception. He thought of things far before things happen, and He formed in His thoughts the plan He had for all of us His creation.
Our transgressions and disobedience against Him, starting from Adam and Eve our ancestors did not disturb His plans for us at all, for everything truly moved as how He desired it, and in His great love for us, He planned a rescue mission for all of us, long before it was executed. That all because He cares for us, and just as He had planned since the very beginning, that He wanted us to be in His presence in true joy and happiness forever.
That was why He prepared for us the salvation in the form of Christ, Himself incarnate into man like us in Jesus. Long before Christ was even born unto this world, He had made His preparations, to prepare this world and its people to be ready for the coming of the Saviour. That was why He sent the prophets into this world, that they delivered to the people of God for the eventual coming of the Messiah.
He sent Moses to liberate His people, Israel, from bondage and slavery by the Pharaohs and the Egyptians. Through Moses too the people of God had received the very Laws of the Lord and His commandments. These laws were meant not to limit the people of God nor oppress them with even more burdens. In fact, these laws were meant to help us in our path towards God, towards freedom, freedom from evil, freedom from the burdens of sin.
God did not leave us behind without any help. If the prophets were rejected and murdered, then He would send even more, for our sake, that eventually was born through the Lord Jesus. With the arrival of Jesus, the new hope for this world had arisen. In Christ lay the perfection of all the prophecies of the prophets, the teachings of the elders of Israel, and ultimately the love of God.
But Jesus did not come into this world to enjoy a happy life and to just zap out our sins automatically. He had much work to do, and He had to endure rejection, pain, suffering, and mockery by others throughout His life. Even His hometown relations mocked Him in the synagogue when He revealed the truth about Himself, seeing Him as a mere carpenter’s son.
Yet all of these are within God’s divine and long-prepared plans for us and for our salvation. He endured all of that with the greatness of His love for us, and the love and obedience Jesus always has for His Father in heaven. So much so that even when His disciples abandoned Him, betrayed Him to the authorities and to His enemies, and despite facing such a great challenge of the monumental task of having to endure the sins of the entire mankind, He endured it with love, for us.
Through Christ’s suffering, pain, and Passion on the way to Calvary, and through His crucifixion unto His death, He had broken the hold of sin over mankind, by rising from the dead in glorious resurrection, He snatched us all away from the hands of Satan forever, if we embrace the salvation He had offered us through His death and resurrection.
All indeed are part of God’s plan, formed long ago since He created us from dust. Remember that after our ancestors fell into sin, He did not shun us or abandon us, even though He did punish them for their transgressions. He promised our ancestors, that One will be born of the woman, who will in a sense , enact revenge on Satan, the snake, the deceiver. That One to be born was truly Christ, born of the woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Through the death and resurrection of Christ, He had dealt a crushing blow on Satan, as promised by God Himself at the beginning of time, showing how far the Lord’s foresight and plans had been. In Christ too, the promise God had first made to Abraham was fulfilled in its completion, that the descendants of Abraham would be great. He also fulfilled the promise made to David, that one of his descendants would rule forever, that is in Christ, the descendant. of David, also Son of God Most High, who is King of all Kings for all eternity.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, having seen truly the greatness of the love, the might, and the wisdom of our Lord, let us therefore realise the great love and care He has for all of us, planning from very early on, for our welfare and for our wellbeing. He did not even fear death for our sake, that He died for us, that we may live.
Let us thus not harden our hearts as our ancestors had done, and instead humble ourselves before Him, opening our hearts to His divine love. Let us also realise our mortality, of the nothingness we are compared to the all wonderful God. It is not to degrade ourselves or to make ourselves feel inferior. It is important for us to understand and take note of our shortcomings, that we will be able to seek to be better, that is to seek God, in whom we can find true wisdom and true enlightenment.
May the Lord who is ever loving, kind, and caring, continue to provide for us, protect us, and guide us to Himself that we will not fall into damnation with Satan and his angels. God be with us and bless us with abundance of graces forever. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 