Blessed Pope Paul VI

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Saturday, 27 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about faith, and what faith really is, that is trusting in another. And faith is truly, putting our complete trust in the Lord our God, doubting nothing about Him, but surrendering everything completely to His will. This is true and genuine faith. This is what brought the daughter of the synagogue official and the woman with bleeding their salvation.

In the first reading, we heard how God visited Abraham and his wife, Sarah, in the flesh, when they were already very old. To understand this fully, we have to understand the situation first, because at that time, Abraham, who was ninety-nine years old had been promised by God with a son to be his heir who will receive the fullness of God’s blessings.

But Sarah was not able to bear a son by herself, and instead Abraham and Sarah took a shortcut by having Sarah’s slave girl, Hagar, to bear a son, Ishmael for Abraham. But he was not the promised child that God would give Abraham. Instead, Isaac was the son who God had promised that He would give to Abraham through Sarah. And He Himself came to deliver this good news to them.

Sarah did not believe what God had said and she laughed in her heart, thinking it was impossible for something like that to happen, thinking how impossible it was for such an old woman as her, far beyond her child-bearing age, to bear a son at such a time. But God chastised her, for her lack of faith in what God can do, as what is impossible for men, is not impossible for God.

Indeed, Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist also conceived him at such an old age, and from there, the herald of the Messiah would go on to do many wondrous things to prepare for the coming of the Lord, the Messiah who would save His people. And it was in Jesus that God made evident the fullness of His great and infinite love.

In the Gospel we heard how the army captain or centurion had such a great faith in the Lord, that knowing fully how he was a sinner and not worthy to have the Lord in his presence and in his house, but he trusted fully in Jesus and know that He will be able to heal his servant if He wants to. He knows that Jesus has the power to do so, as He is Lord and God, and the army captain acknowledged that completely, saying that if Jesus just said the word, then his servant would be healed.

And that was exactly what Jesus did, and He praised the army captain’s faith. And He showed it yet again with the mother-in-law of St. Peter, whom He healed from her fever and illness. In God indeed lies our salvation, our comfort and our help, and all this He offered us freely as long as we keep our faith in Him and devote ourselves to His cause.

Let us not doubt the Lord any longer but work on towards rekindling the faith which we ought to have for Him. Let us not put our trust in the temporary and perishable power of men and worldly goods, but put our trust and anchor on the imperishable and everlasting love of God, which He offers freely to all those who trust in Him. And on this day, the example of a great saint, St. Cyril of Alexandria may inspire us as we celebrate his feast day.

St. Cyril of Alexandria was the Patriarch of Alexandria in the early Church and therefore he was one of its great leaders. He led his flock and the Church through a turbulent and difficult time, when the people of God, the faithful were assailed with multitudes of lies and temptations to embrace the falsehoods of Satan and abandon the true faith in God.

Despite rejection, ridicule, opposition and even persecution by his enemies, St. Cyril continued to persevere and fought on for the sake of his flock, preventing them from being devoured by the lies and the falsehoods of Satan. He bravely defended the true faith from the falsehoods of heretics such as Nestorius, the founder of the Nestorian heresy and kept the faithful steady amidst the storm of assaults by Satan’s forces.

St. Cyril showed us the example of faith, just as the others mentioned earlier had shown their faith and were rewarded by Christ our Lord. This goes on to say that having faith in the Lord will not disappoint us, for if we do so, then we will be secure and have the unshakeable foundation that is our God. What is impossible for men, is possible for God, and this is a fact that we have to always keep in mind and remember at all times.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all pray that our faith in the Lord will continue to be strengthened and firmed, despite the challenges and the difficulties of the world. Let us learn to put our complete trust in the Lord, doubt no more but believe fully with all of our hearts, of the love that God has shown us all, His people. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 27 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Matthew 8 : 5-17

At that time, when Jesus entered Capernaum, an army captain approached Him to ask His help, “Sir, my servant lies sick at home. He is paralysed and suffers terribly.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

The captain answered, “I am not worthy to have You under my roof. Just give an order and my boy will be healed. For I myself, a junior officer, give orders to my soldiers. And if I say to one, ‘Go!’ he goes; and if I say to another, ‘Come!’ he comes; and if I say to my servant, ‘Do this!’ he does it.”

When Jesus heard this He was astonished, and said to those who were following Him, “I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel. I say to you, many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven; but the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown out into the darkness; there they will wail and grind their teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the captain, “Go home now. As you believed, so let it be.” And at that moment, his servant was healed. Jesus went to Peter’s house and found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with fever. He took her by the hand and the fever left her; she got up and began to wait on him.

Towards evening they brought to Jesus many possessed by evil spirits, and with a word He drove out the spirits. He also healed all who were sick. In doing so, He fulfilled what was said by the prophet Isaiah : He bore our infirmities and took on Himself our diseases.

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Saturday, 27 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Luke 1 : 46-47, 48-49, 50 and 53, 54-55

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit exults in God my Saviour!

He has looked upon His servant in her lowliness, and people forever will call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, Holy is His Name!

From age to age His mercy extends to those who live in His presence. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.

He held out His hand to Israel, His servant, for He remembered His mercy, even as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.

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Saturday, 27 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops or Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Genesis 18 : 1-15

YHVH appeared to Abraham near the oak of Mamre. Abraham was sitting at the entrance to his tent, in the heat of the day, when he looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them.

He bowed to the ground and said, “My Lord, if I have found favour in Your sight, do not pass Your servant by. Let a little water be brought. Wash Your feet and then rest under the trees. I shall fetch some bread so that You can be refreshed and continue on Your way, since You have come to Your servant.”

They then said, “Do as you say.” Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah and said to her, “Quick, take three measures of flour, knead it and make cakes.” Abraham then ran to the herd, took a fine, tender calf, gave it to the servant who hurried to prepare it. He took butter and milk and together with the calf he had prepared laid it all before Them.

And while he remained standing, They ate. They then asked, “Where is Sarah, your wife?” Abraham answered, “She is in the tent. And the visitor said, “At this same time next year I will return and Sarah by then will have a son.”

Now Sarah was behind Him, listening at the entrance to the tent. Abraham and Sarah were old, well on in years, and Sarah no longer had her monthly periods. Sarah laughed to herself saying, “Now that I am old and worn and my husband is an old man, am I to have this pleasure?”

YHVH said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh, saying : ‘Am I really going to have a child now that I am old?’ Is there anything that is impossible for God? At this same time next year I will return and Sarah by then will have a son.”

Sarah denied saying, “I did not laugh,” for she was afraid. But He said, “You did laugh.”

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Friday, 26 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard about how Jesus cured a leper from his illness, making him whole once again and liberating him from the shame and curse which had once been upon him. And in the first reading, God renewed His promise and covenant with Abraham, His chosen one, that through the son He had promised Abraham, He would make His servant great and mighty among mankind.

Today’s Scripture readings therefore all spoke about the love and care with which God had showered us His many blessings and graces throughout these ages. God is willing to bless and cherish Abraham, His chosen one who had faithfully walked in His ways and followed completely His precepts and laws. The faithful shall indeed receive their just reward from the Lord.

And the leper was also made clean and healthy again through his faith, which he had shown to Jesus, by his genuine and sincere dedication of trust and love to the Lord. The leper did not fear persecution or rebuke from the Lord, for he knew that the Lord in Whom he trust will succour him and bring him out of his misery. Those who hold firm in their faith in God will never be disappointed.

On this day, we are called to remember once again the faith of Abraham, our father in faith. He was the father of many nations, because God blessed him, for he has abandoned everything to follow the Lord with all of his heart and his might. He has abandoned his relatives, his wealth and inheritance, his homeland and everything he had, because he had heard the Lord calling him and promising him even greater things if only he was faithful.

It is this ability to be faithful and devoted to God despite the challenges, difficulties and temptations that God found to be excellent in Abraham, as were in the many other holy men and women throughout the ages. And it was the same kind of faith that made the leper to deserve God’s mercy and healing, as it had been given to the army centurion, whose faith was so great that he refused to have Jesus come to his home because he was unworthy of Him.

It was the same faith that the Syro-Phoenician woman exhibited when she begged Jesus to heal her daughter, not even minding the supposed ‘insult’ when Jesus told her that the gifts He brought were not to be shared with non-Jews like her. It was this same faith that saved the woman who suffered from haemorrhage for twelve years, who believed that if she could just touch the fringe of Jesus’ cloak, then she would be healed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, these are just some well-known examples of how God is caring and loving, and to all those who keep their faith firm in Him, will have a firm foundation in Him and will not be shaken. On the other hand, those who do not put their trust in God and those who has no faith in God will be shaken, for their foundation is worldly goods and wealth, which can be destroyed.

How is this relevant for us, brethren? It is a gentle reminder for us that we ought to build up for ourselves the everlasting treasures in heaven and not to build for ourselves a repository of the treasure that will not last in this world. Our lives must not be filled with selfishness, jealousy and desire, in that we should not be myopic in our sight, and focus only on our own heart’s desires in life. Instead, we must find ways to renew our commitment and faith in God.

Let us get rid from ourselves wanton and unnecessary desires that kept us away from truly being able to have faith in God. May God help us in this endeavour and bless us always, so that we may be ever closer to Him, and may our faith in Him be forever stronger and firmer. Amen.

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Friday, 26 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 8 : 1-4

At that time, when Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him. Then a leper came forward. He knelt before Him and said, “Sir, if You want to, You can make me clean.”

Jesus stretched out His hand, touched him, and said, “I want to, be clean again.” At that very moment the man was cleansed from his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, “See that you do not tell anyone, but go to the priest, have yourself declared clean, and offer the gift that Moses ordered as proof of it.”

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Friday, 26 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear the Lord and walk in His ways. You will eat the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home; your children, like olive shoots will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.

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Friday, 26 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 17 : 1, 9-10, 15-22

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, YHVH appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty. Walk in My presence and be without blame! For your part, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation. This is My covenant with you, that you will keep, you and your descendants after you : Every male among you shall be circumcised.”

God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai, your wife, no longer are you to call her Sarai, but Sarah. I will bless her, and I will give you a son by her. I will bless her and from her will come nations; kings and peoples shall come from her.”

Then Abraham fell face down, and he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? And can Sarah who is ninety have a child?” And Abraham said to God, “If only You would accept Ishmael as Yours!” But God said, “Not at all! It is Sarah, your wife, who will give birth to your son and you will name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him and his descendants after him forever.”

“As for Ishmael, I heard you. I will bless him and make him fruitful, and I will multiply his race. He shall be the father of twelve princes and I will make of him a great nation. But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, the child Sarah will have this time next year.” When He had finished speaking with Abraham, God went away from him.

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Thursday, 25 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings have a theme that many of us might not be able to discern from them. This theme is that mankind need to be able to put their trust in God, and trust in what God had planned for them, obeying and listening to His will even as we proceed with our daily life. This is what we can imply from today’s readings, as evidenced from the reading on the tale between Abraham and Ishmael in the first reading, and from the parable on the building of a house in the Gospel.

In the first reading, we heard about how Abraham, then named Abram, who was in a way desperate to have the heir which God had promised him and who was yet to come through his wife, Sarah, then named Sarai. Therefore they devised a shortcut to that matter, by the giving of Sarah’s slave named Hagar to Abraham as a wife, so that she might bore for the sake of Sarah and Abraham a son.

In order to understand this practice, we must understand the customs at that time. It was commonplace at that time for a man to take more than one wife, and it was also common that a woman gave her slave to her husband so that her slave might act as a proxy to produce a child for her, if she was childless or unable to provide a son and heir. The son or child born to the slave would then be legally the son or child of the woman and not that of the slave.

This is the way of the world designed to solve the problem of inheritance and other things, but certainly as we can see, what Abraham and Sarah had done, was because they did not completely trust in the promises of God, which He would do through Sarah, when she was already old and beyond child-bearing age, she would bear a child, the promised son, whom we later know to be Isaac.

We may think that Abraham and Sarah were being disobedient and sinful by doing what they have done, in the matter of Hagar and Ishmael, but in fact, they were after all still human beings and not superhumans, and therefore they were still prone to making mistakes and sin. And God did not punish them, nor did He punish Hagar and Ishmael for what had happened, but instead, He showed forth His mercy and let the son to live and blessed him.

In the Gospel today, all these can be linked clearly to what Jesus had told His disciples and the people, using His parable on a man building his house on a firm rock foundations, and another who builds his house on a shaky foundation of sand. If we truly hear the word of God, believe in it and place it firmly in our hearts and minds, fully believing in Him and trusting in Him, then certainly we will not be shaken.

Those who trust in God are like those whose house are built on firm foundation of rock, unshakeable and firm even in the midst of the greatest challenge and disaster. God will not abandon them, and He will remain ever faithful. We can indeed trust in the love and protection of God, and God will never fail us. On the other hand, those who trust in men are like those who built their houses on shaky foundation of sand.

If we look at the case of Abraham and his sons, we would know that after Ishmael was born through Hagar by the shortcut which he took, Isaac the promised son would be born through Sarah, which was the concrete sign of God’s everlasting faithfulness and His firm steadfastness to His promises. And conflict soon arose between the two sons, and the conflicting parties, and ended up with the exile of both Hagar and Ishmael.

This conflict is a reminder that human affairs and depending on human power is not something that will bring about true stability and firmness, and as we know by human nature, it is inevitable for mankind to turn against one another in such situations, bringing much sorrow and divisions. Is this the path that we want? Certainly not.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, what today’s readings teach us is that, all of us ought to heed what Jesus had said to us, and whatever He had taught us through His disciples and through what we have received through the Gospels and the teachings of the Church. Let us all put our trust in God and not in the feeble power of men. For God’s strength is everlasting while the power of man is just temporary.

May Almighty God bless all of us, strengthen our faith in Him and give us all the courage to trust in Him and therefore receive from Him the gift of everlasting life. Amen.

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Thursday, 25 June 2015 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 7 : 21-29

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My heavenly Father. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not speak in Your Name? Did we not cast out devils and perform many miracles in Your Name?'”

“Then I will tell them openly, ‘I have never known you; away from Me, you evil people!’ So then, anyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts accordingly, is like a wise man, who built his house on rock. The rain poured, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew and struck that house, but it did not collapse because it was built on rock.”

“But anyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act accordingly, is like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain poured, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew and struck that house; it collapsed, and what a terrible fall that was!”

When Jesus had finished this discourse, the crowds were struck by the way He taught, because He taught with authority, unlike their teachers of the Law.