Psalm 98 : 5, 6, 7, 9
Extol the Lord, our God; worship at His footstool. Holy is He! And mighty!
Among His priests were Moses and Aaron, and Samuel among those who called on His Name. They called to the Lord, and He answered them.
In the pillar of cloud He spoke to them, and they kept His statutes and the decrees He gave them.
Extol the Lord our God; worship at His holy mountain. Holy is the Lord our God!
1. For the autistic special school student I have met on the train today. May the Lord watch over you and protect you, that you will not meet harm in this world as you progress through life. May the Lord show you kindness and heal you from your afflictions. May He also be with you and your family through the difficulties of your life.
2. For teachers and my fellow mates in the institute for teacher education I am studying in now. May the Lord be with all of us, and protect us, and bless us as we embark on this learning journey together for the next one year or so. May God who is loving embrace all of us with His love, comfort us whenever we are down and sorrowful, and give us new hope whenever we are in despair. Accompany us at all times, o Lord.
3. For victims of religious persecutions all around the world. May the Lord be with those persecuted for their faith in Him, and free them from the hands of their enemies. May He also bring enlightenment to the hearts of those who hate the people of God, that they will learn the truth and turn their hearts towards the Lord. Let there be no more persecutions of the faithful, but let all mankind return to the Lord our God.
4. For families of the people of God. May the Lord keep the love burning in each families, and may the fire of that love never be quenched out. May the Lord bless the families, especially the children with abundant blessings, and plant the seeds of awareness of the need for families to remain in love and unity, and also having good communications with one another, in each and every members of the family.
May the Lord receive our prayers and listen to our petitions, just as we hear Him in the silence of our hearts. May He send His angels to protect and care for us, and may His saints constantly intercede for us sinners still walking in this world. God bless us all, forever and ever. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to Jesus explaining the meaning behind the parable of the weeds and the sower which He had told to His disciples and the people of Israel. He told them that the fate awaiting the wicked ones is death and eternal suffering in hell, while the fate awaiting the righteous ones is eternal joy and bliss in heaven, with our Lord, reunited in perfect goodness and glory of God.
The seeds of the weeds spread by the devil is the evil and corruption he had spread in this world to lead mankind astray from their path towards the Lord. The seeds of evil are greed, wrath, hatred, lust, jealousy, despair, arrogance, and pride. They are our weaknesses that made us prone to fall into the damnation reserved for the devil and his fallen angels, the fate of the weeds. This is because, as we all know, weeds are dangerous, because they compete with the healthy plants for nutrition, and when the weeds grow large, they also may likely strangle the healthy plants and kill them.
The same therefore is bound to happen to all of us, if we do not take precautions against the devil and his mischievous tools, all the tools in the world that he possesses to be employed against us, the beloved children of God. The devil is the sower of the evil weeds of sin, that if we are not careful, will grow within us and around us, and choke the good that is in us, turning us from the path of salvation into the path towards doom.
Our Lord and God, as Moses had said in the first reading we heard today, is a merciful and loving God, One who is slow to anger and rich in kindness and compassion. He is sure to welcome us back into His embrace if we are to be repentant and truly regret our sins and our wrongdoings before Him. We must not be shy to admit that we have sinned before God, because He is our loving Father, and He wants to rescue us from certain death.
But He is also a jealous God, a God who is just and against any form of sin. That is because He is perfect goodness and sin is corruption that had marred our perfection ever since the times of Adam and Eve, when Satan tricked Eve into eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and disobeyed the Lord in the process. It is because of our disobedience that we deserved death, and Adam and Eve deserved death and annihilation, and yet God showed them mercy and although they were punished to live in great difficulty on earth, they were not annihilated.
Death did claim them and our ancestors in the end, but death would not have the final say. That was because the Lord Himself gave His all so that we may have a new hope for eternal life in Him, to return us to our true inheritance, as what God had originally intended for us at creation. He did not desire us to suffer or die, but He wants us all to live, forever with Him in the bliss of heaven, to spend all our time in the beautiful Gardens of Eden.
He sent us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be the fulfillment of His long-awaited promise, that He would send a redeemer to all mankind. The ultimate proof of His love and care for us. So great is His love that He is willing to suffer in our place, to die in our place, and to be our light of hope. He is the light of hope and salvation, because He did not remain in the land of the dead, but by the power of the Lord, He broke free the chains of sin and death that had held us for generations, and risen from the dead He became the source of salvation for all who believe in Him.
We must sow the seeds of faith, of hope, and of love in our hearts, brothers and sisters in Christ, so that we will be ever ready to combat the seeds of evil that Satan and his cronies always try to sow within our hearts. Do not be afraid, for he no longer has any power or authority over us, ever since Christ broke that bond that enthralled us to the evil one. We must however remain ever vigilant and ever careful, lest the devil successfully subvert our thoughts and our hearts to be against the Lord and His will.
Let us strive to be the wheat and not the weeds, and may the seeds of faith, hope, and love that is within us grow strong, that they become the nutrients and fertiliser that help us, the wheat to grow strong and bear much fruits, that the Lord who sees us, will be pleased and He will then tell His angels to come and collect us from amongst the weeds and bring us to Him, to enjoy forever His grace, His blessings, and His loving embrace.
Today, brothers and sisters, we also commemorate the Feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, who was made a Bishop of Ravenna in the ending years of the Roman Empire during the early Church. He was well known for his inspiring speeches and preaching, that called all Christians to be faithful to God and defend themselves against any form of heresies that threatened to corrupt their soul and their true faith in God.
At the time of St. Peter Chrysologus, at the heyday of the Roman Empire, there existed numerous heresies of the faith, many of which were really serious threat on the unity of the Church and the faithful, and some of them had ideas diametrically opposite to the truth of the Apostolic Fathers, the truth that is of Christ. Many of them, corrupted by the seeds of evil, the weeds planted by the evil one, subverted the words of the Lord and the message of salvation to serve their own ends, and ultimately, serve the cause of evil.
Many people fell victim to the corrupting nature of these heresies, which attacked the truth about our faith in the Lord, in the Lord Himself, and even His Blessed Mother, Mary. St. Peter Chrysologus, as the then Bishop of Ravenna in today’s Italy, was faced with the same problems and challenges that faced the Church of his time. Yet, he did not waver nor did he become afraid to confront those challenges. Instead, he faced them courageously, and with great zeal and inspiration, through his sermons, he converted the faithful back to the truth of Christ, getting rid of the weeds that choked the life out of the faith of the people of God.
Today, my brothers and sisters in Christ, the need is ever greater for more people like St. Peter Chrysologus, in defending our faith and ourselves, from the corruption that comes from Satan. We must be courageous in standing up for the Lord in the face of the devil and bluntly reject all his approaches and his temptations to us. We must stand up for the Lord and His love, His compassion for us. Never let go of the Lord and embrace evil, no matter how difficult the challenges of life are. We must always be strong, as St. Peter Chrysologus had been.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today renew our commitment to God, to the Lord who loves us, to God who cares for us every day of our life, and commit ourselves to glorify His Name among men, and to never give in to the allures of the evil one, and be courageous to reject all of his approaches. May the Lord who is love and who is mercy, forgive us our sins, purify us and make us whole once again. St. Peter Chrysologus, pray for us sinners and intercede for us before the Lord our God. Amen.
Psalm 33 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11
I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.
Oh, let us magnify the Lord, together let us glorify His Name! I sought the Lord, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.
They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, the Lord hears and saves them from distress.
The Lord’s angel encamps and patrols to keep safe those who fear Him. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!
Revere the Lord, all you His saints, for those who fear Him do not live in want. The mighty may be hungry and in need, but those who seek the Lord lack nothing.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, God who is our Father is kind, and He is loving, because He is love, and true love personified, in all its perfection. The Lord cannot deny Himself, and He loves everyone without exception. This love He had poured down upon the world through the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Messiah, our Saviour. And to add to that, the numerous reminders He had sent us and His people, Israel, through the prophets and their prophecies and the visions and revelations He had given them.
He loves us all and He will surely listen to our needs, and He truly knows all that we need. That is why we should never worry, and instead we all should put our full trust in Him, for He is a loving God, who is just and righteous in all the things He does. But remember, brothers and sisters, that He is also an avenging God, just as He is loving, because He hates sin first of all things, and all things evil and abhorring in His eyes. If we sin and do not repent, we will face the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were wiped out from the face of the earth for their sins.
But our Father in heaven does not just want empty worship and prayers either, as many of us would certainly had done in the past, paying lip service to the Lord who loves us. He wants from us our hearts, our full attention and dedication, just as He Himself had paid full attention to all of us sinners, all these while. We are like lost sheep to Him, whom He cannot ignore, and He would use all in His power to bring us back, like a shepherd going all out to find even one lost sheep.
So that we would not be lost, like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who were lost in their debauchery and their sinful lives, where sin had blinded and deafened them to the Lord their God, He had sent us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be a new light, a new hope for all of us. And one of the things that He had done to make sure that we will not be lost forever was that to teach us how to pray, how to pray to the Lord our God with all our hearts, our minds, and our full attention, that our prayer is indeed truly a prayer, pure and beautiful in the eyes and ears of the Lord.
To pray is to communicate with our Lord, and that is the key essence of what a prayer truly is. To pray is not to bring in endless litanies of requests and wishes, or bugging our Lord for His help whenever we are in dire straits. To pray is not to turn to the Lord only when we are in difficulties and in need of great help, or in the state of danger. Indeed, as the Lord has told us, and Christ His Son has taught us through His disciples, that prayer must be done, at all times, with a sincere and pure heart.
That was why Christ taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer, the very prayer that came out of the mouth of the Word of God, Christ Himself. This prayer is a perfect prayer, the most sincere and purest of all prayers that are ever be in this world, be it on earth or in heaven. The Lord’s Prayer, which we recite and pray every Mass and most likely pray every day, is the model prayer for all of us. It is a simple yet a clear-cut prayer, straight to the point in its meaning, and pure in its intentions.
Yes, a prayer must always begin with glorifying the Lord our God and praising His Name, and all His love and kindness that He had shown us, all His beloved children. A prayer must never be a litany of requests and petitions, but indeed, it must be a humble prayer, showing our sincerity and humility before the throne of God, for we are nothing and full of sin, and yet He rescued us and made us whole and pure once again, with none other than the Blood of His own Son’s sacrifice on the cross.
In a prayer, we have to listen to God just as God listens to us. A prayer is a two-way communication between God and man, the link between our Creator and us His creations. He speaks to us in mysterious ways and in the depth and the silence of our hearts. If we keep our hearts closed to Him, we will not be able to listen to Him. It is often that we have to cast away our pride and sinfulness, and the deafening noise of the world, so that we will be able to listen to our Lord, and communicate sincerely with Him through prayer.
That is why brothers and sisters, whenever we pray, we should close ourselves from the world, and take away any form of distractions which may distract us and disturb our precious link with the Lord our God. Do it in silence and in the privacy of our rooms, and it is also important that we make use of every opportunity we have to be silent, even at a workplace, to listen to the Lord speaking to us. Even that is prayer, brothers and sisters in Christ!
That is also why in the Mass, it is important to have silent moments, after the readings, during the time after we receive the Lord in the Holy Communion, and even at times before the Mass starts or after the Mass has finished. These are precious moments we can use to communicate with our God, especially if we are busy with our work in any other times. It is important, brothers and sisters, that we respond to the Lord’s calls and know what He wants us to do with our lives. Be like the prophet Samuel, who in his youth was called by the Lord and he answered to it, and listened to the word of God.
As I had mentioned, God is merciful and loving just as He is just and a punishing God. If we ask and knock at His door, He will surely listen to us and consider our repentance. You see, brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord does not take pleasure in seeing the punishment and suffering of His children, and He certainly does not enjoy punishing us for our sins. Indeed, it caused Him great pain to punish mankind for their sins and their rebellions, and it is especially hard for the Lord to punish His own chosen people of Israel, when they erred and preferred the pagan gods and idols, and their constant rebellions during the journey from Egypt and after they had had the Promised Land as their own.
That is why, in our prayer, what is important is for us to recognise our own weaknesses, our own sinfulness, and our own unworthiness, that we lay them all bare before the Lord our God, that the Lord who sees all, will see our sincerity and the sincerity of our repentance, our contrite hearts, the true offering from us that He desires. Open the doors of our heart to Him, just as He opened His doors for us to enter. That we may be in Him just as He is in us.
Do not fear God and His punishment, but be courageous and approach the throne of God, the throne of mercy. For the Lord is the Divine Mercy who will embrace sinners and those who sincerely acknowledge their faults and seek to be healed. For Christ had come to save sinners and those who are sick from sin, and bring them back to health once again, that is a life of grace in God. However, He cannot do much help to us, if we ourselves did not open the doors of our heart for Him to come in.
He knocks at our doors too, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as we knock at His doors in heaven, to give Him our prayers and petitions. In the same way, the Lord too longs to speak to us all in our hearts. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, harden not our hearts the way the Pharaoh and the people of Israel had once hardened their hearts, but open it, for the Lord who wants to come in and dwell within us. Listen to Him and do what He wants us to do, and our lives will be blessed.
May the Lord who saved us from death deliver us from evil and his corruptions, that we may not suffer the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah, where not even ten righteous ones could be found. May He protect us from harm and bring us to the life eternal that He had promised us through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. May the Lord who speaks to us in silence helps us to gain greater understanding in the importance of prayer in our lives, so that we will always be attuned to Him, in line with His will, and always ever be in His grace. God bless us all. Amen!
Luke 11 : 1-13
One day Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” And Jesus said to them, “When you pray, say this :
Father, may Your Name be held holy,
May Your kingdom come;
give us each day the kind of bread we need,
and forgive us our sins, for we also forgive all who do us wrong;
and do not bring us to the test.”
Jesus said to them, “Suppose one of you has a friend, and goes to his house in the middle of the night and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine who is travelling has just arrived, and I have nothing to offer him.’
Maybe your friend will answer from inside, ‘Do not bother me now; the door is locked, and my children and I are in bed, so I cannot get up and give you anything.’ But I tell you, even though he will not get up and attend to you because you are a friend, yet he will get up because you are a brother to him, and he will give you all you need.
And so I say to you, ‘Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For the one who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to him who knocks the door will be opened.
If your child asks for a fish, will you give him a snake instead? And if your child asks for an egg, will you give him a scorpion? If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we who believe in Christ had been marked by the Lord our God, with a special mark, for each one of us, to distinguish us from those who do not believe and do not have faith and love for the Lord. That mark is none other than His own Precious Blood, the Blood of the Lamb of God, which He gave to us to mark His faithfulness and love for us, to mark the New Covenant He has established with all of us, with all mankind, a covenant that will never be broken.
The Blood of the covenant of Christ reminds us of the first reading today, when Moses sealed the covenant between the people of Israel and the Lord their God with the blood of animals, the blood of lambs and goats sacrificed on the altar made to God. The blood sealed the promise that God had made with their father Abraham, that his descendants would prosper and enjoy God’s blessing and be led to the Land of Promise.
On the other hand, the covenant involve a two-way promise and vow, and therefore, just as the Lord has vowed to bless His people and care for them, so the people too must keep their part of the covenant, to obey the laws of the Lord, and live according to His will. If they remain faithful to their part in the covenant, their lives will truly be happy and blessed, and they will receive the fullness of their covenant with God.
But if they break their part of the covenant, by disobeying the Lord and doing wicked things not in conjunction with the Lord’s will, then they will not receive the blessings that the Lord had promised them, and instead, they will truly suffer for having turned their back on the Lord and His covenant, the covenant of love He had offered freely to Abraham and his descendants that they will be blessed.
That was exactly what many of the people of Israel did, even just after Moses had sprinkled the blood of the covenant on them, as they complained against Moses and the Lord for having brought them in the journey through the desert to the Promised Land.
They complained because they did not keep themselves strong enough in the faith that the devil could come to them and sow the seeds of discord and evil in their hearts, and the seeds of desire and greed, desiring ever more things from the Lord, complaining to the Lord when they did not receive enough, even though the Lord had fed them with bread from heaven, the manna, and with quails and birds for them to eat, and also provide them with sweet and clear spring water to drink.
No, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not the way that we should follow, the rebelliousness and the hard-hearted people of Israel during their sojourn in the desert. We must instead follow the path of Christ, of love and dedication, which we should give to the Lord and to our fellow men, and also thanksgiving to the Lord when it is due. That is because the Lord had given us much, very much indeed, that He gave us nothing else more precious, nor that there will ever be anything that is to be more precious, than His own Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour, and new hope of life eternal.
We must fortify ourselves, brethren, in our hearts and minds, that we will not succumb to the evil one. Prevent the sower of evil from sowing seeds of evil and sin within our hearts. Do not let him to reign free over us, and enslave us to the chains of sin and death. The devil will always try and utilise everything that is within his power to corrupt us and turn us from the path of the Lord, that is salvation, towards the path to hell and eternal damnation.
We must have a strong and healthy prayer life, that our heart will be defended from the assaults of the evil one. In doing so, our faith and dedication to the Lord will be complete.” But remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that faith cannot stand on its own, and without good and positive acts in our words, deeds, and actions, our faith will be dead and empty. Yes, as empty as that of the people of Israel in the desert. They had been given manna, the bread from heaven and quails as food during their desert journey, and yet they still complained and blasphemed against His Name.
Our Lord is faithful, just as He is loving, brothers and sisters in Christ. He loves us all so much, that He shed His own Body and His own Blood, through the cross, that all of us be redeemed in a new covenant that He established by His own sacrifice, for our sake. This is no blood of the lambs and goats that die, brothers and sisters, but here is the Blood of the Lamb of God who lives, the Lamb who has triumphed and conquered Satan and evil. This Blood, the divine blood given to us out of the Lord’s own will, is the blood that purifies and cleanses, washing our beings white and pure again from all the filth and darkness of sin within us.
We receive this Blood and the Body, in the Eucharist, which the priests turned from the humble bread and wine, into the very Being of our Lord and Saviour, who died as the lamb of sacrifice, the True Lamb, who is the only one worthy to redeem us from all the weights of our faults and evil, all the horrible things we had committed, things abhorred by the Lord our God. He established this new covenant, a covenant not only with the people of Israel of old, but with all mankind, without exception. He established this new covenant, especially for sinners. The greater the sin that a sinner has, the more the Lord wants to come to redeem him or her from their fate that is death and hell.
He paid for this new covenant and sealed it with His own Blood, not blood of any animals, but the most precious Blood possible, the divine blood of the Lord, poured down on us from the cross, given to us to drink in the Eucharist, in the form of wine transubstantiated into His Blood. We who partake in this divine gift is sealed in the new covenant with God, through Christ, and as long as we remain faithful to God, we will ever be in God’s grace, and we will receive the gift of eternal life Christ had promised all those who believe in Him.
Our Lord loves us so much and He wants all of us saved, from our fate of certain death in sin. He has given His best and His all in His part on the covenant. But as I have mentioned, a covenant is made between two parties, in which both parties have to commit to the covenant that it is made valid and true. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we ready to commit ourselves to Christ, to His love? Are we ready to take up our own crosses and follow Christ, so that we will make whole the new covenant of the Lord?
Are we ready to commit ourselves to the Lord present in the Most Holy Eucharist? In His Body and Blood that He gave us that He may be in us and we in Him? Let us from now on strive to be the loving partner of our God in that holy covenant, and play our part, that is following the Lord’s commandments that is love. Love our God and love our fellow brethren as we love ourselves. For God is love! Amen.
Psalm 49 : 1-2, 5-6, 14-15
The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, He summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. God has shone from Zion, perfect in beauty.
“Gather before Me My faithful ones, who made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.” The heavens will proclaim His sentence, for God Himself is the judge.
“Yet offer to God a sacrifice of thanks, and fulfill your vows to the Most High. Call on Me in time of calamity; I will deliver you, and you will glorify Me.”
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the Ten Commandments given by our Lord to His people, the people of Israel, through Moses, His servant, written on the two stones that would bear the very writings of the Lord, the Commandments that He wanted His people to follow for all eternity. The Ten Commandments carry the basic tenets of what being the people and children of God is all about, that is indeed summarised by Christ as the commandments of love.
For the commandments in the Ten Commandments, when looked deeper into, would show that mankind need to love God with all their attention, their hearts, minds, and soul, and with all their strength, that they will obey and worship no other god but the Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world. Automatically too, they should honour the Holy Name of their God, YHVH, the God who AM, and whose Name has also been revealed to us, Jesus, the Name above every other name, and the Name upon which all knees will bend, be it on earth, in heaven, or in hell.
Loving God with all our hearts and our strength is important, but that is just one half of the entire law and commandment. That is because as Christ had taught His disciples and which we read in the Gospels, we must also love our brothers and sisters, all our neighbours, fellow mankind, just as we have loved our God and ourselves, in the same way, giving to them our love, care, and compassion. That is the other half of the commandments, that will make perfect our observation of God’s laws and commandments.
To love our brethren and our fellow men means to give unconditional love to others, especially to those who are starved of love, to those who hunger for love and compassion, and those who are in the midst of suffering and persecution. But this is not all that love is about, because love is about giving ourselves not just to those whom we love, or just to those who we think need our love, but to love is also to embrace our enemies, those who hate us, those who persecute us, and those who did evil things to us. Love means to be able to forgive them from their faults to us, and to embrace them as our fellow brothers and sisters of the One True God, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why the Ten Commandments also included commands such as not to kill nor to covet one another’s goods and properties, as these are likely to be borne out of animosity that arose between two parties in the first place. Hatred leads to animosity, and then it may result in something that hurt one or both parties, or even kill, in the case of murder. The Lord wants all of us to respect one another and let go of our hatred and our animosity, replacing them instead with love, the kind of love that Jesus Christ had shown us, on the cross at Calvary.
For Jesus Himself had forgiven His enemies, the Pharisees and the chief priests, as well as the people who cried for His death. He embraced them from the cross, and His Blood is poured down the cross to wash the sins of all mankind, because He redeemed all men, without any exceptions. He also embraced His enemy, Saul, the reaper of early Christians, who hunted many people who believed in Christ and tortured them. Christ embraced Saul with His love, and made him into the greatest instrument of His works in this world, from an enemy into the most valiant defender of the faith.
We have to nurture love, not hatred; peace, not violence; hope, not despair; light, not darkness; and faith in God; not in Satan and his devices and temptations. We have to plant the seeds of love, hope, and faith in our youths, in our own families, within our circle of friends, and within our respective societies. For actions not done in love, and life lived without love is empty, and neither does any actions or life that are not bound by hope and faith. To be loving is key to achieving salvation.
Today we commemorate the feast day of the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our God, that is St. Joachim and St. Anne, the grandparents of Jesus Christ our Lord. They are role models for all families, Christian families in particular, in how to bring God’s love into our homes. They brought up the mother of our Lord from her infancy to be the blessed person our mother Mary came to be. They cared for her since her Immaculate Conception inside her mother’s womb, the womb of St. Anne.
The care and love that St. Joachim and St. Anne had shown to Mary, the mother of our Lord, is replicated in her care for Jesus, whom Mary cared since His humble birth at the stables in Bethlehem, protecting Him from King Herod and those who would wish to harm Him. She accompanied Him through His childhood and teenage years, being revealed that Jesus is truly the Son of God when He was left behind in the Temple at the age of twelve. Mary accompanied Christ through His ministries and eventually until His death, and resurrection.
All these are made possible by the tender love and care given to Mary herself by her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, who showed her the meaning of love, compassion, and faith in God, that she herself become role models for all of us, the mother of God, and the greatest among all saints and apostles of Christ. St. Joachim and St. Anne are truly role models for us, and we should indeed follow in their footsteps, as well as the footsteps of Mary, the mother of our Lord, towards Christ, who longs to welcome us back into His embrace.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us renew our commitment to our Lord today, and also to renew our commitment to love, that is to love everyone, without exception, even to those who hate us the most and those who wished for our misfortune and death. Let us be gracious and courageous to forgive and to embrace those who do not have love in them, that in doing so, we will obey the commandments of the Lord, as once given to Moses, His servant so that the people of Israel will know the Lord’s laws, and so may we too, obey the same law, that is the law of love.
May the Lord bless us all with abundance of graces and blessings, and plant the seeds of love, hope, and faith within us, that they may blossom, and through our words, actions, and deeds, may we spread love, joy, and hope to all mankind, bringing everyone closer to God who is our Lord and Father. St. Joachim and St. Anne, pray for us too. Amen.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of one of the great Twelve Apostles, that is St. James the Lesser, the brother of St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple of Christ, and one of the sons of Zebedee, whose mother’s pleading to Christ we heard in the Gospel Reading today. St. James the Lesser was also the first of Christ’s Apostles to be martyred and went to heavenly glory, leading the way for his fellow Apostles, in glorifying Christ and God through his death.
St. James and his brother, St. John were courageous and fearless defenders of the Gospel, and brave messengers of the message of salvation, that is brought by Christ unto this world. They became witnesses to the death and resurrection of Christ. He witnessed the Risen Lord who gave them the mission to spread the Good News to all mankind, to the ends of the earth, and to make disciples of all the nations, a mission which is still true even until today.
Just as St. James was captured, imprisoned, and eventually martyred by the actions of King Herod, the King of Judea at the time, he did not give up his faith, and neither did he slacken from the mission the Lord had entrusted him with, despite the relatively short time that he had in his mission, him being the first to be martyred and die among the Apostles of Christ.
But that reminds us all of the reality of following our Lord Jesus Christ, that as St. Paul mentioned in the first reading today taken from the Second Letter to the faithful in Colossus, that following the Lord is not an easy way, and there will be many persecutions awaiting the faithful, many trials and tribulations inflicted by those who hated the Lord and His people. The devil is at work, brothers and sisters in Christ, because he is ever busy undermining the work of Christ in this world, trying to snatch us away from His embrace, and bring us into the eternal darkness of hell.
However, let us not fear the devil and his devices, Satan with all his wicked tools of corruption, temptation, and blasphemy against the Lord. That is because Christ our Saviour had conquered, and He had shown His might to all creation, freeing mankind forever from their bondage to sin, and therefore to death and Satan himself. For Satan, the evil one, had been our jailor and our master, the slave master ever since our ancestors chose to follow and obey his words rather than the commandments of the Lord.
Christ had given up Himself as the sacrificial victim, offered to everyone without exception, so that out of the outpouring of His love and His blood from the cross, everyone will be washed clean from the taints of their sins, like the way how the saints and martyrs in the vision of St. John, the brother of St. James, washed their cloaks and robes clean and pure white in the Blood of the Lamb, in his vision written in the Book of Revelation, as a vision of the end times.
Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, while following Christ will be difficult, with opposition from many, and even persecutions and oppressions may accompany it, but the Lord will be with us, walking alongside us. He carries us whenever we are weak and downtrodden. He gives hope to us whenever our hearts are heavy and filled with despair. For He is our God, a loving God, and a Good Shepherd, who cares for His sheep so much, that He would give His life for their sake, that they may live.
Today, brothers and sisters, we are still called by the Lord, to be like His disciples, and to be like His Apostles, particularly like St. James whom we remember today, in our zeal for Him, in our love and dedication for Him, and most importantly, in our actions and words, that we always reflect Christ at all times in them. Never speak a word without contemplating Christ, and never lift up your hand before listening to the Lord’s will.
That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important that we base ourselves on a good, strong, and vibrant prayer life, because prayer is the way for us to communicate with the Lord our God. Prayers are not supposed to be one-way request hotline for us to bombard the Lord with our needs and petitions, but it is rather a channel for us, to be able to listen to the Word of God speaking silently inside our hearts. Once our internal dispositions are good, based on a good faith and prayerful life, then we can embark on our mission of love, that is to make disciples of all the nations, by preaching the Good News of salvation, to the ends of the earth.
In his Epistle, that is the Epistle of James, St. James wrote especially about how faith without good works is the same as a dead faith. There can be no salvation without a living faith, that is faith made alive with good works based on the love of God. Therefore, it is important that we have a good prayer life and a heart dedicated to the Lord, and use this love in our heart, to do good for our neighbours, our brothers and sisters in need, that our faith is made alive, because we practice our faith, in following the Lord’s commands, that is to love one another just as we love ourselves.
The world today has ever greater need for missionaries and labourers of Christ, as more and more people are in need of God’s love and mercy. More and more people are turned away from the Lord because the world and its goodness have deceived them and led them away from the true path towards the Lord. Materialism and consumerism had made so many people paying less attention to the very God who had saved them from damnation, and they turned their backs on the Lamb who had shed His blood for their sake.
Be not afraid, and inspired by the zeal and example of St. James the Apostle, and the other Apostles and disciples of Christ, let us renew our effort to make a difference in our world, by bringing Christ into it, and fearlessly preaching the truths of the Gospel. We do not have to aim high nor go far, brothers and sisters, because we should indeed begin within our own families, within our own circle of friends, and within our own respective societies.
Have we as a family or within our friendships reflect Christ in all our words, deeds, and actions? Have we showed love in all the dealings we have with others. Do we bring life and love to others through what we have done to them? Have we brought peace to people who are in conflict and have we stood up for those who had been unjustly treated and persecuted?
All of us can do our own respective parts to play in our own respective communities, be it at home or outside, between our friends and our families. Let us all then resolve, and renew our commitment to the Lord, to be truly His disciples, not just in name, but also in our actions, and every words that leave our mouth. Let us bring light to all the nations, the Light of Christ, which reveals the way to the salvation of Christ.
Let us pray also for all the participants of the World Youth Day, which is now ongoing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that the youths of God will be new missionaries and new disciples of the Lord, committed to their mission, to bring the Good News to all, to comfort the sorrowful, to bless and heal the sick, and to love those who are unloved and rejected by the society.
St. James the Apostle, pray for us and intercede for our sake, all of us sinners and weak at heart, to the Lord our God, that He will strengthen us and give us His Spirit that we will all be courageous to glorify Him and to show Him to the world, a world that still lies in darkness, and badly in need of the Light of Christ. May God bless us all and give us all courage and faith. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 