bliss

by

Tuesday, 6 August 2013 : Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a great feast in the Church, that is the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, when our Lord is transformed into His true divine nature on top of the mountain, and seen by the disciples Peter, James, and John, together with Moses and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets of God.

Yes, Christ our Lord and Saviour is indeed our God and divine in His nature, and He, through His birth by our Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, is also human in nature, the Word of God made flesh and man by the power of the Holy Spirit that reside within the womb of Mary. He is in His nature, fully and completely divine as well as fully and completely human at the same time, separate yet one, one in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, our Lord is human, and He has human emotions as well, the love and compassion He has for all of us. He was overwhelmed with sorrow when Lazarus, His beloved friend died and when He witnessed the sorrow of his sisters, Martha and Mary. He showed compassion to the people gathered to listen to His sermons and speeches when they were hungry and without food. He showed compassion and love to the widows and people with afflictions and showed to all of them His great love.

Yet He is also fully divine, the Son of God, who revealed the fullness of His glory to the three of His disciples on the mountain, an occasion which we celebrate today as the Transfiguration. He revealed the truth about Himself and the truth about His power and glory to the three disciples, showing that He is not a mere human, neither is He merely another of the prophets, nor is He merely a liar. Yes, He is the divine Son of God, the Word of God made flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the Blessed Virgin Mary, was made man, fully human, as the Son of Man.

Then, what is the significance of Moses and Elijah appearing to Jesus on the mountain during His Transfiguration and speaking to Him about His death? The significance is that Jesus is the perfect embodiment of what Moses and Elijah each had embodied, as the greatest of the servants the Lord had sent into this world. Moses embodied the Law of God, the commandments and precepts He had given to His people to follow, while Elijah embodied the teaching authority of the prophets granted by the Lord. Jesus, as the Word of God made flesh is the greatest of all the prophets, delivering directly God’s will and message to mankind, and He also perfectly fulfilled all the prophecies the prophets had told about Him, the awaited Messiah, the awaited Saviour of all men.

In Jesus Christ lie our salvation, the perfection of the Law God had granted us, that is the commandments of love, through His explanation and His revelation on the truth about God and His laws, as well as the fulfillment of the prophecies and the teachings of the prophets in all its perfection. All of these, through His birth, His life, His works and ministries, and finally completed with His suffering and death on the cross, that cross on Calvary, and all are completed, just as He said “It is completed.” Yes, the completion of the grand plan on salvation God had prepared for all of us, that we can finally escape the slavery under sin, into freedom of eternal life in God.

However, to reach there, and to complete the plan, Christ had to bear our sins and our faults, as the sacrificial Lamb, the Lamb of God who bared Himself for us, in our place, and suffer instead of us. For we deserve to be punished severely for our sins, and not just any sins, but the persistence and the heaviness of our sins and evils that we have committed since the days of Adam and Eve our ancestors. Our Lord Jesus is without sin and pure, although He is indeed fully human like us, and yet He was made to bear our sins and our punishment in our place, that we will not suffer and experience death allotted to us for our rebelliousness, but instead have a new hope of eternal life and bliss.

He has to suffer, drink the cup of bitterness that God had given Him to drink, and die a prisoner’s death, a criminal’s death on the cross, judged by a Roman governor, condemned by His own people, scourged with lashes and crooks, and pierced by nails and elevated high between the heaven and the earth, all for our sake. Yet, He came down from that mountain where He showed His glory to His disciples, from the place where He manifested Himself as the great and glorious God, into His suffering and Passion, on the way to Jerusalem to die.

The disciples did not understand this, nor why did Christ do so, and what they wanted was that they remain in that wonderful place, in the fullness of the glory of God, that is because they have tasted heaven on earth on that mountain, and certainly they did not want to leave that feeling behind, that happiness and joy being in the glory and perfection of the Lord. That was why Peter suggested to Jesus to build three tents for Himself, for Moses, and for Elijah.

Christ could simply choose to stay there at the place for eternity, because indeed, He is God, and everything is within His power to do. He can remain forever in His great glory, and He did not have to face suffering, rejection, pain, and death. However, Christ knew what must be done, and despite the vast extent of suffering that He must go through in order to save us from our own destruction, His love for us is so great, that He is willing to go through all that, for our sake. He left His comfort zone, that He can exercise what He had come to this world for, that is to be our Saviour.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate today this great feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us take some time to reflect on ourselves, on our own actions and deeds. Have we overcome our fear of what is outside our comfort zone, and dared to take a step outside that comfort zone, so that we can make use of whatever gifts and talents God had given us, in order to bring love, comfort, and happiness to one another? Or have we chosen to be like the disciples, who prefer to remain in their comfort zone forever?

Brothers and sisters, to follow Christ means to take up our crosses and follow Him, through difficulties and oppositions that will surely face us in this uphill battle we have to reach our salvation in Christ. It does not mean that we should all suffer or die the same way that Christ had suffered or died for our sake, but certainly it means that it will not be easy either. We have to go the extra mile brothers and sisters, in our service and dedication to the people of God, especially those who are poor, in material and in spirit, and those who lack love in them, those who are unloved and forsaken.

Just as Christ chose to go down from the mountain and face His suffering to come proudly and courageously, we too should follow the example Christ had given us, going down that mountain, and gladly make ourselves available to others, sharing our love with them, bearing one another’s crosses on the way to God and His salvation. Let us be courageous to go an extra mile, stepping outside our comfort zone in our service to God and His people.

Do not fear, brothers and sisters in Christ! For the Lord Transfigured on the mountain and glorified in His might will always be with us, and He will bless us tremendously if we follow in His footsteps, carrying our crosses, in our journey, sharing the love and the Spirit He had given to all of us who have faith in Him with one another. May the Lord Jesus Transfigured bless all of us and our endeavours, and remain with us forever. Amen.

by

Wednesday, 31 July 2013 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius Loyola, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, Christ reminded us in the readings, how precious is the Lord to us, how wonderful is His kingdom, that is for us to inherit as eternal reward, if we remain faithful to Him who always loves us. The Kingdom of God is truly a precious and priceless gift to all, that everyone should indeed focus their attention on, as in the allusion made by Christ, that the kingdom of God is likened to a precious and top-quality pearl, so much so that one should sell all they have, just that they can own that wonderful and beautiful pearl.

So beautiful and perfect is the entire glory of God, that as stated in the first reading today, when Moses talked to the Lord face-to-face in the fullness of His glory and majesty, he would be bathed in His perfect and wonderful light, such that his face became the countenance of the Lord Himself, brilliant and radiant like the sun. Such was the glory of God reflected on the face of Moses, that he was compelled to hide his face by the means of the veil, so great is such glory that no one but Moses was allowed to see.

Our Lord Jesus Christ too was glorified on the mountaintop when He was transfigured from His human persona, and revealed the fullness of His glory and majesty. He revealed Himself to Peter, James, and John who were present at His Transfiguration. In that event too, we saw the same thing that had happened to Moses, in how Jesus Himself was transfigured into a figure of perfection and brilliance, except that the light itself came from Christ Himself, not because it was a reflection of God’s glory and majesty as in the case of Moses.

Why is this very important, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we listened to the word of God on how Moses faced God face-to-face? And why I mentioned Christ and His Transfiguration? That is because, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have been made in the image of God, that is our very face and countenance is a reflection of the very image of our God, the Creator Himself. We have the face of the Lord, but yet, we are not perfect as the Lord is perfect.

We were once perfect, in the early days of creation, when Adam and Eve still walked the Gardens of Eden, when they were still pure and without blame. After they had followed the devil instead of the Lord, they had lost sight of the treasure that the Lord would have given them for eternity. Mankind would have had no need to suffer, the suffering that is because of our sin and our rebellion against the Lord. Yet, we are the most beloved ones of the Lord, created in His own image, and He loved us still even after we had been corrupted by the sins our fathers had committed. That was why He sent Jesus Christ to the world, that man may be reunited once again with Him.

In our world, the devil has many tools to steer us away from the true path towards the Lord. There are many things that he can use, in order to continue his subversion of mankind, just as what he had once done to Eve and to Adam. He offered Eve the knowledge of things good and evil, and the tempting suggestion that eating the fruit of the forbidden tree would make her God’s equal. These are the same things he can utilise in our world today, to make us falter in our journey of faith.

We must set our focus right, on the true treasure that is the Lord and His love, and not be distracted by the false and temporary treasures of the world, such as wealth, properties, pleasure, and many other thing this world offers us, and our world offers us as things that we should all pursue. It is not that it is wrong to have money, wealth, and pleasure, because it is perfectly fine for us to have these, if these would help us to live in our increasingly challenging world. We do need money and worldly goods to be able to live on and survive.

What is important is that we do not become distracted by them, that we lost track of our real treasure, that is God. So precious is this wealth to us that we all should be motivated to seek it, and the wealth and treasures we have in this world should be directed to help us to obtain the real treasure. We do not have to go to the extent of selling everything in order to get that true treasure, but certainly, we need to put in effort in order to gain our true treasure and reward in God.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius Loyola, the priest and founder of the Jesuit order, the largest religious order and movement in our Church today, of which our current Pope, Pope Francis, is a member of. St. Ignatius Loyola was born in Spain to a family of noble, who inherited much wealth and affluence in the society. St. Ignatius Loyola was destined to be a great knight and noble, and participated in much activities that the nobles used to do at that time.

St. Ignatius Loyola was born to a life of privilege, to a life of wealth and sufficiency, with all the things that all of us surely would have craved for. He was brought up to be a knight, seeking valour and fame through all his activities, seeking ever greater fame as he grew up, participating frequently in battles and duels in order to gain more fame and power. Yet, as he progressed on through life, he grew unsatisfied by these ‘treasures’ that he had.

St. Ignatius Loyola eventually left all that he had and abandoned the inheritance, the fame, and the glory he had once had, and instead, became the knight of Christ. Therefore, he no longer served himself, his own ego, his own pride and glory, but instead he gave it all to serve the Lord our God. Christendom then was in great turmoil, with people leaving the Church to the Reformation heresy every day. More and more left the Church tempted by the devil and his tools in this world, those who rebelled against the Lord and His Church.

That marked the beginning of the Jesuit order, which was first established by St. Ignatius Loyola and several of his companions. The Jesuit order rapidly grew and spread throughout Europe and Christendom at the time, combatting heresies and evils of the world, converting many back to the true faith, and stemmed the tide of destruction caused by the Reformation. The Reformation itself might have had good intentions, but in its implementation, it was a disaster for the faith, for God’s people, for the Church of God.

That was what the Jesuits, under the leadership of St. Ignatius Loyola was trying to combat and fight, in the Name of the Lord, which was the reason behind their name, that is the Society of Jesus. They, who had found the true treasure in God, and truly treasure this treasure, the priceless treasure, sought to ensure that others too can find their true treasure that is the Lord our God, and not to be misled by the devil into the chasm of damnation in hell, because of their heresy and transgressions against the true faith, as was rampant during the time of St. Ignatius Loyola.

The Jesuits are still active today, and together with many other religious orders, they work to continue the good works started by St. Ignatius Loyola and many other saints, so that more and more souls may be saved and prevented from falling into the traps of Satan. The hard work by St. Ignatius Loyola and his successors ensured that many are saved and received their true treasure in God, their eternal reward of everlasting life in the bliss of heaven.

We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, can do our part to bring more souls and indeed, ourselves to the Lord and His salvation, by ensuring that we keep our focus right, that is to focus ourselves on the real treasure that is the Lord our God, and do not become distracted by the world and all its temptations. Instead, let us use whatever graces and blessings that had been given to us, in wealth and other things, that we may use them as best as possible, to help us to achieve the real treasure of our lives. May St. Ignatius Loyola intercede for us that the Lord will always keep us strong in our struggle against evil and keep us in His embrace and favour, always, forever and ever. Amen.

by

Sunday, 28 July 2013 : 17th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

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!

by

Thursday, 18 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, come to Christ our Lord whose yoke is light, and come to the Lord who had liberated us from the yoke of sin and death. He has liberated all of us from our fate that is death through His own death on the cross, and His resurrection give us all new hope of life, in the eternal bliss of heaven.

Yes, following the Lord has its own crosses, that is difficulties, because this world that is filled with evil will certainly oppose us with all of its might, that they will try to destroy us just as they had tried to destroy our Lord Jesus Christ by condemning Him to death, the humiliating death on the cross. Yet, Christ had triumphed, and not even death could hold Him captive, but He gloriously turned hell upside down, releasing the souls of the faithful from the slavery in hell and death.

For Christ is like the new Moses, whom the Lord had sent to liberate all the people, all mankind, all of creation, instead of just the people of Israel. If Moses was sent to liberate the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt under the Pharaohs, Christ was sent to liberate everyone, without exception from our slavery under sin, with Satan as the jailer.

Following Christ will be difficult, and there will be lots of oppositions from those in the world, particularly from the allies of evil. But this is nothing if compared to the suffering and difficulties that we will face for eternity, if we do not follow Christ and choose to follow the devil instead. That is also to represent how light is the yoke of Christ, compared to the yoke of the devil, because while the yoke of Christ leads eventually to eternal happiness, and only a temporary suffering, the yoke of the devil leads to never-ending eternal death and suffering, from the complete separation of man from God.

But yet, many people seem to prefer the heavier yoke of the devil than the lighter yoke of Christ, why? That is because the yoke of the devil looks more attractive in our hearts. It looks better and also feels better than the yoke of Christ. The yoke of the devil looks sweeter, better, and more promising, and the devil had also sweetened it further with all the pleasures and offerings this world can give, whereas in the yoke of Christ, we can only see suffering, although it is a suffering accompanied by the love of God.

That was why the same had happened to the people of Israel, when they followed Moses through the desert towards the Promised Land. They rebelled and rebelled constantly against the leadership of Moses and against God Himself. They saw the desert as the sure place of death, while their life in Egypt, under slavery, they deemed to be better than the nomadic life in the desert. Yes, even in slavery! They were glad to remain in slavery rather than be free, so that they could enjoy their ‘good’ life in Egypt.

That good life in Egypt, my brothers and sisters, is truly equivalent to our current life in the state of sin. Because sinning is actually enjoyable, and the devil put no stops to ensure that we remain in our state of sin and indifference towards the merciful God. We constantly rebel against the will of God and the teachings of His prophets and apostles, as we have always done, just like the people of Israel themselves had done in the desert. They complained of their temporary suffering, as we does now, but they failed to realise that true happiness lies at the end of that suffering. Remember, the yoke of Christ is light, and it leads to salvation, while the yoke of the devil leads only to death and eternal suffering.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, do we resolve now to take up our crosses while following He who was crucified? That is to take up the Cross of Christ? Or do we slacken and let the devil has the better of us and lead us to eternal damnation? If we are to follow Christ, as He Himself had said, we must be ready to take up our crosses and suffer the rejection by evil and the world. But that is nothing, compared to if we are rejected by our Lord Himself, in which, then, there will be no hope left.

Let us resolve to follow the Lord and be ready to face all the consequences of following Him, facing it with faith, courage, and devotion, without ever going out of our way or being led astray. May the Lord who is merciful look kindly upon us, and help us during this journey of the faith, and guiding us through the persecutions and sufferings that will be inflicted upon us.

May the Lord bless us all and protect us, so that all of us will persevere, and fall not into eternal damnation in hell, but achieve eternal life in bliss in heaven, with our Lord who loves us. Amen.

by

Saturday, 6 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maria Goretti, Virgin and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is with us, He is around us, and He is within us. He is the bride of the Church, and therefore, He is also our bridegroom, and we are united intimately with Him. That was why Jesus told the disciples of John the Baptist, that His disciples did not fast the way that they and the Pharisees had done, because the Lord Himself walked among them, the disciples, that they should indeed rejoice for being given such a privilege. And indeed, why lament, or be sorrowful, or fast when the Lord Himself is with us? We should indeed be happy and joyful.

And even the more reason we have today to rejoice in the presence of our Lord, because our Lord Jesus Christ had died for us, and is risen, triumphant over evil, sin, and death. He redeemed all of us, without exception, from our fate that is death, because of our sinful rebellion. That is the even greater reason why we should be joyful and rejoice over such a great victory, the victory over sin. If we accept the salvation offered freely by our Lord Jesus Christ, death will no longer have any power and hold over us, and we will enjoy life eternal with our Lord in heaven.

The Lord Jesus today talked about the wineskins and the clothes in today’s Gospel reading, and these parables are a very strong indication and teaching to us, that when we accept Christ, as our Lord and Saviour, we must be renewed, rejuvenated, into a new life in Christ, and abandon our old life, the old life of evil and sin. That old life, that sinful existence before we accepted Christ is the old wineskin, old wine, and the old cloths, while the new life in Christ is akin to the new wineskins, new wine, and the new cloths.

So incompatible evil is with our Lord, who is Love, perfection, and the ultimate good, that indeed, just as Christ had said to His disciples, that we cannot patch old cloths with new cloths, neither can we put old wine into new wineskins, or new wine into old wineskins. We have to transform ourselves so that we can truly belong to Christ. For Christ will descend upon us and dwell within us through the Holy Spirit, that our bodies should be transformed into the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

Upon our baptism, our old sins and the sins of our forefathers, of the rebellion of man against the love of God, are erased. This is the purification of our body and our soul from evil, from the slavery of Satan, into the holiness of Christ. That is why, we must ever be vigilant, and ever remember that our bodies, our hearts, our minds, and our souls must always remain as clean as possible from the taints of Satan and his darkness.

For Satan certainly does not sit idly by while we are saved by the Lord. He will use all of his power and all the tools in his possession in order to corrupt us back and allow us to fall back into his fold, thus preventing our salvation and instead bringing about our eternal damnation with him in hell. Dear brothers and sisters, we must always be vigilant, because Satan is a trickster, and his ideas are many. While what Jacob did in order to gain inheritance from his brother Esau in the first reading should not be a condoned act, although it was indeed in God’s plan, it can give us a good insight on the kind of trick that Satan can play on us, with Satan being Jacob, and us being Isaac, who could no longer see, and thus was tricked by Jacob’s trickery and gave him the blessing intended for Esau.

Today, yet another reminder of the need to keep ourselves pure and worthy of our Lord, so that we will not fall into damnation but eternal life, exists in the person of St. Maria Goretti, whose feast day we are celebrating today. Many of us know the story of the short life of St. Maria Goretti and her tragic death in defense of her faith and obedience to the laws and to the will of God.

St. Maria Goretti was still only 11 when she died, in a horrific attack in a rape attempt by Alessandro, a boy whose family lived together with St. Maria Goretti’s family. St. Maria Goretti rejected Alessandro’s advances and attempts, and constantly reminded him that what he was trying to do is a sin, and doing so would cause him to be condemned into hell. St. Maria Goretti also said that it is better for her to die rather than to betray her faith and dedication to the Lord, and rather than to sully her purity.

Despite being attacked and ravaged by Alessandro’s wrath, which eventually caused her death, St. Maria Goretti forgave her assailant, and prayed for his salvation, and for him to eventually join her in heaven. She died soon from her wounds, but her good works did not end there. Alessandro, her murderer, eventually regretted his deeds and renounced his past sinful ways and reformed himself in the Church, eventually dying in peace and love as one of God’s servants. He is now certainly with St. Maria Goretti in the glory of heaven and eternal life.

The example of St. Maria Goretti should inspire us and invigorate us, to keep ourselves pure and clean from all traces of evil. Turn away from our sinful past, and all the things detestable to the Lord, that we had done all these while. Let us abandon the old wineskin, and embrace the new wine with the new wineskin. Our Lord is merciful and loving, and if we repent our sinful ways, we will surely be welcomed in His loving embrace.

Therefore, following the example of St. Maria Goretti, and in obedience to God’s will and commandments, let us fill ourselves with Christ, and reflect Christ in our daily actions, in all the things that we say and do, that we truly belong to Christ, and Satan no longer has any power or hold over us. May the Lord who loves us strengthen the faith and love that is inside all of us, that we will be saved, and will be with Him for eternity in the bliss of eternal life in love, joy, and hope.

St. Maria Goretti, pray for us, and ask the Lord for His mercy for all of us sinners, still walking in this world, that we will not go astray from the path that the Lord had pointed out to us. Amen.

by

Sunday, 16 June 2013 : 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters, today we feel the love and mercy of God reaching out to us, willing to redeem us from our sins and our faults, despite our constant rebellion, and despite our constant complaints and whining. He is a merciful and loving God, that He sent to us His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as our only hope at salvation. For it is through the redemptive action of Christ by His suffering and ultimate sacrifice on the cross, through His priceless Blood, that we are all redeemed, and have hope in salvation, providing that we believe in Him and remain steadfast in our faith in Him.

Salvation lies only in the faith in Christ through the Church, that is, brothers and sisters, by the baptism sealed in the Holy Name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, in which we are welcomed into the family of the saved ones in the Church of God, our Church. Outside the Church there is no salvation, although Christ did die for all and made all people righteous in redemption, by erasing from them the sins of their forefathers, the rebellion of mankind against the will of God.

The Lord did not come to save the righteous, for they are already saved. He came looking for sinners, for the worst of them, because these are the ones who need salvation the most. If they repent and accept Him as their Lord, they would be saved and be spared from the fires of hell and eternal damnation. The sinful woman, who repented and asked in great humility for forgiveness was a perfect example of this, how the Lord is willing to save those who had repented from their sinful ways and resolved to love God and serve Him henceforth, completing turning their backs to their old, sinful past.

The great and saintly Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen had once said that our relationship to the Lord is akin to that of a candle and a light. A candle and light illuminates its surroundings and reveal the hidden darkness, and unveil all the ugly things that lie hidden in the darkness. The closer something is brought to the light, the more is revealed of that thing in the light. The uglier is the defects, the more visible they become as it is brought ever closer to the light of God.

That is why, just as Christ had told us in the story of the creditor and the two debtors, in which the creditor graciously forgave both debtors from their debts, and as the Pharisees rightfully answer our Lord, that the one with the greater debt would appreciate and love the act more, because of the greater extent of the ‘debt’ that the one has over the other, so does the greater of sinners would then be ever more ready to be redeemed and reunited with Christ, and accepting His mercy.

It does not mean then those with less sin are then less worthy of our God or anything, or that they in any way would not be as pious and humble as those with the greater sin, in approaching the throne of God for forgiveness. Rather, what matters is what is within the hearts of each one of us, that we truly focus all our attentions towards the Lord our God.

What Archbishop Sheen and Christ had said is indeed that the greater is our sin, and the closer we are to the throne of God, the more our sins are being revealed. Therefore, as we approach closer to that throne of mercy, the more we should humble ourselves, because we are ever more reminded of the depth of our sins and our faults, and how unworthy we are before the Lord, who is good and perfect. But the Lord who is good and loving, is willing to make us worthy of Him and redeem us, and cleanse us from the darkness and ugliness that is within us.

That is why, it does not mean that being holy and pious then we become haughty and arrogant of our own holiness and our own sanctity, as indeed, if the words of Archbishop Sheen take hold, its meaning is clear, that those who are closer to God and always remain in His presence, will be even more aware of their sins and their darkness. The holy saints and holy people of God are always reminded of this fact, and the unworthiness of their own soul before the Lord, and that was what strengthened them and empowered them to strive always for holiness and purity of the soul.

Do not be like the Pharisees who were hypocrites, in that they glorify their own sanctity and purity in front of the people, in pursuit of human glory rather that divine approval, and also thought lowly of the sinners like the sinful woman, but he did not give glory to God, unlike the woman, who was in complete awareness of her sins, that she lowered herself before God and served Him in humility.

King David too, who was a great and righteous king of God’s people, Israel, was not free from the temptation of sin. The lust and desire for beautiful woman had corrupted his heart and clouded his judgment that he sinned before the Lord by causing the death of Uriah the Hittite and claimed his wife as his own. But King David also acted like the woman, in that when the prophet Nathan chastised him and brought him to the full awareness of his sins, he submitted to the wrath of God and humbly asked for His mercy and forgiveness, even though he was indeed a great and mighty king.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, do not fear the Lord, for although He was not happy with our sins, but He was willing to accept us back into His embrace and indeed He wants to embrace us again in His caring love, if we want to repent and change our sinful ways, the way that King David and the woman had brought to God their contrite hearts and their obedience to God.

Let us always be reminded of our sins and our unworthiness before God, and most importantly, remember the love of God, and His desire to be reunited with us, which will be accomplished if we accept His offer of salvation, that He made on the cross, and if we accept that offer, by accepting Him as our Lord and Saviour, we will receive eternal life and blessing in heaven.

May God be with us at all times, and purify our hearts from the taints of sin, empowering us with love and charity, to also help one another to return to God, our Father who loves us. Amen.

by

Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, Christ summarises for us, the Laws of the Lord, which man at the time mostly saw as the Law of Moses, and the list of many numbers of regulations that regulate daily lives of the Jewish people at the time. Christ summarises the Law in fact, into a single commandment of Love. Yes, love. No, this love is not the lovey-dovey kind of love between enamoured teenagers who just met each other and fell in ‘love’ at the first sight.

Love is so much greater than that, and love is not just for pleasure, just as what Tobias, the son of Tobit, had stated in his prayer in the first reading we heard today, that his marriage was not based on pleasure, but love that endures, that is true love. What is love then? Love has many faces and it encompasses many things, but true love is wonderful, and is life, and it is the Lord Himself, as God Himself is Love, Deus Caritas est.

Sadly though, love is increasingly more and more difficult to be found in our world today. Love and mankind itself had been corrupted by the agents of evil that love has become perversed into something less than the true love that God embodies, and the love that is exemplified by the relationship and love between Tobias and Sara.

Even worse, in many parts of our world today, love has completely been replaced by hatred, jealousy, and all the negative opposites of love, which brought destruction and death instead of life. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, only through love that we can beget life and only through love that we manifest God’s will and show that we are truly belonging to God. If we reflect hatred and jealousy, along with all the other negative sentiments, we belong not to God, but to Satan, His adversary.

God has given His people, the people of Israel, His commandments written in stone and conveyed to them through Moses, His prophet. This is known today as the Ten Commandments, the contents of which I am sure many of us certainly know and even memorised by heart. But what is the Ten Commandments truly about, and what about all the rituals and the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Lord as written in the Book of the Leviticus and the other books of the Torah?

All of that are good indeed, but ultimately, all of them have the same purpose, and have the same meaning, that is love. All of the commandments and the rules all breath the same thing, that is love. By truly obeying the commandments of the Lord, we breath love to the world and to those around us, because by doing God’s commandments, we become love itself, just as God Himself is Love.

Love is the key to ending many conflicts and violence that is now rampant throughout the world. Mankind had not had love because they have not obeyed the commandments of the Lord and even those who obeyed did not fully understand the meaning of God’s commandments and why they were given to us.

If only everyone in the world can have love in them and expressed out to the world. Indeed, if only more people would reflect love in their lives! Our world would surely have been a much better, a much more loveable place to live in.

There is so much hatred in this world, and hatred leads to violence, and violence lead to even more hatred, and eventually leads to death. This vicious cycle continues unabated in our world today, and many people were caught in this cycle of hatred. Only love can save them from such a fate, that is death and damnation, and love can truly breach through all the falsehood of Satan and the layers of hatred that masks the purity of our hearts.

Our hearts are certainly pure and noble from the very beginning, because our God who is good and perfect created us. It is only trapped beneath layers upon layers of sin and hatred, that prevents the love that is in us, the kindness that is in our hearts to shine through.

That is why Christ gave us His commandments of love, that is essentially the same as the Ten Commandments, because all that commandments is about love, whether God or our fellow mankind, and not doing what brings about hatred and destruction. And both the commandments that Christ had taught us are equally important and intimately linked to one another.

That is because, we cannot possibly love God without loving our neighbours, and neither can we love our neighbour without loving God at the same time too. Because if we love God, we will surely love our neighbour as well, and vice versa. Because God Himself is Love and has Himself shown love so great to us, that if we love Him, we too embodies that love and as a result, would be just like Him, that is we will love our neighbours, our brethren, even those who hates us and those who persecutes us.

That is why love is important, first by loving God, because if we do not love God, we will shy away from His love and His light, and therefore will prefer to live in darkness. This darkness is the absence of the love of God, the root of all hatred and all the bad things that happen in our world today. If we do not love God, and do not love Him with all our strength and all our being, we cannot be called the children of God, but the children of darkness.

First we have to love God, because He has loved us first, by giving all of us His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our Saviour and Redeemer, through His death, and His glorious resurrection. He shows us how to love Him by His own example, that is through His own words, that the greatest love is for someone to give up his life for his friends, and that was exactly what Christ had done, that He died for all of us, on the cross in Calvary.

Then, after we love God, that love is not complete yet, because in order to love God completely and perfectly, we must also love and show our care for our brethren, especially those ostracised, those who are rejected and persecuted, because they are considered weak. Remember that Christ Himself said that whatever we had done for the sake of these people, the last, the lost, and the least, we had done it for the Lord. That is why, in order to gain true love, we must love both God, and our neighbour, with all our strength and our beings.

Today, we commemorate the feast day of St. Norbert, also known as Norbert of Xanten, a bishop in medieval era Germany, who did much work in advancing the cause of the Lord among the people and the society at the time. He embodied what we had listened in the readings today, that is love. Through his devotion and love for the Lord, he had toiled and laboured much, establishing many foundation of future evangelisation in the society, building up bases by establishing religious institutions, and making that love alive and perfect by service and care for those in the society.

Although it had been almost a millennia since the time of St. Norbert of Xanten, even in our modern world today, love is still needed, if not more than ever. Violence and hatred has always been increasing and becoming more prevalent, especially among our young people today. We have to do much work to inculcate love and compassion in the hearts of many, especially youths.

Remain in our devotion and love for God, and also in our love for our neighbours, just as Christ had commanded us to do. If we remain faithful and strong, we will be rewarded with eternal glory in heaven, and Christ will welcome us there with praise, that we had indeed fulfilled His will and the commandments He had given us. St. Norbert of Xanten, pray for us, that we will always have love in our hearts, both for God and our neighbours. Amen.

by

Sunday, 2 June 2013 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Today we celebrate a great mystery of our faith, that is the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, or Corpus Christi, in which God gave His own flesh and blood for us to consume, that He may live in us, and we in Him, that we can gain eternal life through Him. He gave up Himself that we may live, that we have a share in His death and His glorious resurrection.

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist is the centre to our faith, and the Real Presence of Christ our Lord in the consecrated bread and wine is what makes our faith truly Catholic. That is because we believe that in the Holy Mass, whenever the priest offers the bread and wine and consecrate it before the Lord, in the same words that Christ had used on the Last Supper, the bread and the wine truly become the Real Body and Blood of our Lord, and not just a purely symbolic or memorial reenactment of the Last Supper, but a real transformation of the material of the bread and wine, into the Body of Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, what we receive in the Eucharist is the real Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink, and therefore, as the Eucharist is divine, being the essence of God Himself, we must treat it with the greatest deference and respect. For this is the God who came down to us as man like us, and died for us, by shedding His blood, the Blood of the Lamb of God, that all mankind may be saved.

The Lamb of God had been slaughtered, and He did not resist, nor did He protest against His unjust sentence of death, even though He is without sin, because without His death, without His sacrifice, as the only completely perfect sacrificial lamb, there is nothing that can match the severity of all the sins of all mankind combined together. Only Christ, God incarnate as man, has this power and authority over sin, and by His sacrifice, we are made pure again, white as snow.

But Christ did not give us His Body and His Blood in the Eucharist without reason, ever since He gave His disciples the first Eucharist in the Last Supper, and as He had always mentioned, that those who eat that Bread, the Bread of Life, and drink from the cup of salvation, will gain eternal life, because Christ Himself would dwell within all of us, and we would then have a share in His glorious resurrection, and therefore eligible for salvation. Only if we accept Christ, live according to His commandments, and receive Him in the Eucharist, then we gain the fullness of salvation.

As Christ would dwell within all of us who receive Him in the Holy Eucharist, our bodies must be worthy of Christ, of God who is good and perfect. We may be lowly and weak mortals, but as long as we keep our faith in God and strive to do only what is good in the eyes of the Lord, we are worthy of Him. Remember the saying, that our body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit? That is because the Lord Himself through His Real Presence in the Eucharist has been willing to come to us, through the bread and wine transformed that we consume, that He would then dwell in us forever more.

That is why, we must not defile our bodies and minds with sin and corruption of evil, because our very body itself has become the very Temple of God, where the Lord resides, just very much like the Temple of Jerusalem, at the time of King Solomon, when God was willing to come down and reside in the Temple built by Solomon, and His presence overwhelmed all the people who witnessed it, so great is His majesty and power.

The Lord had decreed that no filth of evil and sin should enter the Temple, and there were large dedicated places where the people can wash and purify themselves prior to entering the Holy Temple, so that they would not defile the place physically and spiritually with the filth of their sin. It is kind of parallel to how we purify ourselves with the holy water as we enter the church building at the holy water font, and seal ourselves in purity, with the Name of the Holy Trinity and the sign of the victorious cross, in which we rebuke evil and reject Satan, and therefore, would then enter the holy place of God and preventing us from defiling that Holy Temple.

The same therefore, should apply to all of us. Ever since the Lord is willing to dwell within all of us, through His Real Presence in His Most Holy Body and Blood, we have become the new Tabernacle, the new Temple of the Lord, each one of us, who had been baptised, and who had received the Eucharist in good standing in the faith through the Church. We must therefore respect the same with regards to ensuring the purity of our own beings, that we, as the Temple of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, will not be defiled by our human weaknesses and sin.

St. Paul, in the same book as our second reading today, in his first letter to the people of Corinth, confirm this, that our bodies are indeed the Temple of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit also dwell within all of us who have received the Spirit, ever since the Holy Spirit came down upon the Apostles in Pentecost. Thus, our bodies became ever greater in terms of the need to maintain its purity, against the evils of the world, and against the temptations of the evil one through worldly pleasures and desires, that corrupts and bring darkness to our otherwise pure and holy Temple, where God resides.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, our God has indeed dwelled within each one of us, and this is symbolised by yet another great event in the history of salvation, when Christ gave up His Spirit and died on Calvary, when He finally shed His own life and blood, for the redemption of all mankind. At that moment, the veil that separated the Holy of Holies, where the Ark of the Covenant and the Lord Himself supposedly reside, from the rest of the Temple in Jerusalem, tore in two pieces from top to bottom, at the moment when Christ died on the cross.

That moment, when the veil was torn, was a defining moment. It symbolises that the Lord is no longer limited to just that holy space within the Temple in Jerusalem, as He had been, ever since He chose to dwell at the Temple, since the time of the King Solomon of Israel. Through the tearing of that veil, God made His new covenant, which He proclaimed in the Last Supper, complete, with all mankind.

That new covenant is the redemption offered by the death of Christ on the cross, through which we receive His Body and His Blood, given freely to all of us. So that, ever since, Christ, who is God, dwells within all of us who receive Him in the Eucharist, ever since the time of the Apostles, who was commanded by Christ Himself to continue the celebration of the Eucharist, in memorial of His Sacrifice on Calvary.

But beware, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where exists a danger in misunderstanding the meaning of Christ, when He said about the Eucharist as a memorial. Many wrongly interpreted it as the sign that the celebration of the Eucharist is nothing more than a memorial, a symbolic celebration and imitation of the real sacrifice on Calvary. That the bread and wine that we consume are mere bread and wine, and not the Body and Blood of Christ.

Beware, brethren, that we do not fall into confusion and falsehoods spread by the evil one. For within that Eucharist, within the bread and the wine, Christ is present, really present, in His complete being, and that is what we call and know as the Real Presence of God in the Eucharist. We believe that our priests, with the same authority that Christ had given to the Apostles, in the consecration of the offerings of bread and wine, bring about the complete transformation of that bread and that wine, to become the Most Precious Body and the Most Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes, some of us may ask, why then the bread still look like bread, and the wine still look like wine? And there seems to be no change in the physical appearance or substance of the bread and wine? That is exactly the wonder of the mystery of our faith in Christ. Because, yes, the bread and wine’s outside appearance remains that of physical bread and wine in shape, but it has in fact been completely transformed into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in what we call as transubstantiation, because there is a real change or ‘trans’ in the substance of the bread and the wine, into the flesh and blood of our Lord.

Remember! That Christ Himself often repeated that those who did not partake in His flesh and His blood, those who did not receive His body and blood, will have no part in Him, and will not have eternal life. Only those who willingly, and in worthy state receive the Lord into themselves, through the Eucharist, will gain the eternal rewards from Christ, that is eternal life and glory with Him in heaven. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is very important that we take the Eucharist seriously, that from now on, we begin to participate more in the Mass and in the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, that we truly understand our faith, and why we have to regularly receive our Lord in the Eucharist.

The Body and the Blood of Christ, each is Christ complete in themselves, that means, if we only receive the Body, that is the ‘bread’ or the Blood, that is the ‘wine’ we do not receive half of Christ, but in fact, we have received the fullness of Christ in each of them. When we receive either the Body of Christ or His Blood, we receive Christ in His fullness, in His glorious majesty and power, into ourselves. That is why, brethren, we must be worthy! We must be worthy to have the Lord dwell within us, as His Temple!

Remember that if we willingly and knowingly receive the Lord when we are in the state of mortal sin, we will be damned instead of being saved, because we did not keep our house in order, and did not receive the Lord properly and worthily. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, keep our bodies, our Temple of the Holy Spirit, away from fornication and corruption of sin. Keep ourselves pure, as best as we are able to, and welcome Christ every time we receive Him in the Eucharist, that He will see that our ‘house’ that is our heart, in good order, and therefore reward us with His grace and blessings.

If we had sinned and in the state of mortal sin, which prevents us from truly accepting the Lord into ourselves, into our defiled Temple, that is our being, we must first abstain from receiving the Eucharist, from receiving our Lord. What we must do is indeed, first to ask the Lord for His mercy and forgiveness, and seek a priest to be forgiven from our sins. Remember that to our priests, God has given the authority to absolve sins, if only we ourselves are humble and willing enough, to admit our own sinful nature, and seek to return once again to God’s love and embrace. Only once we have been absolved, then we can receive the Lord again, and He will once again dwell within us, transforming us from inside with His love.

Let us reflect on the mystery of our faith, that is the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ on this sacred occasion, that from now on, we will increase our dedication for our Lord, really present in the Blessed Sacrament, in the form of His Body and His Blood, which He had given freely, so that we may live, and we may share in Him, the fruits of eternal life and salvation. God bless us all, now and forever more. Amen!

by

Saturday, 1 June 2013 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we heard about how the Pharisees and the chief priests doubted the power and authority of Christ, questioning the origins of His authority and works, and in doing so, failing to see the work of God that is in Christ. For all the miracles and the wonders that Christ had done in this world, are the works of the Father, and in doing all that, He did not do it for His own glory, but for the Father who had sent Him.

Why did then, the Pharisees, and the chief priests, who are supposed to be people most knowledgeable in anything related to the Scriptures and the prophecies of the prophets regarding the Messiah failed to see that Christ is the Messiah, and failed even to see the works of God in Jesus? That is, brothers and sisters, because they are blind! They are blinded by their own weaknesses, by jealousy, by hatred, and by prejudice, and the pride they had in their own abilities, in their own intellect, and in their own worldly power.

The Pharisees claimed to serve the Lord and showed this through their external piety, through loud and well-recognised prayers in public places, and by their ultra-orthodox approach to the faith by very strict observation of the Law of Moses, and the norms of the society at the time, even to the little matters such as the washing of the hands prior to meals. But in their strict observation of that Law, they had in fact become corrupted by the power and authority that had been entrusted to them as priests of the people of God.

To them had been granted the authority, the same authority and priestly power as granted to Aaron, the brother of Moses, who became the first High Priest of the people of Israel after the Exodus from Egypt. To them had been granted also the responsibility of guiding the people to remain faithful in the path and ways of the Lord, that the people would not falter and stray in their lives, and remain in God’s grace.

Yet, they had, over the centuries, grown to trust men much more than they trusted God. They placed human glory and acclamation ahead of true, heavenly glory that only God can give. They had grown so accustomed to the privileges they had in their position of authority and power, that they themselves began to stray from the path that God has appointed for them and entrusted them to keep the people faithful in. They, the leaders of the people, out of all others had themselves been bought over by the evil one. Indeed, the saying cannot be further than truth, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In their position of authority, and with the privileges and honour they had grown so accustomed to, the priests and the elders had become arrogant, and jealous against anyone they see as rivals to their own authority and power, even if that rival is in fact the very Messiah that God had sent to save the people of Israel, and all mankind. This defiance against the Messiah was very evident today, given how they questioned the authority of Christ, which as God, has authority over all creation.

However, it is important to note that although it seems that those priests and elders look evil from how they were portrayed in the Gospels, but they themselves were not inherently evil. All mankind are inherently capable of doing what is good, and also what is evil. Ever since our ancestors, Adam and Eve, ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we had been exposed to both good and evil, and therefore, are fully capable of doing both. Whether to do good or to do evil, is entirely within our own decision capacity.

That is why, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important that we keep our faith in the Lord strong at all times, and anchor ourselves firmly in His love, so that we will not go astray, tempted and bought off by the enticing offers of the evil one, who had in his possession, all the world and all its ‘good’ things, that can easily tempt and seduce those who are weak-hearted, and those without firm faith in the Lord.

Today, therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, and from here on, we should always be reminded on the evils of this world, and the dangers that we constantly face in our daily struggles against evil and all that he employed in this world against God’s children. Especially, brethren, if we had been entrusted with positions of authority and power, do not abuse that power that the Lord had entrusted you, and do not let the sheep entrusted to you, their shepherd, to go astray from the truth of God.

But we need not fear, brethren, for Christ is amongst us, and He is always with us, if only that we remain faithful and obedient to Him and do all the commandments that He had given us, we are safe. The devil will have no power over us, and we will truly become God’s children. And instead of jealousy, we will be in complete awe and wonder for the glory of God, and with the angels and saints, we shall glorify Him forevermore when we are reunited with Him once again, in the eternal bliss of heaven.

Today we also commemorate the feast of a great early martyr of the Christian Church, St. Justin the Martyr, who died for the faith in the second century after the coming of Christ, in the early Church times. St. Justin was born a pagan and a philosopher, with a great intellect and quality education, that made him a very well-educated person in the society at the time. St. Justin encountered many believers of Christ in his journeys and travels, and despite being involved in arguments and debates with them, in fact, gradually, it kindled in him the love for God, and the steadfast faith in Christ.

St. Justin, despite his great intellect and knowledge, did not give in to his pride and human weakness, and instead put himself in God’s love and place his full trust in Him. That is why He was glorified in death, out of his steadfast and unfailing faith, even unto death, because, unlike the Pharisees and the chief priests, he did not let human pride and arrogance to get in the way of salvation. May we be able to follow in the footsteps of St. Justin, and become truly the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Justin the Martyr, pray for us. Amen.

by

Sunday, 5 May 2013 : 6th Sunday of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, peace of Christ be with all of you. For Christ is the true peace, and the true light of the world. There is no true peace without Christ in it, since Christ is the Prince of Peace and the bringer of salvation to all creation. For in Him lies the true peace that only God can give, the peace of knowing that we are saved, and will no longer be separated from He who created us, and peace of knowing that we will live with Him in bliss and true joy for eternity.

Peace is not something to be easily found in this world today. We do not even need to refer to the true peace that only Christ can offer, but even it is difficult to achieve worldly and temporal peace in this world. Look around you, and you can easily find in any kind of situation, in any society, violence and hatred running rampant throughout, showing that we still have much to go to achieve true and lasting peace.

For since evil has entered the hearts of men since the beginning of creation, peace has been shrouded by veil of violence and hatred, and love has dissipated from mankind. It is evil and our rebellion that has veiled our hearts and darkened it against the light of God’s love and peace. We who believe and keep our faith in God has received new love and peace through Christ, and if we keep His commandments of love, we will remain always in His love.

If we remain in the love of Christ, we will receive the reward that is due to us, that is the bliss of eternal life of true joy, happiness, and love in the heavenly Jerusalem, as we had heard in the second reading from the Book of Revelation. Heavenly Jerusalem is not just a city of joy and physical happiness, as it may indeed be very beautiful and magnificent, as St. John had described it in the Book, but in fact the even greater happiness that we will receive, if we remain in God’s love, is the pure, inexplicable happiness of our soul, a spiritual joy that nothing else can replace.

For if we do what is good in the eyes of God, and follow His commandments, to love Him greater than any other things, and to love Him unconditionally with all our minds, our hearts, and our souls, and if we also love and care for our fellow men, just as we love Him and just as we love ourselves, we would gain true peace and calmness in our hearts. This is a peace that only God can give, that will remain in our hearts, forever and ever.

With God, all things are possible, and nothing is impossible. He will renew us and our spirit, that we be reborn as people of peace, of justice, and of love. But, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, those of us that believe, and indeed have received the peace and love of the Lord, will still need to be active in our world. We cannot be idle while there is still violations to peace, justice, and love in this world.

Just as St. Francis of Assisi said in his famous prayer, let us be the bringer of peace, to bring peace when there is violence, and to bring love when hatred ruins the harmony of the people of God. Let us be the harbinger of peace wherever peace had been silenced, and let us bring love where love had been snuffed out from the hearts of men. Show this world that love and peace that is of the Lord, is still the norm and let us show the power of God, against the violence and hatred of Satan.

Peace is not impossible to achieve, and with God’s help, we will surely gain it. Not even Satan can keep us away from the Lord and His everlasting peace, if we remain faithful to Him. Let us from now on, commit ourselves to peace, and love, that we become the children of peace, the children of our One, true God, who is peace and love. Work for peace, love, and harmony in our world, that everyone can also enjoy the peace that our Lord has offered, that they too eventually will believe and listen to the Word of God through Christ.

Therefore, beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us renew our commitment to peace in this world, and to achieve everlasting peace both in this earth, this world, and also in the world that is to come. Let us renew our commitment to bring peace to all mankind, to let Satan has his hold over us no more, and let violence and hatred to no longer have any place in our hearts. Let God remain in our hearts, and let Him transform us into beings of light, that we will be like Him, who is peace, who is love, and who is perfect.

May God remain with us, at all times, within our hearts, and protect us, always. May all of us also remain in His love, forever and ever. Amen.