Catholic homilies

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Friday, 3 March 2017 : Friday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard a very clear message from the Sacred Scriptures, reminding all of us Christians that during this season of Lent, even as we prepare ourselves for the coming celebrations of the Holy Week and Easter, and as we practice the traditional Lenten practices of fasting and abstinence, we must understand what is it that we are doing, and how we are going to do them appropriately.

Why is this so, brothers and sisters? It is because it is very easy for us to end up doing things that our faith has prescribed, and yet without understanding of what it is that we are doing, and therefore in the end, we end up doing things for the sake of doing them. We end up becoming Christians for-show-only and not having much substance in our faith. We cannot be like these, brethren.

We cannot fast in the manner that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done, as they wailed and acted to show very visibly to all who saw them, that they were fasting. They wanted to be seen by all others in how pious they have been with their fasting, with how they wore the sackcloth and in their long prayers for God’s forgiveness, and yet, their words and prayers were empty, for they did not have God in their hearts, and their outward expressions of faith were meaningless.

All of these came to the basic question we all need to ask ourselves, what is it that we are fasting for? What is it that we are abstaining and doing all of our penance for? Is it for ourselves and for our own glory? Is it to make ourselves look good and praiseworthy in the eyes of others? If these are our motivations and intentions, then perhaps we really should spend some time to reevaluate our efforts this Lent.

We fast and abstain from certain kind of food, or from certain kind of our obsessions not because of ourselves, but because of the Lord our God. It is because we are sinners and we have been unworthy of the Lord that we fast. We fast because we are aware of just how sinful and wicked we are, and we humble ourselves before the Lord, asking Him to forgive us our trespasses.

And more importantly, the main reason of our fasting and abstinence is for us to restrain ourselves and our human and worldly desires, resisting the temptation of the flesh, the desires for pleasure and sexual gratification, for things that cause us to sin and fall into wickedness. And therefore, that is why in the first reading today, the Lord through His prophet Isaiah rebuked His people, because while they fasted and did all sorts of acts of penance, but they committed other forms of sin at the same time, by being angry upon others and by committing injustice and corrupt acts.

That was what happened to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law as well. On one hand, they acted as if they were pious and devout, following obediently the laws of God, fasting and following the important dates of the year, in all of its events and observations, but on the other hand, they had acted unjustly, condemning the poor and sinners who needed their help. They did not lift up their hands to help those who are in need of help.

And they even misled the people of God and acted as unjust shepherds, who abandoned their people when they are in need. In that way, their fasting and abstaining, all of their pious observations were meaningless not just because they did not do it for God or for the absolution of their sins, but also because they have done more wicked deeds than good, and therefore, their fast and abstinence were truly empty.

Is that what we are also doing with our own lives, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we also fasting and abstaining without understanding their true purpose and meaning? Are we doing them while at the same time, committing more acts of sin and injustice, of hatred and anger, and all sorts of wicked deeds that make our acts of penance meaningless?

Fasting is not just about staying away from food and resisting the temptations of hunger. The same goes with abstinence and other acts of penance we commonly do during this season of Lent. More importantly, we must show love, care and concern for others, so that as we restrain ourselves from doing what is sinful and wicked in the sight of God, we dull the edges of our sins, but at the same time, sharpening the edges of our righteousness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, during this season of Lent, let us all pray and work together, so that each and every one of us will not only learn to restrain ourselves and our sinfulness through fasting and abstinence, but also learn to grow stronger in our faith, committing ourselves through love and commitment to do what the Lord had commanded us to do. Love one another, care for those who have not received any love and care, and be merciful to our fellow brethren.

May the Lord bless us all, and help us that in this season of Lent, we may grow ever closer to the Lord, and may each and every one of us through right way of fasting and abstinence, be able to prepare ourselves thoroughly to celebrate the coming celebrations of Holy Week and Easter, and gain for ourselves righteousness in God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 2 March 2017 : Thursday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Scriptures, firstly from the Book of Deuteronomy, about how Moses laid two choices before the people, either to obey the Lord and be righteous, or to disobey the Lord and turn away from the Lord. The choice was made very clearly, between following the Lord and its accompanying actions, with following the ways of the world and wickedness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we continue through the second day of the season of Lent, we are reminded that in order to follow the Lord, we have to be committed throughout, and we have to dedicate ourselves to His ways. We cannot and we should not be indecisive in this manner, as sooner or later, we will be forced to make a decision and choose between following the ways of God and with following the paths of the world.

We are reminded that Jesus Himself, our Lord, had been rejected by this world, and made to suffer rejection, ridicule, humiliation and eventually death on the cross, by all those who refused to believe in Him and refused to follow Him. Jesus Himself had to endure all the pains and sorrows, and He had to bear the heavy weight of that cross as He made His way from Jerusalem to the hill of Calvary, bearing all the multitudes of our sins and their consequences upon Himself.

This is where all of us Christians are told to share what He had endured and experienced, for just as the Lord had suffered rejection from the world, so we all will also be rejected by the world as well, because of our faith in Him. That is because what is acceptable to God and righteous in the sight of the Lord, is unacceptable for the world. And of course, what is acceptable to the world, is often against the ways of our Lord.

Why is that so? That is because the world had been marred and corrupted by sin, ever since sin entered the world through the sins of mankind. Man had disobeyed the Lord and went away from His ways, and became more and more separated from Him, and Satan became their master instead of their one and true Lord and Master, Who is God. Satan ruled over the world, because he had power over the hearts and minds of many people through sin.

And we know just how busy Satan was in his attempts to undermine the salvation of mankind, as he came to tempt Jesus in the desert in three occasions but without any success, and later on, he would persuade the hearts and minds of the Pharisees and the scribes and elders to rally against Jesus and oppose His works at almost all possible opportunities, before entering into the heart of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to His enemies.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in all of these, we have to understand that the reality of our faith is one that is always come into conflict and opposition with the forces of those who do not want to see us saved from the darkness, those who would rather keep us in our state of sin, chained and kept to the slavery under our sinfulness. But God Who loves us do not want to see us in this way, as He came to rescue us and redeem us from all that had brought us down, and through His own suffering and death, He wants to show us that by following Him, no matter how difficult it will be, that there is a way out of the darkness and into the light.

In this season of Lent, it is important for us to remember what the Lord Jesus had told His disciples, that all those who follow Him must take up their own crosses and follow Him. What does this mean, brothers and sisters? It does not mean that we literally and physically carry up wooden crosses just as Jesus had done. Instead, it rather means that we have to stand up for our faith and commit ourselves to what we believe at all times, even when opposition and challenges come upon us.

Are we able to do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we able to remain true to the Lord even amidst challenges and even persecutions? Let us keep in mind our suffering brethren in faith in many different parts of the world, all those who have to even worry about the safety of their very lives just to remain faithful to the Lord, and where to practice the faith may mean costing someone their freedom, their status in the society, as well as their rights.

Let us all spend some time during this season of Lent, to prepare ourselves wholly that we may grow ever closer to the Lord, so that we will not just treat this moment just as any other moments, but spend it well, by the means of abstinence that we practice during this season, abstaining from sin and from all acts that are against the Lord, and also by helping one another to persevere in our faith.

Let us pray for one another, and support each other, so that even though we have to bear the heavy crosses of our faith, and even when difficulties, challenges and even persecutions come our way, we will not give up and will be able to remain true to our faith, and therefore, be found righteous and worthy of the salvation found in our God alone. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 1 March 2017 : Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is Ash Wednesday, the very significant day that marks the beginning of the holy season of Lent. We begin this penitential season of Lent today, which is designed to prepare us for the coming celebrations of Holy Week, the most important events crucial and central to our faith. And that is why we spend an entire season of forty days to prepare ourselves well to celebrate that solemn occasion.

This is a time of renewal, of reconciliation and rediscovery of our true selves. This is a time that is a reminder of the journey which the people of Israel spent in the desert for forty years, as a penance from their sins and from all of their disobedience against God. We spend the forty days of Lent in remembrance of this event, remembering our own sinfulness and wickedness which had made us separated from God.

And as mentioned it is also a time of preparation, just as Jesus spent forty days in the desert before He officially began His ministry on this world. He fasted for forty days, being tempted by the devil and persevered through, and thereafter began the good works which God the Father had entrusted to Him. We prepare ourselves in our hearts and in our minds, in our flesh and in our whole being so that we may be ready to meaningfully celebrate the coming joy of Easter.

Today, each and every one of us, from the laity to the priests, from children to the eldest amongst us, and even to the rulers and kings, and to the bishops and the Pope, are to receive the blessed ashes on our forehead or on our heads, as a symbol of our repentance and penitence before God, acknowledging publicly before all that all of us are sinners without exception, and that we want to do something about these sins we have.

Let us reflect on the words which the priest utters upon imposing the blessed ashes on our foreheads, that we ought to remember that we were all dust, and to dust we shall therefore return. It is a reminder for us that no matter how great we are in this life, how much wealth we have accumulated and gained, and no matter what is our position in our society, our fame, intellect and all the greatness and glories that we have gained in life, we are all just a mortal man, filled with sin and darkness before God.

Ever since the time of Adam, the first man, whom God had crafted from mere dust to be His very own most beloved creation, carved in His own image, mankind had received the blessing of life from God. However, they have sinned and disobeyed God, and therefore, they were to suffer death as the consequence of their sins. It means that their earthly bodies made from the earth will return to the earth, and they all would face death, the ending of their earthly existence.

But God loves each and every one of us, brothers and sisters in Christ. He has loved all of us since the beginning of creation, even though we have sinned against Him and disobeyed Him and His commandments. He did not give up on us even though He was perfectly capable of doing so. He did not destroy us even though He was indeed capable of doing so. Instead, He gave us chance after chance, which sadly many people were unaware of, and some of these even rejected God’s offer of mercy.

God is willing to forgive us, because He sees in us who we truly are, His beloved creation, which were unfortunately corrupted by the darkness of sin, by our disobedience and waywardness. Thus the ashes are also a reminder of just how sinful we have been, and a reminder for the mortality that we have because of that sin. It is a reminder that because of sin we have been made into mortal beings subject to suffering and death.

And if we remember this fact, then it is important and necessary for us all to realise that as long as we still draw breath in this world, it is never too late for us to turn away from our sinfulness, be changed and be transformed in our ways and in our actions, repent and thus be made justified and righteous before God. God is always willing to give us a chance to redeem ourselves, but if we are the very ones who rejected the Lord’s offer of mercy, then no mercy will be shown us.

Are we all going to be stubborn like the Israelites of those days and also like the Pharisees? Or are we going to allow the Lord’s mercy to come to us and work in us? Are we going to allow the Lord to work His wonders in us and cleanse us from our sins and all the sorts of corruptions deep inside our heart, mind and soul? These are the questions we should ask ourselves, and which we should ponder about even as we enter into this season of Lent.

Otherwise, this time of Lent will be meaningless and useless for us. This season of Lent will be a tremendous help for us only if we really know its significance and meaning, and it will be a time for change and conversion, allowing us to overcome our shortcomings and our sins, and be renewed by the Lord and His grace. We should follow the example of David, the king of Israel, who repented wholeheartedly before God, humbling himself and regretting all of his past sins and trespasses. And God forgave him all the sins he had committed.

It is this regret and desire to change which many of us are lacking within us, the disgusted feeling of knowing just how wrong we had been. However, it is never too late to change ourselves to be faithful and dedicated to God, for as I have mentioned, God is always merciful to us. Let us not tarry and wait, but use instead whatever moment that is available for us in order to be transformed from a creature living in darkness, tainted by our sins, into a new and pure being, as the children of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all spend some time today to reflect on just how sinful we are, and how unworthy we are to receive His blessings and graces. And then let us think about just how loving and forgiving God is, when He opened for us the path to His forgiveness and mercy. In that manner, then the celebration of today’s Ash Wednesday and also the season of Lent will be meaningful for us.

Let us turn ourselves, our hearts, minds and indeed the whole being towards the Lord. Let us surrender ourselves to Him, and give Him all of our attention, especially as we enter into this holy season of Lent. May all of us have a fruitful season of Lent, filled with repentance and genuine desire to love and to serve the Lord. May the Lord hear our prayers, and may He strengthen us all in faith.

Let us all remember our shortcomings, and our sins before God and men alike. Let us remember through the ashes we received, just how corrupted and wicked we have become, and the need for a genuine turnaround and repentance. Let us help support one another, by showing through our own actions and examples, the way to reach out to the Lord and to be forgiven our sins. May the Lord bless us all and be with us always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 1 March 2017 : Ash Wednesday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Matthew 6 : 1-6, 16-18

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Be careful not to make a show of your righteousness before people. If you do so, you do not gain anything from your Father in heaven. When you give something to the poor, do not have it trumpeted before you, as do those who want to be seen in the synagogues and in the streets, in order to be praised by the people. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.”

“If you give something to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift remains really secret. Your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you. When you pray, do not be like those who want to be seen. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues or on street corners to be seen by everyone. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.”

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father Who is with you in secret; and your Father Who sees what is kept secret will reward you. When you fast, do not put on a miserable face as do the hypocrites. They put on a gloomy face, so that people can see they are fasting. I tell you this : they have already been paid in full.”

“When you fast, wash your face and make yourself look cheerful, because you are not fasting for appearances or for people, but for your Father Who sees beyond appearances. And your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you.”

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Tuesday, 28 February 2017 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we are reminded through the Scriptures that God will never abandon us, His people, and all of us who have given ourselves to His service, and dedicating ourselves to Him, will not be disappointed, for God will bless us and reward us with His grace and blessings. He is ever loving and ever faithful, and He will keep us all in good care.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what we need to focus on and realise today, is the fact how many Christians, many among God’s people have not been willing to make sacrifices and commitment in becoming the followers of Christ. Many of us are lukewarm and indifferent to our faith, treating it as a mere side note to our life, and not taking our faith and our beliefs in the Lord seriously.

There are many reasons for this, first of all is the doubt that we have for the love of God. We doubted because we were not able to understand just how God truly exists in our daily lives, guiding us and being with us every single moment of our lives. We did not realise that even in little things and in minute details of our lives, God is truly present in all things, and He is with us.

Instead, we worry, we become concerned, and we withdrew our commitment to our faith. We began to think about what would happen should what we have done for the sake of the Lord and His Church was to come to nothingness, and what if difficulties and challenges are to come in our way. We worry if we are able to give ourselves and commit ourselves wholeheartedly, because while we may believe in God, but inside us, in our hearts and minds, we are truly divided and disunited.

What do I mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? I mean that because we mankind are so easily distracted by the many comforts of this world, the comfort of money, of material possessions, of worldly convenience, prestige and fame, and many other forms of distractions, we have often fallen into the trap of sin. We become disconnected from the Lord, and we become ignorant of our faith, and we become cold and indifferent to the effort to help the Church and the faithful.

Instead of turning outwards and doing what we can to help one another, we turn inwards instead, and focusing on ourselves in selfishness. We end up thinking more and more about ourselves, and less and less about others. This is what have caused many of us to falter and fall. We become reluctant to offer ourselves and our help to those who need it, and as a result, the Church as a whole became inactive and paralysed, being unable to function properly.

If each and every Christians, members of the Church turn inwards and do nothing to contribute to the good works of the Church, making sacrifices and efforts to keep up those good works, then there will be no progress made by the Church on the salvation of the whole race of mankind, that God had initiated by His coming into the world. He has commanded us all through His disciples to continue His good works, calling all the people to Him, to be reconciled and to receive the fullness of God’s grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are challenged and asked to think carefully about our role in the Church of God, and what each and every one of us can do in order to take part in the greater works of the Church. Each of us has unique abilities and talents, which God had given to each and every one of us. Therefore, it is not right for us to demand every one to do the same thing and make the same contribution.

Rather, all of us need to have that commitment to contribute to the Church in whatever way we can, in whatever we can spare in order to help. Each and every one of us must do our part in order to ensure that the whole Church can work together and move together in its efforts for the salvation of the whole world. In this, sacrifices and efforts are needed, and we alone can choose whether we want to devote our effort and time or not.

The Scripture passages and the Gospel today in particular assure us that those who have given to the Lord and to His Church will not be disappointed, for God will not forget those who have followed Him, obeyed Him and done what He had asked them to do. He will bless them, protect them and lead them all to His grace and glory. All that we have done in His Name, for His sake, and for the success of the great works committed by His Church will be rewarded.

But we do not do the good deeds because we want to be rewarded, for such is a wrong purpose for us to follow. Instead, we commit ourselves unconditionally and lovingly, so that in all the good works that we do, we may glorify God and make His good works more evident in our world today, bringing countless more souls that had once been lost in the darkness into the light of God’s salvation.

May the Lord bless us all and strengthen our resolve, that we as Christians and members of His Church may devote ourselves, commit ourselves, in our time and efforts in order to help the works of His mercy and love, calling all mankind to grace and salvation, so that through us He may bring about the salvation of our fellow brethren who need our help. God bless us all and be with us always. Amen.

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Monday, 27 February 2017 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we quickly approach the season of Lent, and its advent this Ash Wednesday, we remember in the Scripture passages today about God’s mercy. God is ever loving and merciful to all of His children, who have been separated from Him and became lost in the turbulence of this world and swallowed by the darkness of sin.

Yet, God never gave up on us, and on every opportunity He always tried to help each and every one of us to find our way back towards Him. He has always kept the door of His mercy open to welcome us back. However, it is we ourselves who often reject God’s very generous offer of mercy. We thought that God is a God without mercy and love, where in fact it was we ourselves who have closed the doors of our hearts to Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often our attachments to the things and temptations of this world which have caused us to be distracted and kept away from God. That was why Jesus mentioned in the Gospel today about the difficulties that the rich people were facing, as exemplified by the young man who was rich and was willing to follow Jesus until He asked him to leave behind all of his worldly belongings.

Jesus was not attacking or criticising the rich because of their possessions. This is a misconception which many people often have, thinking that Jesus always condemns the rich and their possessions. Instead, in reality, He was actually condemning the inability to detach and let go, which means that we mankind are often too engrossed and grow too attached to our worldly possessions that we are unable to move on in our faith.

We cannot become too dependant on them, and be hesitant to let go of what we have, when the time comes for us to let them go. After all, all these possessions are indeed blessings and graces which God had granted to each and every one of us. To some of us have been given more, while others have received less, but all of these ultimately came from the Lord, and they do not belong to us.

Rather, whatever we have received, we should be generous in sharing them and using them for good purposes, for God had given us much gifts, and to those to whom He had given more, then more will be expected from them. We cannot bring whatever we have to the world that is to come, that is beyond death. We all know that upon death, all of us will leave behind our earthly treasures, and instead, look forward towards the true treasures found in God alone.

That said, it does not mean that each and every person should sell everything that they have and give all of them to the poor. It means rather that we should do our best in our abilities in order to make good use of whatever blessings and goodness we have received, so that by doing what the Lord had asked us to do, while we may decrease in our earthly riches, but we gain far more bountiful riches in God.

As Christians, all of us should spend some time thinking through what the Lord Jesus had told His disciples today, and also heed what He had asked the young man to do. All of us have to let go of our pride, our human greed and desires, and all the other things which had prevented us from reaching out to God, and from finding our way to Him.

All of us need to spend more time with the Lord, to deepen our relationship with Him, and learning to be humble and to be obedient to God. Let us all also understand that we need to build for ourselves the true treasures of heaven, and not be distracted by the illusory and the temporary wealth of this earth. May all of us grow ever stronger in our faith, and grow ever closer to the Lord our God. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 February 2017 : Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us heard the words of the Scriptures telling us about the need for all of us to have our priorities in life right, that we do not get distracted by the many temptations of life, and that we will be able to discover the true peace and harmony in God. The readings today give us the assurance that God loves all of us His people, and He will not abandon us in our time of need.

In those readings, we are presented with the realities of our world today, that we mankind are often distracted by our many worldly concerns, the concern of our needs and wants, the concerns of our desires, and we often get troubled and focused on our human and worldly concerns, worrying about ourselves and trying to preserve and care for our own needs.

In all these, we have forgotten that above all these things, we have been given the great gift beyond all of the other gifts from God, namely our very own lives. God had graced us with life-giving spirit, and we have received this life we have thanks to Him Who granted them to all of us. God had also provided each and every one with what they need in life, and no one has any need to have any wants or desires, for God had given each and every one enough for themselves.

But we mankind are not easy to be satisfied and pleased, as since the very beginning, we have been tempted by many things, and Satan himself took advantage of this fact. God had created us all mankind with all the things that we need, and we have been placed in the blessed Eden to enjoy forever the rich blessings of God, but we were not content. Instead, we desired for more.

And that was what led Eve to be bought over by the temptations and the sweet lies of Satan, who lied to her telling her that if she would just eat from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, she then would become like God, by knowing what is good and evil. She and her husband Adam succumbed to the temptation, and we know of what happened after that. Not only that they have not received what they wanted, but they have been deprived of their original blessings because of their disobedience.

Throughout the Scriptures and in our daily lives, we witnessed to the many times when humanity, the people of God erred in their ways. We witnessed how a person would fight with another person debating and disputing over material wealth, over food, over money, over all sorts of worldly goods. We see just how wicked we mankind can be, in our desire to seek for more things for ourselves.

And this would never end, if we ourselves do not restrain our desires. We have seen in many occasions how mankind will always demand for more, seeking for more, wanting for more. That is also how corporate and business world usually operates, by seeking profit and revenue over anything else. And when a certain profit, revenue and good thing are attained, then it is natural for the demand for even more profits to appear.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we live in a world that is saturated with materialism, and often unbridled capitalism and mercantilism. It is a world also filled with selfishness, individualism and also human greed. That is why we see so many people being exploited by those who are in power, by those who are with influence and wealth. That is why we see so much injustice in our world today.

We see so many people being deprived from their daily needs, just so that the necessary resources could be given over to the mighty and the influential, to serve their own purposes. We live in a world today where in the hearts of many people, God had no place at all. Many of the people have abandoned God, seeking instead the pursuit of money, of material possessions, and other forms of worldly satisfaction.

This is where all of us as Christians have been challenged by the Lord Jesus, Who calls all of us to be His witnesses before the world, to be those who would carry on His message and truth, and to be examples for many others to follow through our own actions, words and deeds. We as Christians are supposed to be the role models for others, be exemplary in how we carry out our daily lives, that others may come to realise their mistakes and come to repentance.

First of all, as Christians, we are challenged to put God at the centre of our lives. God must be at the most prominent part of our lives, and in fact everything we say and do, must have their origins in God. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that all of us must be obedient to God, and we must be filled with righteousness and justice in accordance with God’s ways.

We should not proclaim ourselves as Christians if we do not act in the same manner as a Christian should have done. Otherwise, we will create a scandal for our faith, for the Church and for the Lord, and it is a great sin before God and men alike. Many called themselves Christians, and yet they were greedy, filled with jealousy, anger, wrath, arrogance, selfishness and all other things that are unbecoming of our Christian identity.

Secondly, all of us are called to put our trust in the Lord, which means giving our complete and full trust to Him, knowing that He will take good care of us and bless us with everything that we need. We may think that this can be easily done, but often we are mistaken about this. It is actually not easy for us to put our trust in God, when we mankind often doubted the Lord, doubting and refusing to believe in His love and grace.

Many of us failed to see God’s love and faithfulness because we are too busy worrying about ourselves, about various things that we should really not be worried about. All these stemmed once again from what we have just discussed earlier on, about our inability to restrain our human desires and greed, which led to our fall into sins and darkness. As Christians, we are all called to overcome our worries and fears, and learn to put God ahead of everything else.

Lastly, all of us as Christians are challenged to take action, and to look beyond ourselves and our needs and wants. We must not be overcome and be distracted by our desires, by the temptations of this world. We must be selfless and think about others before ourselves. That is what is being a true Christian is like, that is to be more like Christ. Remember that Jesus Himself had placed Himself completely in the hands of His Father, and obeyed Him completely, and through that, all of us have been saved.

We must be those who would stand up and speak up against injustice and wickedness, against all sorts and forms of evil, and all the greed and desires of man. As Christians we must be daring and be willing to commit ourselves wholeheartedly for the betterment of our brethren, especially to all those who are downtrodden, who have been abandoned and without hope. We have to be a light of hope for others, reflecting the Lord Who is the true Light of the world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore today let us all pray together, that each and every one of us will be strengthened in our faith, so that in all the things we say and do, we will always proclaim the glory of God, and place God at the centre of our lives, and in the centre of everything we have. Let us not allow our selfishness and the obstacles that Satan placed in our path to prevent us from doing what we ought to be doing as Christians, that is to give ourselves out of complete love for one another, just as our Lord Himself had done.

May the Lord help us all to overcome the weaknesses of our flesh, and help us to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to Him. May He empower us all to become His children, that we may prove to all others who see us, that we are Christians, as people who believe in the Lord, not just in name only, but also through real and true commitment. Let us all be examples for others to follow, that many more people may be saved, and let us be champions against injustice and wickedness in this world. May the Lord be with us all, and bless us all forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 25 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day the Scripture passages reminds us of the love which God had given us generously and willingly, that He has blessed us beyond all other beings in creations, far surpassing even the Angels and other creatures. We are all reminded of the kindness of our Lord, Who treated us not as slaves and servants, but instead as children, and as He is our Father, He blesses us and treats us in the best way that is possible for us.

He has created us in His own image and blessed us so abundantly, that no one else could have hoped to compare with us. For we mankind have been made to be God’s very own children, to partake in His inheritance and in His glory, and to enjoy forever the blessed fruits of the glorious kingdom of God. That was what God intended for us mankind, certainly not to see us suffer and perish in the darkness and sin, but instead to have us enjoy the fullness of His love for us.

Yet, we all know that we have spurned the love of God and rejected the grace which He had offered us. We have disobeyed Him as those who have lost their way and chose to follow their own paths, and although God had revealed His glory and might in various occasions throughout history, we mankind often always tried to find reasons and excuses for not following Him and fall deep into the wickedness of our sins.

This is when all of us should heed what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples in today’s Gospel reading, that all of His people ought to welcome the children and allow them to come to the Lord, and embrace Him, and follow the examples of these children in their own faith. And there is indeed a very good reason in this, and this requires us to understand what the faith of a child is like.

A child is a very innocent person, whose heart and mind is still pure and unburdened by the many concerns of the world. Unlike many of us, a child is still pure at heart, and the faith of a child is a pure faith. The children look towards the Lord and desire to be with Him, because that is our true human nature, who have been created out of love by God, and in that love, we receive the grace and the desire to love Him back.

Unfortunately, we have often been distracted by the many worldly concerns and temptations. Yes, all the things that have distracted us and kept us away from being able to truly be able to love the Lord with all our hearts. We have been burdened by monetary concerns, by the temptations of worldly pleasures, the sinful pleasures of the flesh, the temptation of desire, lust, the pull of pride, ambition and human greed. These are all the things that have kept us away from God.

We need to spend some time to think about this, brothers and sisters in Christ. Have we been so occupied and distracted by our worldly living and concerns that we have failed to see the real purpose and aim of our life, that is our God, and to love Him with all of our heart and with all of our strength just as He Himself had loved us first? This is what we all need to do, and we need to begin from now if we have not done so yet.

Let us all seek to purify ourselves from all forms of sins and wickedness, that all of us will be like children in our faith, genuine and true, unmasked by all the ugliness of our sins, desires, human greed and all the other things that have kept us away from God. Let us show the Lord our God, that we are truly worthy of being the ones to receive the inheritance which He had intended for us when He created us. Let us prove that we want to be with Him, and desire to be reconciled and be reunited with Him.

May the Lord continue to love us, and may He continue to be merciful towards us, that in all of our daily lives and daily works, we may gradually be more and more attuned to His ways and learn to be more like Him in all our ways, actions, words and deeds. May the Lord help us on this journey to return to Him, that all of us may be filled with joy. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 24 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures which have a profound impact on our lives, especially those with regards to the very fabric of our Christian families, that is the matter of marriage or holy matrimony. We have to realise that in this day and time, in our world today, the institution of marriage often comes under attack from many directions, from all those who were trying to destroy and desecrate its sanctity.

In the first reading today, from the Book of the prophet Sirach, we heard a very good advice regarding friendships and relationships between us and one another. In that passage, we heard about the importance of building up good and healthy relationship, to make real and faithful friends, and not just acquaintances, or worse still, friends for benefits. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ?

It means that we must not be hasty to make relationships based on worldly qualifications alone. We must not be quick to establish relationships based on worldly pleasures and matters such as money and temptations of the flesh, lust and human desires. This is exactly the same in the matter of relationships and even marriage. People judged and made decisions based on appearances and on superficial matters, rather than truly understanding what a true relationship is about.

That is why, in many relationships, the foundations were weak and they were easily shaken. In many occasions, these relationships endured only through the good times, and when bad things and troubles come, the relationships foundered and broke apart. That is why in recent times, we had so much troubles with divorces and broken families, unfaithful husbands and wives, who committed adulterous relationships.

There were many people who build their lives and relationships on unsteady foundations of money, possessions, worldly things, lust, pleasure, earthly beauty and many others. As such once the worldly things that do not last forever disappear or are used up, it leads to a collapse in the marriage life and in the family structure. This is what had plagued many of our families in recent times, and which also troubled the Church as a whole.

For truly, families are the basic units of the Church and our faith, for it is through the instructions of our parents that we have first received our faith, listened to the teachings of the Church, which they themselves had received from their own parents. If this familial structure breaks down, then the faith of whole generations will also stumble and become shaky, and the whole Church will be affected.

It is a reality that in many of our families today, there is no place for God. God does not take a centre place in our families. That is why we have divorces and adulterous relationships. We put our trust in things of this world, and they are not good enough, and we in our greed seek for more worldly pleasures and this led us all into sin. That was what Jesus condemned in the Gospel today.

Jesus was very clear in His message in the Gospel today, that all those who have consciously without a valid reason, such as those written in the laws of the Church, broke the sanctity of the Sacrament of the Holy Matrimony, have committed great sin before God. And all the more, if the person remarries another person, or have any form of relationships with another person, then the sin committed is even greater.

Jesus was very clear in His words, that the union which God had made and blessed, cannot be undone by mankind, and no person has the authority and freedom to undo what God had decreed, the union between man and woman in the Holy Matrimony. But this is where instead of we just blaming the families and the people involved, we need to look deeper at the root cause of it all, as I have just mentioned earlier.

Is God in our daily lives? Do we allow Him to take charge of our lives? In our families, do we put God in a place of honour, and look up to Him at all times? Or have we rather allowed ourselves to be carried away by money, by lust, by our greed, and by all sorts of other things that have prevented us from truly having a functional, loving and holy family?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all today pray for all couples of the faithful people of God, that they will keep solemnly and faithfully the vows they have made before God on the day of their Holy Matrimony. Let us all pray that they will be able to keep their promises before God, and build up together holy, functional and loving families, through which faith can be transmitted and passed on, ensuring that our Church remains strong, vibrant and living.

May the Lord empower us and our families, so that He may always be at the centre of our lives, and we may be able to resist the temptations of worldliness, and all the other things that have caused us to sin and broke apart our families. May the Lord give us His strength so that we may persevere in faith, and remain true to Him, all of us and our families together as one. Amen.

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Thursday, 23 February 2017 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard a very clear call through the Sacred Scripture passages, for us to repent from our sinfulness, reject our wayward path of life, and make a turnaround to follow the Lord our God with all our heart and strength, following Him with all sincerity and commitment. This is what the Lord had called us all to do, and we really should go and listen to what He had said.

Sin is something that had become a difficult and persistent stumbling block on our path, which is due to our disobedience and refusal to obey to the Lord and His ways. And all of these were born from our own human sense of pride, of arrogance and greed, as the prophet Sirach mentioned in our first reading today, as a series of warnings for us, not to be haughty and be overconfident, thinking that nothing can harm us.

Indeed, while God loves each and every one of us, but sin is one thing that God does not love from us. Truly, sin is an abomination in His sight, and it is because of our sins that we have suffered the consequences of those sins. We have been sundered from the grace of God, and because of that, we should have fallen into hell, and we should have faced the consequences for sin, that is death and eternal suffering, an eternity of suffering and despair out of which their is no hope for escape.

That is why the Lord sent His many messengers, prophets and servants to help guide His people, that is all of us, so that as many as possible among them might be saved. And we know just so much that God loves us to the point that He did the most extraordinary thing of all, that is to give His only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ, the Divine Word of God, to us as our Saviour and our Hope.

Through Jesus His Son, God had revealed to us the importance for us to reject sin, as we heard it in the Gospel passage today. Jesus was speaking about maintaining the purity of our beings, our hearts, minds and all things, also in our physical bodies and flesh alike. But we must be careful not to misunderstand and misinterpret what He had said, as we cannot take things literally as He had said.

Why is that so? That is because certainly each and every one of us have been tempted through our various senses and parts of our bodies, and if we really literally follow through what Jesus had said, then just imagine how many people out there would be blinded or with just one eye, disabled and debilitated, with no arms or with no legs, just because we misunderstood the true intention of the Lord.

What the Lord wanted from us is for us to resist the temptations to sin, to restrain ourselves and not to give in to the pressure either from the outside or from the inside to sin. It is part of our nature to experience that desire and the temptation to sin and commit things that are not in accordance with what the Lord had taught us, but we ourselves are also able to consciously reject the advances of those temptations, and rebuke Satan and all of his attempts to subvert us to sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where we really need to be prepared and we cannot be lax in our spiritual discipline. We cannot be like those who think that they have all the time in the world, and that they are free to enjoy the world and all of its goodness in whatever ways they like, even if in the process they fall into debauchery and wickedness.

We need to prepare ourselves, as when the Lord comes to seek the reckoning for each one of us, at the timing that He alone knows, then we must be prepared. Certainly, I am sure that we do not want to regret when the time of reckoning comes, and we end up among those whom God will condemn and reject, as sinners and wicked people.

Perhaps, it would be good for us to follow in the footsteps of St. Polycarp, the holy saint whose feast we are celebrating today. St. Polycarp was one of the disciples of the Apostles St. John who was one of the bishops of the early Church, whose contributions was crucial for the foundation and the strengthening of the early Church and the early Christian communities.

It was told that he was a convert to the faith, and he devoted his whole life to the service of the Church and God’s people, even though there were many difficulties facing the faithful people of God, due to the opposition and persecution by the state against the Christian faith. Eventually he was arrested and tortured, given a choice between betraying his faith and living, and standing by his faith and dying in painful agony.

St. Polycarp was not deterred by that temptation to abandon the Lord and preserve himself. Rather, he proclaimed courageously his faith in God before all those who were present at his trial, and stood by his faith among all the other people who had been arrested with him for their faith. As the shepherd of the flock, he had shown good examples for his people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we should emulate the good examples of St. Polycarp in our own daily life. Let us all commit ourselves to the Lord, reject all forms of sin and temptations, so that we may grow ever closer to God and find our way to Him. May all of us draw closer to God and be reconciled with Him, through our actions and deeds that show our faith to Him at all times. May God be with us all, and may St. Polycarp intercede for us sinners. Amen.