Catholic homilies

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Monday, 23 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings, we heard about the Lord’s saving work which He had done through Christ, by Whom all have been made whole and worthy, as He is the Mediator of the new Covenant between mankind and God. And yet, we heard in the last part of the Gospel today, where Jesus rebuked the teachers of the Law, mentioning that the sin of the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven.

We may be confused, as what we may know of the Lord, is He not all merciful and forgiving? Had He not in fact sent His Son into this world, so that He may save all of us? That no one ought to be left behind and forgotten? But this is a misunderstanding of the truth of God, that He is indeed merciful, but only so far as we mankind accept the offer of His mercy.

Forgiveness is given to all those who are willing to accept the mercy of God, and not to those who refuse it. That is exactly what is meant by sinning against the Holy Spirit, that is the refusal to be forgiven, even though one knows fully that forgiveness has been offered. And that was what happened to the teachers of the Law, who knew what Jesus had done, witnessed what He had done, and yet they attributed His works to the works of Satan and his allies. They slandered against the Lord by doing so.

The mercy of God has been freely offered and freely given, but we Christians must not misunderstand and mislead others that God offers all unconditional forgiveness and mercy. Indeed, as long as we breathe, God will always try to give us a chance, and forgiveness will come upon us should we seek for it and genuinely trying to reform ourselves and our ways.

Those who doubt the Lord’s mercy and good works, and worse still, openly mocking the good works of God, and slander it such as what the teachers of the Law had done against Jesus, will have the door of mercy shut before them. That is not because God is not merciful or has practiced double standards in His mercy, but instead, because they themselves had rejected and shut the doors of their heart off to the Lord, Who wanted to come and heal them.

For this, our Lord Who loves each and every one of us resolved to become one like us, and to walk among us in this world, and taking up our own sins and their consequences upon Himself, He bore the cross of sins and wickedness on His way to Calvary, where He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice, as an ultimate and loving sacrifice for the reparation and forgiveness of our sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord had done so much for our sake, and He has loved us so tenderly that He was willing to go through those immense sufferings during His Passion, just so that all of us mankind may be saved, and therefore do not need to suffer the consequences of our sins. Such was the love of our God, and are we able to reciprocate the same kind of love to Him? We have been given the opportunity, but are we ready to accept that opportunity?

Let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, and let us all commit ourselves to a life renewed by the grace of God. Let us no longer persist in our pride and in our refusal to obey the will of God, as well as His offers of mercy and forgiveness. Let us all hope in the Lord, and help one another to reach out to the Lord’s mercy. Let us not act stubbornly in the same manner as the teachers of the Law, who not only refused God’s mercy, but also slandered His good works and lied about Him.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, awaken in our hearts a warm love which we ought to have for Him, just as He had loved us. May He bless us all and give us all the opportunity to renew ourselves, accepting fully that we have been made whole again by the good works of Christ, the Lamb of God, by Whose Blood, we have been washed away from our sins. Amen.

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Sunday, 22 January 2017 : Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Vincent, Deacon and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, as we go through the midst of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, it is appropriate for us to reflect firstly on what we heard in the second reading, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Corinth, where he rebuked the Christians there for their divisiveness. At that time, the Church and the faithful there were divided bitterly among themselves as they were not able to agree on exactly who to believe in.

In order to understand this, we should understand the very nature of our Christian faith. Our faith is a faith by proclamation and witness. We received our faith and the teachings of those faith from those who have themselves received it from their teachers. Thus we believe because of witness, and because of the faith of those who have themselves received the same teachings.

But then, the question is that, how do we then make sure that the teachings are genuine, accurate and true? After all, as we have already seen, that even in the earliest days of the Church, there had been divisions and also conflict amongst the faithful because of the different ways the faith and its teachings were interpreted amongst the faithful, with both St. Paul and Apollos being charismatic and great preachers. Certainly they would gain plenty of following among the people.

Both of them might have indeed taught the exact same set of teachings, and although as told in the other part of the Acts of the Apostles, that Apollos had some mistakes in his teachings as he was not fully versed in the fullness of the Church’s teachings, unlike St. Paul, who have received the Holy Spirit and coordinated with St. Peter and the other Apostles, but as soon as some other disciples of the Lord pointed out his errors, he quickly rectified the mistake.

Rather, most likely the problem came about because of how we the hearers of the Good News interpret the message, and each of us make a different interpretation among ourselves. It is our human nature that we often like what we like to hear, such as parts that suit our objectives and needs, while at the same time we filter out the messages and parts that we do not like or do not favour us.

That is why the divisions came about in the Church and amongst the faithful, precisely because each and every person interpret the faith in the way that they like, and not in the way that it should be interpreted and understood. And then we may have the question of how then can we receive the faith that we now have in the correct and accurate manner?

This is where the Church comes in, brothers and sisters, the importance of the Church as an institution, not just in terms of the Church hierarchy and leadership that maintain control over the teachings and the traditions of our faith, but more importantly because it, being the collective Body of Christ on earth, as the union of all those who believe in God and call themselves as Christians, is the very important safeguard against those who would corrupt, misrepresent and misinterpret the faith and its teachings.

Without such a safeguard, then it is difficult to maintain the integrity and the truth of the faith as how it should be. The Church is the safe-keeper of the truth which our Lord Jesus Christ had proclaimed to the world, which then were passed down through His Apostles, and from them to their successors, and from their successors to their successors’ successors. And thus it was through the Church, through our bishops and priests, the successors of the Apostles that we have received this faith.

All the divisions of the Church since the beginnings of the Church, even from the days of the Apostles to the present day are caused by the disobedience, pride, greed and the rebelliousness we mankind, the people of God had done, which because of the refusal of men to obey the teachings of the Church, they had gone wayward, interpreting the Scriptures as they wished and in their own limited understanding, which resulted in the splintering of the body of the faithful into many pieces.

At the same time, we also have to acknowledge that the Church itself also is not entirely out of blame. The Church is human just as much as it is Divine. It may be instituted by the Lord, and authority have been given to it and its stewards, the Apostles and their successors, but after all, it was still feeble and sinful men and women who had been part of this Church, led it, and sometimes brought it into erroneous ways.

It was because of the corruption within the Church, the immorality of its leaders and even the Popes themselves were wicked in their actions, which resulted in the desire of certain people to reform the Church. There had been many occasions, harking earlier to the earliest days of the Church that the Church had not always been faithful to the truth, but was misled by false and heretical ways, and yet, almost every time, God called holy and committed men and women to correct the wrong ways, and those who refused to return to the true faith were expelled from the Church. Many did eventually return and repent their sins.

Indeed, we have to take note that as what happened five centuries ago, when the ‘Reformation’ rocked the entire Church and brought great harm to many of the faithful, there were many good intentioned reformers who wanted to see the Church purged from its corruption and worldliness, as then the Church had been too absorbed into worldly and secular ways to the point that it was hardly a dependable and reliable source of spiritual guidance to the people.

And yet, while the intentions of those reformers were probably good, but their methods of going about trying to achieve their goals were very wrong. They took it upon themselves to sunder the unity of the Church, and by declaring that the Scriptures alone was their authority, each and every person soon took it upon themselves to interpret what the Scriptures meant for them, and therefore, what they believed in. Some chose what they liked to believe and others threw away all those that they refused to believe in. This created confusion, and a ripe ground for the devil to sow further division and discord.

Let us all look back at the Church fathers, the collective body of the saints and martyrs who had once led the Church in its earliest days. They have carefully preserved the teachings of Christ and His Good News just exactly as how He passed it down to His Apostles and to them. Those who damaged the unity of the Church did so because they misunderstood the faith, and they ignored the Church’s ways because they were too focused on its faults then, and refused to maintain the truth which it had kept and preserved throughout time, up to this very day.

It was also then misinformation, socio-political issues and other misunderstandings that prevented the reunion of the faithful people of God into His Church. There were many false informations, lies and other falsehoods which became entangled with political issues, social issues, and even issues of pride, human greed and stubbornness, which kept the gap and the chasm between the divided members of the Church wide and even growing ever wider.

This is where then it is important that as Christians, those who belong to God’s Church, and as a member of the holy and venerable Body of Christ, which had guarded the Apostolic Tradition of our faith, and the fullness of the teachings of Christ, led by the Apostle St. Peter and his successors, our Popes, that we must remember what is our faith truly about, which I have mentioned at the very beginning of this discourse, that is about being witnesses of Christ.

That is why each and every one of us have the calling and the mission from God, to be witnesses of the faith, showing through our deeds and actions that we truly belong to God, that is by loving one another and showing care and concern for our less fortunate brethren around us. And it is important that we stick closely to the Church and its teachings, as Jesus Himself had said in another occasion in the Gospels, that He is the true Vine, and all who have no part in Him and have separated themselves from Him will have no life in them.

Therefore, similarly, if we do not adhere closely to the Church and separates ourselves from it, then that is why divisions came about, and we are bringing upon ourselves and others not the grace of salvation but the sins of error and condemnation by God. As Christians, we must work to overcome the divisions and the misunderstandings, all the obstacles that had prevented many of those who believe in God, and yet outside the Church from returning to the Holy Mother Church.

In this week of Prayer for Christian Unity, let us all Christians pray fervently together, that everyone who believe in God will no longer be separated, that everyone will be just as what Jesus our Lord wants them to be, to be one and united just as He and the Father is one. This is the prayer which Jesus Himself prayed on the night before He was to suffer and die, and prayer that He had asked the Father to bestow on His Church.

Therefore, those who foment divisions and spread lies and misinformations about the faith, not adhering to the teachings of the Church as passed down unto us from the Apostles are against the wishes of the Lord. Yet, sadly it is the reality of our world today that there are many both outside and inside the Church who are against unity. Rather, it is important that we overcome those misinformations, and therefore, it is important that each and every one of us, members of the Church, know fully what our faith is about.

After all, if we ourselves are unaware of what our faith is about, how can we then convince others to reunite and reconcile themselves with the Church? There have been good signs, as there have been quite a few of those who have decided to repent and return to the embrace of the Mother Church, after they had studied the teachings of the Church fathers, read their writings and works, and found in them the same faith as what our Church, the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church have today, even almost two millennia away from the days of those holy saints.

Let us all therefore pray together, brethren, that the unity of the Church will be restored, and each and every one of us as Christians will know the fullness of the truth of God and the wholeness of His teachings, which He had passed on to His Apostles, and which the Church had preserved and kept for many ages. Let us all be agents of true unity in the Church, not by compromising our faith, but instead by being witnesses of the truth of God and knowing His truth.

We are all called to be shepherds and guides to all those who have fallen on their way towards the Lord. It is imperative then, even up to this present day and era, that we work to our best capabilities, in order to make many more people see the truth found in the Church. Let us all do our best, and pray that God will help us in all of our endeavours. May God be with His Church and with His people, bless all of their works, and bring all of His faithful one together as one flock, one people. Amen.

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Saturday, 21 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the sacrifice of Christ our Lord, our High Priest, which He had made for our sake. He is the Lamb of God, the Lamb of sacrifice, Who had offered none other than His own Blood, His own Flesh for our sake. In order to understand this fully, the whole significance of it, we need to understand what is the meaning of sacrifice which is offered for the sake of someone’s sins.

In the Sacred Scriptures, ever since the beginning of time, the people of God, mankind had offered sacrifices to God, from the offerings of Abel and Cain, to thw offering of Noah after the Great Flood, to the offering of Abraham our father in faith, to the offering of Melchizedek, the King of Salem, to the offering of the prophets from the days of Moses to the days of the kings of Israel and Judah. All of these sacrifices are meant to honour and glorify the Lord, to offer Him worship and praise, and at the same time also for the forgiveness of one’s sins.

In the days of old, the priests were instructed by the laws which God passed down to Moses, to sprinkle some of the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the people. The blood therefore represents cleansing, the purification of one from his or her sins, and at the same time, also a renewal of the covenant which they had made with the Lord their God. The sacrifice to God is the sign of the formalisation of the covenant between God and His people, as what Abraham had done when God made the covenant with him, and which Moses then renewed as he led the people of Israel out of Egypt.

But as mentioned in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the power of the blood of goats, lambs and heifers, the offering of worldly and earthly sacrifices are limited. Such was the great extent, weight and consequences of our sins, the whole sum of the sins of all mankind, both past, present and the future, that no amount of animal sacrifices and offerings can replace them, save that of the worthy Lamb of God.

Nothing is more perfect than God, and therefore since God Himself had descended into this world as a Man, Jesus Christ, He has Himself become the Lamb of sacrifice and the High Priest at the same time, as the One Who purifies the people of God, not by other blood or sacrifices, but by His very own Blood, the perfect offering of Himself. It was the ultimate and selfless sacrifice, which overcome the sins caused by the selfishness and greed of our ancestors.

It was God’s love that made all of them possible. Otherwise, what God had done would have been incomprehensible to us. But indeed, God’s ways are not like our ways, and while we think that something is impossible for us to do, for God nothing is impossible. All things are possible for Him, including our salvation, our liberation and freedom from our sinfulness.

And yet, despite this great love shown to us by our God, there are still those who have not accepted that love, and even rejected Him, those who refused to open their hearts to welcome the Lord. Even Jesus was rejected by His own disciples and His own relatives, as we witnessed in the Gospel passage today, when His own relatives said that He was out of His mind because of what He was doing with the people.

The same therefore will happen to us, even as Jesus Himself had prophesied on how everything will turn out to be for us, all those who follow Him and walk in His ways. The world will reject that love which God had poured on it, and there will be many people who do not walk in His ways. But how do we then react to this? How do we face the challenges that will come our way? Then we really should look up the example of St. Agnes the Great, the holy martyr of the faith, whose feast we are celebrating today.

St. Agnes lived during the time of great difficulty for the Christian faith, where the Church and the faithful came under constant attacks from the Roman authorities, who were decidedly against the faith, and who persecuted many of those who profess their faith to God. It was during the reign of one of the most hostile Emperors that St. Agnes lived in, during the time of the Emperor Diocletian, infamous for his brutal persecution of Christians.

St. Agnes was born into a Roman noble family, and because of her family’s background, had had many suitors since her very young age. But she would not give in to their pursuits and evaded them, determined to maintain her virginity and purity, which she offered and dedicated to the Lord. But those men who wanted to have her were not happy being rejected, and therefore, they accused her before the authorities and reported that she was a Christian.

Later on she was persecuted, tortured and made to endure many humiliations at the hands of those who hated and rejected her. But St. Agnes did not give up and neither did she fight back, instead putting her complete trust in the Lord through prayer, she gave up her life, knowing that by doing so, she was doing the will of God, and also at the same time showing many others the inspiration and the way forward in their faith towards God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we look upon the examples of St. Agnes the holy martyr, let us all from now on devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord in the same manner as she had done in the past. Let us be genuine in our faith, and be ready to defend it against the opposition and challenges from the world, which will surely come our way in the future, if not already happening at the present.

May the Lord help us all to remain committed to Him, and may He empower each and every one of us to live in faith, and to give ourselves to Him, that in all the things we say, we do and we act, we will always bring glory to Him and be found worthy of Him. Let us appreciate what the Lord had done for us, because He has loved us, and by that love, He has saved us by His own death on the cross. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded of the new covenant which God had made with us all, His people, that is with all of mankind. And He had made all of these through the mediation of Christ, Who is the Mediator of the new covenant, by which all of us are to receive salvation and grace, because Christ Himself had done the amazing and unimaginable deed of laying down His own life for the sake of our salvation.

Through Him, God had placed into our hearts the truth about Himself, what He had revealed to the whole world about His salvation. He had sent us His Holy Spirit, through Whom the truth is placed into our hearts, so that all of us who have believed in Him, and received the Holy Spirit will understand fully what it means for us to follow the Lord our God, and to walk in His ways.

However, this is also where we need to take note how in the Gospel passage today, it was mentioned that Jesus called His disciples, the primary twelve members among them in particular. They are known as the Twelve Apostles, whose names we are certainly quite familiar with. They were called by Jesus, together with the other Apostles and disciples, to be His witnesses and helpers in the good works He was bringing into the world for our salvation.

Through this, we can see how God needs our help to continue His good works in this world, as the works He has started are certainly not yet complete. All these works are still ongoing, and there are even more things to be done. There are many people who have yet to witness and experience the truth of the Lord, and there are many others who have yet to receive the Good News unlike us.

The works of the Apostles, who preached and witnessed for the Lord are still ongoing, as we are the ones who are now called to be the modern day disciples and witnesses of our God and of our faith in Him. Through us God will make His truth known to all, that He establishes a new covenant with us, and by that we are altogether saved. It is up to us then to lead others, our brethren, to walk on this path towards God’s salvation and grace.

And how do we do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? The saints Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian whose feasts we are celebrating today, had shown many others what it meant to be a disciple of Christ, and what are to be expected from us if we are to take His side and defend our faith in Him. They lived during times of great difficulty for the faith, when being a Christian meant that one could be prosecuted and arrested by the state, and persecution of the Church and the faithful were rampant.

Pope St. Fabian was the leader of the Universal Church and the faithful both across the Roman Empire and all Christendom, as well as in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor at the time, the Emperor Decius was particularly hostile against Christians and their faith, and he ordered a distinctively brutal persecution against them.

As the leader of the flock of God, Pope St. Fabian did not fear the threat of persecution and suffering. Instead, he continued to minister courageously to the people of God, going from places to places and minister to those who need help. Eventually he was arrested and tortured, and as an example to all the other Christians, the Emperor Decius sentenced the faithful saint to death, and thus, in doing what he had been called to do, Pope St. Fabian met his end in glorious martyrdom.

Then, St. Sebastian was a soldier in the employ of the Roman Emperor, told to be a courageous man whose skill earned him a place in the contingent of the Imperial guardsmen. The Emperor at that time, Diocletian was also renowned infamously for his brutal persecution of the Christian faith and the faithful. All the Roman soldiers were ordered to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, who was then treated as a living god, and those who refused to do so were persecuted.

St. Sebastian courageously refused to offer sacrifices to the Emperor as ordered, because he stood by faithfully to his Christian faith. He refused to obey the Emperor’s orders even though he fully knew that doing so would bring about the wrath of the Emperor and would almost certainly mean his death. He did not want to compromise his faith and kept strongly to the faith which he had in the Lord.

And thus, by his courage, he was tortured and put to death, after a long and miraculous process where we were told that he was shot with arrows but did not die because of the Lord’s intervention, before finally he was martyred with a sword. Through their examples, Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian had shown us all that being a Christian require commitment and courage, and real action instead of inaction.

We, as the modern day successors of the Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ should be role models for our brethren, and become genuine and real witnesses for Him, even though persecution, challenges and difficulties may come in our way to hinder us and stop us from doing whatever it is that we want to do for this purpose. Let us all pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that God will give us the courage and strength to do so.

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the holy saints and martyrs who had gone before us, and who have left behind their illustrious examples for us to follow. Let us all follow in the footsteps of Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian in their total commitment to the Lord and their courageous faith. And finally, let us all continue to pray for the unity of all Christians that all those who believe in God may come together and be reunited in the Church of Christ under the leadership of His Vicar, our Pope. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 19 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s readings we continued to hear yet again about our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, Who is our Master and our Saviour. It was through Him that we have received salvation and the promise of eternal life. It was through Jesus that God had made us all mankind whole again and became worthy of His grace and love.

We were once delinquents, rebels and we were those who were condemned to destruction and suffering, because we have not been faithful to the covenant which God had made with us and with our ancestors. Yet, because He loves us all so tenderly, and because His love for us is so great, there is nothing that could stop Him from doing what He had done in order to secure a different future and fate for us. He rescued us all from the depths of darkness and brought us into the light.

He is the One Whom God had appointed to be the Mediator, the One to mediate between us and our Lord and Creator. It was through Jesus that mankind which was once sundered from God, had been reunited with Him, because Jesus through His suffering and death on the cross, and also then through His glorious resurrection, had become the steady bridge through which we mankind can cross through the chasm separating us and God.

The deep chasm that existed between us and God came about because of our sins, that is because of our disobedience and our refusal to listen to the Lord and our reluctance to follow Him. It was because of all these that many of us had wandered far away from the Lord, and embraced all sorts of the wickedness found in this world. But God wanted us to find our way back to Him, and that was why He sent us Jesus, His only begotten Son, to be our Guide and Help.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord had done so much for us, as He had not only given Himself to rescue us, but He also even took upon Himself the burdens of our sins, and also bear for our sake, the consequences and the punishments for those sins. He did all these so that all of us who believe in Him will not perish and die because of our sins, but instead, by having been forgiven, we will be saved.

Many of us are reluctant to believe in the Lord, or to follow Him because we are doubtful and not sure in our hearts. We are still often divided between Him and the world, all the concerns of worldly origins, that we find if difficult for us to commit ourselves to Him. And yet, it was through Him alone that we can be saved. God will not abandon us, just as He did not abandon our ancestors, but instead did all He could in order to help them.

We should follow the example of the people of Judea at the time of Jesus, which we heard in the Gospel today, in how they came in large numbers to the Lord, looking for Him and wanting to be healed from their afflictions. They braved hunger and even rain, in order to be able to come to the Lord Jesus, to hear Him teaching them and also to get themselves healed by Him. Are we able to show the same conviction as they did?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important that each and every one of us as Christians should commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. Let us no longer be burdened by the many concerns and doubts we have, but instead, learn to trust everything to the Lord, and to believe in Him with all of our might. Let us all follow Him just as the people at the time of Jesus had done, and be healed from all of our bodily and more importantly, spiritual afflictions, that is to be forgiven from all of our sins.

May the Lord bless us all, empower us to live more genuinely in the faith, and help us so that all of us may come together to glorify Him with full faith and trust in Him, knowing that He will succour us and deliver us from destruction and darkness into the light and new hope in Him. Lastly, let us also pray that the divisions that exist between the faithful people of God may be healed, and all those who call themselves Christians may be reunited as one people, one flock and one Church under the Vicar of Christ, our Pope, as we embark and progress through this week of prayer for Christian unity. May God be with us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 18 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us heard yet again about the works of our Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, Whom God had made to be His Saviour, the One through Whom He willed to make all of His people worthy and purified once more, that they will be filled with grace and will be cleansed from the taints of their sins and wickedness.

Through Him, all had been made whole, because it was not just by any hands that all were healed, but through the sacrifice of the one and only Lamb of God. The Lamb of God has offered Himself, His own flesh and blood for the sake of the salvation of the entire world. Ha gave Himself for our sake so that even though He suffered and died on the cross, through Him we will not need to suffer the consequences of our sins.

Such was God’s love for us, that He was willing to approach us and seek us, as a Good Shepherd as He is, He went forth to collect us and to gather us all in, His wayward sheep and flock. Though all of us have been unfaithful many times, again and again, but He remains ever faithful, and His promise to those who are faithful to Him always stands no matter what.

But it was indeed sad to notice how there were such great oppositions against Christ as what we witnessed in our Gospel passage today. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were waiting for the opportunity to trap Jesus in His own words and in His works, so that they could accuse Him and arrest Him under the false charges of blasphemy or through breaking the laws of Moses.

To go to that extent in order to preserve themselves and to remove from their sight the opposition that they saw in Jesus, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had shown us all the ugly side of mankind, our own ugly side, which is our pride and our greed for worldly glory and power, for influence and fame, for human praise and for wealth. These are the things that have become an obstacle for each and every one of us, that prevent us from truly being able to reach out to the Lord our God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God wants to heal us from the sickness of our sins, from the corruption of our wickedness and from the taint of our disobedience. But are we willing to accept His offer of healing? Are we willing to receive the mercy which He had so generously granted to us? Are we open to the opportunity to welcome His forgiveness into ourselves? These are the questions that we need to ask ourselves to see if we ourselves are holding us back from God’s mercy and grace.

As Christians all of us should be humble, and should indeed be willing to listen and to welcome the truth of our God into our hearts. We should not be proud or be arrogant, but instead follow the example of Christ our High Priest, our Leader, our Shepherd and our Role Model, that through Him, and by following His examples, we may be able to lead a more Christian way of life.

Let us all reflect on this, especially as today we begin the week of prayer for Christian Unity. This week we are praying for the unity of all those who believe in God and in His ways, that each and every one of us may be reunited together once again in the one and only Church that God had established in this world, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, that is the Catholic Church, under the leadership of the Vicar of Christ, our Pope.

We hope for the unity of all Christians, that everyone may find their way to the Lord through the Church, and that all parties involved in the division of the Church may find the humility and the conviction to overcome their differences, and learn through the faith, what needs to be done in order to reconcile themselves to the truth found only in the Church, and therefore all may stand ready to be found worthy when the Lord comes again.

May the Lord bless us all, and bless our Church that it may remain united amidst all the challenges and the difficulties it encounters. We pray that all of us Christians will also be able to lead a more Christ-like life, that each and every one of us may devote ourselves wholeheartedly to Him, and make our world altogether a better place for us to live in. May God be with us all, His Church, and keep us all as one people and one flock, all faithful to Him. Amen.

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Tuesday, 17 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture passages we heard first of all from the Epistle to the Hebrews, which urged everyone to remember God’s promise and covenant, which He had made with His people out of His love for them. We are all reminded of God’s faith in us, and we are all called to place our trust and hope in Him.

He has sworn by Himself, to assure us that He will deliver us from our sins and from our troubles. He Himself has assured us that He will deliver us and free us from the chains and bondage to sin. We have nothing to fear but to trust completely in Him, because while the world and its words are untrustworthy, and while mankind are untrustworthy in our dealings, but God alone can be completely trusted, for He is honest and just, and having sworn by Himself, He cannot deny Himself.

But it is rather us mankind who had not been faithful as I have mentioned, because we always try to find excuses and other alternatives, instead of obeying God. We ended up trusting in our own human instincts and judgments, rather than obeying and listening to the Lord our God. That was why in the Gospel passage today, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were rebuked by Jesus, as He had also done in various other occasions throughout the Gospels, because of their refusal to believe in what He had to tell them, that their ways were wrong.

They were the guardians of the laws of God as passed down to them from the time of Moses, down through many generations. But throughout those times, the essence of the Law became lost, and people became servants to the laws of God, not knowing what they were all about. Instead of obeying the Law because it was right to serve and please the Lord with their obedience, many of them enforced the laws and follow them for the sake of doing it.

For example, on the well known issue of the day of the Sabbath and its observance among the Israelites. The Sabbath was instituted by the Lord at the time when Israel went out from Egypt and were travelling through the desert towards the Promised Land. It was meant as a holy day dedicated to the Lord, as a day when all the people of Israel should focus themselves and their whole attention to the Lord.

And why was that so? That is because those Israelites have not been faithful to God in many occasions, they grumbled and disobeyed His laws and commandments as soon as after God had liberated and brought them out from the land of Egypt. God wanted to save them from their rebelliousness, and He wanted to discipline them by the means of those laws, but never had He intended for them to be oppressed by those measures.

Unfortunately that was what the Pharisees did, burdening the people with the many observances and obligations to the Law, by one count approximately six hundred and thirteen of them in total, and yet, many of these were human made laws that did not bring about greater understanding of the true meaning of God’s Law, which in fact was about God’s love for us all, so that He gave us those guiding oaths to help us in our path.

That was why Jesus told them all about how the king David in the past broke the law of the Sabbath because he and his soldiers, his followers were hungry. He ate the bread that were supposed to be offered for the Lord, as a form of sustenance to support them after their long journey. And the high priest then, Abiathar, allowed them to do so, even though that was supposedly against the Law.

It is because the Law was indeed meant to help mankind and to assist them on their path towards salvation, and not to oppress them. As Jesus mentioned, it was the Law which was made for man, and not man for the Law. It was because of love that God had given His instructions to mankind, in order to save them and to liberate them from the wrong paths they were following.

That is why, in all things, as Christians, all of us ought to remember that first of all, God wants each and every one of us to be saved. He wants us all to live and not to perish. We must not close the path towards salvation to those who are in need of it, by looking down on sinners and by refusing to welcome them back when they come to seek God’s forgiveness and grace. Let us remember that we ourselves are sinners and are in need of God’s mercy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today reflect on the examples and the life of St. Anthony the Abbot, the famous saint and religious who was known also as St. Anthony the Great, a renowned monk and religious from the Roman era Egypt known to be the father of monasticism and one of the first to commit himself in a contemplative life filled with prayer and devotion to God.

St. Anthony left behind everything in his former life, and he spent the rest of his life in contemplative prayer and commitment to God. He lived in the wilderness, much as St. John the Baptist had done in the past, shunning the comforts of life and leaving behind all worldly concerns. He also ministered to the people by helping the poor and the communities nearby where he lived, and called them to a life of holiness and devotion to God.

The devil often tempted St. Anthony, and it was told that he even tried hard to undermine all of St. Anthony’s works, and attacked him in various occasions, and yet St. Anthony persevered through all of them via a life committed to God in devotion and prayer. He overcame the devil by the power of prayer and piety, committing his whole being to God. From all of his examples, we truly should be inspired by his dedication and discipline in his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we all live in a world filled with many temptations, many of which are trying to keep us away from attaining God’s salvation. The devil is always at work, trying to undermine our progress and by pulling us away with his lies and falsehoods. This is where we need to be careful, that we should not fall into his traps. We must learn to resist the temptations of this world and commit ourselves in the same way as the holy saints, including that of St. Anthony, had done.

May the Lord help us in all of our endeavours, so that through all of our good and committed works, we may put the Lord as the focus of all our actions, and indeed, as the focus of our lives. May the Lord bless us and keep us, and may He strengthen in our hearts, the faith which we ought to have for Him, and help us to be faithful to God, just as He Himself had been truly faithful to us. Let us all help one another on our path to the Lord, and keep ourselves worthy of Him at all times. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 16 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews, about the meaning of the holy priesthood, as a vocation and calling for all those who have chosen to dedicate themselves and their whole lives to the Lord, and among these priests, God had chosen His high priests, those whom He entrusted with the leadership among the people, through whom He would exercise His power and authority, and through whose actions, the people would be absolved from their sins and be reconciled with God.

And unlike all the other high priests, which offered again and again for the sake of the people’s sins, God had appointed One to be the Eternal High Priest for all, and He is none other than Jesus Christ, the long promised Saviour of the whole world, the Divine Word of God Who was incarnate into the person of the Son of Man, through Mary His mother. It was through Him that God willed to make all of mankind, all those whom He loves, to be saved and liberated from their sins, that is from our sins.

While the high priests of old were told to sacrifice and offer the gifts of animal blood, fats and other sacrificial goods, the Lord showed them all that all these were incapable of offering complete and total reconciliation between mankind and their God. It is only the complete obedience of the Son of God, Who willingly offered Himself, through His Most Precious Body and Blood, that all of mankind are able to access the salvation which He guaranteed to all those who believe in Him.

In the Gospel today we heard about Jesus our Lord Who chided the Pharisees and the disciples of St. John the Baptist, who compared themselves to His own disciples, as those two groups did what was prescribed in the laws of the people of God as originally passed down to them from Moses, who received them from God. They questioned Jesus because they thought that it was improper for His disciples not following the commandments of the Law.

But in all that, there lies a misunderstanding of the true Law of God. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in particular became obsessed with the minute details of the Law, in how they should be observed, to the smallest details. They were very particular in enforcing them, to the point that it was often they did not do them while knowing what was the original purpose of the Law of God.

Take for example, the practice of fasting, which was done to express mourning, grieving and also most importantly, the regret and the desire for repentance for one’s sins and wrongdoings. And yet, as Jesus mentioned in another part of the Gospels, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had used fasting as a pretext to advance their own interests and to make themselves look good before the people.

They paraded around, showing their fasting and other supposedly pious acts to be seen by others, so that they would be praised and gained prestige as well as fame among the people. But that was as we can see, not the intention of the Law. That is why Jesus came into this world, to straighten up all those who have erred and bent the purposes of the Law, revealing to them all the new path that He brought with Him.

That was what Jesus meant when He related to all of them the parable of the wine and the wineskins. Old wine is not meant to be put into a new wineskin, as they are incompatible with each other. The same applies to new wine that is placed into old wineskins. And Jesus also added up with another example, the parable of old cloth and new cloth. Old cloth cannot be used to patch up new cloth and vice versa.

It means that, the ways of the Lord are not compatible with the ways of the world. And similarly therefore, sin is incompatible with God, and indeed, sin is incompatible with all of us being Christians. We should not follow the example of those Pharisees who claimed to serve God, and yet in reality, they are serving only their own desires and purposes.

It is inappropriate for us all to call ourselves as Christians if we do not live a genuine Christian life through our actions and deeds. That is why, because our Lord Jesus had shown us the path that we ought to take in order to reach out to Him, and as also by His own obedience to the will of His Father, He as our Eternal High Priest had saved us all, therefore, all of us should also obey Him and walk in His ways.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect on this, and think about what we as Christians are still able to do in our lives in order to have a Christ-like attitude and thus live a genuine Christian living. It is only then by our obedience to the Law and by following the examples of Christ that we will be true witnesses for our Lord, and many more people, both inside and outside the Church, will come to believe in the Lord as well, and be saved together with us.

May the Lord be with us all in our journey of life, and may He strengthen the faith inside each and every one of us, that we may emulate in full faith, the examples of our High Priest, Who is also our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for our salvation and the redemption of the whole world. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 15 January 2017 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this holy day of the Lord, all of us are gathered together to hear about the Lord our God, His love for us, and His resolve to gather us all who have been estranged from Him and from His love, that all of us may find salvation in Him and through Him. For it is the love of God which had been made manifest through Jesus Christ, His Son, which had become the source of our salvation and grace.

Since the days of the prophet Isaiah, in our first reading today, God had promised His people His upcoming salvation, when He would gather them back into His embrace, and reunite them with Himself, after they had been scattered among the nations because of their sins. This has to be understood in the context of the era, as during the time of the prophet Isaiah, the long sundered northern kingdom of Israel had finally been destroyed by the Assyrians, and many of the northern ten tribes of the Israelites were forced to go into exile in the foreign lands.

It was the rebellion and disobedience of the people of God that led to such a fate, as they worshipped the pagan gods and idols, turning away from the Lord their God. They committed all forms of wicked acts and sins, fornicating themselves in adultery and in acts unworthy of those whom God had chosen to be His own people, to be His own children. They made others and their own descendants to sin against God.

The people of the kingdom of Judah, the southern kingdom, would themselves be brought into exile by the Babylonians, as they were also disobedient, refusing to turn away from sin, and even though God had sent prophets after prophets, messengers after messengers, they refused to believe in His message, and rejected His offer of mercy and forgiveness. They and their kings continued to trust on themselves and in the comforts of worldliness.

Through this we can see that, those who do not put their trust in God, and prefer instead to walk on their own will be scattered, and they will lose their way. They will not be able to stand against the forces of this world. And the only result out of sin and disobedience will be sorrow, pain and suffering, for it is only in God that we shall find true and everlasting peace, as well as rest and succour from all of our worldly troubles.

But ultimately, we have to remember the simple fact that while we are often unfaithful, wayward and defiant in our ways, God is always faithful to us, to the covenant which He had made with our forefathers, and which He had renewed with them many times, and last of all, which He renewed with all of us through none other than Jesus Christ, His only Son. For Jesus is the Mediator of the New and everlasting Covenant, through which God wants to make all of us as the recipients of His love and grace.

God is always willing and ready to forgive us, but are we willing to be forgiven by God? Rather, are we willing to approach Him and to ask Him for His generous mercy? Or are we instead too proud and arrogant, to think that we have been mistaken and are in need of forgiveness? If God has allowed Himself to become Man and to suffer for our sake, so that He may forgive us our sins and heal us from our afflictions, then should we not make the effort to allow His grace and forgiveness to enter our lives and transform us?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all as Christians be role model for all of our brethren. We should be the ones to show others the way to the Lord, through our humble supplication and submission before God, through our devotion and commitment to Him and to His ways. We should show others how we ought to follow the Lord, and obey His laws, by practicing them through our own actions and deeds.

After all, no one will believe in us if we ask them to believe in God, and yet in our actions we are no different from all those who have disobeyed the Lord and abandoned Him those years ago, the people of Israel and Judah. We must lead by example, and show to each other the living proof of the love of Christ our Lord. We are the bearers of His love, and the witnesses of His truth, so it is imperative that each and every one of us must walk the talk, as Christians, to commit ourselves to acts of love fitting for those who call themselves children of our Lord, Whose great love for us enabled Him to forgive us our many sins.

May the Lord continue to love us and bless us, and may He, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be the Light of our lives, showing us the way forward, that we will always remain in the path towards righteousness and justice. May He bless us and keep us all in His grace, that we will be found ever worthy and good when He comes again as He has promised, and He will then bless us with the gift of everlasting life and glory in His presence. Amen.

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Saturday, 14 January 2017 : 1st 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 we heard from the Sacred Scriptures about the calling of Levi, the tax collector, whom Jesus our Lord called to be one of His disciples, later known as St. Matthew the Apostle, also one of the Evangelists, the writers of the Four Holy Gospels. We also heard about the forgiveness of sins and the reconciliation of God and His people, through Himself as our High Priest.

Through these Scripture passages, the Church wants each of us as Christians to know that God is a loving and merciful God, Who is willing to forgive the sins of His people, provided that they themselves are willing to let God forgive them and provided that they are willing to change their ways, that they would sin no more, and from then on, follow the path of the Lord, that is the path of righteousness and justice.

Many of us often acted like the Pharisees, those who charged sinners for their sins and judged them based on what those sinners had done. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were often against Jesus and were vehemently against what He has done, because they often saw Him in the company of sinners, or what is more precisely, the definition of sinners according to them.

Jesus often walked among the least and the abandoned in the society, those with the afflictions of the flesh and the body, as well as the afflictions of the mind and heart. He worked with the destitute, those who were suffering from illnesses such as paralysis, leprosy and blindness, and also with the tax collectors and prostitutes, whom the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the populace in general considered as sinners and as those unworthy of God.

This is something that we must avoid, brothers and sisters in Christ. We cannot be exclusive and think of ourselves as the only ones who are worthy of God and His salvation. After all, each of us are sinners, having disobeyed the Lord in small or major ways, and sin has been in our hearts, without exception. The only exception is our Lord Jesus Himself, Who although He was Man, but He was without any taint of sin.

If we are sinners, then surely we cannot and we should not condemn anyone because of their sins. Why is this so? That is because if we condemn others because of their sins, then God will also condemn us because of our own sins. The act of condemnation and being judgmental themselves are sins in their own ways, because instead of trying to help and reach out to our brethren, we close the path and the door to salvation before them.

However, on the other hand, we should also not compromise on the need for a genuine repentance on the part of the sinner. Repentance is required for sinners to receive the grace of God’s mercy. It is a real danger that we become complacent and think that God is ever merciful and forgiving, that we tolerate ourselves and others around us in our sinful attitudes and deeds. God may be forgiving and loving, but at the same time, He also despises all sorts and forms of sin.

A sinner who does not repent remain a sinner, just as many of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law refused to repent from their wickedness and welcome the Lord’s truth. Their sins remained because they did not repent, and instead doubled down on their stubborn resistance to the works of our Lord which He made to all of us through Jesus.

Meanwhile, many sinners who repented and changed their ways became great saints, as Levi the tax collector himself showed. He was reviled and discriminated against as a tax collector, but eventually he turned over a new leaf with the Lord, and now he is revered as one of our Lord’s Twelve Apostles, His principle disciples, as well as with the accolade of becoming one of the four writers of the Holy Gospels. Through St. Matthew, many of God’s good works were done.

There were many other examples of sinners who later became saints and devoted servants of our Lord. But there were also many examples of the righteous who were tempted and seduced by the devil and fall into temptation. This is why it is important for us Christians to hold strongly to our faith and develop our spiritual life well, so that we may grow ever closer to God, and we will be better able to live a faithful, Christian life.

May the Lord help us and bless us in all of our endeavours, and may He keep us in His grace so that we may always stay close to Him and remain in His truth, and not fall into eternal damnation. May He forgive us our sins, and may He love us forevermore, gathering us to Himself. Amen.