Catholic

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Friday, 14 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened again to the words of the Scripture, in which Christ told His disciples that they should keep themselves pure in all things, so that they will not fall into sin. Brethren, sin is our weakness, and our body is our weakness, ever since Adam and Eve our ancestors disobeyed the Lord and ate from the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Ever since humankind was exposed to that knowledge of things good and evil, we have been prone to the corruption of sin, particularly in our body, through our being, our minds, and our hearts. Mankind has done things evil in the eyes of the Lord ever since the day of our rebellion, until God once had wanted to destroy all but Noah in the Great Flood, such great was the extent of our forefather’s sins.

God loves us very much, brothers and sisters, for all of us are His children, His most beloved children, the greatest and most precious to Him of all creation, so much that He had entrusted this world to our care, that we become its stewards. But as much as our God is a loving God, He is also a jealous and a just God, and He cannot let sin stand in His presence, because He is good and perfect, and no sinner can stand worthy in front of Him in heaven. That was why He sent His only Son, that through Him salvation of mankind may happen, and those who repent and believe in Him, may become worthy of Him once again.

Brothers and sisters, Christ did not mean that we should literally cut off our appendages and our limbs because it caused us to sin. Yes, without these limbs indeed we cannot do what is bad, and therefore can sin no longer, but what Christ truly meant was that we should cut us off from sin itself, from all attachments to sin, especially from our hearts. If our hearts is pure, our hands and legs, and our mouths and eyes will not ever cause us to sin.

In addition, yes, indeed, if we cut away these limbs, we cannot do what is evil, but then it will also similarly hinder us from doing what is good, because certainly our limbs can be used for either good or evil. It is entirely within our choice whether we want to use it for good or for evil. It is also to note that no sinner is beyond redemption, and even the greatest of sinners, were he or she to repent, he or she can become the greatest of saints if God so desires of them.

Yes, brethren, there are hope for sinners. All of us are sinners, and even the greatest of the saints, who were also sinners. But what differentiates the saints from the condemned are that those who were condemned did not turn away from their sins and their vices, and continued to do things abhorrent in the eyes of the Lord. That was why they were thrown into hell, all and whole, because their heart and their bodies remained in darkness.

But saints did not remain in darkness. Yes, they had much faults and past sins, but all these drove them to approach the throne of God for mercy. Full in knowledge of their iniquity and unworthiness, they surrendered themselves to God and opened themselves to His love and mercy. They did not elevate themselves nor did they become arrogant and haughty, one of our greatest weaknesses that is pride. They lowered themselves and repented truly in their hearts, and a new light was born in them, and consequently, they were purified and made whole and worthy once again before the Lord. The Lord is pleased with them, and joyfully welcomed them back, like a father welcoming a long-lost prodigal son.

Our hearts are important, brothers and sisters in Christ, because within our hearts lie the Holy Spirit that dwells within us, and it is the most important part of our beings. If our hearts are pure, and we keep the Holy Spirit strong within us, and with a powerful anchor of faith in God, we will be able to resist any temptations of the devil and the world’s evils. It is within our hearts that lies the key to defeating evil and keeping strong the faith we have in God.

That was why Christ told His disciples and the people who were with Him that even if they had already had evil thoughts with the opposite sex, they had already committed adultery, even though they had not actually done the deed itself. That is because our hearts are the start of everything, whether things good or evil, is ultimately decided by the state of our hearts. If our hearts are evil and filthy with sin, we will definitely be more inclined to do things that displease the Lord, and vice versa, that we will be more predisposed to do things that please the Lord if we keep our hearts pure and filled with light.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not fear evil, but face it with courage and faith. Let the Holy Spirit come and dwell within all of us, and keep ourselves firmly anchored in God, and in our faith in Christ Jesus, our Lord. That the Spirit will become the Treasure that St. Paul mentioned in the first reading today, encased within our unworthy bodies, but when unveiled through our actions and our words, the Spirit will proclaim the glory of God, for all to see, that they too may believe and repent! Amen.

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Friday, 14 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 5 : 27-32

You have heard that it was said : ‘Do not commit adultery’. But I tell you this : anyone who looks at a woman too lustfully has in fact already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So, if your right eye causes you to sin, pull it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away! It is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell.

It was also said : ‘Anyone who divorces his wife, must give her a written notice of divorce.’ But what I tell you is this : If a man divorces his wife, except in the case of unlawful union, he causes her to commit adultery. And the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

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Friday, 14 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Psalm 115 : 10-11, 15-16, 17-18

I have kept faith even when I said, “I am greatly afflicted.” I have said in my dismay, “To hope in humans is vain.”

It is painful to the Lord to see the death of His faithful. O Lord, I am Your servant, truly Your servant, Your handmaid’s son. You have freed me from my bonds.

I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice; I will call on the Name of the Lord. I will carry out my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people.

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Friday, 14 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

2 Corinthians 4 : 7-15

However, we carry this treasure in vessels of clay, so that this all-surpassing power may not be seen as ours but as God’s. Trials of every sort come to us, but we are not discouraged. We are left without answer, but do not despair; persecuted but not abandoned, knocked down but not crushed.

At any moment we carry in our person the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in us. For we, the living, are given up continually to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may appear in our mortal existence. And as death is at work in us, life comes to you.

We have received the same spirit of faith referred to in Scripture that says : ‘I believed and so I spoke.’ We also believe and so we speak. We know that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus and bring us, with you, into His presence.

Finally, everything is for your good, so that grace will come more abundantly upon you and great will be the thanksgiving for the glory of God.

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Thursday, 13 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters, today we are reminded, as we should, on the importance of love and harmony in our relationship with one another. We are brothers and sisters to one another, as all of us are the same children of God. Before God, we are all the same, regardless of where we came from, our wealth, our possessions, our race, and other things that seems to divide us, and differentiate us.

That is why brothers and sisters, we must build a harmonious relationship between one another, and base that relationship in love and peace. But too often, we place ourselves and our greed before that, and we do not look at our brothers and sisters with love, not even those who are family to us, and therefore, less still those who are unknown to us.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua, a well-known saint, a Franciscan friar. He was a great teacher of the faith, and a humble man, but even more importantly, he was a man of peace, just as St. Francis, the founder of his order was. St. Anthony was committed to love and peace between individuals and reflected that in his life, which he gave into the service of mankind.

Like all the saints and other holy people of God, St. Anthony reflect the true life and offering that God wants from all of us. Yes, brothers and sisters, God wants our love, and He does not want the offerings that we place on the altar, like that of Israel of old. What He wants from us is the love from our hearts, a pure offering in His eyes, and that we live in perfect love and peace with one another, as we are brothers and sisters, all created by Him, our Creator.

That is what our faith is truly about, that we should reflect in ourselves the light of Christ, the light of love, hope, faith, and peace, that everyone who sees us, and all the things that we do will know that we are the children of God, because we practice what God has taught us through Christ, that is both to love Him with all our hearts, our minds, and our souls, and also to do the same to our neighbours, our brethren.

Sadly though, many of us in our world no longer preach the Gospel of love and peace through our deeds and our actions. We have been blinded by the evils of this world, that is hatred, jealousy, and greed, so that we no longer love our fellow brothers and sisters, but instead incite violence, anger, and hatred between one another. War, injustice, oppression, and vengeance are just some of the fruits of these evils, which today we know, brothers and sisters, are all around us.

I want to bring to your attention, the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Syria, who had been in turmoil for many years, and whose people had been subjected to a civil war between competing politicians and the powerful ones, for their own purposes and objectives, but which cause immense suffering for the people. Brothers no longer look upon each other as brothers, and neither do sisters. Families and friendships are divided and devastated. Truly, our Lord would certainly be sad to look at all these.

Injustice is also rampant in our society today, brothers and sisters, how we often treat people unequally, favouring some while treating others unfairly and badly, just because of certain objectives and desires that we possess within us. Some because of greed, some because of lust, and some because of other desires and evils. Even I am sure, brothers and sisters, that some of us had often encountered these, and even be part of these in our own lives!

If we continue to walk down this path of evil and destruction, our God will not look kindly upon us, for He is a friend of the poor, the lonely, the unloved, and the hated ones, the least ones whom we often exploit and hate, but to the Lord they are beloved. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, let us reflect on our lives, on our actions, whether we have lived true to the Gospel of our Lord, and His call for us to be filled with love and peace.

May we follow in the footsteps of St. Anthony of Padua and the holy saints, that we can be transformed, from beings of evil, hatred, prejudice, and violence, into beings of love, justice, and peace. How wonderful will our world become, if only everyone dedicate themselves to the cause of peace and love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 13 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 5 : 20-26

I tell you then, if you are not righteous in a much broader way than the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. You have heard that it was said to our people in the past : ‘Do not commit murder; anyone who does kill will have to face trial.’ But now I tell you : whoever gets angry with a brother or sister will have to face trial.

Whoever insults a brother or sister deserves to be brought before the council. Whoever calls a brother or a sister, “Fool!” deserves to be thrown into the fire of hell. So, if you are about to offer your gift at the altar, and you remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with him, and then come back and offer your gift to God.

Do not forget this : be reconciled with your opponent quickly when you are together on the way to court. Otherwise he will turn you over to the judge, who will hand you over to the police, who will put you in jail. There you will stay, until you have paid the last penny.

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Thursday, 13 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Psalm 84 : 9ab-10, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints. Yet His salvation is near to those who fear Him, and His Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Thursday, 13 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

2 Corinthians 3 : 15 – 2 Corinthians 4 : 1, 3-6

Up to this very day, whenever they read Moses, the veil remains over their understanding, but, for whoever turns to the Lord, the veil shall be removed. The Lord is Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

So, with unveiled faces, we all reflect the Glory of the Lord, while we are transformed into His likeness and experience His Glory more and more by the action of the Lord who is Spirit.

Since this is our ministry mercifully given to us, we do not weaken. In fact if the Gospel we proclaim remains obscure, it is obscure only for those who go to their own destruction. The god of this world has blinded the minds of these unbelievers lest they see the radiance of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is God’s image.

It is not ourselves we preach, but Christ Jesus as Lord; and for Jesus’ sake we are your servants. God who said, “Let the light shine out of darkness”, has also made the light shine in our hearts to radiate and to make known the Glory of God, as it shines in the face of Christ.

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Wednesday, 12 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Christ is our Lord and Messiah. His coming was told in the numerous prophecies by the prophets as written throughout the Old Testament of the Scripture. His coming was indeed not to destroy the Law as written in the Scripture, and not to abolish the teachings of the prophets and the Law and commandments that God has given to Moses, but to fulfill and complete all the prophecies made about Him.

In the first reading today, we also heard about how the ‘text’ of the Law brings death, while the Spirit brings life, and it also seemingly criticise those who minister to the Law. In this we can clearly see, that in his letter to the faithful in Corinth, he was referring to the chief priests and the Pharisees, whom Christ repeatedly called hypocrites, and whom repeatedly had caused troubles during the Lord’s earthly ministry.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, today we are called to live out the Law of God, the Law which God had given to Moses, and then perfected and completely fulfilled by Christ, His Son, that we do not become slaves to the Law, but become alive due to that Law, which is, according to Christ, is all about love, for God Himself is love.

The chief priests and the Pharisees had grown so accustomed and so attached to the Law, that they had entirely forgotten the Spirit of the Law, that is love, and they had entirely misunderstood the meaning of the Law, and its purpose, becoming instead mindless slaves to their own human traditions, which their ancestors established in rituals and traditions to worship the Lord, but over time, becoming corrupted with worldly desires and impurities.

Rituals and observations of the Law had become empty, and prayers had become stale, and lacking the freshness of the Spirit of the Lord. That was what Christ had criticised, when the Pharisees went praying in the public places, showcasing their piety for all to see. That they love human glory instead of seeking heavenly glory of God and praising God, and instead of using the Law as it is intended, they had abused it to their own purposes.

That is why Christ came into our world, not just to be our Saviour, but also to perfect the Law of God, and to explain them clearly to the people of God, that they would no longer misinterpret the Law and therefore sin in the eyes of the Lord. He revealed to those whom He had chosen and those who were willing to listen to His word.

The same too, brothers and sisters in Christ, applies to our Church today. We have our own Law in the Church, that is the Canon Law, to regulate matters pertaining to the Church and the faithful in God, and also the liturgical laws to regulate the way we worship the Law with its rituals and observations, much like that observed by the priests of Israel of old, and during Jesus’ time.

We have to obey these laws and norms, my brothers and sisters in Christ, particularly regarding the Mass and the liturgy, because in the Mass we worship the Lord Himself, and we have to do it worthily. Sadly, there are many today who simply do not care about the liturgy and the proper worship of the Mass as written in the Law of the Church, as are evident in the numerous liturgical abuses in the Masses all around the world.

What is important is, not that we should not obey these laws, nor should we disregard them, but to understand them, by proper preparation and explanations, just as Christ Himself once had done regarding the Laws of Moses, which were given by God. A proper understanding of our Church laws and the liturgical norms in the Mass is a must, brothers and sisters, for improper understanding will certainly lead us astray from God.

But on the other hand, neither should we be so fixated on the rules and the Law that we end up doing everything just for the sake of obeying the Law. Then in that case we are no better than the Pharisees and the chief priest of Jesus’ time. We should not follow the rules simply for the sake of obeying the rules and looking good in the eyes of others.

A simple example would indeed be, the obligation for all of us to attend the Sunday Mass. While it may seem to be trivial, but how many of us actually come to the Mass because we want to come to the Mass and worship the Lord, as all of us should be? I am certain that many of us came to the Mass because we feel that it is an obligation to do so, and being good Catholics, we ‘obeyed’. But, this is not good, because if we do it this way, our heart will not be fully in the Mass, not fully attuned to the worship of the Lord, because our mind and our heart are elsewhere, in our businesses, our other occupations, and not focused towards the Lord.

No, when we come for the Mass, my brothers and sisters in Christ, let us make sure that we truly come to be with God, to love our God, and to praise Him and give thanks to Him for all the good graces and blessings that He had given us. Seek to understand more about our faith and about the Mass from those who have the knowledge and are qualified to teach about the faith to others. Remember, obey the Law because we love the Law and understand it, not just for the sake of obedience, or worse, as a symbol of self-gratification and self-glorification. Amen.

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Wednesday, 12 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 5 : 17-19

Do not think that I have come to annul the Law and the Prophets. I have not come to annul them but to fulfill them. I tell you this : as long as heaven and earth last, not the smallest letter or dot in the Law will change until all is fulfilled.

So then, whoever breaks the least important of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be the least in the kingdom of heaven. On the other hand, whoever obeys them, and teaches others to do the same, will be great in the kingdom of heaven.