Catholic

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Thursday, 7 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us stand with God and declare our faith and love in Him, that we would not be like the stiff-necked people in Israel in the past, and those who spurned God’s love and even accused Him of doing evil in His divine ministry in this world. For they were blind, blinded by their human weaknesses, blinded by sin and evil that they have committed.

For they have no true love for the Lord in their hearts. They love not the Lord but the praise of men and worldly honour. For these people failed to see the works of the Holy Spirit in Jesus, in healing the disabled, and casting out demons from the possessed. They instead submitted to their human jealousy and hatred of the good deeds of the Lord. There were also those, as mentioned in the Gospel today, put the Lord to the test, to see if He is really sent by God, to test His powers by sending a sign for them to see.

In fact, the act that Jesus did in casting out demons from the possessed had been the very sign that they have sought, in order for them to believe in Him. But they still failed to see, for their eyes were veiled with a thick layer of worldly sin and filth, that prevented them from seeing the works of God that is good. Jealousy is another thing, that it was indeed possible that in the hearts of some of the people gathered there, there brewed jealousy for the powers that God had, in Christ. It was the same case in the Acts of the Apostles, where Simon the sorceror attempted to bribe the Apostles to have the same authority and power given to them. But the authority of God is not purchaseable, and God gives it only to those whom He deems worthy.

Indeed, brothers and sisters, today God wants to show us that we have to believe in God, and not to be distracted by the evil one, that we begin to accuse God’s works as evil, out of our blindness to see the truth, which eventually will cause divisions between us, and in the end, as Christ had said, we will not be able to stand united, and shall fall down.

Truly, we are One, One in Christ, one as a member of the One Body of Christ, that is the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, that is our Catholic Church. We must all always remember the warning that Christ had given us today, that no house divided against itself will be able to stand and survive. The devil will not survive if he is divided against his servants and his collaborators, and therefore, so does our Church.

Throughout the millenia since the birth of the Church, there had been many dissents and divisions that led to the painful separation and destruction of unity in the Church of Christ, in parallel to the civil war of the nation as mentioned by Christ. We managed to stay together as the Catholic Church, and even managed to welcome some of our separated brethren back into unity with the One and only Church of our Lord. But even within our Church today, there are divisions, that will threaten to destroy the unity and harmony between all the faithful ones in God.

There are those who are blinded to the reason for unity, and chose to separate themselves from the Universal Church to pursue their own goals and ideas, rejecting all other ideas and anything that our Church had come through in the past 50 years since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. On the other hand, there are many who had succumbed to the world, and buoyed by the evils of the world, begin to demand for worldly changes and innovations to enter the Church.

We must learn to be courageous and say no to all these things that brought disunity and discord into the holy Church of God. We must stand firm despite all the pulls that the world and evil that tried to break up the unity of the Church. How are we to bring back our separated brethren in Christ, those who had been lost in their long journeys in the faith, into the One Church of God, if we ourselves are divided in a civil war against ourselves?

Therefore. brothers and sisters, once again let us pray for unity, both among ourselves, the faithful in Christ already united in His Church, and ourselves and our separated brethren in the myriads of ‘churches’ throughout the world, with our brethren in the Eastern Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox Churches, and that very soon, Christ’s prayer and wish that all of us may be one (That they all may be One) just as He and the Father is one and indivisible, will be fulfilled, and all faithful in God, will be One.

Today, we also commemorate the memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, who were martyrs in the early days of the Church. Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity were a noble mother and her slave respectively, who were martyred in the height days of the Roman Empire, due to their steadfastness to stand by their faith and their God, and refused all forms of persuasion for them to leave their faith and convert back into paganism. Their faith in God and solid stand had earned them martyrdom and thus eternal life and place in heaven with God who loves them and all of us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us not be divided among ourselves and instead strive for unity, beginning from those near to us, and gradually let us work for unity of all, reach out to our brother Christians who is not yet in full communion with the Holy Church of God. Pray that all will soon return and be united in Christ in the Church He had established on Peter, the Rock.

Pray for us, Saints Perpetua and Felicity, that we also can follow in your footsteps and imitate the strong and unshakeable faith both of you had in the Lord, even to giving up your life for God’s sake, out of love for Him and His children, all of us. Amen.

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(Update) Summary of the Fifth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals : Thursday, 7 March 2013

http://www.news.va/en/news/general-congregations-with-all-electors-present-st

Rumour had mentioned that the St. Peter’s Basilica is booked for the Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff (Missa pro Eligendo Pontifice), but has been dismissed as untrue by Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See Press Office.

152 Cardinals attended the Fifth General Congregation, with 114 Cardinal-electors attending. The last Cardinal-elector to arrive, Cardinal Jean-Baptiste Pham Minh-Man of Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam will arrive in time to attend the Sixth General Congregation on Thursday evening.

New Particular Congregation leaders are elected to aid the Camerlengo during this period with term of 3 days each cycle. Particular Congregation is only limited to Cardinal-electors and divided into three groups depending on the orders of the Cardinals (Bishops, priests, or deacons), and also scheduled to meet among themselves for discussions.

1. Cardinal Bishops : Cardinal Bechara Rai (Cardinal-Patriarch)

2. Cardinal Priests : Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya of Kinshasa, Zaire

3. Cardinal Deacons : Cardinal Velasio de Paolis

Dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Angelo Sodano has also read and sent the letter of condolence to the late Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chavez.

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Thursday, 7 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs (Psalm)

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put me to the test.

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Thursday, 7 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, Martyrs (First Reading)

Jeremiah 7 : 23-28

One thing I did command them : Listen to My voice and I will be your God and you will be My people. Walk in the way I command you and all will be well with you. But they did not listen and paid no attention; they followed the bad habits of their stubborn heart and turned away from Me.

From the time I brought their forebearers out of Egypt until this day, I have continually sent them My servants, the prophets, but this stiff-necked people did not listen. They paid no attention and were worse than their forebearers.

You may say all these things to them but they will not listen; you will call them but they will not answer. This is a nation that did not obey YHVH and refused to be disciplined; truth has perished and is no longer heard from their lips.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

God our Father, had given the Ten Commandments to the people of Israel through Moses. These laws were meant to be the guidelines of how the people of God should live. The prophets too came over the centuries, during and after the times of the kingdom of Israel, to preach and explain about the Law, and at the same time proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, who will set all things right and save the world.

That Messiah is Christ, who came into the world, the divine Word of God, becoming a humble man, born through the Virgin Mary in Bethlehem. He came indeed not to destroy or displace the Law of God. Rather, He came to fulfill it, to purify it, to make sure that indeed the Law is for man so that they can orientate themselves and love God and their fellow brethren, in what Christ has taught the disciples, that is the two main Commandments of Love, that is to love God with all our being, and to love our fellow men as much as we love ourselves.

Such is the perfection of the Law that God had first given to the people of Israel, and then Christ had spread throughout the world as the Universal Law of love. In obeying and living out this Law, it is how we please the Lord, who will see us as worthy of Him. No more excessive laws and rites that we must follow, such as the 613 laws of the Jewish Law, which evolved from the laws that God has told Moses while he was on the Mount Horeb, the mountain of God.

It may seem that the commandments of love are easy to be done. After all there are only two of them is it not? No! In fact, these two are the hardest ones to be one. Because, it is never easy to love God and our fellow mankind. To truly love God is to spend our time for Him, to listen to Him, through our constant prayers, and to do His will, which is of course, linked to loving mankind, as when we do good deeds to our brethren, we show our sincere love for God. Love for God cannot be just with words and all prayers. These devotions and prayers are indeed important, but without a concrete action to live our faith, and our love, we are nothing but empty husks without love.

God wants to embrace all of us, no matter how broken we are, and how sinful we are. Better for us to be ugly and broken outside, but with the love of God inside us, waiting to break free, rather than being beautiful outside, and empty and dark inside. Lucifer the lightbringer too were once very beautiful and amazing, but inside, he has a dark pride, the pride that brought down many, angels and man alike, into the rebellion against God.

Because we are so rebellious, especially you all should know about the long story of the Israelites since their delivery from Egypt all the way to the time of Jesus, especially in the Book of Kings, how they even slaughter the prophets of the Lord, disobeyed His commandments, and spurned His love. This is why God set those rules as the Law to ensure that the people, tempted as they are, and weak as they are, and vulnerable as they are to sin and evil, through the Law, they can be safeguarded.

Nevertheless, by the time of Jesus, people had lost so much of the ideas and the original intentions of the Law that they ended up being ‘enslaved’ by the very Law that God has given them to safeguard them, through the Pharisees and their strict observation of the rules and the laws. It is through Christ that mankind was once again awakened to the true meaning of the Law, that is a Law of love that is to bring mankind closer to God, and to lead in the reconciliation with God, from the rebellion of our forefathers.

None but Christ Himself, the Messiah, and the Son of God, implemented what He preached, that is to give Himself in greatest form of love to all of us, that is His Sacrifice on the Cross. Through that love He had given us, we now have hope of life in Him, and to be reunited with God, as Christ became our bridge to return back towards the Lord.

We don’t have to give our life as the proof and sign of our love to God, but what matters is, in whatever things we do, even little ones, let us always remember to thank God, either in happiness or sorrow, in good times or bad, and to share the love God has planted in us to our neighbours, that the love will not just stay there, but blossom to let the love of God manifest in others, and therefore the world.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us begin by doing small acts of love in our daily lives, acts of love that can brighten both our days and those around us, especially those who sorrow, and those who have lost hope. Bring to them the warmth of love and hope that is from God, and kindle in them a new fire of God’s love. Let us imitate the example of Christ who had loved us so much so as to give Himself up for our sake, that just as He was glorified on His Resurrection, we too can share in that glory, in the fullness of God’s love and compassion. Amen.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (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.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (Psalm)

Psalm 147 : 12-13, 15-16, 19-20

Exalt the Lord, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.

He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word. He spreads snow like wool; He scatters frost like ashes.

It is He who tells Jacob His words, His laws and decrees to Israel. This He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them.

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Wednesday, 6 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Deuteronomy 4 : 1, 5-9

And now, Israel, listen to the norms and laws which I teach that you may put them into practice. And you will live and enter and take possession of the land which YHVH, the God of your fathers, gives you.

See, as YHVH, my God, ordered me, I am teaching you the norms and the laws that you may put them into practice in the land you are going to enter and have as your own. If you observe and practice them, other peoples will regard you as wise and intelligent. When they come to know of all these laws, they will say, “There is no people as wise and as intelligent as this great nation.”

For in truth, is there a nation as great as ours, whose gods are as near to it as YHVH, our God, is to us, whenever we call upon Him? And is there a nation as great as ours whose norms and laws are just as this Law which I give you today?

But be careful and be on your guard. Do not forget these things which your own eyes have seen nor let them depart from your heart as long as you live. But on the contrary, teach them to your children and to your children’s children.

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Fourth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals : Some news and summary

http://www.news.va/en/news/general-congregations-profile-of-future-pope-emerg

After the end of the Fourth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals this morning, Wednesday, 6 March 2013, the dates of the Conclave had yet to be finalised. It is most likely that the decision on the date of the Conclave awaits the remaining Cardinal-electors who has yet arrived in Rome.

113 of the 115 Cardinal-electors slated to vote in the Conclave have arrived and taken part in the Fourth General Congregation this morning, and therefore, there are only two remaining Cardinal-electors still on their way to Rome.

Some Cardinals expresses the wish to have more time for discernment and the need to have more time to wait until the Conclave begins for careful considerations, but many others also express the wish to have the Conclave completed with the election of a new Pope before the Holy Week commences on Sunday, 24 March 2013. The College of Cardinals had signalled that they will give a few days notice prior to the beginning of the Conclave on the date.

51 Cardinals have so far used their right to give speech in front of the College of Cardinals, and through the meetings so far, qualities necessary for the next Pope has been emerging. The need for an intellectual and deeply rooted Pope like Pope Benedict XVI, but with a broader reach and willingness to approach others for discussions such as in the matter of interreligious dialogue.

Also the need for a more pastoral pope with experience as pastor and not just as theologian or curialist, that is to have significant work experience as bishop/archbishop of diocese/archdiocese (My personal opinion here shows that, just as many others have pointed out that these qualities can be found in the person of Cardinal Scola of Milan, but let God decide on that).

Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See Press Office, in the following press conference has also confirmed that Cardinal Angelo Comastri as the Archpriest of the Basilica of St. Peter, will be the presider of the prayer for the Universal Church service at 5 pm Rome time (CET) today (Wednesday, 5 March 2013), live from Vatican Player at http://www.vatican.va/video/ at St. Peter’s Basilica.

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Tuesday, 5 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Forgiveness is not an easy thing to be done. It is a difficult thing to do, but yet also a very noble virtue. Forgiveness allow us to transcend hatred and evil, and allow us to break free from that cycle of hatred and death, and instead enter into the realm of love and compassion. For love is not complete without forgiveness, and how can we truly love someone if we have something between us and that person, that we have yet to forgive?

God loves us and He will never leave us in trouble. Just like the king, if we humble ourselves, and throw ourselves at the feet of the Lord, God will surely have pity on us and be merciful. But there is of course limit to God’s mercy, and there is also something that we have to do, that is to truly transform ourselves, to prove to the Lord that we are truly regretful and repentant of all our sins and faults.

How to do that? Not to do public penance and awesome lamentations, and neither do we fast in public and show our regret, but what matters is, our heart. A contrite heart and a broken spirit, that seeks the Lord for healing and forgiveness. These are what the Lord truly wants from us, as these are the sign of our sincerity and our true love for Him, instead of love that is hidden beneath layers of pride and self-vanity.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us use this holy and fruitful season of Lent, to forgive one another of the faults we have made, either intentionally or unintentionally. Let us reach out to one another in forgiveness and in sincere love, that in doing so, we too show our great love for the Lord. Do not keep grudge for one another, and do not hate, no matter how great the temptations are, for to hate is to bring ourselves into sin, and into evil, and finally into death and separation from God.

Give thanks to the Lord for all the wonders He had given us, for all the guidance He had given us, especially through difficult times, and let us always strive to orient ourselves towards Him and place Him at the centre of our life. Through regular and constant attendance of the Holy Mass, devotions and prayers, and asking His glorious saints and blesseds to pray for us, our faith and our love for God, and for man alike will only ever grow stronger and stronger.

Pray for one another, and especially now that the Church is preparing for the Conclave, let us also pray for the Cardinals that they can elect a new Pope who is loving, faithful, and filled with the Holy Spirit in his leadership of God’s people on this world. Amen.