Christendom

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Monday, 11 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters, today it is revealed and explained to us all, the nature and the power of faith, that is the faith that we have in God. Faith is truly powerful, and it is also revealed what we ought to do as the children of God, that is to reflect God’s love in all of our actions, and in all that we do. We cannot be truly faithful to God, if we do not do what He asks us to do, and if we do not listen to His words or obey His will.

In the Lord lies all wisdom, knowledge, power, and authority, because He is the Lord and Creator of all things and all in this universe. That is why, we who are mere humans ought to look at Him, believe in Him, His words and His love for us. Unfortunately, many of us took great pride in our own wisdom and intelligence. Not that this is bad, but the way we often do this is by excluding God from our lives and indulging in self-glorification, the glorification of our deeds and achievements and we do not give glory to God.

Through Jesus His Son, our Lord made it clear to us, that we need to know how to love one another, to show love to one another, and to let love govern all our words, actions, and deeds. We cannot belong to God and be faithful to God, if our actions contradict what we believe in. We must walk the talk and not just believe in rhetorics, because such is the faith of the Pharisees, the hypocrites.

Brethren, we are role models for one another, shepherds to one another, and as such, we have to help make sure that each of us, all of us are truly faithful to the Lord our God. We cannot lead our brethren into damnation instead. As the Lord Himself mentioned in today’s Gospel, that great is the sin of those who had misled others, especially so for those who misled the innocent ones. The greater is our sins then, if we do so, and the greater is the punishment due for us.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Martin of Tours, one of the greatest saints and builders of the early Church. St. Martin of Tours lived during the waning years of the Roman Empire in the West, and he was once a Roman soldier turned into a general. Yet, he remained faithful in God and was truly exemplary in his practice of the faith.

St. Martin of Tours was truly a role model for the other Christians of his time. He was loving, just, and charitable, renowned especially for his care and love for the poor and unloved ones in the society. St. Martin of Tours devotedly give his life in dedication to the Lord, even as he continued his career as a Roman soldier. He did not have an empty faith, or faith based on mere words. His faith is truly a living one, and one that is based on love, for God and for his fellow men.

In one instance, it was told that St. Martin of Tours was passing by a road, when he saw a poor man suffering from cold, without any clothing to cover and protect him from the cold. St. Martin was moved by the sight, and true to his faith in God, he cut off a part of his soldier’s cape, and gave it to the poor man as a cloak. Later that night, St. Martin saw an apparition of our Lord Jesus, who showed to him that the old man he helped was none other than Jesus Himself!

Truly, at this juncture we ought to remember what Jesus Himself has told us, that whatever we do for our brethren, to the least of them, the poorest, the least loved, and those whose sufferings are the greatest, we do it for God Himself. That was the true virtues and righteousness of St. Martin, which we all can follow too.

St. Martin was chosen later in his life to be the Bishop of Tours, and he carried on his duties faithfully, as the shepherd of God’s people, till the end of his life, well-known by many in Christendom as a holy, humble, and faithful servant of God. We too can follow in his footsteps, if we choose to do so, and take concrete steps in following after his examples. Nothing is impossible for God, and therefore nothing too should be impossible for us.

Therefore, brethren, from now on, let us be conscious to our own sins, to our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities to sin, and let sin not hinder us on our way towards the Lord. Let us be a reflection of our Lord and His love, in our own actions and deeds, through forgiving and loving one another, committing ourselves in love to our brethren in need, just as St. Martin of Tours himself had once done.

May the Lord guide us and continue to watch over us, as we grow in faith and love, that we will always ever draw closer to His presence and to His loving embrace. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 11 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 17 : 1-6

Jesus said to His disciples, “Scandals will necessarily come and cause people to fall; but woe to the one who brings them about. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck. Truly, this would be better for that person, than to cause one of these little ones to fall.”

“Listen carefully : If your brother offends you, tell him, and if he is sorry, forgive him. And if he offends you seven times in one day, but seven times he says to you, ‘I am sorry.’ Forgive him.”

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” And the Lord said, “If you have faith, even the size of a mustard seed, you may say to this tree, ‘Be uprooted, and plant yourself in the sea!’ And it will obey you.”

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Monday, 11 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 138 : 1-3, 4-6, 7-8, 9-10

O Lord, You know me : You have scrutinised me. You know when I sit and when I rise; beforehand You discern my thoughts. You observe my activities and times of rest; You are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is formed in my mouth, You know what it is all about, o Lord. From front to back You hedge me round, shielding me with Your protecting hand. Your knowledge leaves me astounded, it is too high for me to reach.

Where else could I go from Your Spirit? Where could I flee from Your presence? You are there if I ascend the heavens; You are there if I descend to the depths.

If I ride on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand shall guide me and Your right hand shall hold me safely.

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Monday, 11 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Wisdom 1 : 1-7

Love justice, you who rule over the world. Think rightly of God, seek Him with simplicity of heart, for He reveals Himself to those who do not challenge Him and is found by those who do not distrust Him.

Crooked thinking distances you from God, and His Omnipotence, put to the test, confounds the foolish. Wisdom does not enter the wicked nor remain in a body that is enslaved to sin. The Holy Spirit who instructs us shuns deceit; It keeps aloof from foolishness and is ill at ease when injustice is done.

Wisdom is a spirit, a friend to man, and will not leave the blasphemous unpunished, because God knows His innermost feelings, truly sees His thoughts and hears what He says. For God’s Spirit has filled the whole world and He who holds together all things, knows each word that is spoken.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brethren in Christ! Today we revisit and reiterate again a centre component of our faith, that is the faith in the resurrection of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ, who died for our sake and rose up on the third day after His death. This concept of thr resurrection is so crucial and central for all of us, firstly because without the resurrection of Christ, we have no hope for salvation, and death will claim us all, as our eternal fate and punishment.

Then, secondly, without resurrection, we will also have no hope. Why so? This is because, to all of us, Christ has promised all who believe in Him, and those who accept Him as their Lord and Saviour and profess His death and resurrection from the dead. This is why the belief and faith in the resurrection is essential to all of us, for if we do not believe in it, we can never have a part in God and in His salvation.

The Sadducees in today’s Gospel reading was a group of highly educated people in the Jewish society, who were adamantly against any notion or idea of resurrection. They believed that resurrection is a myth, and resurrection is impossible, in their highly ‘educated’ and logical mind. That was why they, besides the Pharisees, were one of the two major opponents against Jesus.

The Sadducees used the example of seven brothers to highlight the issue of resurrection, and how for them it does not make sense, and even linked it to the Law of God itself, given through Moses. They did not believe in anything spiritual and otherworldly, and they prefer to believe what they can see and what they can reason or use their logic in. They did not believe in angels, spirits, and the resurrection itself. It was a very nihilistic viewpoint and a belief where human existence is nothingness.

The Lord rebuked them hard, by pointing to them the nature of salvation and the promised eternal life He had promised to all those who believe in Him. The world of the afterlife is not a world of pleasure and worldly desires. We will receive and experience eternal joy and happiness in heaven, but this joy is not expressed in the physical terms, and neither will we have joy as in our human and worldly understanding.

In the afterlife, in our eternal bliss and happiness, we are happy and we rejoice because the Lord is with us, and we are with the Lord. The barrier that once had separated us from His love and presence had been completely removed. Upon our resurrection, we are reunited with God in perfection. No more shall sin have any power over us. The Lord is in us and we are in God.

Nowadays, we too see the same phenomenon happening around us. How our society has gradually been transformed, from one that is truly faithful and devoted in God, into one that is increasingly skeptical and unbelieving in God. Mankind prefer to trust what they see and observe more than the faith that is in their hearts. And over time, they grow to even doubt the existence of God Himself, who has loved us all these while.

Many people would like to try to contradict the faith in God and things like science and knowledge, making it as if faith in God is exclusive of wisdom, knowledge, and science itself. They try to make it as if, if you are to believe in God, that you are backwards, that you are against the betterment of mankind through science, and so on and so forth.

Yet, they got it all wrong, just as the Sadducees had in the past, during the time of Jesus. They who preferred reason and sense over faith failed to realise that their very wisdom, their very ability to deduce and sense things around them, came from God Himself, as gifts to all of us. It is the Lord who is the font of all wisdom and truth, and by believing in Him, we are taken away from all falsehoods and remain in the truth.

There are things in this world that is beyond, and indeed far beyond our comprehension, and our ability to understand them. That is why we need faith in us. We cannot always depend on our thinking ability to deduce things around us. Our human ability is limited, and we cannot always think that we are always right, if we think that something is so and so. Worse still is that many of us, just because we lack faith, and we based our judgments on flawed human observations, dismiss the greatness of our God wholesale, refusing to believe in our Lord, much like the Sadducees of old.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord has chosen to come down to us in human form, in Jesus Christ. He did that so that through His own death and resurrection, He can bring mankind out of the chasm they have led themselves into. It is because of sin that mankind has fallen and were distanced from eternal glory and the life destined for us.

Resurrection, my dear friends, is a powerful statement against sin and death. Just as Adam’s sin had brought mankind from eternity into a life conquered by death, and where the devil and sin had authority over us once, with the coming, the death, and the resurrection of Christ as the new Adam, He showed all creation that death does not have the final say. Definitely not the final say over us.

If we do not believe in the resurrection, then what is our life about? We have no hope beyond death, since to us, death is the end to all things. That is why, many of us today fear death so much, and tried our best to avoid it, through various means, seeking to avoid death as best as possible. We fear death, but in the end the irony is that for those who fear death, death will claim them ever more.

We should not fear death, because death is not the end of all things. Many of us fear death, because we are too happy with what we have in this world now, in our material possessions and our exposure to worldly pleasures. We do not realise that true joy and happiness can only lie in the glory of the resurrection, and the promised new and eternal life with God.

This is what the seven brothers martyred for their faith, in the Book of the Maccabees fought for. They sought not the glory of this world, which they could have easily gained from the king if they abandoned their faith. Instead, they persevered and suffered, and fought for the everlasting gift of heaven.

Hence, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all not be doubtful as the Sadducees and many of us today had done. Let us deepen our faith in God and do not fear to proclaim Him as our Lord and rejoice in His resurrection, just as we are made worthy and promised resurrection for ourselves. God be with us all, watch over us, till the day when He calls us back to Him, raising us up from this world, body and soul, in glorious resurrection. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 20 : 27-38

Then some Sadducees arrived. These people claim that there is no resurrection, and they asked Jesus this question, “Master, in the Law Moses told us, ‘If anyone  dies leaving a wife, but no children, his brother must take the wife, and any child born to them will be regarded as the child of the deceased.'”

“Now, there were seven brothers; the first married a wife, but he died without children; and the second and the third took the wife; in fact, all seven died leaving no children. Last of all the woman died. On the day of the resurrection, to which of them will the woman be a wife? For all seven had her as a wife.”

And Jesus replied, “Taking a husband or a wife is proper to people of this world, but for those who are considered worthy of the world to come, and of resurrection from the dead, there is no more marriage. Besides, they cannot die, for they are like the angels. They are sons and daughters of God, because they are born of the resurrection.”

“Yes, the dead will be raised, as Moses revealed at the burning bush, when he called the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For God is God of the living, and not of the dead, for to Him everyone is alive.”

Alternative Reading (Shorter version)

 

Luke 20 : 27, 34-38

Then some Sadducees arrived. These people claim that there is no resurrection, and Jesus replied, “Taking a husband or a wife is proper to people of this world, but for those who are considered worthy of the world to come, and of resurrection from the dead, there is no more marriage. Besides, they cannot die, for they are like the angels. They are sons and daughters of God, because they are born of the resurrection.”

“Yes, the dead will be raised, as Moses revealed at the burning bush, when he called the Lord, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. For God is God of the living, and not of the dead, for to Him everyone is alive.”

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Thessalonians 2 : 16 – 2 Thessalonians 3 : 5

May Christ Jesus our Lord who has loved us, may God our Father, who in His mercy gives us everlasting comfort and true hope, strengthen you. May He encourage your hearts and make you steadfast in every good work and word.

Finally, brothers and sisters, pray for us that the Word of God may spread rapidly and be glorified everywhere as it was with you. May God guard us from wicked and evil people, since not everyone has faith.

The Lord is faithful; He will strengthen you and keep you safe from the Evil One. Besides, we have in the Lord this confidence that you are doing and will continue to do what we order you. May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 16 : 1, 5-6, 8b and 15

Hear a just cause, o Lord, listen to my complaint. Give heed to my prayer for there is no deceit on my lips.

Hold firm my steps upon Your path, that my feet may not stumble. I call on You, You will answer me, o God; incline Your ear and hear my word.

Under the shadow of Your wings hide me. As for me, righteous in Your sight, I shall see Your face and, awakening, gaze my fill on Your likeness.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Maccabees 7 : 1-2, 9-14

It happened also that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king had them scourged and flogged to force them to eat the flesh of a pig which was prohibited by the Law.

One of them, speaking in behalf of all, said, “What do you want to find out from us? We are prepared to die right now rather than break the law of our ancestors.”

At the moment of his last breath, he said, “Murderer, you now dismiss us from life, but the king of the world will raise us up. He will give us eternal life since we die for His laws.”

After this, they punished the third. He stuck his tongue out when asked to, bravely stretched forth his hands, and even had the courage to say : “I have received these limbs from God, but for love of His laws I now consider them as nothing. For I hope to recover them from God.”

The king and his court were touched by the courage of this young man, so unconcerned about his own sufferings. When this one was dead, they subjected the fourth to the same torture. At the point of death, he cried out, “I would rather die at the hands of mortals, and wait for the promises of God who will raise us up; you, however, shall have no part in the resurrection of life.”

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Saturday, 9 November 2013 : Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Today, all of us in the Holy Mother Church, that is all the people of God in communion with each other, and therefore united as one Church of God, celebrate the feast of the dedication of the Basilica of St. John Lateran, or the Cathedral of the Diocese of Rome, the place where the very Vicar of Christ, the Pope, has his seat of authority. It is the mother church of all Christendom, the primary church of the entire Universal Church.

We celebrate today the dedication of that Basilica, the great place of worship of our God, which had stood since the day when the faith in God finally triumphed over all its oppressors, under the rule of the first Christian Emperor Constantine. This Basilica was once an Imperial palace complex for the Roman Emperors in Rome, and it was donated to the Church by the Emperor Constantine, over seventeen centuries ago, with massive state funding to help establish proper places of worship.

The Bishop of Rome, that is the successor of St. Peter as the Vicar of Christ on earth, the leader of the entire Universal Church, received that generous donation from the pious Emperor, and he made what will become the Basilica of St. John Lateran, as the Cathedral and seat of the Pope, the centre and heart of the Universal Church. That Basilica is dedicated to St. John the Evangelist and to the Lord Saviour of all mankind. Truly a place of marvel, fitting to be the heart of all Christendom. Today we celebrate the dedication of that wonder of God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings have been designed to fit with the occasion, and therefore, they deal with the matter of the holy Temple of God. In the first reading, we are told of the heavenly Temple, the Temple of God in the glory of heaven, out of which gushes forth living water that satisfies and saves. It is the life-giving water that came from the Lord Himself

But the Temple of God is not just a physical temple or the heavenly temple. It is also in fact, all of us the faithful ones of God. For, ever since we were baptised and sealed in the Holy Name of the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, God has dwelled within us, through the Holy Spirit that comes and dwells within all of us, who had been marked as the children of God.

That is why, all of us, our hearts and bodies are the Temple of God and the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Hence, it is why the Lord continues to encourage us to do good deeds and avoid things evil and unworthy of God, basically things that can corrupt the holiness of our Temples, that is our hearts and bodies. We must always be vigilant, as we cannot be complacent or evil may corrupt the Temple that is our body and heart.

Just as we keep the Temple of God, that is our churches, cathedrals, and also the Basilica of St. John Lateran, which dedication we remember today, holy and good at all times, then we too must and should keep the Temple that is our hearts and bodies pure at all times. If we wreath ourselves in love, in God’s love, then we can readily maintain the purity of our Temples.

Our mouth is the gate to this Temple, and our hands, limbs and others are the courtyard. If we are to ensure the purity of the Temple of God in us, we have to make sure that these places are clean as well. We cannot let the devil and his agents to corrupt these that the Temple that is our body, heart and soul be corrupted with sin.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to watch our words, our deeds and actions, that we do not end up committing sin through them. That we will not make dirty and unworthy the Temple, where the Lord resides in us. Jesus was right to be angry, when He saw the House of God, that is the Temple of Jerusalem, made into a house of sin, by the corrupt practices of the merchants and sellers of the animal sacrifices and money changers, all of whom cheated their customers all those who came to genuinely worship the Lord.

The Lord’s wrath is great against all those people, and He will not let them go so easily. The Lord will show them His justice. Therefore, we too, brethren, should strive to always be upright in our dealings, in our words and actions. How to do so? By having a strong and healthy spiritual life and having closer and intimate relationship with the Lord our God!

We have to pray, pray faithfully, pray with zeal, and pray with true devotion and dedication to God, whenever we pray. Through prayer, the Lord will grant us His love and blessing, opening the floodgates of His blessing upon us. We will be strong, and purified by the waters that flow from the Temple of God in heaven, the life-giving water, and the water that purifies. That water is also Jesus, the One who had given up His life for us, that from Him, and to all who believes in Him, a new life may be given to them, a life eternal in God.

Hence, as we rejoice today in the dedication of this great Basilica of St. John Lateran, the centre and heart of Christendom, let us also take the time to reflect and make the effort to keep clean and pure, the Temple of God, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, that is our hearts and our bodies, that we can always worship the Lord worthily and with the fullness of God’s blessings. God bless us all. Amen.