Christian sermons

by

Tuesday, 23 May 2017 : 6th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we quickly approach the coming of the Solemnity of the Ascension, during which we remember that forty days after His glorious resurrection, our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into His heavenly glory, we recall our Lord’s promise that even though we see Him no more, just as much as the Apostles did not see Him anymore after that, the faith in Him and His truth still remained and will prevail in the end.

He has not left us behind without hope, for He Himself has assured us that He is always with us, and sent us the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to guide us in our path and to lead us to the right paths, as He had done so with the Apostles, who despite the difficulties and challenges they faced, they continued to persevere on through against the odds and against all the forms of oppression they faced.

And according to the Lord, the sin of the world is disbelief, the lack of faith in Him, which was shown by all those who refused to believe in the Lord, and all who opposed the works of the Apostles, as exemplified in the first reading today, by all those who rose up against St. Paul and Silas, the slave owners of the city of Philippi, instigating the officials to throw them into prison and to torture them.

That is because the world, filled with wickedness and evil, ruled by Satan and his allies, is not willing to let the Lord’s truth and ways to be propagated lest their own ways are threatened. Similarly, therefore, there were many enemies of the Apostles, all those who sought to undermine their works and to stop the preaching of the Good News and the truth of the Gospel.

And yet, again and again, God has always provided for His faithful ones, for all those who cling to His truth and obey His will. He has always loved all of them, and did not leave them behind. Even if His servants were to suffer persecution, prejudice and torture at the hands of their enemies, but many of them remained resolute and true to their faith, because they knew that God Who is always ever faithful will bless them with eternal grace and joy as He promised.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians all of us are called to serve Him in the same manner as the Apostles had done, to be courageous in proclaiming God’s truth, not just through words and proclamations, but even more importantly, through our actions and deeds, by doing what the Lord had commanded us to do, and therefore gain for ourselves the justification of our faith.

There will be lots of challenges and difficulties, and it is often that even those who are close to us may suddenly detest us and disown us because we believe in the Lord and in His ways, and refuse to conform to the ways of the world. But we have to persevere, for it is in living faithfully in accordance with God’s ways that we shall be saved, by our devotion and commitment to His cause.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all renew our commitment to live a faithful life to the Lord, giving our all to Him and give our best ability in order to love Him and to love our fellow neighbours, as He had told us to do. May the Lord be with us in this journey of life, and may He strengthen our faith, so that we will always be ever courageous and strong amidst the challenges we may encounter in life because of our faith in God. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Monday, 22 May 2017 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Rita of Cascia, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we are all reminded that as Christians, all of us must remain united with the Lord, and we cannot be separated from Him in our faith. We must remain truly and firmly rooted in Him, the One and only True Vine, out of which all truth and graces come from. If we are separated from Him, we shall perish.

That is the fundamental truth which all of us Christians must be aware of, that we have to cling to the truth which the Lord had revealed to us, and He has established a vessel through which all of these can be done, namely through the Church He had founded upon the foundation of the Apostle St. Peter and with the assistance of the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord.

It is through the Church that God had done many of His wonderful works in this world, even though He no longer physically walks among us in this world as He had done at the time when He was still with His Apostles and disciples prior to His Ascension into heaven. Yet, God Who ascended in glory to heaven never left behind His Church and His people, and He is always ever with them through good times and bad times alike.

And as Jesus mentioned in the Gospel today, the world needs to know about our Lord Jesus, about the love which He had shown His Father, our Father and Creator. For Jesus is the Son of God, Who had assumed the flesh of mankind, that by sharing in our humanity, He might show all of us the meaning of true faith and devotion to God, the meaning of perfect obedience and submission to the will of God.

That is the mission which Jesus our Lord had given to His Apostles and disciples, as He entrusted it to them before He ascended in His glory to heaven. This is the primary mission of the Church, the salvation of all souls, that all may be freed from the darkness of their sins and wickedness, and come into the light of the Lord. It is important for us to remember this as we are all parts of the Church, and as the members of God’s Church we have our responsibilities and obligations.

We cannot overlook or ignore this obligation, as without us, then who will be the ones to bear forth the word of God and tell the world of His salvation? It was because of the Apostles and their dedication to their given mission, which had brought about the birth and the growth of the Church. They have laboured hard for the propagation of the Good News of God’s salvation, and many had been saved through them.

In the same manner, many of the holy saints and devout servants of God throughout the ages and history have dedicated themselves, their lives and their efforts in the good works of the Lord, bringing salvation upon many souls, not least of all, the saint whose memory we remember today, namely St. Rita of Cascia. St. Rita of Cascia was a holy religious, an Italian widower, who was renowned for her great piety in life.

And she was also a devoted wife and mother, who was known to persuade her husband to get rid of his violent and abusive lifestyle, often getting into conflict with rival families and groups. Unfortunately, it ended with him being murdered by his enemies, leaving St. Rita of Cascia a widow and her children without a father. During those turbulent times, where rivalry and vengeance were common, St. Rita of Cascia strongly dissuaded her children from seeking vengeance.

As it was inevitable that her children would end up committing sins by the blood feud and vengeance that her larger family plotted, it was told that St. Rita of Cascia begged in her prayers before the Lord, that her sons should be spared the fate of eternal damnation, by calling them up to heaven early. It was told that, precisely that was what the Lord granted to her, by their death through dysentery in the same year.

After that, she joined the monastery, but the nuns feared her husband’s families’ feuding that would affect the community. As a result, she was allowed to join on a condition that she should help to resolve the bloody feud among the noble families. St. Rita of Cascia managed to do just that, through her hard work she made it possible for the feuding families and nobles to be reconciled with each other and ceased all forms of hostilities.

The examples of St. Rita of Cascia, her great piety and devotion to the Lord, her exemplary lifestyle and commitment to her faith should be inspiration to all of us. All of us should be more and more inspired to follow in her footsteps, in how we ought to live our faith life, and therefore, fulfilling our obligations as the members of the Church, as I mentioned earlier in this homily, to bring the people of God closer to God, and get them out of the darkness and into the light, through our actions.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all pray that the Lord will give us strength, courage and commitment, so that we will be able to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles, the holy saints and martyrs, especially the holy woman, St. Rita of Cascia, so that by our good works and deeds, we may bring more and more souls towards the salvation in God. May God bless us all. Amen.

by

Sunday, 21 May 2017 : Sixth Sunday of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the sixth in the season of Easter, all of us gathered together in the celebration of the Holy Mass are all called to remember that the Lord has given us His very own Holy Spirit to dwell in us, as the Helper and Advocate which He had promised us all through what He had said to His disciples, as we heard it ourselves in the Gospel passage today.

As we approach the end of the season of Easter, fifty days of celebration of the glorious resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, culminating at the Solemnity of the Pentecost, we are preparing ourselves to commemorate that momentous event in the entire history of the Church, the day when the Lord sent the Holy Spirit to all of His Apostles and disciples, giving them the power and courage to go forth and proclaim His Good News to all the nations, essentially marking the beginning of the Church.

The Holy Spirit has descended upon the face of the earth, and by their imparting upon the Apostles and the disciples, the Holy Spirit Himself has been given to all the faithful upon whom the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord had laid their hands on, passing down the same gifts that the Lord had given them to their successors, and from their successors to their successors’ successors, and eventually unto us.

And because the Lord Himself has dwelled in us, first of all, by the life that God the Father has given us, and by the Most Precious Body and Blood which God the Son has given us to eat and drink, and by the coming of God the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, all of us have been sealed, by the Sacrament of Initiation, through Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist, in the Name of the Lord’s Most Holy Trinity, and God Himself is in us, and He lives inside each one of us.

And if God is inside us, living in us, and really present in each one of us, then surely we cannot defile our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our souls. As St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, we are all Temples of the Holy Spirit, that is our entire being, our entire body, mind, heart and soul. We are God’s dwelling and holy tabernacles on earth.

If we do our best to give the best things for the church, by bowing, kneeling, adoring and falling flat before God, and since we believe in the Real Presence in the Most Holy Eucharist, using only the finest materials of gold and precious metals for chalices and ciboriums, and the finest tabernacles and monstrances to contain the Most Precious Body and Blood of the Lord, then should we not do the same with our own bodies, with our own minds, hearts and souls?

Otherwise, our faith is not truly complete, if we do not do what we are supposed to do, in maintaining purity and holiness in life. The Lord had entered our bodies, sinful and tainted by those wickedness we have done, and yet, He had done so in order to purify us, to make us clean and worthy. Such was His love for us that He has given us innumerable opportunities for us to be redeemed from our sins, and to be reconciled with Him.

If we continue to live in sin, or reverting back to our past sinfulness and wickedness, even after we have been made to be children of God, by the Sacraments of Initiation mentioned earlier, then truly we have sinned against the Lord and the Holy Spirit, an unforgivable sin, if we persist in our way of sin and refuse to repent from those sins.

That said, all of these simply point us all in one simple direction, yet clear. And that is all of us Christians must ‘walk the talk’, and we must be genuine and sincere in our faith and in what we believe in the Lord. We must follow in the footsteps of the Apostles, as we have heard from the Acts of the Apostles, which is our first reading today. They were the ones whom God had given the authority and power, and they had dutifully done what they were supposed to do, travelling from places to places, healing the sick and reaching out to sinners and to those who had no hope with them.

We cannot be lukewarm Christians, all those who claim themselves to be Christians and yet they carry on with life as if nothing concerns them besides all of their worldly pursuits and goals, those who are Christians in name only, but in their behaviours and attitudes, often show actions contrary to their supposed belief in the Lord. They did not follow the way of the Lord, but their own, often selfish ways.

Such Christians will bring about scandal to the Church, to the faith, and to the Holy Name of our Lord, because people then can slander us by saying, ‘I thought that Christians believe in their God, and yet this is how they have acted in life?’ Others will then think of Christians as hypocrites, all those who talk but show no action, or those who preach one thing, and yet act in a totally contradictory manner.

No, brothers and sisters in Christ. We cannot be like this. We have to be true disciples of the Lord in all things. We have to practice what we believe in, or we will be hypocrites like those Pharisees whom Jesus our Lord criticised and rebuked, because they acted high and mighty, assuming great piety and devotion to God, but they did not do as they have preached, and sought human praise as well as worldly ambition above all else.

It is time for us all Christians to reflect on our actions thus far, we all whom God had chosen from the world to be His disciples, to be those on whom He had bestowed the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the same gifts that He had granted these holy and devout people, and yet we can see just how those gifts God gave them had flourished and grew to be such great fruits of the faith. Thousands and more people, countless souls had been saved through their hard work, which they showed not just by mere words alone, but through their genuine Christian living.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that if we have not done so, and if we have not lived an honest and upright Christian life thus far, and if we have become like those lukewarm or even ‘cafetaria’ Christians, those who choose what they want to believe based on what suits them and reject those that they do not agree with, then it is time for us to change our way of life.

It is time for us to repent and to seek God’s forgiveness, and from now on, devoting our whole lives in the service of God. We have to be loving just as our God is loving. That is what Jesus our Lord mentioned in the Gospel today. All those who believe in Him will do His commandments, and obey the will of God wholeheartedly. And Jesus Himself had summarised the whole law He had given them into two rules.

First, all of us have to love God with all of our heart, with all of our strength. We cannot love anything in a way that is greater than how we love God. He is our Creator, our Lord and Master, the One to Whom we owe our existence and our life. He alone is worthy of our greatest love and praise. And then, secondly, our faith life cannot be kept to ourselves, but we must be active, that is we have to love and serve our fellow brethren, our brothers and sisters, fellow mankind who are all children of the same God.

Love is at the heart of our Christian faith, for St. Paul also mentioned in another occasion, as the Lord Jesus also mentioned, that no matter how great the faith that someone has, but without love, that faith will amount to nothing in the end. And no matter how great we are, in deeds and abilities, but if we have no love in us, that our lack of love will be held against us on the day of judgment, and all that we have, our talents and abilities will do us no good.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remember that even though the season of Easter is coming to an end soon, there must be no end to our effort to love the Lord and our brethren, as best as we are able to. That is our obligation as Christians, following in the footsteps of the holy Apostles, saints and martyrs, many of whom have even laid down their lives for the sake of the Lord, and for protecting the life of the innocents.

Let us all be ever more courageous in faith, and be ever more devoted to the Lord, so that in all the things we say and do, we will always declare and proclaim to all peoples, the glory of the Lord our God, His truth and His love for all of us mankind. May through us and our good works, we may be able to bring countless more souls towards their salvation in God. Let the fruits of the Holy Spirit, of faith, hope and love grow in us and blossom well through us. May He bless us all and our endeavours, and make us all true Christians in name and in deeds. Amen.

by

Saturday, 20 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Bernardine of Siena, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we have heard a reminder that if we are to remain faithful and true to the Lord, in our faith to Him, we will encounter difficulties and challenges in our path, as there will definitely be those who will be opposed to us and to our faith, namely those who are clinging on to the ways of the world and would not want to see their influence challenged by us.

That means, our lives as Christians, if we truly cling onto our faith in God, and practice wholeheartedly what we believe in, will not be that smooth-going and easy. If we have found our lives to be easy and manageable, without crisis or difficulty, perhaps that is because God had indeed blessed us so, or which we hope that is not the case, that we have not been truly faithful in our ways and in our lives.

Many of us want to be accepted by the world, and to that extent, we conform to the ways and customs of the world, even if that ran contrary to the teachings of our faith. At the same time, we know that the reality in our Church is that there are many who are ‘cafetaria Christians’, which means those who pick and choose what they want to believe in our faith, and refuse to believe or that they are ignoring those tenets which they found to be too difficult to be followed or complied with.

That was what happened to the disciples of Jesus two millennia ago, as Jesus went about preaching about the coming of the kingdom of God to them and speaking about Himself, the truth of what would happen to them should they became His followers, and what they needed to believe in, even when they found the teaching to be difficult to be complied with. Indeed, many left the Lord behind because they were not willing to open their hearts and listen to Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is not we all should be like, as all of us should be true and devoted to our Lord in all things we do, and believe in Him wholeheartedly, and not conditionally. After all, the Lord had given us all His life and His love unconditionally, by His loving sacrifice on the cross. He has loved us with all of His heart, generously granting us pardon and mercy, forgiveness and grace even when we are all still great sinners and rebels.

If the Lord had not hold back His love for us, then why should we then hold back our love for Him? Why do we have to choose or to select what we want to believe in His message? Why should we set conditions for the Lord? It is not right, if He had already suffered for our sake, bearing the burden for our sins, the burdens which should have been ours, and died on the cross for us, then we should not and indeed cannot treat the Lord with ignorance or apathy.

We must devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, and learn from the examples of the holy saints, especially St. Bernardine of Siena, whose feast day we are celebrating on this day. St. Bernardine of Siena was a devout and holy priest, as a Franciscan missionary who lived during the late Medieval era. He was renowned as the ‘Apostle of Italy’ for his tireless works in bringing many people, especially throughout Italy, the heart of Christendom, back to the Lord.

For at that time, many of the people did not live in accordance with the ways of the Lord, living in debauchery and sin, in wickedness and doing what is vile and evil in the sight of God. People are more concerned with money and worldly livelihood rather than serving the Lord and obeying His will. St. Bernardine went around many places, preaching directly to the people in those places, and his words of encouragement and call to repentance have brought many people back to the loving embrace of the Lord.

His sincerity and devotion to the Lord inspired those lost souls who saw the light of God through St. Bernardine of Siena, like that of darkness being pushed back by the light. His examples and his dedication to the salvation of souls should be our inspiration, brothers and sisters in Christ, in how we ought to live our lives faithfully to the Lord. We should be exemplary in our actions and deeds, so that all those who see us will also then come to believe in God through us.

May the Lord awaken in all of us the desire to love Him, and to obey Him in all of His teachings. May we follow in the footsteps of St. Bernardine of Siena, that in all the things we say and do, we will always proclaim the glory of the Lord and remain true to His ways. Amen.

by

Friday, 19 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are reminded through the Scripture passages that we have listened to, of the obligations and duties we have as Christians, as those whom God had chosen to be His people. We have to remember these responsibilities, and live them out accordingly or else, we cannot call ourselves as Christians. Either that, or we are living a false Christian life.

Why is that so? That is because many of us are Christians and call themselves as one counted among the members of the Church, and yet, first of all, they do not attend the regular functions and events of the Church, most importantly of all, the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Many of us attend the Holy Mass only once or twice a year, during the time of Christmas and Easter, and once these seasons are over, we are quick to continue our busy life schedule and leave God behind.

Do we know that it was because of God’s great and undying love that all of us have received salvation and the promise of eternal life from Him? Do we all realise that had God not done so much for us out of His love for us, we would have perished and be destroyed by our sins and by our disobedience against Him? All of us have been marked for death because of our sins, and yet, God loved us so much that He was willing to forgive us and be reconciled with us, if only that we are willing to receive His mercy and forgiveness.

To that extent, He had given us the perfect gift of love, in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Lord. He has come into the world in order to deliver us from sin and death, and that He indeed had done, not only just by some extraordinary means, but truly through the most extraordinary deed of all deeds. As St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Romans, very few people would give up his or her life for the sake of others, even for a very righteous man. However, the Lord Jesus gave us His life, for our sake, so that all of us, while we are still sinners, might be saved through Him.

In this, we can see just how great the love that God had shown us, and it is indeed an unconditional love. God did not require us to love Him first before He loves us, as He has always loved us all, His creations and His children, ever since the day He created us all. And since He has loved us so greatly, it is only just and right that we should love Him back with the same love and devotion.

That is the most important commandment in the law of God, and one that we have to keep in mind at all times. There can be no being or creature that we can love more than how we love the Lord, our Master and Creator, the One Who is the reason for our existence and the Giver of our lives. And after we have loved Him, we are also expected to show the same love to our fellow men, for each one of us mankind are the same children of our God.

This is why, it is imperative in our world today, that all of us Christians are truly Christian in our way of life, or else, we scandalise our own faith and besmirch the Holy Name of our Lord. For it is indeed quite common that while we Christians preach the word of God, yet in our actions, we did not act and do as what we have believed in. How can we expect that others will believe in what we preach to them if we ourselves did not do as what we had preached?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us all commit ourselves anew, giving our best to serve the Lord with all of our might. We should devote our time to do the will of God, by loving one another, showing mercy on those who have wronged us, and praying for those who hate us and those who persecute us. This is what the Lord had taught us to do, and we ought to practice it in our own lives.

May the Lord help us to remain firm in our faith, and may He strengthen our resolve to commit ourselves to His path and devote ourselves, our time and effort to do what He had commanded us to do, to show love in all the things we say and do, that many more people will come to believe in the Lord because of us and because of our loving works. May God bless us all. Amen.

by

Thursday, 18 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. John I, Pope and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded yet again that as Christians, our principal and main responsibility lies in the need to love and serve the Lord with all of our heart, mind, body and soul. This is the essence of us being Christians, not in all other things, which all truly have their roots in the love which we ought to show the Lord our God.

And why is this so? That is because, without love, we are not Christians, and without the love which we ought to serve the Lord with, then we truly have not known love. Because if we have remembered and known just how much God has loved us, then we should also show the same love for Him, first of all, and then show the same love to our fellow brethren.

Yet, many of us mankind have forgotten this fact, and we have rejected God and His love, for the love of other things, all the distractions out there which have turned us and our attentions away from God. We have become detached from Him, and ended up being concerned only about ourselves, only about our needs and desires, and not about what truly matters, that is serving the Lord with all of our heart.

This was what happened, at the time of the early Church, as recounted to us through our first reading today taken from the Acts of the Apostles. At that time, the tension between the two factions in the Church had reached a breaking point, between the faction of the Pharisees and the faction of the Hellenists. The Pharisees were those who were similar with the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, being composed of the Pharisees who came to believe in Jesus, who wanted to keep the purity of the Jewish faith and traditions, wishing to impose on all the believers the rigour of the entire Jewish laws according to the laws of Moses.

Meanwhile, the Hellenists were those who favoured relaxing and bypassing the requirements of the Jewish laws and customs, in order to make the faith more practical and favourable to the non-Jewish people, the Greeks and the Romans, all of whom found that certain practices of the Jewish tradition such as circumcision and food prohibition to be repulsive and difficult to be followed, as these came into direct conflict with their own customs and cultural traditions.

As such, such a division in the Church was truly a tragic event, at the time when the Church should have been united against all those who sought to destroy it in its infancy. But the Church fathers and the Apostles ruled against those who would distract the Church from its primary mission, that is the salvation of souls and the repentance of all sinners.

To that extent, they agreed and ruled that all Christians should henceforth be freed from the obligation to obey the entirety of the Jewish laws and customs, most of which were in fact human creation and not originating from God, as means and historical practices meant to preserve the Jewish customs and culture. And they ruled that as long as all the Christians lived in accordance to what the Lord Jesus had taught them, that should be sufficient.

That is because as Christians, all of us truly have to remember that our primary and indeed sole obligation is to love the Lord our God, with all of our might, and with all of our strength. And when we love Him and obey Him, we will definitely also love our brethren, just as we have been loved by God and loving Him back. We will show the same love that we showed Him to our fellow men.

We should follow the example of our holy predecessors, the holy saints and martyrs, in how they devoted their whole lives to the Lord and to their fellow men. Pope St. John I, the holy Bishop of Rome and leader of the Universal Church during its early years is one of such examples. He was a devoted man, a pious and holy servant of God, dedicated to his calling and vocation as the leader of the Church.

He lived during a difficult time, as political and worldly conflict threatened the Church in Rome, due to the conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom, who then ruled over Rome. The Ostrogoths were Arians, heretical followers of Christianity, while the Empire was following the Orthodox and true Christian faith. Pope St. John I lived and reigned through the turbulent times, and tried his best to bridge the differences between the two powers.

However, he was caught in the entanglement of the conflict, and was imprisoned by the Ostrogoths, under the false charges of sedition and supposed plotting with the enemy against the king. He was arrested, incarcerated and made to suffer, but yet he never gave up the faith. He continued to persevere through the challenges, and even unto martyrdom, as he met his end in prison, he kept the faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on strive to serve the Lord with greater zeal and conviction, and devote ourselves to Him ever more willingly. Let us all love one another as well, just as we have been loved by God, and just as we have loved Him with all of our hearts. Let us all be true Christians inspired by the examples of our brethren who have preceded us. Pope St. John I, holy Pope and martyr, pray for us sinners. Amen.

by

Wednesday, 17 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we have heard the words from the Sacred Scriptures, telling us about the conflict that arose during the earliest days of the Church, between those who continued to keep strictly the commandments and laws of Moses, namely those who belonged to the Pharisees who came to believe in Jesus, and those who advocated the relaxing of certain laws and customs that are not truly essential for one to become a Christian.

In order to understand this, we have to understand the context of the difficulty and the dilemma facing the Church fathers and the Apostles at that time. The Jewish people at the time living in Judea and the other parts of the Roman Empire had a distinct custom among the people they lived with, most distinctive of all being the practice of circumcision, which the Gentiles, the Romans and the Greeks included found to be repulsive and disgusting.

Not withholding the ancient practice of strict food laws and prohibitions, which made the Jewish people and their faith to be a relatively exclusive one, as it was difficult for people, if not almost impossible for anyone to adopt the customs and the practices of the Jews, as the laws of Moses prescribed. However, the early Church fathers found the wisdom to overcome this issue, by seeking to relax the strict requirements of the Jewish customs on the early Christian communities.

How do all these link to the Gospel passage which we have heard? In the Gospel today, we heard Jesus our Lord Who spoke of Himself as the True Vine, from which all those who believe in the Lord draw life from, as they are the branches of the True Vine. If they are sundered from the Vine, they shall have no part in Him, and they shall have no life because they have been separated from His love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is in fact a reminder to all of us Christians, that we cannot be like those Pharisees who chose to be Christians, and tried to impose their human made laws and customs, the laws of Moses, which they held to be sacred and perfect, on the other newly converted Christians, those from among the Gentiles, who find the practices of the Jews to be repulsive and difficult to be followed.

The laws of Moses were originally given from God for His people, at the time when they went out of Egypt, in order to lead them and guide them on their path. But the laws were first of all very harsh because of a very good reason, and that is because the Israelites themselves were very rebellious and were very easily seduced by the sinful ways of the world. As a result, God gave them the set of precepts and laws in order to restrain them.

And over time, the laws that God gave to His people had become twisted and modified beyond the original purpose He gave them for. The laws became set of human laws, customs and practices, which the leaders of the people, the elders and the chief priests constantly modified in order to suit their own needs, purposes and even wishes.

As a result, the Law became increasingly and unnecessarily draconian and harsh in nature. And that became a great obstacle for many people to become Christians, and which the Church fathers later on then decided to rescind, the unnecessary requirements and excesses of the old laws, simply because, as mentioned, all these things are human adjustments and additions, that came not from God but from men.

The people of God gained justification and life from the Lord, and they have received life from Him, the True Vine. It is why the Apostles and the Church fathers argued and successfully managed to allow the Christians and their communities to follow and obey only what the Lord had truly commanded them, as Jesus Himself said, that the Law is really only about two things, that is to love and serve the Lord our God with all of our hearts, with all of our minds, with all of our being, and then to love our fellow brethren just as much as we love God and ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remember this even today, as this is still perfectly applicable now and even later in the future. We have to love God with all of our heart, mind and soul, and we have to love our fellow brethren as best as we are able to do so. This is the commandments of the Lord, one that we need to listen to and obey, all of our lives, from now on if we have not done so.

May the Lord bless us all and may He be with us always, at all times, so that in everything we say, in everything we do, we will always show our love for Him, and also for our fellow men, that we will always be forever righteous and just in His presence, and worthy of His everlasting life. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 16 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard the words of the Lord Jesus, reassuring us all that He came bearing unto us His peace. It is not peace as the world knows it, but an everlasting peace, that will be ours when we place our complete trust in the Lord, and follow Him wholeheartedly, as the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord had once done.

The Apostles did not have it easy on their missions around the world at that time, as they encountered many oppositions to their works, challenges from all those who refuse to follow their lead and those who refuse to listen to their call to conversion, namely those who persist in their sinfulness and wickedness, and closed their hearts against God’s words that the Apostles and the disciples had preached.

There was hardly much time for the Apostles and the disciples had to be savoured in peace. They constantly met the opposition from the Jewish leaders, from the local populace who refused to listen to them and abandon their pagan gods, and from the Roman authorities who found the teachings of Christ as a threat to their own authority, and from various other sources.

But the Lord was with them, and He guided them throughout their journey, that even though there were many who wished for their arrest, their demise and destruction of the Church, in reality, the Church and the faithful flourished both in number and in their zeal. The Lord provided for what they needed, and gave them the strength to persevere in the troubled times.

The Lord had revealed it all to them, how they would have to suffer in order to glorify God, by their works of evangelisation and mercy, calling many nations and peoples to repentance and conversion in God. But they found true peace in fulfilling God’s will and in doing whatever He had led them to do. They knew that even though the world was against them, but if they continued their good works and remained faithful, they would gain true peace, as the Lord would reward them with eternal glory and joy with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on this, and as we remember how many people have faithfully obeyed the Lord, and had to suffer in order to bring the truth of the Gospel and the Good News to all the peoples, including to us, let us all remember that their works have not been completed, as even now, there are still many more people out there who have not yet received or welcomed the truths found in the word of God.

Let us all remember this as we continue to live out our lives today. There are many more people whom we can help, by our good works and efforts, to spread the truths of the Gospel, the message of God’s peace and love. There are still so many anguish, sorrow, anger, hatred and all sorts of negativities in this world, because people cannot find in them God’s love and peace.

Let us all therefore, work together, in order to bring the peace of God to all peoples, to all the nations, as the Lord had commanded us. Let us all place our complete trust in God, knowing that He will give us all true peace, and let us share that peace we have with one another. Let us all bring our brethren out of the darkness of sin, and into the new light of God, into a new life blessed by the peace of God, that all of us may find our way towards that peace we long for.

May all of us endeavour from now on to seek true peace and joy found in the Lord alone, and not be distracted by all the desires and false peace that the world offers us. May the Lord help us on our journey of faith, and help us all to live faithfully in accordance with His will. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

by

Monday, 15 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Scriptures an interesting set of readings, which remind us all of who we are, and how we ought to live our lives as Christians. In the first reading, we heard how the pagan Greeks to whom St. Paul and St. Barnabas were preaching the faith, mistook their intentions and teachings, and thought of the two Apostles as their own pagan gods who came to the world in their presence.

The people treated St. Paul and St. Barnabas like as if they were their gods who assumed the flesh of mankind. They brought animal sacrifices to them and offered these sacrifices before them, as they thought of these two as either emissaries of their pagan Greek gods or the gods themselves. But St. Paul and St. Barnabas became very angry when they saw all these happening before them, and in their anguish, they tore their garments and told the people of their mistakes.

Then in the Gospel today, we heard the conversation between Jesus our Lord and His disciples, in which St. Judas Thaddeus asked why Jesus revealed Himself to them and not to the whole world. And Jesus replied them saying, that if they do not listen to the word of God and obey His will, then they will have no part in Him. Those who listen to the word of God and obey God’s will, will do as the Lord had asked of them. And this is what we need to pay attention to, very closely.

What do all these things mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? What are their significance for us? These are in fact reminders for us not to fall into the temptations of worldly power, of worldly influence and human greed, which are all the things that commonly became obstacles on the journey of men towards righteousness and justification in God’s presence.

Let us reflect on our own lives, and on how we mankind have lived our lives in the past, our shared history of humanity. We mankind are easily tempted with power, wealth, fame, human glory and praise, and all other worldly things, and that is exactly what we must be wary of. Imagine if other people were to praise us, adore us, and glorify us right in front of us. Certainly many of us will fall to the temptations and become proud of ourselves. Our ego will take over our rational mind.

That is how we mankind think, the way of the world. But that is not how the Lord wants it to be. His ways are different from the world’s ways, and His norms are completely opposite of what the world’s norms are. That is why when He was hailed and wanted to be made a king by the people who saw His great and miraculous deeds, He actually hid Himself away and retreated away from the people, who have misunderstood and mistook His true intentions.

In the same manner, the Apostles St. Paul and St. Barnabas had also rejected human desires for pride and ego, when the people worshipped them as if they were their Greek gods. They stood firmly by their faith, and even with indignation, they told off the people who had mistaken them for their gods. In this, as the Lord had said in the Gospel today, they had obeyed not the whim of their human desires, but the will of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ask ourselves, that in our own respective lives, have we encountered such a situation, that we have to choose between listening to our human desires or to obey the will of God? We have certainly faced that kind of situation before, and let us remember what we have done. Have we listened to the whim of our desires, to the temptations that Satan had placed in our path? Or have we instead tried to obey the Lord, our God, in His ways, even though that often bring us to difficult situations?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue to progress through this season of Easter, let us all renew our faith and commitment to the Lord, and awaken in us the desire to serve Him with all of our heart and with all of our strength. May the Lord give us the strength to persevere faithfully in this life we have on earth. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

by

Sunday, 14 May 2017 : Fifth Sunday of Easter, Feast of St. Matthias, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the fifth in the season of Easter, it happens that we also celebrate the feast of one of the Holy Apostles, that is St. Matthias the Apostle, who was not originally counted among the Twelve Apostles, but was added to their number in order to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus our Lord.

In the first reading today, we have also heard about the decision by the Apostles to choose from among the faithful, seven holy men, filled with the Holy Spirit, in order to serve as the new order of Christian Deacons, which was the moment of the foundation of the diaconate. The deacons were meant to serve the people of God, the community of the faithful, by complementing the works of the Apostles, who were indeed the priests newly appointed by God, given the authority to forgive sins, and to transform the bread and wine offered to the Lord into the very essence and reality of the Most Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Himself.

And in the second reading today, taken from the first Epistle written by St. Peter, the first Pope and leader of the Church, we heard about how all of us Christians have been called by God, to become living stones, meaning to become living temples of the Lord’s Most Holy Presence, for He has called us out of the darkness into the light, in order to become His disciples, and He has given us Himself, His own Body and Blood to be eaten and consumed, and thus, He Himself dwells in each and every one of us.

And He has revealed all about God’s love to us, how God has sent us His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, that through Him, and by all those who believed in Him, all will be made worthy of the Lord, and be forgiven of all their sins, provided that they are willing to be forgiven. This is what the Lord intended for us mankind, His desire that all of us should be reconciled with Him, and saved from eternal damnation in hell, which was our fate.

Thus, after hearing all of these passages from the Scriptures, keeping in mind what the Apostles, the disciples of the Lord, the deacons had done for the sake of the Church, and what each of us as Christians had received from the Lord, it is time for us all to reflect on what being a Christian and being a member of the Church which Christ our Lord had established in this world mean for us.

What is the mission of the Church, and indeed what is our mission, our responsibility as part of God’s Church? What is it that we need to do so that we may be able to actively take part in the works of the Church? The primary mission of the Church is the salvation of all the souls of all mankind, that no one, not a single one of us mankind, children of God, should have to perish in hell because of our sins and wickedness.

The Church is the manifestation of God’s love, which He had made evident and real to us through Jesus Christ, our Lord, by His suffering and death on the cross, and then by His glorious resurrection from the dead. It was His triumphant victory over death, over the chains of sin and evil that bound us mankind to suffering and death, which had become the foundation of the Church He established and entrusted on the Apostles He had called.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, God had entrusted to all of us in His Church, the mission to deliver the truth He had revealed to His Apostles, and thus to all of us, that if mankind are to believe in Him, have faith in Him, and put their trust in Him, then they shall not falter any more, and sin and evil will no longer have any dominion or power over them. For just as the Lord had conquered sin, evil and death, He will also liberate all those who have put themselves in Him from all these, and lead them into the eternal life and glory He had promised them.

But there are still many people out there who have not yet heard of God’s love and mercy, of His desire to forgive them from their sins and wickedness, and they continue to live in ignorance of God and His truth. They continue to live in a state of sin, and if nothing is done, the devil and his allies will then be victorious over them, as they will be successful in dragging these souls into hell, for their failure to repent from their sins.

And there are also many others who have drifted away from the Lord, even many of those who were once counted among the faithful ones. There are indeed in reality, many Christians who are no longer regularly attending the celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, coming to the church only in the festive moments of Christmas and Easter, or certain feast days, instead of regularly attending and participating in the Holy Mass as is necessary.

And there are even more of those who have stopped coming to the Holy Mass altogether, and those who have stopped believing in God. Thus, after coming to realisation of this reality, all of us must do our best to help these brethren of ours who are in need of our help. It is often that our actions in life are not representative of what we believe in Christians, and it is often this that had prevented many more people from coming to believe in God.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ. How are we supposed to make people believe in God and accept the Lord Jesus as their Saviour, if we ourselves as Christians fight among ourselves, and are involved in numerous immoral and unjust acts? How can people believe in what we preach to them, if we ourselves do not do as we have believed? Then we are no better than the Pharisees, whom the Lord Jesus Himself had criticised as those who preached well, but did not practice what they preached, and thus told the people to listen to them, but not follow their practices.

Let us all therefore, from now on, renew our commitment to the Lord, by putting our greatest effort to live faithfully as Christians, devoting our time and effort to serve Him with zeal, and by practicing love and grace in our daily actions. We must be true Christians through our actions, that we should show love to the unloved, to those who have been rejected by others, and show mercy to our enemies and those who have wronged us.

Let us all be exemplary in our actions, and do whatever we can as members and parts of the Church of God, devoting our time and effort, walking in the footsteps of the holy deacons, the Apostles, St. Matthias and his fellow disciples of the Lord, so that many more people may come to be saved through our efforts, and all of us may rejoice together as one people, in the loving presence of our God. Amen.