Liturgical Colour : White
Galatians 4 : 4-7
But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son. He came born of woman and subject to the Law, in order to redeem the subjects of the Law, that we might receive adoption as children of God.
And because you are children, God has sent into your hearts the Spirit of His Son which cries out : Abba! that is, Father!
You yourselves are no longer a slave but a son or daughter, and yours is the inheritance by God’s grace.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 66 : 2-3, 5, 6 and 8
May God be gracious and bless us; may He let His face shine upon us, that Your way be known on earth and Your salvation among the nations.
May the countries be glad and sing for joy, for You rule the peoples with justice and guide the nations of the world.
May the peoples praise You, o God, may all the peoples praise You! May God bless us and be revered, to the very ends of the earth.
Liturgical Colour : White
Numbers 6 : 22-27
Then YHVH spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons and say to them : This is how you shall bless the people of Israel; you shall say : May YHVH bless you and keep you! May YHVH let His face shine on you, and be gracious to you! May YHVH look kindly on you, and give you His peace!”
“In that way shall they put My Name on the people of Israel and I will bless them.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are asked to reflect on the joy which we have and with which we celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ in this Christmas season. Each of us should reflect on today’s Scripture readings in order to understand in greater depth how significant this celebration of Christmas is for all of us.
This reading used to be read at the end of every Mass as what is known as the Last Gospel, for the very purpose that, the whole Mass itself, the entire celebration of our Faith and the whole purpose of the Church, and the very fact why we rejoice in this Christmas and have a hope in God and the eternal life which He promised us, is because of what had been written and revealed in that passage from the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John.
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour was not created by God, and neither should He be counted to be among the created ones of God. Even though He is fully and completely Man, but He was not created by God, as He is different. He has existed before everything was made, and indeed, He existed before the world and before the beginning of time, for He is God, and He was God, and He will be always God.
He is the Word of God, the Word of Creation, the one and inseparable aspect of the Lord, which in our understanding, exists as one and only God, but with Three distinct Godheads or Aspects, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, all of Whom are united in perfect love and harmony, such that although they are distinct from each other, but they cannot be separated from each other without diminishing the fullness of God’s greatness and glory.
The Word of God has made Himself into Flesh, the Flesh of Man. He was the Word that was with God, Who is God, and through Whom God created this world, all of creation, all of us mankind and everything that ever was, is, and will ever be. And it is the same Word, Who had come into this world, assuming the flesh of Man, and through the intermediary of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, He was born into this world, an event we celebrate as Christmas.
This is very important as, before He came into this world, He is intangible, untouchable and distant, but God Who loves us all greatly and tenderly, desired for all of us to be reunited with Him and to be with Him in the union of perfect love, and therefore, through Jesus, He made Himself tangible, touchable, and now we can see in Him, the fullness of His love, and indeed, of our own future of happiness and eternal life together with Him.
Through Jesus our Lord, we have seen the very personification of God’s love and mercy. He has provided us this act of ultimate mercy, giving us the new and perfect opportunity to be reconciled with God. He has done everything for our sake, that all of us may be rescued from the abyss of darkness and damnation in hell. Shall we not therefore give our love and devotion to Him as well then?
Let us today reflect on the examples of the faithful servant of God, whose feast we are celebrating today, namely Pope St. Silvester I, the Bishop of Rome and leader of the Universal Church who lived and reigned as Pope during a time of great change in the Church and in the world. Pope St. Silvester I was among the first Popes to have led the Church after the official toleration of the Faith by the Edict of Milan in the year 313 AD, and he led the Church through a time of great renewal.
Pope St. Silvester I led the Church through a time of great building of many churches and basilicas, and many people flocked to the Church as never before. Many professed the faith and became believers, and Pope St. Silvester I and his good leadership and role model in faith helped ensure more and more souls being saved through the good works God had done through His Church.
As we all embark on this last day of the old year and as we rejoice in welcoming the beginning of the new year tomorrow, let us all also follow in the examples of Pope St. Silvester I and the other holy saints of God, so that we may usher in the beginning of a new year to be filled with the fullness of God’s love and our faith in Him. This is the time for us to make our new year’s resolution, that is to abandon our old ways of sin and wickedness, and embrace fully the ways of the Lord.
May Almighty God bless us all, and may He bless our coming new year, so that His blessings may fill that year with much grace, and all of us may look up to the coming of the new year of hope, and be ever more faithful and be more devoted to our Lord and God. God be with us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
John 1 : 1-18
In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God; He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing came to be. Whatever has come to be, found life in Him; life, which for human beings, was also light, light that shines in darkness, light that darkness could not overcome.
A man came, sent by God; his name was John. He came to bear witness as a witness to introduce the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but a witness to introduce the Light; for the Light was coming into the world, the true Light that enlightens everyone.
He was in the world, and through Him the world was made, the very world that did not know Him. He came to His own, yet His own people did not receive Him; but to all who received Him, He empowers to become children of God, for they believe in His Name.
These are born, but not by seed, or carnal desire, nor by the will of man : they are born of God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father : fullness of truth and loving kindness.
John bore witness to Him openly, saying, “This is the One who comes after me, but He is already ahead of me, for He was before me.” From His fullness we have all received, favour upon favour. For God had given us the Law through Moses, but Truth and Loving kindness came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God, but God-the-Only-Son made Him known : the One, Who is in and with the Father.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 95 : 1-2, 11-12a, 12b-13
Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His Name; proclaim His salvation day after day.
Let the heavens be glad, the earth rejoice; let the sea and all that fills it resound; let the fields exult and everything in them.
Let the forest, all the trees, sing for joy. Let them sing before the Lord Who comes to judge the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.
Liturgical Colour : White
1 John 2 : 18-21
My dear children, it is the last hour. You were told that an antichrist would come : but several antichrists have already come, by which we know that it is now the last hour.
They went out from us though they did not really belong to us, they would have remained with us. So it became clear that not all of us were really ours. But you have the anointing from the Holy One, so that all of you have true wisdom.
I write to you, not because you lack knowledge of the truth, but because you already know it, and lies have nothing in common with the truth.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures speaking to us about the Lord Who has been revealed to the world at the Temple through the servants of God, Simeon and Anna the prophetess. These two faithful servants proclaimed the Messiah in the sight and presence of many, and perhaps many heard their words and believe.
And all of us brothers and sisters in the same faith in God, all are gathered here because we all believe in Him, believe in His saving help, the rescue that He had given us through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, His own Son, Whom He sent into the world, taking up our own humble flesh, that through that act, and by offering Himself as the perfect offering for our sake, He had redeemed us from our sins and brought us into a new hope for eternal life.
Brothers and sisters, as we continue to go on through this Christmas season or Christmastide, all of us should indeed reflect on this joyous fact, the very fact that our Lord and God had decided to become our Saviour, and He had done that by emptying Himself and becoming a Man like us, that by uniting all of us through Himself, and by giving all of us His own Body and Blood, we who share in His Body and Blood may receive eternal life.
This is the testimony of God’s great and eternal love for us, and His love always endures, despite all of the rejections and the wickedness we have shown for Him, all the rebukes, the refusal to change and the lack of willingness to commit ourselves to His ways. God is always faithful, even if we are unfaithful. He always extends His mercy to cover us and to be with us, until the moment when it is too late for us because we continue to reject Him and refuse to follow Him.
Let this fate not be ours, lest we fall into eternal damnation. If we wait until that had happened, then there is no hope for us, and we will suffer for eternity in hell and in the pain of the total and complete separation from God, and forevermore we shall suffer in ultimate agony and anguish. This is what our Lord did not want to happen to us, and therefore, He sent us a new hope, a Deliverer and a Saviour to bring us into the opportunity to be reunited with Him and thus enjoy forever instead, an eternity of bliss, joy and happiness with Him in heaven.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we all have known God and all that He has done for us. We recognise His love, and all the blessings that He had graced us with. He loves all of us tenderly, and in all things He had granted us He has brought us free from our afflictions. But we all have to realise that there are still many out there who have not known yet about the Lord or heard about Him.
Yes, there are still many who are either ignorant or unable to know the truth about God, and there are still also those who have left the Lord and abandoned Him for the goodness and the pleasures of this world. And it is in our responsibility and duty as one of those who are faithful to God, to be the bearers of His Good News and truth to those who have not heard or known these yet.
This is another meaning of Christmas, that is because Christmas cannot be commemorated or celebrated without understanding the whole big picture in the history of salvation. Without what we celebrate during the Holy Week and Easter, what we celebrate in Christmas will be meaningless. On the other hand, what we celebrate in the Holy Week and Easter would not have been possible without the occurrence of Christmas.
For our Lord came into this world as a Man, and yet a great and almighty King, because of the love which He had for us all. He came so that by His life and by His works, culminating in His own self-sacrifice on the cross, He might become the bridge and intermediary between us and the Lord, that through Him He had redeemed us, absolved us from the taints of original sins, and therefore, bring us into salvation in Him.
Therefore, on this day, let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord and to the evangelisation of His people with the truth which He Himself had shown us. Let us all spread the Word of God to the many peoples of the nations. May God’s salvation extend to the nations, and may His love for us mankind will be ever more and more enduring and great. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 2 : 36-40
At that time, there was also a prophetess named Anna, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. After leaving her father’s home, she had been seven years with her husband, and since then she had been continually about the Temple, serving God as a widow night and day in fasting and prayer. She was now eighty-four.
Coming up at that time, she gave praise to God, and spoke of the Child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem. When the parents had fulfilled all that was required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to their town, Nazareth in Galilee. There the Child grew in stature and strength, and was filled with wisdom : the grace of God was upon Him.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 95 : 7-8a, 8b-9, 10
Give to the Lord, you families of nations, give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His Name.
Bring gifts and enter His courts. Worship the Lord with holy celebrations; stand in awe of Him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” He will judge the peoples with justice.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 