corruption of the world

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Thursday, 1 May 2014 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker, which also falls on the same day as the day set aside for the celebration of the right of workers and labourers around the world, commonly known as either the Labour Day or May Day. On this day, workers around the world celebrate their right to equal pay, treatment and rights, as well as even protesting to demand for more, if they did not receive enough.

Today we celebrate the memory of St. Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus, who was also a very diligent worker as a carpenter in the village of Nazareth. St. Joseph is the role model for all workers, not only that he is so diligent and hardworking, but he is also very upright in his actions and did not do things that were in opposition to the Law of God and the teachings of the prophets.

St. Joseph reminded all of us, not just the workers of who we are, namely the children and most beloved of all the creations of the Lord. We were created last by the Lord in creation, and we were made in His image, and as if that is not enough, He also endowed us with His own Spirit that bears life inside each one of us. And yet, we are at the same time, as the first reading from the Book of Genesis mentioned, also made of dust, which the Lord used to craft our mortal bodies of flesh and blood.

Thus the well-known saying that ‘We are dust, and to dust we shall return, which the priest utters every Ash Wednesday as he applies the ash onto our forehead. This is to remind us of our humanity, fragility and mortality, which should keep us to realise that we are in this world as its caretakers and everything that we do, we ought not to do it for our own sake and benefits, but for the sake of the Lord and all our brethren around us.

St. Joseph showed that above all, we should be the bearers of the good will of the Lord, and walk always in the way of God, be righteous in all of our actions and deeds, not turning left or right, or be persuaded or tempted by the world’s persuasions and temptations. As we work, we should always remember to have good work attitudes and openness to suggestions and advice, and not to close ourselves off from cooperating with others.

A truly major problem with our world and its working force is that we no longer work for the good of one another, but we ended up to be in the sole pursuit of one thing, that is money and even other forms of material possessions. As I have often mentioned, money is not necessarily evil, and indeed, it is perfectly neutral and is completely not a vice that we should avoid. The evil lies in us, that is in how we attempt to gain it, how we gain it, and eventually how we use it, and what we use it for.

This world has increasingly become a commercialised and materialistic world, where you can almost literally say that money is king, for those who have more will not just tend to have even more, but that they also are likely to have a better and more enjoyable life. For many of us, working and our actions in work had become nothing more than literally slaving away our lives and our precious time for money, and more money.

We forget that when we work we should be more like St. Joseph, who worked with great simplicity and humility, and while being serious and dedicated to his works, he dedicated it out of love towards God and to his fellow men. As a carpenter, he certainly did not earn much from his works, but certainly from every single furniture he crafted for those who ordered them from him, he gained much gladness and satisfaction, seeing the happiness on their faces seeing the completed product.

Surely we all can visualise and imagine how St. Joseph had worked hard to help provide for the Holy Family, for Jesus our Lord and Mary His mother. It is this kind of simple and yet genuine devotion to one’s work based in love that is the kind of work attitude that we need to have and follow. Sadly the truth is indeed that we have been so caught up in our busy life schedules and careers that we end up forgetting what is the most important thing in our lives.

As St. Joseph has shown us, we cannot discount God out of our lives, as without God our lives will be meaningless and empty, and this is also the reason why so many of us lost our true purpose as we work, that we no longer work for the benefits of others around us, and instead, for our own benefit, that is for our own selves, in our great ego, desire and greed.

It is easy these days to be tempted, brethren, for the temptations of goodness of this world is basically all around us, from all the promotions and commercials that we are exposed to every single day of our lives, that we really cannot escape but notice how much good that this world can grant us. Therefore we are prone to fall into this trap of materialism and commercialism, where we desire more and more the goods of this world, while forgetting that the true purpose we have in this world is to love and to dedicate ourselves completely to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate today’s occasion on the feast of St. Joseph the worker and the day of celebration of labour, let us always be reminded that we should not be working for the sake of working and to seek for more and more material goods. Instead, as we work, let us have a good purpose to it, especially praising and glorifying the Lord our God.

St. Joseph the worker, the foster-father of our Lord, pray for us all, that we will seek less of our own glory and pleasure when we so something or work, that we do not become creature of ego or the servant of material possessions. Help us through your prayers that we may instead work for the good of one another, and be dedicated to our work just as you had been dedicated to yours. May God be with us all and bless our work at all times. Amen.

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Thursday, 20 March 2014 : 2nd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are introduced today to an important catechesis of the faith, that is on the fate of our soul, when we go to the afterlife after our life in this world ends. And it was made clear to us by the story of Lazarus and the rich man, to show the contrast between the two fates that are possible for all of us.

Nevertheless, I would like to warn all of you first to be very careful in reading and understanding this part of the Gospels, as it is easy to be misunderstood and misrepresented, as if Jesus is advocating a sort of class war or conflict between the poor and the rich. And neither should we equate poverty with salvation and riches with damnation. Not all poor will end up in eternal joy, and many rich ones will also be saved.

In order to truly understand the meaning behind the passage, we have to understand the context behind Jesus’ teaching of the parables to His students. At the time of Jesus, and as it is similar in our world today, the divide and gap in the society in terms of wealth and affluence was very pronounced, and the rich ones were very rich with great excess, while the poor was very poor, having almost nothing on themselves.

Thus, it is easier for Jesus to teach the people, if He said them in a manner which can be easily understandable to the people, and hence His choice of characters and the story, to highlight the disparity between the two. Lazarus the poor man had nothing, and sat down in front of the rich man’s mansion hoping that the rich man would spare him some food from his table.

The rich man spared him nothing, and continued to live in splendour and great excess, partying day after day without any concern for those who were less fortunate than him. So that is why, after he died, the Lord gave him his due that is hopelessness, and eternal suffering in hell, to suffer with the devil and his fellow fallen angels.

Meanwhile Lazarus was welcomed into heaven, to enjoy forever the fruits of God’s love, to enjoy the food of everlasting life and he will no longer experience hunger, unlike what he had to go through in life. This is certainly what we all want as well. After all, who will choose hell over heaven? Nobody wants suffering, because we all want happiness.

This certainly should have taught us a good lesson, that if we forget to do what is expected from us by God, then we will be judged and deemed unworthy of heaven. Remember, brethren, that the wealth and possessions that we have is a gift for us, and it is not evil. There is nothing wrong in fact with people having more wealth than others.

However, wealth itself is neutral, but it can be used for either good or bad purposes. Like the rich man, who ignored the plight of Lazarus, he failed to utilise his abundance for a good purpose, and thus he was judged against. He failed to love another mankind, and therefore this ignorance spoke out against him when he is judged by the Judge of all life.

What is of concern to us is regarding the culture of waste and excess that often permeates in our society, and we often do not think about those who do not even have enough. We often consume more than what we need, even to the point of gluttony. We forget that the excesses can be given to those who have little and none that they may have enough.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on the story of Lazarus and the rich man, that we may from now on consider our own lifestyle, whether we have been charitable to those who have little or none, giving up our excesses to them, so they too can enjoy together with us. Being rich is fine, brothers and sisters, but just make sure that we keep our less fortunate brethren in mind! God bless. Amen.

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Thursday, 20 March 2014 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Jeremiah 17 : 5-10

This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”

“Blessed is the man who puts his trust in YHVH and whose confidence is in Him! He is like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots towards the stream. He has no fear when the heat comes, his leaves are always green; the year of drought is no problem and he can always bear fruit.”

“Most deceitful is the heart. What is there within man, who can understand him? I, YHVH, search the heart and penetrate the mind. I reward each one according to his ways and the fruit of his deeds.”

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Sunday, 2 March 2014 : 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Worry not, for God did not and never ever will He want to leave us uncared for unprovided. He loves all of us, just as He had always loved since the beginning when He created us. He provided for everything, and for us mankind, He had allocated many things to be our possession and inheritance, if only that we follow His ways and remain faithful to Him throughout the difficult times.

One thing which often clearly separated us from God is the concerns we have for the world and all of its goodness. We are often unable to detach ourselves from the desires of our heart, our eyes, and our stomachs, and we often succumb to these desires, ending up not following the Lord, but instead fall into the trap of the devil.

The devil offered us all many things that this world can offer, be it in food, in money and wealth, as well as in terms of illicit and dark pleasures of the flesh. These he offered us, that our minds be filled with desires and concerns for them, rather than be filled with the knowledge and the love for God. We often are ignorant of what goodness that the Lord had given us and the many blessings He had granted us every single moment of our life.

Remember this, our very life is not something for us to take for granted. We often forget that there is nothing greater in our lives than life itself. Our every breath that we take every second, every minute, and every hour, is a gift from God, that is a gift of life. We all have been given life by God, and we ought to recognise that fact. We are often too worried and concerned about many things that we end up forgetting that our life itself had been a great blessing to us.

Yes, brethren, without life, we would be nothing but one of the dead things in this world. It is life that differentiates us from them, and yet, there is an even greater gift God had given us. God has bestowed on each one of us, His own Spirit, that is the Spirit of life. He has breathed into us the spirit of life, that gave life to us, and made us special among all the other creations.

Although we were special, but we also followed the devil in his rebellion, which made us tainted and unworthy of God’s grace and perfection. Nevertheless, He continued to love us regardless, and He continued to care for us in the same way as before. He blessed us, watched over us, and protected us, and yet we often forget about His love and dedication for us.

It is often that we confuse and mix up what our needs are and what we want. It if often that we seek something that we desire, and often that this means material goods, wealth, or worldly fame and affluence. We prefer to seek these and seek solace in them rather than the One who had given us everything that is most important in our life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we be like those who choose this world over that of God? Shall we be lacking of gratitude to the One who had given us so much and yet much forgotten? Let us change our ways if we had done so, and from now on, put our trust ever greater in God.

May our Lord continue to provide for us, and strengthen us, in case we falter. Let us all be thankful to the Lord and receive His kindness to us, and from now on no longer be worrying about the world, but instead, let us live in the grace of God and let Him from now on guide our path, that we may walk towards Him and towards the eternal glory that He had promised us. Let us all give Him thanks and praise Him for His love. Amen.