Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 81 : 3-4, 6-7
Give justice to the weak and the orphan; defend the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the helpless and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
“You are gods,” I said, “You are all sons of the Most High.” But now you will die like the others; you will all fall like any mortal.
Liturgical Colour : White
Wisdom 6 : 1-11
Listen, o kings, and understand; rulers of the most distant lands, take warning. Pay attention, you who rule multitudes and boast of the numerous subjects in your pagan nations.
For authority was given you by the Lord, your kingship is from the Most High Who will examine your works and scrutinise your intentions. If, as officials of His kingdom, you have not judged justly or observed His Law or walked the way God pointed out, He will oppose you swiftly and terribly; His sentence strikes the mighty suddenly.
For the lowly there may be excuses and pardon, but the great will be severely punished. For the Lord of all makes no distinction, nor does He take account of greatness. Both great and lowly are His work and He watches over all, but the powerful are to be judged more strictly.
It is to you then, sovereigns, that I speak, that you may learn Wisdom and not stumble. For those who keep the holy laws in a holy way will be acknowledged holy, and those who accept the teaching will find in it their defence. Welcome my words, desire them and they will instruct you.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard about our nature as the servants of the Lord, as those whom He had created and blessed with life, and in this world that is our working place, we truly have the responsibility of living a life good and just in the sight of our Lord, following all the teachings and ways that He has shown us through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the prophets and the Holy Scriptures.
We are all creatures and servants of our Lord who have been living well in this world and enjoying all of its goodness and bounties simply because our Lord, God and Master has deemed it such that He allowed us to dwell in this world and have another chance to seek His mercy and salvation. Rightfully and in consideration of justice, He should have wiped us out from the face of the earth and from among all creations, because of our sins and wickedness.
God calls all of us to hearken to Him and to listen to His words and understand His will for us, that is for our repentance and genuine penitence and regret from all the faults that we have committed in this life. God wants us all to be reunited with Him and to receive once again the blessings and graces that should have been ours if not for the sins and disobedience that we have committed against Him.
We spurned His laws, rejected Him, chose the father of lies and wickedness, Satan as our lord and guide instead of the Lord, just because to us, he seems to be offering more and better offerings as compared to what the Lord is offering us. And this is because of that great sin and evil that had begun with him, and which, once we mankind took up his offer, became ours to bear as well.
The sin of pride is truly great, if not the greatest and most dangerous of all forms of sin, evil and wickedness. It was what brought down Satan, once called Lucifer, from his height and glory in heaven, into damnation and eternal revilement by all of creations. He was once the greatest, most brilliant and mightiest angel created by the Lord, with brilliant and large wings, and with beauty unsurpassed by any in creation. And yet, in all these glories, he fell to his own pride, desiring more things for himself.
It was from his pride that greed and desire sprung forth, jealousy and hatred of the Lord, as he aspired to have more things for himself and to get something that is not his due. He wanted to make himself to rise above all angels and seize the throne of God, and sitting upon it, he planned to usurp the Lord and His authority, but in the end, he was beaten up and thrown down into humiliation and darkness.
And the same will also happen to us all if we are not careful with how we live our lives. If we allow our pride, our arrogance and our desires to take over all of us, then it is likely that we will also rise up against the Lord in disobedience and rebellion against His will, and by our actions we will be found wanting on the day of judgment. And I am sure we would not want to hear the verdict and result of that judgment.
Therefore, today, all of us are called to live righteously and in accordance with the will of God, even amidst all the temptations and the challenges of this world that persuaded us not to follow the Lord and His ways. And in this, we ought to look up to the examples of Pope St. Leo the Great, whose feast day we are celebrating today, the feast of this great saint, whose many works and dedications helped the Church and many of the faithful to weather through all the challenges.
Pope St. Leo the Great lived and reigned as the Vicar of Christ during a time when the Christians were no longer persecuted, but indeed, they have even been privileged to receive the official state religion status in the whole of the Roman Empire. Yet, this did not mean that the Church and the faithful had it easy for them, or that everything was smooth and without any issues or troubles.
At that time, there existed many heresies and errors of the faith, which were espoused by those who thought of themselves as better than the Apostles and the Church fathers who had preserved the wholeness of the Christian faith and teachings as passed down to them from the Lord Himself. Instead, these people, who led many souls to downfall and destruction, acted based on their desires and greed, pride and haughtiness, and in how they want to preserve and perpetuate all these.
At such a time, Pope St. Leo the Great played a very crucial role, by acting as the unshakeable anchor to the Lord, who then through him, he opened the path for many to find the Lord and to repent from their errors and mistakes. He wrote many works and books related to the essentials and necessities of Church teachings and doctrine, and in these, he firmly rejected Satan and all of his lies, while urging the faithful to stay true to the teachings of the Lord.
And when great danger and evil would come upon the people of God, Pope St. Leo the Great would not hesitate to go forth and ride in front of them to protect them from harm. This was evident at the time when Rome itself, the seat of the Apostles and Heart of Christendom was threatened by the Huns led by their infamous king, Attila the Hun. In what was to be the most famous and well-known event of his life, Pope St. Leo the Great went by himself to meet the fearsome and cruel king of the Huns, asking him to turn back to his land and leave the people of God alone, of else God would smite him and crush him for his wickedness.
Awed by the courage and the strength he found in Pope St. Leo the Great, the Hun king Attila had no choice but to retreat and abandon his campaign. If not for the resolute and the courageous attitude and action of Pope St. Leo the Great, so many thousands of people would have suffered terribly and even might lose their lives. Thus, we see how in the actions of this faithful and devoted servant of God, we can also follow in his footsteps to be faithful servants of our Lord.
Let us all throw away all forms of pride and attachments to desires and the pleasures of this world. All the things in this world are merely playing at our vanity and the devil knows it well, so he will certainly manipulate us and tempt us with whatever is in his means to derail us from our path towards salvation. Let us all reject his path and stick faithfully to our Lord, and bless Him forever and glorify Him with all of our actions. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 17 : 7-10
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “Who among you would say to your servant, coming in from the fields after plowing or tending sheep, ‘Go ahead and have your dinner’? No, you tell him, ‘Prepare my dinner. Put on your apron, and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink afterwards.'”
“Do you thank this servant for doing what you told him to do? I do not think so. And therefore, when you have done all that you have been told to do, you should say, ‘We are no more than servants; we have only done our duty.'”
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 33 : 2-3, 16-17, 18-19
I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.
The eyes of the Lord are fixed on the righteous; His ears are inclined to their cries. But His face is set against the wicked to destroy their memory from the earth.
The Lord hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught.
Liturgical Colour : White
Wisdom 2 : 23 – Wisdom 3 : 9
Indeed God created man to be immortal in the likeness of His own nature, but the envy of the devil brought death to the world, and those who take his side shall experience death.
The souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the unwise they appear to be dead. Their going is held as a disaster; it seems that they lose everything by departing from us, but they are in peace.
Though seemingly they have been punished, immortality was the soul of their hope. After slight affliction will come great blessings, for God has tried them and found them worthy to be with Him; after testing them as gold in the furnace, He has accepted them as a holocaust.
At the time of His coming they will shine like sparks that run in the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their King forever. Those who trust in Him will penetrate the truth, those who are faithful will live with Him in love, for His grace and mercy are for His chosen ones.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the Lord speaking to us in the Holy Scriptures. God spoke to us about what will happen at the time when He comes again in glory to judge His people and to bring them together once again as one people. On that day, He shall glorify the just and bless those who are righteous, and condemning those who are wicked and who have failed to do as the Lord had taught us to do.
In this, our Lord would like to remind us of the consequences of sin and what will happen to us if we walk on the path of sin and darkness. Those who have done evil shall fear the coming of the day of judgment because it is then that they will be judged for their deeds, and they will be held accountable for everything that they have done, be it good or evil in nature. Indeed, everyone shall be held accountable for all of their actions, and it is in these that we shall find salvation or condemnation.
But we have no need to fear or be excessively worried, for our Lord indeed gave us a chance, by the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our Saviour. Through Him, God gave us a chance and a method of deliverance from the evils that had troubled us all these while. Yes, the evil spirits and the wickedness that dwell in us has caused us so much trouble and made us to do so many bad things in the sight of God.
And yet, the Gospel today is a reminder for us not to be complacent and ignorant of the problems that we may encounter on our way. There is a lesson in the readings today about someone who had been released from the bonds of the evil spirits and then later on became worse due to those evil spirits returning back with an even greater force. This is a lesson on the nature of our faith in the Lord, which should be enduring and be filled with commitment to the Lord.
This means that our faith should be maintained and kept alive and strong. We have to remember that the devil and his fellow fallen angels are always out and about trying to bring about our downfall. And if we do not keep our spiritual defence strong, then the warnings of our Lord will come true for us. This means that we must keep our spiritual and prayer life strong to defend ourselves from the assaults of the evil one.
We must be wary and be vigilant, not to reopen the doors to allow Satan to come again into our hearts. Because at baptism all of us have renounced Satan and cast him out with the help of the power of our Lord, who sanctified the waters of baptism that washed us and made us clean, clean from the taints of sin, and from the tyranny and the hold of the evil spirits.
But this does not mean that we can be idle or be ignorant of all things after that. Our faith does not require us just to believe as some would have it, but instead, it requires an active participation and contributions through good works and deeds, which means that we are actively practicing our faith. We cannot be merely providing lip service of our faith to God, as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had often done.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be inspired by the examples of two saints, whose feast we celebrate on this day, so that we may make ourselves righteous, just and worthy in the sight and in the presence of our Lord. St. Denis, Bishop of Paris, martyr and holy servant of God, was the bishop of what is now Paris, the largest city in France, at that time was the capital of Roman Gaul.
St. Denis was renowned for his great faith and for his great service to the Church, protecting many of the faithful under his care and ministering to them, even during the difficult times of the persecutions under the Roman Emperors who were dead set in destroying the Church and persecuting the faithful. The Roman Emperor Decius was in particular very adamant and passionate in his persecution of Christians.
It was told that eventually he and many other Christians at the time were arrested, tortured and forced to choose between recanting their faith, rejecting their Lord and Master, or die a most painful death. Yet, St. Denis and his faithful flock stayed strong in their faith, and they resisted the efforts of their tortures most admirably. Eventually he was put to death by beheading, separating his head from his body.
Yet, miraculously, even though he had been beheaded, St. Denis continued to live and walk by the grace of God, and holding his own separated head, he continued to preach the truth of Christ, terrifying all those who had persecuted him and the other Christians, and not few of them eventually believed and were converted as well to the truth of Christ.
Then, today we also celebrate the memory of St. John Leonardi, known also as San Giovanni Leonardi, an Italian priest who ministered to the faithful during a time about four centuries ago. He was a founder of a religious order, and was renowned especially for his personal holiness and devotion, both to the Lord and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord and Saviour.
St. John Leonardi through his works and devoted service to the people of God brought about a reversal of the heresy known as the Protestant ‘reformation’. This massive heretical movement had brought about many millions of souls to be lost from the Church and many faced eternal damnation, if not for the works of St. John Leonardi and many other faithful servants of God in what would be known as the Counter-Reformation.
The brave examples of the two saints we celebrate today should be an inspiration to all of us, that if we are truly faithful and devoted to the Lord, we shall show it not just by mere words and profession of faith, but with concrete and real actions, in defending that faith, standing up for the Lord and for our brethren oppressed for their faith, and for loving one another just as our Lord had instructed us.
Let us all therefore renew our faith to the Lord, and commit ourselves to greater devotion to the Lord and His ways. Let us open wide the doors of our hearts to His love and grace, and close the door tight against the devil and his fellow fallen angels. Do not let the evil spirits to come into us again and claim us for damnation. May the Lord protect all of us His people and bless us and our works forever. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)
Luke 11 : 15-26
At that time, some of the people said, “He drives out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons.” Others wanted to put Him to the test, by asking Him for a heavenly sign.
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them, “Every nation divided by civil war is on the road to ruin, and will fall. If Satan also is divided, his empire is coming to an end. How can you say that I drive out demons by calling upon Beelzebul? If I drive them out by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive out demons? They will be your judges, then.”
“But if I drive out demons by the finger of God; would not this mean that the kingdom of God, has come upon you? As long as a man, strong and well armed, guards his house, his goods are safe. But when a stronger man attacks and overcomes him, the challenger takes away all the weapons he relied on, and disposes of his spoils.”
“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me, scatters. When the evil spirit goes out of a person, it wanders through dry lands, looking for a resting place; and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.'”
“When it comes, it finds the house swept and everything in order. Then it goes to fetch seven other spirits, even worse than itself. They move in and settle there, so that the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)
Psalm 9 : 2-3, 6 and 16, 8-9
Let my heart give thanks to the Lord, I yearn to proclaim Your marvellous deeds, and rejoice and exult in You, and sing praise to Your Name, o Most High.
You have turned back the nations; You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their names forever. The pagans have sunk into the pit they have dug, their own feet ensnared by the trap they laid.
But the Lord reigns forever, having set up His throne for judgment. He will judge the nations with justice and govern the peoples in righteousness.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)
Joel 1 : 13-15 and Joel 2 : 1-2
Gird yourselves, o priests, and weep; mourn, o ministers of the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, o ministers of my God! For the house of your God is deprived of grain and drink offering.
Proclaim a fast, call an assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land into the house of your God, and cry out to YHVH, “What a dreadful day – the day of YHVH that draws near and comes as ruin from the Almighty!”
YHVH said, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm on My holy mountain! Let all dwellers in the land tremble, for the day of YHVH is coming. Yes, the day is fast approaching – a day of gloom and darkness, a day of clouds and blackness. A vast and mighty army comes, like dawn spreading over the mountain, such as has never occurred before nor will happen again in the future.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 