devotion to God

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(Usus Antiquior) Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 27 July 2014 : Epistle

Lectio Epistolae beati Pauli Apostoli ad Romanos – Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Romans.

Romans 6 : 19-23

Fratres : Humanum dico, propter infirmitatem carnis vestrae : sicut enim exhibuistis membra vestra servire immunditiae et iniquitati ad iniquitatem, ita nunc exhibete membra vestra servire justitiae in sanctificationem. Cum enim servi essetis peccati, liberi fuistis justitiae.

Quem ergo fructum habuistis tunc in illis, in quibus nunc erubescitis? Nam finis illorum mors est. Nunc vero liberati a peccato, servi autem facti Deo, habetis fructum vestrum in sanctificationem, finem vero vitam aeternam.

Stipendia enim peccati mors. Gratia autem Dei vita aeterna, in Christo Jesu, Domino nostro.

English translation

Brethren, I speak a human thing, because of the infirmity of your flesh; for as you have yielded your members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity, so now yield your members to serve justice, unto sanctification. For when you were the servants of sin, you were free from justice.

What fruit therefore had you then in those things, of which you are now ashamed? For the end of them is death. But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, you have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end life everlasting.

For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Saturday, 26 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Joachim and St. Anne, Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of two saints, St. Joachim and St. Anne. And in case you do not know who they are, they are actually the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the father and mother of the Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus, they are the grandparents of our Lord. They truly had a great significance, especially in moulding Mary, born immaculate without sin, into the great servant of the Lord she is now.

In an age and time when mankind lived in sin, and lived in a world filled with uncertainty, greed and endless desires, St. Joachim and St. Anne were simple people, who lived humbly and righteously before God, following Him in all of His precepts and were totally obedient to His will. The light that was in them, was truly crucial, as this light became a guiding light for the one whom they bore into this world, the Mother of our Saviour.

It is perhaps that St. Joachim and St. Anne themselves did not realise how great an impact they would have on the world through Mary their daughter. However, it is through their commitment and devotion to God, and in their loving and tender care for their daughter Mary, that they imparted the love of God to her, and from her, eventually to Jesus, her Son, and eventually to all of us.

The role of St. Joachim and St. Anne cannot be diminished or be ridiculed or be made less important, for we all should know what kind of responsibilities that parents may have, or are expected to have. It is through their careful and dedicated work on Mary their daughter, that our Blessed Mother grew great in her faith. She was conceived without sin and any taints of darkness like that of her Son, Jesus, but this alone will not be good, if she did not have loving parents as that of St. Joachim and St. Anne to care for her and to provide for her spiritual growth and well-being as she grew up.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is imperative now that we talk about the family, and yes, the family itself as a sacred and crucial unit of the Christian society and the Church, and the dangers that are facing the family as an institution of the Christian faith. We all know that our world today and the currents of our times are not exactly favourable or friendly to the family. In fact, it was an outright hostility, if not direct conflict between the family and its values, and the contemporary ways of this world.

All of us have to understand this, by first understanding the importance of marriage, and its sanctity, being a Holy Sacrament of the Church. Marriage is a holy occasion, when a male and a female adult are joined together in matrimonial agreement and Sacrament before God, and promised to be together till death separates them. And remember that, in marriage, God made man and woman into one, one in body and spirit, and no bond that God had made sacred, man may divide.

And yet, marriage is increasingly becoming a plaything and a ridicule for the world. Marriage is no longer considered by many as sacred and holy, and many have forgotten that it is not something to be taken lightly. We have to look at how many people had decided to dissolve their marriage because of various reasons, but if we look at all those reasons, they are truly mankind’s selfish desires and their inability to reject the temptations and the lies of Satan.

Marriage inevitably leads to family, for marriage is not just for the sake of pleasure, and in particular, it should never be seen for the sake of the pleasures of the flesh and for the enjoyment of this world. If this is the case, then we have truly failed to understand the value and importance of marriage. Marriage is to bring about a holy union intended towards the creation of life. Yes, marriage inevitably leads to family, with child-bearing the grace of God to all mothers.

Therefore the family itself too is an important institution, especially because we have to realise that in our faith, we need a strong and firm foundation from the very beginning, if we are to be able to resist Satan and all of his advances on us. Without a strong foundation of faith in the family, we will not be able to reject him with full certainty, and may end up failing miserably and fall into sin.

Following the examples of St. Joachim and St. Anne, and in how they brought up Mary, the mother of our Lord, let us all remember, those in the family and with children in particular, that our familial bond must be strong, and that it must be based on love, as well as on faith in God. We have to always remember the saying, that a family that prays together will stay together.

Therefore, let us all renew our commitments to the Lord, beginning from our own families, making the effort to come together, pray together and glorify the Lord together through our actions as a family. Let us keep holy our family, respect one another in the family, and together let us help one another, as well as in the great family of the Church of God, to come ever closer to the Lord our God, seeking Him always at all times.

May God bless all families, keep them holy and in love, so that all peoples may grow forever stronger in love, in hope and in faith. Amen.

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Thursday, 24 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhluf, Priest (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear the admonition, almost to the point of lamentation, on why the people of God, whom God had loved so much, did not appreciate that love and refused to budge and listen to the kind words of the Lord, offering hope and comfort. God had done so much for men, as we all may testify and witness in how He cared for His people throughout the Scriptures, and yet they rejected His love.

But the Lord is not someone who would just leave sinners like that once His approach had been spurned. In fact, He tried many times and sent reminders after reminders to tell mankind, both how much He loves us, and also how He gave us chance after chance, which we either ignored or cast aside in our pursuit for the goodness of the world. We have tasted the corruptions of this world, and into sin, where we have fallen into.

Our hearts and minds are corrupted with the darkness of sin, and our beings are filled with darkness that prevents us from seeing the light and living in the light. We are truly the creatures of darkness, unlike the children of the light we all ought to become. And precisely as it had been written in the Scripture reading today, how we trust rather in the leaking faucet and pipes, that is our own flawed strength and feeble foundations, over the strength of the everlasting spring of God’s power.

We are easily tempted, and too easily bribed by Satan who offered the sweetest of his treacherous lies and temptations. He has all of his forces arrayed against us, tempting us daily that we may eventually falter along our path towards salvation, and be dragged together with him into the hellfire. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we must be vigilant and be solid in our faith, that we have a strong defense against whatever it is that the devil is using against us.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Sharbel Makhluf or St. Charbel Makhluf, a renowned Maronite saint, who lived just over a hundred years ago in today’s Lebanon. St. Sharbel Makhluf is a holy man and a deeply devoted person to God, who was born to a devout Christian Maronite family, a group of Christians that has dwelled for a very long time in Lebanon area since the days of the early Church, and which remained loyal to the authority of the Apostles even though many others had apostasized.

St. Sharbel Makhluf joined the religious life and devoted his life entirely to God. He was truly a role model for the faithful, and his life was an example for all to see. His life might have been relatively uneventful, and he dedicated all of his time to God. However, upon his passing from this world to the heavens to be with God, miracles came abound from his body and his grave. This is a mark of favour by God, showing how much He blessed those who are with Him and who devoted themselves to Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, should we not follow the examples of this great and yet humble saint of God? In his life, St. Sharbel Makhluf had shown us that it is perfectly possible for us all to be faithful servants of our God, provided that we set our sights, our attention and our hearts on Him alone. If we do these things, certainly God will bless us just as He had once blessed St. Sharbel Makhluf.

Let us all therefore seek God in this life, and devote ourselves ever more to our loving God. God wants nothing other than our love and devotion, just as He Himself had first been devoted to us. Let us no longer spurn His love, but with great humility, ask Him for His grace and forgiveness, that we may once again enjoy the fullness of His love. God be with us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 24 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Sharbel Makhluf, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)

Psalm 35 : 6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11

Your love, o God, reaches the heavens; Your faithfulness, to the clouds. Your justice is like the mighty mountains; Your judgment like the unfathomable deep.

How precious, o God, is Your constant love! Mortals take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. In Your house they find rich food and they drink from Your spring of delight.

For with You is the fountain of life, in Your light we see light. Bestow on Your faithful Your love and give salvation to the upright of heart.

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Wednesday, 23 July 2014 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded again of the need for us to grow in our faith, and learn to trust God in all the things He had planned and willed for each one of us in our respective lives. The Gospel today told us about the parable of the sower and the how various fates of the seeds were told, telling us in fact what happens to the faith within us if we respond or do not respond to it in a proper way.

Then in the first reading today we heard about the calling of the prophet Jeremiah, whom the Lord had chosen to be His prophet and His messenger to the errant and disobedient people of God. The tasks facing Jeremiah were truly massive and difficult, and it was a great undertaking and responsibility which God had entrusted him to do. Jeremiah was right to be hesitant and to be uncertain about himself, as most men will do, but God showed how He will take care of him and guide him along the way.

We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, should expect the same kind of things to happen to us in our own lives. We should not be so concerned about our lives, and about what will happen to us on daily basis, to the point that we forget the various wonderful things that we may be able to do with all of our abilities and time that we have on our hands.

Each of us had been entrusted with the gift of faith, hope and love by God. All of us who are His children have been given these great gifts within us. Yes, these are the seeds, the very same seeds that Jesus had figuratively mentioned in His parable of the seeds and the sower. What happens to these gifts, and whether they languish in misuse and abandonment, or whether they grow mightily and wonderfully to become inspiration for all to see, is truly depending on our own actions in life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we make good use of our faith in us, it will only grow. Then, if we share the hope in us and use it to bring hope to others, and if we love one another, and show others how to love, we all may only grow in standing before our Lord and God. This is exactly what happened when the seeds fell on the rich and fertile soil, where the seeds grow mighty and produce a great bounty beyond all expectations.

Yes, if we are truly faithful and practice that faith in our lives, then we shall reap rich rewards at the end of our lives. However, that is not an easy feat to do. There are numerous challenges that we will face in our lives. There are difficulties that are laid on our paths, if we choose the path of the Lord. But as we all know, and especially as all farmers and sowers should be familiar with, there is no easy way out or shortcut to get a bountiful harvest. Hard work and effort is required.

We have to make the effort to put out the weeds and all those that threaten to kill the progress and growth of the seed and the plant. Those weeds are the temptations of the flesh, and the pleasures of this world which seek to corrupt is and turn us away from the true and correct path in life. We have to destroy and cast away all these weeds from our lives, that they may not choke us with worries and selfishness.

Then we also have to grow deep roots, that we may avoid being crushed by the challenges and problems of this world. The deep roots of our faith will be necessary for us to draw strength from God, that our faith may not stumble and fall against the forces of darkness and evil arrayed against us. If our roots are not deep, that we will be easily swayed by Satan and his sweet lies.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Bridget of Sweden, also known as St. Brigitta, who was a Swedish lady who was a mother and dedicated family woman, who bore many children, and eventually, after the death of her husband, with the support of her daughter, she joined holy and devoted life to God. She established several religious vocations and orders, inspiring many to follow her examples.

St. Bridget of Sweden herself was very devoted to God, not just in words but also through concrete action. She devoted herself to love her neighbours and others around her, giving herself into charitable acts and works. She also inspired many by her pilgrimages, in which eventually she went to Rome and settled in the city of the Holy Apostles.

St. Bridget of Sweden faced many difficulties in her life, and she experienced rejection and refusal from many people, including accusations and harassment. However, she remained steadfast in her faith and in her total dedication to the Lord. And that was why, today, she was the perfect example for all of us in how we should live out our lives, and how we carry out ourselves that we may grow stronger in faith, hope and love.

Therefore, let us pray and hope devotedly to God, that He may bless us with strength and guidance, that the seeds of faith that God had sown in us will flourish and grow great, that in the end, we may be all found worthy of our Lord. May Almighty God bless us and guide us on our way. May He strengthen our faith always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 July 2014 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today this Sunday just as last Sunday, we celebrate Bible or Scripture Sunday, when we truly come together to appreciate and honour this writing and collections of books which together make up the entire revelation of God and His words, which He spoke through the prophets and through His many servants throughout the ages.

In order to be able to fully appreciate and understand the importance of the Bible or the Holy Scriptures, then first we must know it and take the word of God in it into our hearts and minds. And it is important to know that without a sufficient knowledge of the word of God in the Scriptures, we cannot be truly faithful and devoted to God, for we are bound to be affected and corrupted by the falsehoods of Satan, the evil one, who spread his lies all the time to trap those whose faith are not strong.

But that does not mean we can just memorise and remember the Holy Scriptures and the word of God without understanding it and the true meaning of the literary works of the prophets and the writers of the Holy Scriptures. Do you all remember what Satan did when he tempted Jesus our Lord in the desert just after His baptism? Yes, precisely, Satan quoted the passages of the Holy Scriptures, and then twisting their meaning to serve his own wicked purposes.

Such will be the dangerous and powerful weapon that Satan will employ against those who knows the Scriptures, but refuse or disregard the need to understand the word of God and its meaning as written in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, we cannot study or understand the Scriptures on our own, or claim that our understanding of them to be sufficient for our salvation, a view and idea which is called sola scriptura and which has quite a following among those who thought that they know it better than the early Church fathers in the matters of the faith.

Remember brothers and sisters, that the authority to teach the meaning of the Holy Scriptures has been bestowed by God to none other than Jesus Christ, His own Son, who came into the world. In Jesus lay the full completeness and perfection of all the messages and the prophecies of the prophets of the past and all the words of God revealed through the servants of God. All these are in what we know today as the Old Testament, that is the testaments and the works of the servant of God before the coming of Christ.

Jesus taught His disciples and many other people through the means of parables, or stories that are related to many different life experiences and scenarios, often not talking directly about God in those parables. For the laypersons and all those who did not understand the meaning of those parables, what Jesus told them in the parables might not make sense to them, but they might have truly understood what the stories were about.

The parables of Jesus were constructed around many real examples that if one is to take a closer inspection, would reveal that Jesus often talked about the professions that were truly ubiquitous and renowned, as well as common during the time when He was in the world. These include shepherds, which we know in the case when Jesus talked about shepherds and Himself as the Good Shepherd; fishermen, which Jesus often referred to in His teachings to the disciples in their future role as the fishers of men.

Jesus talked about farmers and sowing of seeds most often, because farming truly was the most prevalent job in the society at the time. By using these analogies, or parables, He taught the meaning of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures with perfect clarity and true authority of teaching. With those examples and references, He could relate with the life experiences of the people, who then might understand the word better.

However, as we all know, that Jesus did not stay in the world for long. He accomplished the long-planned salvation for mankind by going through the punishments meant for our sins, bearing them on the cross towards Calvary, and gave us a new hope in life. Jesus rose up from the dead and showed us hope in His resurrection and then departed from this world to return to His throne in heaven to prepare a place for all of us.

Hence, Jesus passed down the authority to teach the Holy Scriptures in its complete and true meaning to the Apostles and the disciples whom He had chosen from among the people. He sent them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate and the Helper, who enlightened them with zeal and faith, and through the Spirit sent by God to them, they passed down the same truth and teachings of the Lord to their successors, to pass them down in the Church of God, on which God had invested the authority over all of the faithful.

There is no other wisdom and truth beyond that of the Lord’s wisdom and power, and hence there can be no truth in the Scriptures and the Word of God beyond the teachings of the Church. There were those who thought that they have the intellect and knowledge better than the Church and the early Church fathers who had received the teachings and the directly from the Lord Himself.

Luther, Henry VIII, Calvin, Zwingli, and many other countless heretics who rebelled against God and His Church were the very examples of how people have misinterpreted, twisted and misused the words of the Lord in the Holy Scriptures for their own selfish purposes. They were attached to the promises of Satan in the glories and pleasures of the world, and so deeply attached they were to their own human frailty and weakness, that they failed to see what the Lord truly meant in His words and instead caused great divisions in the body of the faithful, that is the Church.

Therefore, it is important that as we celebrate this occasion of the Bible or Scripture Sunday, that we read the Scriptures with understanding, and do our best to obey and listen to the teachings of the Church as espoused and held firm by its members and through the successors of the Apostles, namely our Pope, the Cardinals, bishops and priests of the Church of God.

Nevertheless, it is also important for us to take note that, we do not have to worry about our faith if we hold true to the teachings of the Church. What is important is that we have faith in God and keep it true at all times. God has told us through Jesus, that the faith in us is like the mustard seed. Mustard seed from the mustard plant is a very small seed, only barely a small speck to our eyes. However, when the mustard plant is fully grown, the plant is truly large, at least four to five metres tall.

What Jesus meant was that, if we allow our faith to develop and grow in us, then no matter how small that faith is, it will grow and flourish, and affecting not just ourselves, but also those around us and inspiring them to come closer to the Lord as well. But if we choose not to allow this faith to grow in us, then we will wither and perish, just as a mustard seed will remain just that, a seed if it does not sprout and grow.

How do we let it grow healthily then? It is by listening to the word of God, and not just by our ears or by our eyes that we witness these words of the Lord, but also to carry them deep into our hearts. Follow faithfully the teachings of the Lord that we gained through the Church, and we will do fine. Let us all work together, that all of us may grow stronger together in faith, hope and love in God. May He bless us always, now and forever. Amen.

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Saturday, 19 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear how in Jesus Christ, the long awaited Saviour of this world had finally come into it, and through Him, we received great graces and blessings. But at the same time, through the Holy Scriptures, we also heard how the opposition against the Lord did not remain silent, but rather this opposition grow in strength and threatened to strike againsf God and all those who followed Him.

Jesus was not welcomed by the Pharisees, the Scribes, and the elites and leaders in the Jewish society. He was constantly followed, hounded, and harassed by them, and in all the things that He did, they tirelessly tried to find something to fault Him against and to accuse Him in front of the people although they failed to do so, no matter what they had done.

The happenings in the Gospel of today is a clear link to the prophecy of the prophet Micah, who mentioned how the wicked and those who walked on the path of evil would lay evil plans and plotted against the faithful, seeking the destruction of the righteous and the good, for their own benefits in selfishness and greed. They cared not for the innocent in obtaining their goals, and would stop at nothing for their own gain.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that was why our Lord was angry at those who are in this world, who attached themselves to the corrupted ways of this world, and to all the corruptions of sins and worldly attachments that kept them away from God. To those who continue to refuse to listen to Him, and those who continuously rebel against His will, there will be no mercy and no quarter given when the time comes for God to announce His judgments to all.

But for those who listen to Him, and those who repent from their sinfulness, God will show His rich mercy and love, baring open His loving heart for all to see. And He had made it plain in sight for all through the loving sacrifice of Jesus Christ His Son, which sadly many people simply failed to realise and notice how much love God showed them, and how much He cared for them.

So much love God had shown us indeed, that He was truly willing to come personally to deal with our issue. Yes, we truly had an issue, that is an issue with sin and wickedness on our parts, and that of our constant disobedience and ignorance of God’s laws and precepts. And Jesus came into this world to open our eyes, open our ears, and make us see and hear the truth about God and His love for us, and so that we may emerge from the darkness that engulfed our souls.

God came into this world in Jesus, not to punish or destroy us. It was never in His intention to condemn us to death or eternal damnation in hell. It was truly our own actions and our own constant disobedience which has cast us body and soul into hellfire. God does not wish our destruction but rather our salvation and our reunion with Him in grace and love. He wants us to be totally changed and transformed from our ways of old and into a new way based on true faith and true love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we all recognise the love of God, and resolve to love Him back too? Shall we be truly children of God who walk in the same way as our Father in heaven? If we are truly beloved children of God, then let us all follow Him with all of our hearts, without hesitation, and continue to do the will of God just as how Jesus taught us through His disciples.

May Almighty God strengthen the faith in us, the hope in us, and the love in us, so that we may be saved just as He had intended for us, and therefore be reunited in perfect love with Him and never be separated again. Let us rebuke and reject the devil in all totality. Never doubt God’s love again, brethren! Amen.

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Friday, 18 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we should grow to appreciate more the tenets of our faith, and not just to know and understand them, but also to put them into the deepest parts of our hearts and minds. It is only if we had done this that we may truly be good and faithful servants of our Lord, who follow Him not out of blind faith, but out of true understanding and appreciation of His precepts and laws.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time are hardliners and ultra-orthodox purists who took up a very conservative and strict stance on how the people ought to live out their lives in accordance to the faith and to the laws of God as revealed to the people of God via Moses and the prophets who came after him. They criticised Jesus and His followers, and were constantly at their heels, trying to disturb and harass them at every opportunity because they failed to understand the true meaning of the law of God, and in doing so, they believed in God through blind faith and ended up causing greater harm than good.

Jesus today in the Gospel advocated and taught us the importance of understanding the words of the Lord found in the Holy Scriptures, and finding the true meaning of what our faith, and indeed of what our God is all truly about. And He highlighted that using the example of His own servant David, who out of hunger, were allowed to eat the bread of offerings in the Temple, normally reserved only for the consumption of the priests. David and his companions ate the bread.

All of this is to show that God is love, and all about love. He loves all of His creations, and in particular all mankind, the most beloved of all His creations. And the laws which He had given to them through His prophets, is just another form of His love and dedication which He showed them. Through the Law, He hoped that mankind would be able to find their way to Him and ensure that these beloved ones of Him did not fall along the way as they seek the way to reach out to Him.

Sadly, throughout the history of mankind, and the history of the people of Israel, the chosen people of God, they had grown corrupt in their ways, and even with the prophets to remind them about the love of God espoused and enshrined in the Law, they still chose to ignore the pleadings of the prophets even to the point of rejecting and murdering them to shut them up for good.

And even after God had rescued His people when He showed His mercy to the exiled ones of Israel, they still persisted in their unruly behaviour, as shown in the occasions of the apostasies during the time of the Maccabees, when many of the people of God chose to honour their own safety and well-being in exchange for abandoning their Lord and their faith. But the worst of all was indeed not the ways of the people who veered away from the Law of God, but the rise of those who took the Law for granted and used it for their own selfish and self-aggrandising desires.

The Pharisees and the Scribes were among these, and they used the Law to impose on the people a very strict and unbending set of rules and obligations that ended up mocking and ridiculing the Law itself, causing the people to forget the true meaning and intention of the Law, in exchange for a blind observation of the faith which they truly did not understand and misinterpreted, to the point that the Pharisees regarded themselves as being superior to others and casually condemned all those who were against them.

Jesus our Lord came as the Saviour of the world, and of all His beloved people. Therefore, as part of His great mission, He came to clarify all doubts and remove the layers of untruths and distortions which the people had made with the Law. He came to bring the Law into its perfection, the Scriptures and the prophecies of the prophets and servants of God into their complete fulfillment, and to bring love, the love of God Himself, into the world once again.

And to show that love, which God had shown mankind and all creations since the beginning of time, He showed that through His ultimate act of love, the sacrifice on the cross on Calvary, when He bared Himself and opened His own heart to all of His beloved creations. In that, He made the Law perfect and revealed the entirety of the meaning of God’s love and precepts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, even today there are still those who refuse to listen to God’s loving words and His calls for us to repent and to follow Him and instead, trusting in their own human wisdom and intellect and thinking that they know it all better than anyone else, walk on their own paths towards their own doom.

We must not end up being focused so much on ourselves, that we forget or ignore everything else, especially God and His love for us. Our fear of losing things precious to us and our attachments to the world can often stand in the way of truly becoming faithful disciples of the Lord. The concerns and worries of king Hezekiah of Judah, although a faithful servant of the Lord, was to become his taint and the blotch of ink that spanned through his otherwise immaculate record.

King Hezekiah was so distraught that he was to die young, that he begged the Lord for mercy, and kindly, the Lord heard him and extended his life. But later on, we found that if we read the Holy Scriptures, that King Hezekiah showed off his wealth and glory to the Babylonian ambassadors, priding in his own greatness and human power, all these while rejecting and refusing to listen to the word of God which He had spoken through His prophet.

King Hezekiah is an example of how attachments to worldly things and all other distractions that exist in this world may lead to our detachment from the Lord and His way, and end up being too caught up in our own concerns, worries and others, that we do not glorify God in our works and actions, but instead glorify ourselves and the evil one.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be mindful of all these, and let us be careful, lest our worldly attachments bring us into ruin. Let us all have a good and healthy relationship with our God, through devout prayer and obedience to the teachings of the Church, through which Jesus our Lord had made clear the purpose of the Laws of God, purified from all the corruptions of men, the Pharisees and others.

May Almighty God bless us and be with us always, that He may guide us to Him, and straighten our path and make it secure, that we may not fall into the darkness, but remain always in the light. Amen.

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Tuesday, 15 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are given a clear warning, one that is really true and genuine by our Lord Himself, who is thoroughly concerned with our safety and well-being. He did not lightly condemn the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum and the other cities of Israel and Galilee, but He did so because of the constant opposition and rebelliousness which the people showed Him.

These people, particularly represented by the factions of the Pharisees and the Scribes, or the religious, as well as the Sadducees or the ones in power, constantly and viciously were always following Jesus to try to disturb and disrupt His works, in particular the former group. They persuaded and bribed the people to act against Jesus and His disciples, and for all these rebelliousness, Jesus rebuked them as we heard in the readings today.

The Lord truly meant good for His beloved people, and He did not curse without reason. For in the first reading, God gave His reassurance to the people beleaguered and attacked from all sides without hope, and delivered them from the way of harm into salvation. God meant good for all of them, but they often did not appreciate or show gratitude for such love which God had shown them, and instead they betrayed Him and His love by worshipping other gods, pagan gods and idols.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is easy for us to think that because we live in an age and time where paganism is no longer prevalent or existent then we are safe from this problem. As a matter of fact, even in this day, this kind of disobedience still exists in our world and in our society. When the pagan gods of the natural elements, stone and gold went away, come the gods and idols of wealth and possessions, such as money, career and consumeristic behaviour.

Our world today is filled with them, and its people filled with endless desires and greed for these, and they are never satisfied, their desires and wants ever growing. These are the new idols of this world, which feeds on the desire of mankind, and grow on mankind’s endless desire and quest to gain more and more happiness in this world, even though the happiness that they seek is nothing more than really the pleasures of the flesh.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bonaventure, a great saint and thinker in the Church, whose works were so numerous and amazing that he was given the title of the ‘Seraphic Doctor’. He was once also a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Chyrch, chosen for his intellect and great leadership qualities, which he showed clearly in his life. He was of the Franciscan religious order and his numerous works, together with that of St. Thomas Aquinas, his contemporary, had helped to develop the teachings of the faith enormously.

St. Bonaventure was truly brilliant in his writings and works, and through his writings many aspects of the faith become clearer to us today. But he was not just merely an intelligent and excellent writer of the faith, as he was also a contemplative thinker and a faithful servant of the Lord, whose thoughts are always aimed and focused on the Lord alone. He was a champion of maintaining a balance and relations between reason and faith, showing how reason can complement faith, and how faith can truly be a guidance to men.

St. Bonaventure also shows how the ways of this world is not always necessarily evil, provided that we take precautions and be careful in our life. If we stay unceasingly and solidly obedient to our Lord and God, definitely there will be no difficulty in doing this. Challenges and difficulties will still be on our way, but nothing will be impossible if we stay close to the Lord, as St. Bonaventure had once done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we from now onwards reject Satan and all of his false promises? Shall we turn away from the rebelliousness of our ancestors and turn to God alone? Let us pray to St. Bonaventure, asking for his intercession, that he may ask the Lord to strengthen the faith in us, that our faith will be a strong and vibrant one, and will not be easily affected or corrupted by this world and the evil one’s influences.

May God bless us all, and continue to guide us in our works, that we may serve Him to the best of our abilities. Amen!

by

Sunday, 13 July 2014 : 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a special occasion in our Liturgical year, when we celebrate Bible or Scripture Sunday, when we honour the Book from which we gained all that we need to know about our faith, and about our Lord and God. For the Bible or the Holy Scriptures is in itself the Word of God, the words of revelation which God had given to mankind over the ages, through His many prophets and servants.

The Holy Scripture is the revelation of the word of God, through which God made His will known to mankind, and through the advancement in technology and availability of printing, now we can have them as what we know now as the Bible. We have this privilege which members of the early Church did not have, and we should indeed be truly grateful for these gifts of the Bible we have with us.

How did then, the people of God and the faithful know about the Holy Scriptures? They did it through passing around oral stories and traditions, which they kept faithfully down through the generations, which were eventually compiled together and made into what we know as the Holy Scriptures, of which there are a total of seventy-three books, comprising of forty-six books of the Old Testament, of the time before the coming of Jesus Christ, and twenty-seven books of the New Testament, after the coming of Christ into the world.

One may ask, then, why the division between the Old and the New Testament? It is all in fact because of Christ, that is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who as divine incarnate, became Man and came into this world. If we read the Gospel of John, on the first chapter, in what was faithfully read every Mass as the Last Gospel, it is all made clear. Jesus is the Word of God, who was made flesh, and became Man, for the sake of our salvation.

Thus the Old Testament refers to the ancient and old revelations of the Lord and the faith, before the Word Himself came into the world, while the New Testament reveals truly the new testament of faith, by none other than Jesus Himself, the Word of salvation. Those who believe in Jesus and in His teachings will be saved, and those who reject them will be doomed and damned for eternity.

There are sadly however, those who believe strictly in the words of the Bible as it is, without considering the different meanings that it may have carried and not immediately obvious to us, and sometimes even to the greatest intelligent minds that men possessed. This belief, which is also known as ‘sola scriptura’, is definitely wrong, and is truly a chief cause for the great divisions between the many so-called branches of the Church, separated by the evil act of the ‘reformation’ a few centuries ago.

The greatest flaw is that, no man should ever claim to be able to understand or fully comprehend the meaning of the word of God contained in the Holy Scriptures all by himself or herself. This emphasis on the sole dependence on the Holy Scripture is not right, and will confound our understanding of the true faith in the long term. What then, should be the foundation of our faith? We should put our faith in God, and on His teachings which were made known to us through the tradition of faith among God’s people.

The sacred tradition of the faith is important, and it is also present strongly in our Church. This sacred tradition is the one that complements our faith and understanding of the faith, as we obtained from the Scriptures. It is like a guide for us in understanding the Scriptures, that we may not make the same mistake as what many throughout the ages had done, misinterpreting the Scriptures and the Holy Gospels as they liked.

It is important that we guard ourselves from the misinterpretations and misunderstandings of the Gospel’s and the Scriptures’ message, that we do not end up causing divisions among ourselves and in the Church, as what had happened before in the past. Our feeble and limited minds are not capable of understanding the fullness of the truth of God, and therefore we are bound to misunderstand its true meaning without guidance.

This is precisely the mistake that caused so many people to stray away from the faith in the one and only Church of Christ, to follow their own flawed human instincts and ways, in an open rebellion against God and His will.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remain faithful and obedient to the teachings of Christ through the Holy Mother Church, that is the Holy Catholic Church, the one and only legal and rightful authority on this earth and under heaven to teach the fullness of faith, as its role in defending the fullness of the truth of the faith. If we do so, we will be able to adhere more faithfully and closely to the truth of the Scriptures and the Word of God.

However, brothers and sisters, we have to always remember that being faithful alone is not sufficient. This is because a faith without works is dead. Remember this saying? It comes from the Letter of St. James the Apostle, who wrote how our faith must be living and genuine, and based on strong sense of love. Faith that is based on strong and living love is a strong and solid faith.

Jesus told His disciples and all of us these, in His parable of the sower and the seeds, where He mentioned the fates of the seeds that ended up in various different types of soil and growth conditions. In this parable, Jesus clearly explained how faith cannot remain dormant, but must be always living and growing so that it may prosper in us and we may be saved.

The seeds are the seeds of faith, and none other than the word of God, which God had planted in us through His Holy Scriptures and teachings which He imparted to us through His disciples and Apostles. But those seeds really have different fates depending on how we use them and how we put them in our own lives, which is indeed the soil where the seeds grow on.

The first scenario, where the seeds fell along the path and got eaten by the birds, represent the situation when the word of God is not properly internalised by us, and as a result, Satan, represented by the birds, come and take us deep into the darkness. This is what happens when we do not receive the word of God, and reject what the Lord had revealed to us.

The second scenario, the seeds that fell on the rocky ground and were not able to grow well, because they did not have deep roots, is basically our faith if we do not commit the word of God into our lives, that is exactly what I had mentioned. Yes, if we do not have a living faith, then our faith will not take deep root in our hearts, and with the coming of troubles, we will stumble and fall into darkness and evil.

The third scenario, the seeds that fell on soil infested with thistles. Thistles are plants that can grow quickly and wrap themselves around other plants, eventually competing with those plants for nutrients, and in the end, literally choking the life out of the other plants. In this case, as Jesus mentioned, the worries and concerns of the world, the pleasures and corruption of the world get in the way, and the word of God did not take root either.

It is only when we commit the word of God that we heard and read from the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Gospels into our hearts and minds, and commit to real and true actions in our lives, then the word of God may grow healthily and strongly in us, and therefore gain for us a rich bounty of harvest and returns in the faith. With regards to this, Jesus did not just promise a meager or small increase in the results, but in fact, none less than thirty, sixty, and hundred-fold or even more from what we put in as our effort.

What is this eternal reward then? This great reward is none other than eternal life with God, which He grants to all those who remain truly faithful to Him, and to those who did not just talk about their faith, but also live that faith in their daily lives. This is the way for us to achieve salvation in God, the culmination of our long effort to reach out to our Lord. It cannot be done without hard work, that is to ensure that the word of God is growing on a rich and good soil.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, on this occasion of Bible Sunday, let us all use this opportunity to renew our commitments to the Lord, first by reading the Bible itself, so that we may know His words, and then, apply what we know into our own lives, in our words, actions and deeds. Then, and only then, we can truly grow strong in faith and reap rich rewards in the end.

May our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, bring into us a greater understanding of the Word of God, so that we may live always in His grace, and remain truly faithful to Him. Amen.