divine blessings

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(Usus Antiquior) Ash Wednesday (I Classis) – Wednesday, 18 February 2015 : Holy Gospel

Liturgical Colour : Violet

Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum Matthaeum – Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew

Matthew 6 : 16-21

In illo tempore : Dixit Jesus discipulis Suis : Cum jejunatis, nolite fieri, sicut hypocritae, tristes. Exterminant enim facies suas, ut appareant hominibus jejunantes. Amen, dico vobis, quia receperunt mercedem suam.

Tu autem, cum jejunas, unge caput tuum, et faciem tuam lava, ne videaris hominibus jejunans, sed Patri tuo, qui est in abscondito : et Pater tuus, qui videt in abscondito, reddet tibi. Nolite thesaurizare vobis thesauros in terra : ubi aerugo et tinea demolitur : et ubi fures effodiunt et furantur.

Thesaurizate autem vobis thesauros in caelo : ubi neque aerugo neque tinea demolitur; et ubi fures non effodiunt nec furantur. Ubi enim est thesaurus tuus, ibi est et cor tuum.

English translation

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “When you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, sad. For they disfigure their face, that they may appear unto men as fasting. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.”

“But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that you do not appear to men as fasting, but to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees all in secret will repay you. Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where they can be consumed by the rust and moth, and which thieves break through and steal.”

“But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor moth can consume and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there lay your heart as well.”

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Tuesday, 17 February 2015 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the bbSeven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints)

Psalm 28 : 1a and 2, 3ac-4, 3b and 9b-10

Give the Lord, o sons of God, give the Lord the glory due His Name; worship the Lord in great liturgy.

The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the Lord thunders over vast waters. How powerful is the voice of the Lord, how splendorous is the voice of the Lord.

The God of glory thunders, the Lord strips the forests bare, and in His Temple all cry, “Glory!” Over the flood the Lord was sitting; the Lord is King and He reigns forever.

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Sunday, 8 February 2015 : Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sexagesima Sunday and Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we continue to progress on towards the celebration of the most important parts of our Faith, that is the suffering, Passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today is Sexagesima Sunday, or literally meaning ‘sixty’ as a reminder for us that we are within about sixty days from the coming of Easter.

And on this day we heard about the nature of our lives, of our dwelling in this world, and the answer to all of our difficulties, plight and sorrows. As the first reading, taken from the Book of Job had mentioned, the suffering of this world, the pain and sorrow we all experienced, are like what Job had once experienced when Satan tested and tempted him against the Lord.

If we read the entirety of the Book of Job from the beginning to the end, we would realise that the suffering of mankind was never, ever the intention of our Lord. Suffering is in fact the result of the works of Satan and all of his allies, the forces of darkness in this world, and also more importantly, because of our disobedience against the will of God, that is sin.

Job’s friends accused Job of having sinned and committed wickedness before God. But meanwhile Job continued to complain and lamented for his sufferings, part of which we heard in our readings today, he continued to remain faithful to the Lord and never did once he cursed the Lord or blamed Him for what had happened to him. God showed Job that there are much that he did not understand, and He gave His answer to all of Job’s complaints, and for his continued faith despite his ramblings, he received great rewards surpassing what he had lost and what he had suffered from.

Thus, God wants to succour us and help us, and that was what God intends with us. The psalm today speaks of the healing which we can find in God, and it is this healing which our Lord Jesus Christ had brought with Him as He entered into our world to save it and to save all of us, His beloved people and children. The Gospel today reinforced this, by showing how Christ is concerned with all of His people, from the greatest to the least, and was concerned about spreading the truth He brought into the world to all the peoples.

He worked to heal the people of their afflictions, of the diseases that scourged their bodies, just as Job once was covered with boils and scabs that itched, and far above all these, was the healing which our Lord wrought upon our souls. What is this sickness of our souls? It is none other than sin. Sin is the scourge upon all of us, and it is a great barrier that prevents us from reuniting and being in complete unity and reconciliation with our Lord.

But we truly have no need for fear, as the Lord Himself had spared nothing else but Himself, and incarnate through His own Son, He made Himself the salvation and deliverance for us all mankind. For He is the Word of God, the Divine Word who is God and always is with God since before the beginning of time, and who was incarnate in the flesh to become like one of us, born a Man.

And through Jesus therefore, the word of God became real and concrete in this world, and instead of speaking through messengers and prophets, by the coming of Jesus into the world, God Himself speaks directly to us all, by what Jesus had taught us, and which His Apostles and disciples, and through them the Church, had preserved and passed down upon us.

In the readings for the Sexagesima Sunday, we hear of the parable of Jesus, that is the teaching of Jesus using stories and real experiences to make it easier for people to understand, the translation of the word of God into the words of men. Through what Jesus taught the people, what we know as the parable of the sower, the word of God has the power to bring us from the darkness of this world and from the suffering of the world into eternal happiness and joy with God.

However, as the parable shows us, that the word of God is like seeds planted by the Lord, who is the Sower, and the fate of those seeds depend on what kind of treatment or soil that they land on. This means that from our side, we must put in effort and work to ensure that the word of God can fall on fertile soil, and hence grow to bear rich fruits, that will lead us to our eternal reward, just as God once rewarded Job for his faith.

There will be many obstacles, brothers and sisters in Christ, as the parable shows us, and surely as our own experiences should have told us, that to be truly faithful and devoted to the Lord, and to follow Him in all of our ways is not going to be easy. Temptations of the world, the pressure from our peers and friends, and from the world itself to conform to the ways of the world or be rejected will be great, and it is on our part that we need to put in our effort to resist those challenges and temptations.

Today we celebrate the feast of two saints, St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, two people who had very different life stories, and yet their experiences and examples will show us that what God had done unto us, by His coming into the world to offer us His generous mercy and love, is truly unmatched and unprecedented in the history of this world.

St. Jerome Emiliani was once a civil servant who worked in the government sector a few hundred years ago in what is today Italy. He eventually left behind everything to join the sacred priesthood and dedicated himself completely to the Lord and to his fellow men. St. Jerome Emiliani was renowned especially for his great love and care for orphans and all the children who were destitute and filled with problems in their lives.

St. Jerome Emiliani therefore helped to establish institutions and places where orphans and many other people who had been ostracised and rejected could stay as their new homes, and he himself with other priests and servants of God ministered to them and cared for them. He also established houses to accommodate former prostitutes who had repented from their sins.

Meanwhile, St. Josephine Bakhita was born in what is now Sudan just a century and half ago, and when she was young, she had to taste the bitter pill of war and violence, as well as the experience of slavery and subjugation by others, forced to accept the religion of heathens by her captors. She was sold as a slave and she was treated very badly, often tortured and not given proper food and place to live in.

By the grace of God, she was freed from her slavery when she was purchased from her previous owners by a Christian diplomat who came into the region and then entrusted St. Josephine Bakhita with the care of his family and children. A court thereafter ruled that St. Josephine Bakhita had not been legally a slave as where she was at, the state had ruled out slavery since before her birth, and thus she was then a freedman.

She was then baptised as a Christian and accepted into the Church by the future Pope St. Pius X, who was then the Patriarch of Venice, as she lived in the region where he had jurisdiction in. St. Josephine Bakhita thereafter joined the Canossian sisters, where she had lived for a while prior to her freedom, and from then on she lived a life of holy contemplation and filled with prayers and dedication to God. Great is her reward at the end of her earthly life.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue to prepare for the celebration of Holy Week and Easter, as well as we prepare for the season of Lent that precedes the former, which is soon to come, let us all take all these lessons and words into our hearts. St. Jerome Emiliani cared for the least of the people, the orphans and the rejected, just as Christ Himself gave Himself to the service of all those who have not been loved and those persecuted by others.

Let us all allow God to come into our lives, and through the planting of His words in our hearts, let us all be changed and transformed to become true and faithful children of our Lord, in all our words and deeds. Like St. Josephine Bakhita, the slaves turned freedman and then into a faithful servant and devoted woman, by allowing God to come into our lives, we allow ourselves to be freed from the slavery of sin and detaching ourselves from the things of this world.

May Almighty God bless us all, guide us all back to Him and in Him may we find satisfaction, succour and enlightenment, that we may all rejoice in Him in His everlasting glory, as we receive the great rewards for our faith, and may all of us be healed from the earthly and worldly afflictions. Amen.

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Saturday, 7 February 2015 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we discuss in the readings of the Holy Scriptures, of the nature of our Lord and God as our Shepherd and loving Guide, who cares for all of us, as His beloved children and people. He wants us all to be reunited with Him, and that was why He sent us Jesus His Son, to be the Deliverer and Saviour of us all, to bring us from all evils and liberate us all from all forms of sins.

God did not desire our destruction, but instead He wants us all to be saved from our own destructive attitudes, our rebelliousness and disobedience against His will which directly leads us into sin, and from sin into death, as sin is an obstacle for us to be reunited with our Lord, and without the Lord our God, our Shepherd, we are truly nothing. We cannot survive without the love of our Shepherd, just as sheep cannot survive and prosper without their shepherds.

We have lived for a very long time in the darkness, and we have lost our way in the darkness of this world, and without a guide, we are condemned to an eternity in darkness and suffering, in a state of hopelessness and complete separation from the love of our God. All these are because of our sins, the disobediences we have committed before the Lord and men alike.

But as I have mentioned, the Lord loves us very, very much, and just as the shepherd loves his sheep and cares for all of them without exception, thus the same applies to our Lord, who does not want even a single one of His sheep, that is all of us, to be lost from Him. We can liken this to a shepherd who does not wish his sheep to be lost to the wolves, to be scattered and without a leader to guide them and show them the way to a good life.

Thus this was why if we look at the Gospel passage today, even though our Lord Jesus and His disciples were very tired, particularly our Lord Himself, after ministering without cease on many occasions to the multitudes of the people of God, He still pushed Himself forth and taught more people who were looking for Him for guidance and the way for them to go in their life.

That is because He truly has concern and love for us. He is genuinely worried about us, for what is at stake is nothing other than the eternal fate of us all, and if He did nothing to save us, then all of us would have been lost, body and soul, to the eternal suffering and despair in hellfire. This is the fate that He does not want us all to have, and that was why, He became our Shepherd, to guide us all along the right path and show us all the path towards salvation in Him.

And just as a shepherd is willing to die and give up his life for his sheep, thus our Lord Jesus, our Shepherd is also willing to lay down His life for our sake. He laid down His life to protect us, and indeed to deliver us from the darkness of this world, to pay the price for our sins. Shepherds are willing to put their own lives at risk just so that their sheep may be safe from the depredations of wolves and all others that seek their destruction and harm. And indeed, our Lord is no different.

So for such a great love and care which our Lord had shown us all, even to the point of bearing the consequences of our sins and to even bear enormous suffering and to die for us, have we shown Him the same kind of unconditional and genuine love which we ought to show Him? Most often, we have shown Him contempt and indifference, and we even reject the love He had given us freely.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all appreciate the love which our Lord and Shepherd had shown us, and let us reciprocate it by loving Him back and following Him and the path which He had shown to all of us. Let us follow Him with all of our heart and let us no longer be disobedient but follow Him all the way to the end, where He will reward us with rich rewards and eternal life in bliss. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 4 February 2015 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Hebrews 12 : 4-7, 11-15

Have you already shed your blood in the struggle against sin? Do not forget the comforting words that Wisdom addresses to you as children : ‘My son, pay attention when the Lord corrects you and do not be discouraged when He punishes you. For the Lord corrects those He loves and chastises everyone He accepts as a son.’

What you endure is in order to correct you. God treats you like sons and what son is not corrected by his father? All correction is painful at the moment, rather than pleasant; later it brings the fruit of peace, that is, holiness to those who have been trained by it.

Lift up, then, your drooping hands, and strengthen your trembling knees; make level the ways for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but healed. Strive for peace with all and strive to be holy, for without holiness no one will see the Lord. See that no one falls from the grace of God, lest a bitter plant spring up and its poison corrupt many among you.

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Tuesday, 3 February 2015 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, and St. Ansgar, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear about the healing which Jesus performed to the woman who had bleeding in her for twelve years, and also the resurrection of the dead daughter of a synagogue official. And both of them have a great significance for us, as they were both saved and healed because of their faith.

The woman was healed from her bleeding because she believed that Jesus had the power to free her from her afflictions, while the daughter of the official was healed because her father also showed the same faith in the power and authority of Jesus. What Jesus told the woman is important, as He said that the woman’s faith had saved her. This showed that we must have faith in the Lord in order for us to achieve salvation.

However, people tend to interpret this differently, thinking and assuming that faith alone is sufficient for us to attain salvation and liberation from all of our afflictions. Some were misled by the confusion to think that we just need to have faith and to believe in the Lord, and then all of our problem will be gone, and all of our difficulties will cease. But this is a wrong idea, an erroneous thinking and a heresy planted in our minds by Satan.

Our Lord Himself, as the first reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews had testified, is the founder of the Faith we have now, not just because He preached what He had preached, and not just because of all the words and things which He had mentioned and taught to His disciples, but even more importantly, Jesus Himself practiced and made true what He had taught and preached in His own actions.

He persevered and suffered grievously for all of our sins, and He bore that cross that is our sins, holding onto it as He ascended the hills of Calvary, and every single wounds He received is our sins that He patiently and lovingly bore upon Himself. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? Our Lord loves us all very much, and He wants us all to be saved. He had faith in us all being able to overcome sin, but without action, everything would come to naught.

And that was why, He showed us all the example through His own action, that faith is never complete without action and deed to prove that faith, and without action based on that faith, the faith is essentially dead. The woman with bleeding believed in Jesus, but had she not taken the action to come through the numerous crowd and try her best to touch the cloak of Jesus, she would not have been healed.

It was also the same for the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official. Had Jairus not make the effort to come down and seek the Lord Jesus, he would not have received the reward for his faith, even though he was indeed faithful to the Lord. Thus, our faith requires effort, a conscious effort and work, which is our faith made alive and real.

Indeed, we cannot profess that we are truly faithful to the Lord, if we had not done anything to show that we are indeed faithful. Therefore, let us all from now on, change our ways and be truly faithful, just as today we celebrate the feast of two saints of the Church, namely St. Blaise and St. Ansgar, the faithful servants of God, whose examples hopefully may inspire us all.

St. Blaise was renowned as the patron saint of throat diseases, and we know of him now primarily because of the custom of the blessing of the throat, also known as St. Blaise’s blessing, with two crossed candles on our throats. St. Blaise was once a physician that cured and healed diseases, but he then settled on in the greater service of God and His people and instead he became the physician of souls.

The works of St. Blaise in calling the people of God to repentance and to a holy lifestyle is a constant reminder to all of us, that we are all always afflicted with the disease of the soul, that is sin, and we have to seek remedy for this affliction, that is by seeking the Lord our God with faith, and by doing what He had commanded us to do, as doing good deeds for others around us is a panacea and medicine against the sickness of sin.

Meanwhile, St. Ansgar showed us that we have much to do as the fellow servants of God, in doing good for one another and in calling many people from the darkness of the world into the Light. St. Ansgar was truly experienced in this as he lived during the early Medieval era Europe, in the midst of the people still gripped by pagan worship and pagan gods, and he was indeed sent to those people to bring the Light of Christ upon them.

St. Ansgar tirelessly worked to bring the Good News and the truth of Christ to them. Amidst all the difficulties and challenges, he managed to convert countless souls and gained them for the Lord, for their own benefit as well. And this should inspire us all to take up the same cross, the same mission to bring more and more people to the salvation in the Lord.

May our Almighty God be with us all, guide us all in our ways that we may always be upright in His eyes and at the end of the days, may we all find salvation and justification in Him, the One who rewards all His faithful with the abundance of graces. God bless us all. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Second Sunday after Epiphany, Feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome, Feast of St. Paul the Apostle, and Feast of St. Prisca, Virgin and Martyr (II Classis) – Sunday, 18 January 2015 : Homily and Scripture Reflections

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the Second Sunday after Epiphany, the beginning of the Sundays after Epiphany and we are still in the middle of the season of Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord. And as we proceed towards the upcoming season of the Lent, Holy Week and Easter, we move on from the birth and youth of Christ, and we began to hear His works and ministry in the readings which we heard today.

Our Lord Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist in the Jordan and that baptism marked the beginning of His ministry in this world. He called His disciples, the Apostles, and they followed Him. But He had not immediately started His works and miracles yet as He would later show to the world. He was tempted by Satan during His forty days sojourn in the desert and triumphed, and after He had called His first disciples, He likely returned to His home and His mother, Mary in Nazareth.

And it was to the wedding in Cana that His mother brought Him along, together with His disciples, and there He performed His first miracle, even though He did not intend to do it in the beginning. The couple met a big trouble on their wedding day, as they ran out of wine in the midst of that important occasion. This is truly a potentially very embarrassing event for the wedding couple, one that could have brought them shame forever.

For we have to understand that a wedding ceremony was a very important event and celebration in the society of the people of God, and it was written in the laws and the customs of the people, that such an event should be properly and thoroughly prepared. Many guests were to be invited and many people usually took part in such celebrations. Therefore, it is very important that the host, that is the couple celebrating their wedding, to provide as best as they could for their guests.

And wine is central to the celebrations of the wedding, just as it is central to the feasts and celebrations of the people of God. Wine is a symbol of joy, of celebration and of happiness, which also symbolise the happiness and joy the couple would have in their wedded life as husband and wife. To run out of wine on such an important occasion would be indeed the ultimate embarrassment and taboo as it would be seen as a very bad omen and a shame on the couple and their families.

Fortunately, as we heard in the Gospel, Mary intervened for their sake, and asking for the help of her Son, she sought to alleviate their problem. And even though Jesus was reluctant to help, as it was not yet His time to come to reveal His divinity to the people, but He listened to His mother’s request nonetheless. And we know the rest of the story. The water was turned into wine, and from having no wine at all, the couple received great praise and accolades for keeping the best quality wine until the end, the water turned to wine by Jesus.

From all these, we have two main things that we should learn and treasure from. The first one is the value and importance of marriage between man and woman. This is an institution and indeed the holy Sacrament that had been under constant attack and defilement in the recent years and decades, and as a result, our community and society begin to also lose their faith, because marriage is no longer viewed as sacred and as a result, the institution of the family is weakening too.

The wedding at Cana is a reminder for us all, that as Jesus chose to do His first miracle there, that we have to treasure married life for those of us who are already married, and we have to stay faithful to one another. We cannot overlook the importance of the family, and thus, all of us the faithful have to preserve the fullness of truth, our faith in our families, and this is the foundation of the strong faith we ought to have in all of us.

And secondly, that we have our Mother Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus, and the mother of us all as the guide, helper, and protector for us all. She is the mother of God, for she is the mother of Jesus, God made Man, and thus she sits now closest to the throne of her Son in heaven, the Almighty God and King of kings. And as she is the closest to our Lord, just as at Cana, whatever she requests to her Son is likely to be heard.

Therefore, it is good for us to deepen our devotion to Mary our mother, and through that the devotion we should have for our Lord Jesus Himself. We should ask for the protection and the prayers from our Blessed Mother, for if we, who like the wedding couple, encounter problems in this world, and if we ask her with the fullness of faith in God, then surely Mary will not hesitate to seek the help of Jesus her Son, and intercede for our sake on our behalf.

May Almighty God therefore bless all of us, and through Mary His mother, may He show us the path to salvation in Him. Let us all strengthen and renew our commitment to Him, and renew the love and faith in our families, treasuring the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony we have among us, and keeping our families ever strong and faithful, under the watchful eyes of our mother Mary and her Son, our Lord and God. Amen.

 

Epistle :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2015/01/17/usus-antiquior-second-sunday-after-epiphany-feast-of-the-chair-of-st-peter-at-rome-feast-of-st-paul-the-apostle-and-feast-of-st-prisca-virgin-and-martyr-ii-classis-sunday-18-january-2015-2/

 

Gospel :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2015/01/17/usus-antiquior-second-sunday-after-epiphany-feast-of-the-chair-of-st-peter-at-rome-feast-of-st-paul-the-apostle-and-feast-of-st-prisca-virgin-and-martyr-ii-classis-sunday-18-january-2015-4/

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Wednesday, 14 January 2015 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 104 : 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9

Give thanks to the Lord, call on His Name; make known His works among the nations. Sing to Him, sing His praise, proclaim all His wondrous deeds.

Glory in His holy Name; let those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and be strong; seek His face always.

You descendants of His servant Abraham, you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God; His judgments reach the whole world.

He remembers His covenant forever, His promise to a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the promise He swore to Isaac.

 

Homily and Reflection :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2015/01/13/wednesday-14-january-2015-1st-week-of-ordinary-time-homily-and-scripture-reflections/

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(Usus Antiquior) Feast of the Holy Family (II Classis) – Sunday, 11 January 2015 : Epistle

Liturgical Colour : White

Lectio Epistolae Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Colossenses – Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Colossians

Colossians 3 : 12-17

Fratres : Induite vos sicut electi Dei, sancti et dilecti, viscera misericordiae, benignitatem, humilitatem, modestiam, patientiam : supportantes invicem, et donantes vobismetipsis, si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam : sicut et Dominus donavit vobis, ita et vos.

Super omnia autem haec caritatem habete, quod est vinculum perfectionis : et pax Christi exsultet in cordibus vestris, in qua et vocati estis in uno corpore : et grati estote. Verbum Christi habitet in vobis abundanter, in omni sapientia, docentes et commonentes vosmetipsos psalmis, hymnis et canticis spiritualibus, in gratia cantantes in cordibus vestris Deo.

Omne, quodcumque facitis in verbo aut in opere, omnia in Nomine Domini Jesu Christi, gratias agentes Deo et Patri per ipsum.

 

English translation

Brethren, put you on the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another, even as the Lord had forgiven you, so you also.

But above all these things, have charity, which is the bond of perfection : and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein you are also called in one body, and all of you be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God.

All whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things you do, do it in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Homily and Reflection :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-homily-and-scripture-reflections/

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Sunday, 28 December 2014 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are celebrating the great feast of the Holy Family of Jesus our Lord, and His mother Mary and His foster-father Joseph. On this day, in the midst of this joyful season of Christmas when we celebrate the Birth of Jesus into this world, we reflect on the family which Jesus had, the perfect and model family which all of the faithful should emulate.

The Holy Family is a family not built on glamour or the wealth of this world, but on love and rich with the graces of God. It is not just because Jesus Christ our Lord is one of the Family, but because of the active participation of all members of the family, namely Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Jesus was an obedient Son, who listened to His mother even though at times He told her of things which she was not aware of, due to His unique nature of both being God and Man. The perfect example of this would be the wedding at Cana, where Jesus performed His first miracle of turning water into wine, listening to His mother’s pleas on behalf of the bride and bridegroom in trouble.

Mary, then, was a loving and caring mother, who was genuinely concerned for her family and first of all, for her Son, Jesus. Mary devoted her entire life caring for Jesus as He grew up from a Baby into His adulthood, ready for the mission for which He entered this life. She followed her through His mission in life and even unto His suffering and death on the cross. She stood by faithfully on the foot of the cross, just as He suffered and died for us, for our sake and to atone for our sins.

Meanwhile, St. Joseph was not related by blood to Jesus at all, but he was related to Jesus through his legal marriage to Mary. As such he became the foster-father of our Lord and Saviour. At first he had his sceptic moment when he found that Mary was pregnant without him even married to him yet. He thought that she was unfaithful to him, but Joseph was a righteous man and a responsible person. For Mary’s own good he wanted to divorce her quietly so that she would not suffer the repercussion.

Joseph was therefore a good father figure to Jesus, and the one likely who taught Him various things in life, educating Him on skills and even perhaps on carpentry. Jesus was likely also a carpenter as His foster-father was. He was an upright man who took his duties and responsibilities seriously. He protected his family well, and he brought them to Egypt to live in exile while those who sought the death of Jesus his foster-Son was around.

All of the members of the Holy Family therefore are good examples for us all. They showed us how we should behave as a family. A family is not built on just mere coincidences, arrangements, or infatuations. A family is built on firm foundation of love, the love that is the same as the love which God had for us. Yes, love that does not perish with goods and love that does not demand a return.

We have to realise today in our world that many of our families are losing their integrity and harmony, because we are losing genuine love in the family. More and more people today are only concerned about themselves and not about others. When members of a family start to put each of them and their own interests above that of the others, then things will certainly not look good for the prospect of that family.

In addition, if we note the readings today talking about Abraham and his wife, Sarah, who had been rewarded by God after many years of fruitless marriage without any children, with the promised child Isaac, who would be the father of many, earning Abraham what God had promised him, that his descendants would number as many as the stars.

Abraham was rewarded because of his faith, as was with Sarah. Sarah did have her skepticism as well, when she heard of the news that she would be pregnant in her old age and give birth to a child, and she even laughed at that. But, eventually, she trusted in God as her husband had, and for this faith they had shown, they bring themselves and make themselves to be a good, harmonious, successful and holy family.

This is another thing often lacking from our lives as a family. We rarely spend time together and each person are busy with their own business and things, so that we end up growing more and more distant with every passing moment. It is no wonder that fights and disharmony arose out of this situation. Remember that there is a saying, ‘A family that prays together, stays together’?

It was not written in the Bible or the Gospels that the Holy Family did this, but it is most likely beyond any doubt, from what we know of the characters in the Holy Family, that Jesus, Mary His mother and His foster-father Joseph often and regularly prayed together to God, at their meals, at the time when they were working, and at many other times.

If we, as a family, pray constantly to God, I am certain that we will grow closer to the Lord, and if we learn to love and be faithful as the Holy Family had been faithful, in how Jesus, Mary and Joseph played their respective roles in God’s plan for our salvation, I am certain, that we will have genuine love, faith and harmony growing in our families.

There will surely be plenty of challenges and difficulties along the way, but if we persevere, we are certain to be able to pull through together and emerge out as families even stronger than ever before. Let us all model our families on the Holy Family, learning to love one another, putting aside our differences and letting go of our ego and pride, that often cause division and destruction to our families.

Families are the basic units of the faithful in the Church, and it is through the family that we can inculcate faith in the future generations. It has been proven that a family that prays together, keeps up hope for one another at times of distress and stay faithful to the Lord will emerge in the end, as truly faithful and devoted children of God. It is often those without good and proper family background that lose out their faith, and as a result are denied forever the hope of salvation in God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be like the Holy Family in our families, staying filled with love and grace, with faith and genuine devotion to the Lord, that at the end of days, all of us will together embrace the Lord our loving Father and be saved together as one family, and as one people. God bless us all. Amen.

 

First Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-first-reading/

 

Psalm :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-psalm/

 

Second Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-second-reading/

 

Gospel Reading :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-gospel-reading/