Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 71 : 2, 12-13, 18-19
May He rule Your people justly and defend the rights of the lowly.
He delivers the needy who call on Him, the afflicted with no one to help them. His mercy is upon the weak and the poor, He saves the life of the poor.
Praised be the Lord, God of Israel, who alone works so marvelously. Praised be His glorious Name forever; may the whole earth be filled with His glory! Amen. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or Rose (Gaudete Sunday)
James 5 : 7-10
Be patient then, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. See how the sower waits for the precious fruits of the earth, looking forward patiently to the autumn and spring rains. You also be patient and do not lose heart, because the Lord’s coming is near.
Beloved, do not fight among yourselves and you will not be judged. See, the Judge is already at the door. Take for yourselves, as an example of patience, the suffering of the prophets who spoke in the Lord’s Name.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/ Violet
Psalm 117 : 1 and 8-9, 19-21, 25-27a
Alleluia! Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His loving kindness endures forever. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in the help of humans. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in the might of princes.
Open to me the gates of the Just, and let me enter to give thanks. “This is the Lord’s gate, through which the upright enter.” I thank You for having answered me, for having rescued me.
Save us, o Lord, deliver us, o Lord! Blessed is He who comes in the Lord’s Name! We bless You from the house of the Lord. The Lord is God; may His light shine upon us.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 121 : 1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And now we have set foot within your gates, o Jerusalem!
There the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to give thanks to the Lord’s Name. There stands the courts of justice, the offices of the house of David.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem : “May those who love you prosper! May peace be within your walls and security within your citadels!”
For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, “Peace be with you!” For the sake of the house of our Lord, I will pray for your good.
Liturgical Colour : Green
2 Maccabeus 7 : 1, 20-31
It happened also that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king had them scourged and flogged to force them to eat the flesh of a pig which was prohibited by the Law.
More than all of them, their mother ought to be admired and remembered. She saw her seven sons die in a single day. But she endured it even with joy for she had put her hope in the Lord.
Full of a noble sense of honour, she encouraged each one of them in the language of their ancestors. Her woman’s heart was moved by manly courage, so she told them : “I wonder how you were born of me; it was not I who gave you breath and life, nor I who ordered the matter of your body. The Creator of the world who formed man in the beginning and ordered the unfolding of all creation shall in His mercy, give you back breath and life, since you now despise them for love of His laws.”
Antiochus thought that she was making fun of him and suspected that she had insulted him. As the youngest was still alive, the king tried to win him over not only with his words, but even promised to make him rich and happy, if he would abandon the traditions of his ancestors. He would make him his Friend and appoint him to a high position in the kingdom.
But as the young man did not pay him any attention, the king ordered the mother to be brought in. He urged her to advise her son in order to save his life. After being asked twice by the king, she agreed to persuade her son. She bent over him and fooled the cruel tyrant by saying in her ancestral language : “My son, have pity on me. For nine months I carried you in my womb and suckled you for three years; I raised you up and educated you until this day.”
“I ask you now, my son, that when you see the heavens, the earth, and all that is in it, you know that God made all this from nothing, and the human race as well. Do not fear these executioners, but make yourself worthy of your brothers – accept death that you may again meet your brothers in the time of mercy.”
When she finished speaking, the young man said, “What are you waiting for? I do not obey the king’s order but the precepts of the Law given by Moses to our ancestors. And you who have devised such tortures against the Hebrews, shall not escape the hands of God.”
Liturgical Colour : Red
2 Timothy 4 : 10-17b
You must know that Demas has deserted me for the love of this world : he returned to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke remains with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is a useful helper in my work. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus.
Bring with you the cloak I left at Troas, in Carpos’ house and also the scrolls, especially the parchments. Alexander the metalworker has caused me great harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. Distrust him for he has been very much opposed to our preaching.
At my first hearing in court no one supported me; all deserted me. May the Lord not hold it against them. But the Lord was at my side, giving me strength to proclaim the Word fully, and let all the pagans hear it.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is loving and merciful, and He desires nothing from us other than our love and total dedication to Him, and that is what He told Martha, on the love and dedication Mary her sister had for Him. And that is also what He truly desired from the people of Nineveh, that they abandoned their sinful ways and instead took the bold steps towards redemption and salvation.
For many of us, brethren in Christ, are like Martha, who are too busy for the Lord, busy with all the activities that we have, busy with all the things of the world, that we forget about the most important of all, that is loving Christ and giving of ourselves to Him, through our dedication and love. We revel much in the pleasures of the world and gave ourselves in, to the temptations of the devil.
We are so busy and so preoccupied in what we are doing, that we lost sight of the true goal that we have in life, and sadly, many of us are like Martha, whose intention is actually good, in wanting to serve and provide for the Lord, through her service, but became too preoccupied in the rigour of the work, that the work and business take precedence over loving our Lord and God.
We also tend to be like the people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, who lived in sin and basked in their sinfulness. They enjoyed all the pleasures of the world and did things abominable in the eyes of the Lord our God. This is what brought the Lord’s wrath upon them, the divine vengeance which He announced to them through Jonah the prophet.
It is easy for us to lose track of the truth and lose sight of the truth, because we have failed to filter out the noise of the world, which threatens to block the Lord from our hearts. We live in this increasingly noisier world, where mankind listen less and less to the heeding of the Lord, and pay more attention to their ego, their desires, and their wants.
The Lord speaks to us, brothers and sisters, inside our hearts, conveying to us His message of love inside our hearts, for each and every one of us. He wants us to understand the importance of love, especially the love for Him, and the love for our fellow mankind. We are truly creatures of love, created by God Himself who is Love. And yet, because we are often entangled within the evils in this world, we tend to love less and hate more, and even if we love, we tend to only love and care for ourselves.
This is why, brethren, we ought to be like the people of Nineveh, because even though they are sinful and had committed things abominable in the sight of the Lord, they repented once they knew the anger of the Lord is upon them, and humbly placed themselves, kneeling and prostrating with shame in front of the throne of God, even their king, showing the genuine nature of their repentance.
This is what made the Lord to spare all of them instead of punishing them for their sins. This is because the Lord truly loves us and does not want to punish us, all because of His eternal love. He will certainly welcome us back with love, if we repent from our sins in full sincerity.
Then, we also ought to be like Mary, the sister of Martha, at an even higher level of dedication to the Lord. This is because even without the threat of punishment or annihilation, she gave her full attention, dedication, and love to Jesus our Lord and gave her full heart to Him. That is what the Lord truly wants from us, our love.
We must not lose sight of our true goal in life, brothers and sisters, that is to reach out for the Lord, and the salvation that He offers to all of us. And we can achieve this through love, through the manifestation of our love in our words, deeds, and actions, daily in our world. In that, we show the extent of love we have for the Lord, that we listen to Him and His will, and like Mary, give our full heart’s attention for Him.
May the Lord who is loving and forgiving continue to watch over us and give us His tender love, readily welcoming us, when we turn our back on sin, and reach out for His infinite mercy. God be with us all always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Habakkuk 1 : 2-3 and Habakkuk 2 : 2-4
YHVH, how long will I cry for help while You pay no attention to me? I denounce the oppression and You do not save. Why do You make me see injustice? Are you pleased to look on tyranny? All I see is outrage, violence and quarrels.
Then YHVH answered me and said, “Write down the vision, inscribe it on tables so it can be easily read, since this is a vision for an appointed time; it will not fail but will be fulfilled in due time. If it delays, wait for it, for it will come and will not be deferred. Look : I do not look with favour on the one who gives way; the upright, on the other hand, will live by his faithfulness.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Hebrews 12 : 18-19, 22-24a
What you have come to is nothing known to the senses : nor heat of a blazing fire, darkness and gloom and storms, blasts of trumpets or such a voice that the people pleaded that no further word be spoken.
But You came near to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem with its innumerable angels. You have come to the solemn feast, the assembly of the firstborn of God, whose names are written in heaven. There is God, Judge of all, with the spirits of the upright brought to perfection. There is Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White
Psalm 97 : 1, 7-8, 9
Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.
Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all its peoples. Let rivers clap their hands, hills and mountains sing with joy.
Before the Lord they will sing, for He comes to rule the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 