Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 12 : 1-2
I beg you, dearly beloved, by the mercy of God, to give yourselves as a living and holy sacrifice pleasing to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
Do not let yourself be shaped by the world where you live, but rather be transformed through the renewal of your mind. You must discern the will of God : what is good, what pleases, what is perfect.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of one of the greatest saints of the Church, that is St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the four original and the greatest among the Doctors of the Church. His mother, St. Monica was the saint whose feast day we celebrated just yesterday. This is to indicate it very clearly to us, of the close bond and link that existed between these two saints, particularly what St. Monica had done for the sake of St. Augustine her son.
St. Augustine was a great sinner, and in his youth, he led a life filled with vices and evil. He pursued the pleasures of the flesh and body, and all the desires of the world, as he thirsted for knowledge and satisfaction in things he thought as those that might be able to satisfy what he needs. Yet, he was not able to gain what he sought, although he tried to find it through immersing himself in philosophy and in gaining the knowledge of the world.
In this pursuit as well, St. Augustine of Hippo was influenced by those around him to follow the teachings of the false prophet Mani, who founded the Manichaean heresy. Manichaeanism was a very popular teaching among the philosophers, hedonists and all those who sought refuge from the increasingly ubiquitous teachings of the Christian faith, which these people despised.
St. Augustine therefore embarked on a very wrong path in his youth, and despite constant urging and persuasion by his mother, St. Augustine continued to adamantly walk on the path of sin and evil, giving himself away to the forces of Satan working in the world through his falsehoods and lies. Yet, St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine did not give up on him, and she ceaselessly prayed and hoped for his conversion to the truth and repentance.
And indeed, all of the hard works of St. Monica and all of her prayers did not go unheard. The Lord who worked in His mysterious ways brought St. Augustine to accept the truth, and eventually he left his past sins and sinful way of life, and ever since, followed only the Lord and lived according to His ways only. Thus, through the persistence and prayers of his mother, a great saint and thinker of the Church was born anew.
The lesson we can gain here at this point is that, in line with the reading we heard today from the Old and the New Testaments, when we live our lives and our faith, we must always be ready and be vigilant, so that we would not fall into the traps and lies set up by the evil one and his forces. The coming of the kingdom of God in the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ had been foretold by the Apostles and through the revelations of faith, and Jesus Himself stressed that He will come again.
And the key message is that this coming of the Lord at the end of time will be sudden and without our prior knowledge, and no one can know the day or time, until when it is already too late for us if we have not done our preparations in this life. We have been given many opportunities in this life, but we often miss them or pretend that we do not care or that those do not concern us at all. At thus, similarly, when death comes to claim us at the end of our lives, which will also be sudden and without our knowledge, it will also be too late for us.
And that was exactly why St. Monica prayed so hard for the sake of her son, and how much she worked to help bring her son to salvation. That is because if the time comes and we have not yet repented and turned away from our sinful ways, then it is truly too late for us. No amount of work or anything done beyond that point can save us, and we will end up like the rich man in the story of Lazarus and the rich man, where the rich man died and suffered for eternity in hell, with no more hope of salvation and the final judgment had been cast on him.
The readings from today also highlighted on the need for us to prepare ourselves well, to sanctify ourselves in the Lord and lead a holy and dedicated life, casting out all impurities and sins away from our bodies and souls. We need to cast away our pride and our desires, so that our lives may be more closely aligned to the will of God, and to what the way of the Lord tells us. St. Paul mentioned that just as our Lord is holy, we who have been saved in Him and who believe in Him must also be holy like Him, or otherwise we would have no part in His promised salvation.
To those of us who believe and put our trust in God, we will not be disappointed, for the Lord Himself would grant us fulfillment and blessings of His grace to the brim of our souls and beings, that we will be completely satisfied and empowered, providing that we put our trust and faith in the Lord, and ask Him always for His providence and help.
I would therefore also like to share with you on this feast day of St. Augustine, the story of how St. Augustine is now often associated with a seashell. This was in fact because, one day, St. Augustine was walking on the seashore, contemplating and thinking about the great mystery of the Lord and His divinity, as well as the nature of the Holy Trinity. Then he saw a young boy with a seashell, trying to carry all the seawater in the world with the seashell and pouring it into a hole in the sand.
St. Augustine asked the young boy what he was doing, and he commented on the futility of such an attempt to empty all the seas using the seashell into such a small hole in the sand. But then the boy replied to St. Augustine, saying that the same is happening for the quest of mankind to understand and uncover the fullness of the mysteries and the truth about the Lord. If the sea and all its waters represent the mysteries and truths of the Lord, then that small hole is indeed our limited and flawed intelligence and understanding.
It was likely that the Lord Himself or an angel appeared to St. Augustine in the form of the small boy, in order to remind mankind, that they ought to put their trust in the will and in the wisdom of God rather in their own limited human intellect, which was not able to comprehend the fullness of the truth about God. By understanding and realising this, St. Augustine of Hippo continued to work harder and harder to bring the Lord’s teachings and good works for the sake of the salvation of many souls.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us grow more and more aware of the life that we lead now, and whether we are suitably prepared for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ by examining and deliberating on the kind of actions we have used in this life, the kind of words that we have used in life and in how we converse with one another, and ultimately the kind of love which we show one another, or the lack of love in our actions.
Let us help one another, inspired by what St. Monica had done for her son, St. Augustine, and if we have fallen into sin and darkness along the way, then let us rise again just as St. Augustine had risen from the darkness of the world into the light of Christ and begin anew in the Lord. Let us cast away all evils and impurities from our lives, and be ever vigilant and ready for the coming of our Lord, that when He comes again, He may find us ready and worthy of Him.
May Almighty God be with us, guide us on our way, that we may follow in the footsteps of St. Augustine of Hippo, the sinner turned into a great saint and pillar of the Church, who brought many souls into salvation, so that we too may help one another to reach the throne of our Lord’s merciful heart and be saved. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 11 : 33-36
How deep are the riches, the wisdom and knowledge of God! His decisions cannot be explained, nor His ways understood!
Who has ever known God’s thoughts? Who has ever been His adviser? Who has given Him something first, so that God had to repay him?
For everything comes from Him, has been made by Him and has to return to Him. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Deuteronomy 32 : 26-27ab, 27cd-28, 30, 35cd-36ab
I said I would scatter them afar and blot out their memory among humankind, but I feared the enemy’s boasting, lest the adversary misunderstand.
And say, “We have triumphed, the Lord has not brought this about.” They are a senseless and undiscerning nation. If they had wisdom, they would have known.
For how could one or two men put to flight a thousand or ten thousand, unless their Rock had abandoned them, unless their Lord had given them up?
Their day of calamity is at hand, and swiftly their doom will come. The Lord will give justice to His people and have mercy on His servants.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Matthew 13 : 31-35
Jesus offered them another parable : “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, that a man took and sowed in his field. It is smaller than all other seeds, but once it is fully grown, it is bigger than any garden plant; like a tree, the birds come and rest in its branches.”
He told them another parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast that a woman took, and hid in three measures of flour, until the whole mass of dough began to rise.”
Jesus taught all these to the crowds by means of parables; He did not say anything to them without using a parable. So what the Prophet had said was fulfilled : ‘I will speak in parables. I will proclaim things kept secret since the beginning of the world.’
Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Kings 3 : 5, 7-12
It was in Gibeon, during the night, that YHVH appeared to Solomon in a dream and said, “Ask what you want Me to give you.”
Solomon answered, “And now, o YHVH my God, You have made Your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a young boy who does not know how to undertake anything.”
“Meantime, Your servant is in the midst of Your people whom You have chosen – a people so great that they can neither be numbered nor counted. Give me, therefore, an understanding mind in governing Your people that I may discern between good and evil. For who is able to govern this multitude of people of Yours?”
YHVH was pleased that Solomon had made this request. And He told him, “Because you have requested this rather than long life or wealth or even vengeance on your enemies; indeed, because you have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I shall grant you your request. I now give you a wise and discerning mind such as no one has had before you nor anyone after you shall ever have.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Matthew 12 : 38-42
Then some teachers of the Law and some Pharisees spoke up, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” Jesus answered them, “An evil and unfaithful people want a sign, but no sign will be given them except the sign of the prophet Jonah. In the same way that Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend three days and three nights in the depths of the earth.”
“At the judgment, the people of Nineveh will rise with this generation and condemn it, because they reformed their lives at the preaching of Jonah, and here there is greater than Jonah. At the judgment, the Queen of the South will stand up and condemn you. She came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and here there is greater than Solomon.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Marian feasts)
Isaiah 10 : 5-7, 13-16
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger, the staff of My fury! Against a godless nation I send him, against a people who provoke My wrath I dispatch him, to plunder and pillage, to tread them down like mud in the streets. But the mind of his king is far from this, his heart harbours other thoughts; what he wants is to destroy, to make an end of all nations.
For the king says : “By my own strength I have done this and by my own wisdom, for I am clever. I have moved the frontiers of peoples, I have plundered treasures, I have brought inhabitants down to the dust, I have toppled kings from their thrones.”
“As one reaches into a nest, so my hands have reached into nations’ wealth. As one gathers deserted eggs, so have I gathered the riches of the earth. No one flapped a wing or opened its mouth to chirp a protest.”
“Does the axe claim more credit than the man who wields it? Does the saw magnify itself more than the one who uses it? This would be like a rod wielding the man who lifts it up; will those not made of wood, be controlled by the cudgel? Therefore the Lord, YHVH Sabaoth, is ready to send a wasting sickness upon the king’s sturdy warriors. Beneath His plenty, a flame will burn like a consuming fire.
Alternative reading (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
Zechariah 2 : 14-17
“Sing and rejoice, o daughter of Zion, for I am about to come, I shall dwell among you,” says YHVH. “On that day, many nations will join YHVH and be My people, but My dwelling is among you.”
The people of Judah will be for YHVH as His portion in His holy land. He will choose Jerusalem again. Keep still in YHVH’s presence, for He comes, having risen from His holy dwelling.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we continue further on the catechesis related to the end of the kingdom period in Israel and Judah, as God punished them for having disobeyed Him and gave them to the hands of their enemies. The king of Babylon, the famous Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, the Holy City, and exiled many people including the king into the land of Babylon.
And in today’s Gospel, Jesus talked about the wisdom and the folly that happened in the building of a house. We all know very well what Jesus said, how those who built their house on sand will not be able go persevere and be swept away by the tides of water and waves, as well as by winds. Those who built their houses on firm ground will be able to resist and stand up strong against all the challenges mentioned earlier.
Jesus mentioned that those who built their houses on firm ground are those who listen to the Lord and His will, and not just that, but they also carry on to do the will of God and implement His teachings in their own lives. And those who ignore the word of God or fail to implement the way of the Lord in their lives, and instead depending on their own strengths and wisdom, are those who built their houses on sand.
It is very easy for us today to be tempted to follow our own heart’s desire, and be distracted to the point that we end up falling into the trap of the devil and weaken the very foundation of our faith. Our human wisdom and abilities, as well as experiences are extensive, but they are fallible and weak. And that is exactly why we are like those who build their houses on weak foundations if we rely on ourselves and on our strengths.
If we rely on the Lord and on His will for us, then our foundations will be firm and solid, and we will not easily be toppled by the forces that assail us. In our lives, we often encounter many different challenges and oppositions that seek to disrupt and destabilise our lives for the worse. If we do not have a firm hold on a strong anchor, we will be easily swept aside by the torrent and the storm, and we will fall into destruction.
Today, our society and even those within our Church are infected with this disease, also known as modernism and relativism, where those who are its proponents champion the modern development of human morality and human-established ideas and rules, at the expense of the truth that the Lord had conveyed to us through His Church and His faithful servants, the saints and the Apostles.
Many of us end up following what the world thinks is right, and we adopt the ideas and the morality as our own. This is the essence of relativism and modernism, where we do not challenge and question the developments of morality in this world that are independent of the truth in the Lord. Indeed, without the Lord, it is truly questionable if the morality of this world is a morality at all.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, today we are asked to reflect, on whether we truly believe what we believe in. Do we truly have our faith in the Lord, and practice it faithfully and completely? Or do we prefer to follow the ways of the world? Let us all pray for the grace to be able to stand our ground strong in the faith, that we will not end up falling into the trap of Satan in the world.
May the Lord strengthen us, empower us, and guide us to Himself, and be with us through our journey in this life. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the truth about the Lord our God from the Scripture readings, in which God revealed Himself to be a God of love and justice, who loved His people with all of His heart, showing mercy when we the people sin before Him, and is slow to anger when we commit something wicked in His eyes, and wicked as we are, He was willing to give it all in order to save us, and that was through the sending of His Son Jesus into the world in order to save it.
Today we celebrate this nature of our Lord, who is the Most Holy Trinity, one but three, and three but one. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the most intimate truth and nature of our Lord who loves us. And the three forms the Divine Persons of the One and only God, which is one God in His absolute singularity, but with three equal Divine Persons, the Father as the Creator and loving God, the Son as the Word and the Judge of all creations, and the Holy Spirit as the guide and the source of all life.
The Holy Trinity worked in perfect harmony with each other, in the Lord who made all things possible and existent. The Lord God had been ever-present since before the beginning of time and all things, and though He existed in perfect love and harmony, He wanted to have others to be with Him. Therefore, He created this universe, filled with all of its wonders, through the works of the Trinity who made them all possible.
The Father willed creation into being, and through His Word, the Son, who we know now as Jesus Christ, He spoke the word and creation was made. Then the Holy Spirit filled all things with life and beauty, and make creation to be as wonderful as we behold and see it now. Yet, behind all those beauty and apparent perfections, ever since the beginning of time, after mankind had been created, sin and imperfections had entered creation.
God is indeed loving, merciful and committed to us His beloved creations, and even more so because we are the greatest of His creations, being created in His own image, and He breathed life directly into us. We were the dearest of His creatures, and He called us children, just as we ought to call Him our Father. However, we have been tainted with sin ever since our ancestors disobeyed our loving God, by listening to the deception of the devil instead of the love of God.
Remember, brethren, that while the Lord is loving and forgiving, and slow to anger as described, but the Lord who is also good and perfectly good, will not stand evil or sin to be in His presence. That was why Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, was cast out of the Garden of Eden and could no longer live in the direct presence of God. They were no longer worthy to be in the presence of God because of their sins.
Then why do the prophets and leaders like Moses, Elijah and others did not dare to look up and face the Lord when He came to meet with them and talk with them directly. This was because of the fear that the Lord’s perfection and goodness reflected in His face would indeed be too much for our sinful selves to bear, and thus none dared to look upon Him.
But God, our Lord is loving and forgiving, and He wanted every single one of us His children to be reconciled with Him and be reunited with Him, so much so that He gave us His ultimate gift and love, in the person of the Son, Jesus Christ, who was Word, and is Word of God, but incarnated into flesh, the flesh of mankind, and to assume the humble aspect of humanity, fully man and fully divine.
The beginning of the Gospel of St. John clearly explained this occurrence, when the Word became flesh, and when God made Himself completely approachable by His beloved people. Through Jesus mankind saw directly the fullness of God’s eternal love for us, and in His face, we realise that we are truly beloved by Him, for we had been created in His very own image.
Jesus passed down the divine authority from the Lord to His own disciples, to forgive our sins and cleanse our faults, and made that forgiveness and mercy complete and perfect through the offering of His own self on the cross, and by becoming the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, He made us worthy once again for the Lord, for those of us who accepted His sacrifice through our baptism.
When we were baptised, we were sealed with the Most Holy Name of the Sacred Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which signified that we had been marked as the possessions of God, and that from then on, we are part of the Lord’s grace and blessing. But yet, we cannot just remain idle, and instead we must have a living and vibrant faith, one that is inspired by the love of God, and which we use to the fullest, in order to bring goodness to one another, fellow brethren in the Lord.
Today’s celebration of the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity is a constant reminder that God loves us, and very much indeed that no matter how heavy our sins are, He is willing to forgive us, and from there, bring us all back into His embrace. And the mystery of the Holy Trinity is also part of the history of our salvation. The Lord our Father created us, and through His Word and Spirit, He made us be.
Then when we faltered, He promised us salvation through the Messiah, who was none other than the Son, who then took away the sins of the world through His death, and from Him and the Father came the Spirit that rejuvenated mankind and brought the wisdom and understanding of the truth to all of us. The actions of the Trinity were the concrete proof of the love and dedication that God has for us.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is imperative for us to contemplate and reflect on our own lives and actions, whether we have been faithful and committed to the Lord, just as He had committed Himself to us? Have we been like what we are expected to be since the day of our baptism? We have been empowered by the Spirit and endowed with the gift of love from God, and there is indeed great potential inside each and every one of us.
However, this potential will forever remain just as that, a potential and useless if we do not make use of them and remain idle. We must cooperate and work together with the Lord, in order to benefit our lives and also the lives of those around us. We have to have a living and genuine faith, brethren, and we cannot just pay lip service to the Lord for our faith. Be committed, be dedicated, and let us all do our best to show our love to God, who had loved us first.
May the Most Holy Trinity, who had sealed us through baptism, continue to endow us with grace and blessings, that we may grow stronger in our faith and love for Him, and gain in the end of all things, the gift of everlasting life in heaven. God bless us all, now and forever. Amen!
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 