early Church fathers

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Wednesday, 1 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Timothy 1 : 1-3, 6-12

From Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of His promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus, to my dear son Timothy. May grace, mercy and peace be with you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I give thanks to God Whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly, day and night, in my prayers. For this reason I invite you to fan into a flame the gift of God you received through the laying on of my hands. For God did not confer on us a Spirit of bashfulness, but of strength, love and good judgment.

Do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of seeing me in chains. On the contrary, do your share in labouring for the Gospel with the strength of God. He saved us and called us – a calling which proceeds from His holiness. This did not depend on our merits, but on His generosity and His own initiative.

This calling given to us from all time in Christ Jesus has just been manifested with the glorious appearance of Christ Jesus, our Lord, Who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light in His Gospel. Of this message I was made herald, Apostle and teacher.

For its sake I now suffer this trial, but I am not ashamed, for I know in Whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is capable of taking care of all I have entrusted to Him until that day.

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Monday, 26 January 2015 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Bishops (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of two of the disciples of St. Paul, that is St. Timothy and St. Titus. Yesterday, we celebrate the feast of their benefactor’s conversion, that is the conversion of St. Paul after he met the Lord Himself on the way to Damascus. St. Timothy and St. Titus followed St. Paul in his journeys on different and separate occasions, and they helped him in the spreading of the Good News of God to the people.

St. Timothy and St. Titus were both made and appointed as bishops of the early Church, the successors of the Holy Apostles. They were among the first bishops of the Church, who were to continue the works of the Apostles and the first disciples of Christ, carrying with them the same mission which Jesus our Lord had given to His Apostles, that is to bring all mankind to God, and to bear to them the witness of the Good News of Christ, of His life, His works, His death and resurrection from the dead, and to baptise them in the Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

In the first reading, we heard about how the Apostles passed on their mantle of leadership and service to the new generation of leaders, by the means of the laying of the hands on top of the heads of those who have been chosen as bishops, or overseers, that is those who had been entrusted with leadership in the Church, to become the leaders and shepherds of the people of God, overseeing the works of the priests and deacons in the areas given to them as their jurisdictions.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the Gospel today from the Gospel according to St. Luke, we heard about how Jesus appointed the seventy-two disciples to be His servants and helpers, indeed to help the work of the Holy Apostles, by ministering to the people of God, preaching the Good News, healing the sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and to be shepherds to the people of God.

They were sent like sheep among wolves, to bring the Light of Christ among a people who dwelled in the darkness. And that also means that they have to endure dangers and persecutions while they conduct their mission, and they have to bare their own lives on the frontlines of the battle against the forces of darkness of this world. Such are the responsibilities these people bear for the sake of the Lord, and they have been chosen to bear those burden, that many would be saved.

St. Timothy and St. Titus, as well as the many other bishops and elders of the Church kept the faithful and the Church afloat amidst the difficult times, times of persecution and great martyrdoms of the people of God. Many bishops were martyred with their people, with the priests and the servants of God, but thanks to them, we have the faith which we received through our priests, and which they themselves received through the long chain of succession from bishops and priests and all the servants of God, passed on by the laying on of the hands.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us who heard these words of the Lord and the testimony of the faith of our predecessors ought to reflect, on what we need to do and what we can do to continue their works for the sake of the Lord and ultimately for the salvation of all mankind. We still have much work to do, and we should not remain idle, but we must be proactive in our faith.

This means that we have to live our faith with concrete and real actions. We have to love our brethren and help those who are in need. Practice our faith and let it be filled with genuine intention and not just for show or for garnering the praise of others. Let us all ask for the intercession of St. Timothy and St. Titus, that they may continue to inspire us, and pray for us, that our faith may be strengthened and become example for others to follow. May Almighty God be with us always. Amen.

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Monday, 26 January 2015 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Bishops (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 10 : 1-9

At that time, the Lord appointed seventy-two other disciples, and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place, where He Himself was to go. And He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So you must ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers to His harvest.”

“Courage! I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Set off without purse or bag or sandals; and do not stop at the homes of those you know. Whatever house you enter, first bless them, saying, ‘Peace to this house!’ If a friend of peace lives there, the peace shall rest upon that person. But if not, the blessing will return to you. Stay in that house, eating and drinking at their table, for the worker deserves to be paid. Do not move from house to house.”

“When they welcome you to any town, eat what they offer you. Heal the sick who are there, and say to them : ‘The kingdom of God has drawn near to you.'”

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Monday, 26 January 2015 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Bishops (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 95 : 1-2a, 2b-3, 7-8a, 10

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His Name.

Proclaim His salvation day after day. Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

Give to the Lord, you families of nations, give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His Name.

Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” He will judge the peoples with justice.

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Monday, 26 January 2015 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Bishops (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Timothy 1 : 1-8

From Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of His promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus, to my dear son Timothy. May grace, mercy and peace be with you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I give thanks to God whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly, day and night, in my prayers. I recall your tears and I long to see you that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, so like the faith of your grandmother Lois and of your mother Eunice, which I am sure you have inherited.

For this reason I invite you to fan into a flame the gift of God you received through the laying on of my hands. For God did not confer on us a spirit of bashfulness, but of strength, love and good judgment. Do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of seeing me in chains. On the contrary, do your share in labouring for the Gospel with the strength of God.

Alternative reading

Titus 1 : 1-5

From Paul, servant of God, Apostle of Christ Jesus, at the service of God’s chosen people, so that they may believe and reach the knowledge of truth and godliness. The eternal life we are waiting for was promised from the very beginning by God who never lies, and as the appointed time had come, He made it known through the message entrusted to me by a command of God, our Saviour.

Greetings to you, Titus, my true son in the faith we share. May grace and peace be with you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. I left you in Crete because I wanted you to put right what was defective and appoint elders in every town, following my instructions.

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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.

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Sunday, 12 May 2013 : 7th Sunday of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear of the glory of God, who is to come, the glory of God who had been risen in glory from the dead and therefore triumphed over death and evil, and broke their hold over all of us for eternity. This God who had been taken up in glory to heaven, in the glorious Ascension, and seated at the right hand of God the Father. This was seen by the first martyr, Stephen the deacon, who saw and proclaim the glory of Christ, that despite knowing that such proclamation would certainly bring about his death at the hands of the chief priests.

God’s promise will become a reality, that He will soon once again come down onto this world, this time not as the humble king born in a manger, which we celebrate now as Christmas, but this time He will descend as a great and almighty king in glory, as the ruler of all creation and the Master of all the Universe. He will come as the great judge who will judge all for their own worth, whether they are worthy or unworthy of heaven that is the reward for those who are faithful, and for those who keep God in their hearts.

Those who knows Christ will know the Father, because Christ was sent by the Father into this world in His first coming to be our Messiah, our Saviour from death and the slavery of sin. If we hold fast onto this faith, Christ too will know us, and make all of us His own, and when the time comes for all of us to be judged, we will be welcomed into His Kingdom, and we will receive our rewards of eternal life.

Christ desires also, first and foremost, that all of those who believe in Him be one and united, as one Body, and therefore one Spirit, in the Church that He established through the Apostles. This is because Christ knows human weaknesses and the extent of human susceptibility to the devil’s influences. The evil one will stop at nothing to prevent his ultimate fate that is total defeat and damnation, but his fate has already been decided. Nevertheless, through his numerous agents and tools in this world, he can indeed make life difficult for those of us who believe and keep the faith.

Christ knows that the Church He had established will be fractured by the agents of Satan, through human pride and arrogance, and self-serving attitudes, that resulted in the breaking of the Body of the faithful. That is why He prayed, and prayed hard to His Father in heaven, that all the faithful ones in Him, His sheep, will remain as one, as indivisible from each other, just as He and the Father, and also the Holy Spirit are together and united in an immeasurably strong bond and unity.

His wish, that they all may be one, that all of us may be one, as one Church, one people, with one Creed, and one belief, had been dashed by the evils of human ambitions and weaknesses throughout the past centuries. Many had succumbed to the temptations of the world and false teachings, through numerous false prophets, aimed by Satan to confuse the Church and the faithful, and broke the unity within the Body of Christ, that is the Church.

False prophets like Arius, Jan Hus, Martin Luther, and many others who even claimed themselves Messiah or the second coming of Christ, had spread seeds of disunity among the faithful, and also spread false teachings that ended up confusing the faithful and snared many into damnation because of them believing in teachings in contrary to the teachings of Christ, as delivered to us through the Apostles and the early Church Fathers.

Many today in our world had claimed that faith must be a personal one, that is to be a personal ‘encounter’ with Christ. But they had forgotten that faith in Christ is impossible to be described in personal terms, or separated from the whole community of the faithful, that is the Church. Humans are inherently weak because of our imperfections, and because of our own sinful nature, since our first rebellion through our ancestors who disobeyed the Lord’s command not to eat the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Since then, many think too high of themselves, thinking that they are capable of great wisdom and possessing great knowledge, and therefore are capable of interpreting the Scripture on their own, and as they like it. This is why, although reading the Scripture is important for the development of the faith, we have to anchor ourselves in the authority and the teaching magisterium of the Church, as only in good guidance of the Church, that we can fully make use and understand the Scripture.

For the Scripture was written by the apostles and disciples of Christ, who were inspired by the Holy Spirit, and also the numerous prophets of the past times, who also received the message of the Lord, many of which are veiled messages that are part of the mystery of our faith. Even someone who is very knowledgeable and experienced in the Scripture, will certainly not be able to claim to fully understand the full and true meaning of God’s words contained in the Scripture.

Many today and in the past interpreted the words of God in the Scripture as they wished, and they ended up establishing new ‘faiths’ that they call churches, which in fact exist in thousands, millions, and maybe more today. There are as many ‘churches’ as there are heads, obviously because no one can agree perfectly with one another and mankind will certainly be influenced by pride and arrogance to shut out other’s own interpretations and keep one’s own interpretations to oneself. Such is the danger of self-faith and faith that does not conform to the will of God in the Church.

Indeed, many of them sinned grievously because they had caused division in the body of the faithful, the Church, the Body of Christ, and also spreading false teachings, and many of these, especially are intertwined with relativism, that is to include secular developments into the faith, which are in fact incompatible, and therefore, the faith, the true faith that we know of, no longer exists in those who had gone astray.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, strengthen your faith and resolve! Do not give up to the temptations of Satan and this world. Read the Scripture and learn the faith through the teachings of the Church, and deafen yourselves to the false allures of the false prophets and agents of the evil one. Be steadfast and be faithful, and the Lord will reward all of you.

Help one another in the faith, and pass the teachings of the Lord in the Church to those, especially those who had gone astray in their path, and those who has had wrong impression and ideas about the true faith in God. Who says that Christians can only evangelise to non-Christians and non-believers? Look into ourselves, and you can see so much division within the Body of Christ that is the Church, that we need to do some internal housecleaning first.

Just as Christ said, that if we are united then the world will believe in the Lord, if we are divided against ourselves, by attacking one another’s faith, how is the Church going to stand and bring then the fight to the devil? Let us strive to fulfill Christ’s wish and indeed, God’s will, that the entire community of the believers in Christ, would be reunited, into one body, one faith, and one belief in Christ our Lord, within His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, our Roman Catholic Church, the one and only true Church that Christ had established in this world, on Peter His Apostle, on whom He entrusted the keys of the Kingdom of heaven.

May God strengthen the unity between Christians and allow all those who believe in Him to be reunited once again within one Church, and one faith, under the authority and jurisdiction of the Pope, the Bishop of Rome, the successor of St. Peter the Apostle, keeper of the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and Vicar of Christ in this world. God bless all of us, Amen.