early Church

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Sunday, 2 March 2014 : 8th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 4 : 1-5

Let everyone then see us as the servants of Christ and stewards of the secret works of God. Being stewards, faithfulness shall be demanded of us; but I do not mind if you or any human court judges me. I do not even judge myself; my conscience indeed does not accuse me of anything, but that is not enough for me to be set right with God : the Lord is the One who judges me.

Therefore, do not judge before the time, until the coming of the Lord. He will bring to light whatever was hidden in darkness and will disclose the secret intentions of the hearts. Then each one will receive praise from God.

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Sunday, 9 February 2014 : 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 2 : 1-5

When I came to reveal to you the mystery of God’s plan I did not count on eloquence or on a show of learning. I was determined not to know anything among you but Jesus, the Messiah, and a crucified Messiah.

I myself came weak, fearful and trembling; my words and preaching were not brilliant or clever to win listeners. It was, rather, a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might be a matter, not of human wisdom, but of God’s power.

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Sunday, 26 January 2014 : 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 1 : 10-13, 17

I beg of you, brothers, in the Name of Christ Jesus, our Lord, to agree among yourselves and do away with divisions; please be perfectly united, with one mind and one judgment.

For I heard from people of Cloe’s house about your rivalries. What I mean is this : some say, “I am for Paul,” and others : “I am for Apollo,” or “I am for Peter,” or “I am for Christ.” Is Christ divided or have I, Paul, been crucified for you? Have you been baptised in the name of Paul?

For Christ did not send me to baptise, but to proclaim His Gospel. And not with beautiful words! That would be like getting rid of the cross of Christ.

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Saturday, 25 January 2014 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 22 : 3-16

Paul said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up here in this city when I was educated in the school of Gamaliel, according to the strict observance of our Law. And I was dedicated to God’s service, as are all of you today. As for this way, I persecuted it to the point of death and arrested its followers, both men and women, throwing them into prison.”

“The High Priest and the whole Council of elders can bear witness to this. From them I received letters for the Jewish brothers in Damascus and I set out to arrest those who were there and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. But as I was travelling along, nearing Damascus, at about noon a great light from the sky suddenly flashed about me.”

“I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me : ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’ I answered : ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me : ‘I am Jesus the Nazarean whom you persecute.'”

“The men who were with me saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. I asked : ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord replied : ‘Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told all that you are destined to do.’ Yet the brightness of that light had blinded me and so I was led by the hand into Damascus by my companions.”

“There a certain Ananias came to me. He was a devout observer of the Law and well spoken of by all the Jews who were living there. As he stood by me, he said : ‘Brother Saul, recover your sight.’ At that moment I could see and I looked at him. He then said, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know His will, to see the Just One and to hear the words from His mouth.'”

“‘From now on you shall be His witness before all the pagan peoples and tell them all that you have seen and heard. And now, why delay? Get up and be baptised and have your sins washed away by calling upon His Name.'”

Alternative Reading

 

Acts 9 : 1-22

Meanwhile Saul considered nothing but violence and death for the disciples of the Lord. He went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus that would authorise him to arrest and bring to Jerusalem anyone he might find, man or woman, belonging to the Way.

As he travelled along and was approaching Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?”

And he asked, “Who are You, Lord?” The voice replied, “I am Jesus whom you persecute. Now get up and go into the city; there you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were travelling with him stood there speechless : they had heard the sound, but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground and, opening his eyes, he could not see. They took him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. He was blind and he did not eat or drink for three days.

There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias, to whom the Lord called in a vision, “Ananias!” He answered, “Here I am, Lord!” Then the Lord said to him, “Go at once to Straight Street and ask, at the house of Judas, for a man of Tarsus named Saul. You will find him praying, for he has just seen in a vision that a man named Ananias has come in and placed his hands upon him, to restore his sight.”

Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, and now he is here with authority from the High Priest to arrest all who call upon Your Name.”

But the Lord said to him, “Go! This man is My chosen instrument to bring My Name to the pagan nations and their kings, and the people of Israel as well. I Myself will show him how much he will have to suffer for My Name.”

So Ananias left and went to the house. He laid his hands upon Saul and said, “Saul, my brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me to you so that you may receive your sight and be filled with Holy Spirit.” Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he could see; he got up and was baptised. Then he took food and was strengthened.

For several days Saul stayed with the disciples at Damascus, and he soon began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God. All who heard were astonished and said, “Is this not the one who cast out in Jerusalem all those calling upon this Name? Did he not come here to bring them bound before the chief priests?”

But Saul grew more and more powerful, and he confounded the Jews living in Damascus when he proved that Jesus was the Messiah.

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Sunday, 19 January 2014 : 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of Migrants and Refugees (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 1 : 1-3

From Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and from Sosthenes, our brother, to God’s Church which is in Corinth; to you whom God has sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with those who everywhere call upon the Name of our Lord Christ Jesus, their Lord and ours.

Receive grace and peace from God our Father, and Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Monday, 6 January 2014 : Monday after the Epiphany (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 3 : 22 – 1 John 4 : 6

Then whatever we ask we shall receive, since we keep His commands and do what pleases Him. His command is that we believe in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another, as He has commanded us.

Whoever keeps His commands remains in God and God in him. It is by the Spirit God has given us that we know He lives in us. My beloved, do not trust every inspiration. Test the spirits to see whether they come from God, because many false prophets are now in the world.

How will you recognise the Spirit of God? Any spirit recognising Jesus as the Christ who has taken our flesh is of God. But any spirit that does not recognise Jesus is not from God, it is the spirit of the antichrist. You have heard of his coming and even now he is in the world.

You, my dear children, are of God and you have already overcome these people, because the One who is in you is more powerful than he who is in the world. They are of the world and the world inspires them and those of the world listen to them.

We are of God and those who know God listen to us, but those who are not of God ignore us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error as well.

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Sunday, 5 January 2014 : Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Ephesians 3 : 2-3a, 5-6

You may have heard of the graces God bestowed on me for your sake. By a revelation He gave me the knowledge of His mysterious design.

This mystery was not made known to past generations but only now, through revelations given to holy apostles and prophets. Now the non-Jewish people share the Inheritance; in Christ Jesus the non-Jews are incorporated and are to enjoy the Promise. This is the Good News.

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Saturday, 4 January 2014 : Weekday of Christmas Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 3 : 7-10

My little children, do not be lead astray; those who do what is right are upright, just as Jesus Christ is upright. But those who sin belong to the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning.

This is why the Son of God was shown to us, He was to undo the works of the devil. Those born of God do not sin, for the seed of God remains in them; they cannot sin because they are born of God.

What is the way to recognise the children of God and those of the devil? The one who does not do what is right is not of God; so too, the one who does not love his brother or sister.

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Wednesday, 1 January 2014 : Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God – Theotokos, World Day of Prayer for Peace (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Galatians 4 : 4-7

But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son. He came born of woman and subject to the Law, that we might receive adoption as children of God. And because you are children, God has sent into your hearts the Spirit of His Son which cries out : ‘Abba!’ that is, ‘Father!’

You yourselves are no longer a slave but a son or daughter, and yours is the inheritance by God’s grace.

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Tuesday, 31 December 2013 : Seventh Day of the Christmas Octave, Memorial of Pope St. Silvester I, Pope (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and this Word was made flesh, that it came into the world and dwell among us. Brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s Gospel proclaimed to us the truth about Christ and His coming into the world, and what the truth is about the Messiah and His ways.

For, as St. John the Evangelist warned us, in his first letter, that there are antichrist and false prophets who came into this world to mislead us and distract us from the true teachings and the way of the Lord, revealed in Jesus His Son. There are those who taught that Jesus is not God, and that even He is not the Holy One of God, or even that He worked with the power of the evil spirit, and many other.

And there were also those who proclaimed themselves as the Messiah and misled the people of God, both before and after the coming of the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. That is the truth as proclaimed by the Holy Apostles and martyrs who risked their lived to keep true the revelations as we heard today in the Gospel.

The truth about Jesus is that He is God, and therefore He is Love for God is Love. That was why He came down upon us, incarnate into flesh. He was the Word of God, and of the same essence as God. He was one third of the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He was there before time and before all ages, not created, perfect and one in unity, in perfect unity and love as One and only True God with three characteristics.

God the Creator, God the Word, and God the Spirit. These are the persona unified perfectly in God. If you all read the first chapter of the very first book in the Holy Bible, that is the Book of Genesis, you will understand it easily. It was written that once there was nothing and the Spirit of God floats in that nothingness. Then God who was there from the very beginning, and who exists outside of time, spoke and with His Word, made things to be created into existence.

All of those involved are one and the same God, the Creator who is the Father, the Word who is the Son, whom we later know as Jesus, and the Spirit of God, which is the Holy Spirit. That is the reality of our faith, that we believe in One and only One God, but God who in Him exists three distinct yet unified persona, in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

All three of them cannot be separated from each other and they are One in God. Through His own Word, He decreed the universe and all creations into existence. Thus, through that Word of God, we and all the things around us were created. And because He created us, and because His nature is love, He cannot deny us the love He has for us. We have sinned when our ancestors chose to listen to Satan instead of the Lord, and therefore we should have deserves damnation and destruction as our fate.

We have been made unworthy of God because of our rebelliousness, and we who have been tainted by sin should have had no place in the kingdom of God. But God being God, and loving us deeply, gave us a new chance, that is the only way out of the predicament that we were in. That way is in Jesus, who came into this world, the Word who was God and was with God, but emptied Himself of all His glory and descend into this world as one of us.

This is the truth about the Lord, our Christ, the Saviour, the Messiah of the world. Satan certainly did not stay quiet or idle during the works of Christ, but he worked hard to undermine the works of the Lord, and as a result, sent many deceivers to deceive and distract the people of God from the true salvation in Jesus Christ.

Today we celebrate a saint whose feast is the last we have on the year. Pope St. Silvester I or Sylvester I was the leader of the Universal Church as the Bishop of Rome at the time of the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine during the late Roman Empire period. He succeeded the Pope Miltiades, during whose reign as Pope the Edict of Milan was signed by the Emperor, which ended the state persecution against Christians.

Pope St. Silvester I worked hard to strengthen the Church and rebuilt the faith after centuries and past decades of persecution against Christians. He oversaw the period of great revival of the fortunes of the faith, from one that is constantly persecuted and chased by the state authorities and the pagans, into one that is eventually becoming the state faith of the Empire.

His piety and hard work to consolidate the position of the faith as the guiding beacon for many people, and for helping the pious Emperor Constantine to build up the foundations for the Universal Church in converting millions and more to the cause of the Lord made him a great saint of the Church. Yet, as we celebrate what he had achieved, we must remain wary of the devices and works of the devil aimed at disturbing the good works that Pope St. Silvester I and the other saints had initiated.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we end this year of our Lord 2013, let us look forward to the new year with a new and rejuvenated faith, that we will continue to remain faithful to the Lord and His ways, and not be swayed by the temptations of evil, no matter how attractive they are. Reject the devil as firmly as Jesus had rejected him and cast him away from His side. Reject any false prophet bearing the lies and falsehoods of Satan.

May the Lord strengthen our faith and empower us, to be better able to resist Satan and his temptations on us. That we will remain ever faithful in Jesus, our Lord, the true, one and only Saviour of the world. Amen.