Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

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Saturday, 26 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the Word of God in the Scriptures telling us all about the importance of humility and obedience to God, as we heard firstly of how the woman Ruth met Boaz, who would then become the grandparents of the famous king of Israel, David. And then we heard in the Gospel, how Jesus our Lord rebuked the Pharisees and their proud attitude, and their lack of genuine faith to God.

In the first reading today, continuing from what we have heard in the Scriptures, we heard how the woman Ruth, a foreigner, who decided to follow her mother-in-law, Naomi to the land of Israel, met up with Boaz, with whom she would eventually be married to, and had a son. Ruth and her mother-in-law were faithful to God, and they placed their trust in Him, despite the difficulties and the challenges they had to encounter.

They had no possessions of their own, Naomi and her husband having left behind the land of Israel, and when her husband and two sons died in the land of Moab, Naomi was left with just Ruth and her other daughter-in-law whom she told to return to her homeland. Ruth refused to leave, but instead vowed to follow Naomi wherever she went, and took the Lord, the God of Naomi and her people, as her own God and Master.

In this manner, even though they were without family and possessions, but they had great favour in the sight of God, Who saw their faith and were glad at their dedication. That was why He blessed Ruth and Naomi, and Ruth became one of the members of the history of salvation, as through her and Boaz came the king David, and eventually through David, to Jesus Christ, Who was born into the house of David.

Then linking it to the Gospel passage we heard today, the Lord Jesus spoke about the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were often seen in the public places showing their piety through their prayer bands and shawls, their long prayers and public show of faith, their public fasting and observances of the Law. He rebuked them for all of these because, despite all that they had done, they did not do those things for God but instead for themselves and for their own selfish desires.

God did not have a place in their hearts, as their hearts were full of ego and pride, with their worldly desires and greed. They have not been humble before God but instead thinking that their way is the best and the right way. In that same spirit therefore they have conducted their lives, acting with arrogance and pride, and looking down on all those whom they deemed to be inferior to themselves. But they did not realise that God despised their selfishness and arrogance.

In today’s readings, God reminded us all His followers that as Christians all of us are called to be humble and to be open to His will. We are called to listen to Him and to allow His works to be fulfilled through us. But this is something that is not easily done, and challenges will surely be in our path as we walk in God’s path. There will be those times when we will be tempted to succumb to the allures of the pleasures of the flesh, and tempted to satisfy our greed and our ego.

However, if we do not actively resist these temptations, we may end up becoming like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, whose faith has been found wanting, and whose love and commitment to the Lord was found to be lacking. Is this what we want from ourselves? Is this what the Lord had taught us to do? As Christians, in fact, all of us should seek to listen to the Lord Who told us in the Gospel today, that we must be humble in all things, and the greater we are, the humbler we should be.

At the centre of all these is the fact that as Christians we must be men for others, and we should not put ourselves and our own wants and desires ahead of the need of others. We must be selfless and ever be ready to think of others first, and be concerned with them. This is what all of us Christians must do, and which many of us may not have done in our faith life. Let us all therefore have that commitment to live faithfully in accordance with God’s will, knowing that it is He alone Who can guide us to the right path.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all strive to walk in the path shown to us by the Lord, by doing what He has commanded us to do, by not succumbing to our ego and desires, and by cultivating in us the spirit of love and compassion for our fellow men. Let us all be faithful to God and be humble in all things we say and do. Let God enter into our hearts and do not close our hearts to Him because of our ego and arrogance, our greed and our desires.

May the Lord bless us all, just as He has blessed those who are faithful to Him, and all those who walk humbly in His presence. May He empower us all so that we will always be ever faithful to Him. Amen.

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Saturday, 26 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

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

Matthew 23 : 1-12

At that time, Jesus said to the crowds and to His disciples, “The teachers of the Law and the Pharisees have sat down on the chair of Moses. So you shall do and observe all they say; but do not do as they do, for they do not do what they say. They tie up heavy burdens and load them on the shoulders of the people, but they do not even lift a finger to move them.”

“They do everything in order to be seen by people : they wear very wide bands of the Law around their foreheads, and robes with large tassels. They enjoy the first places at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and they like being greeted in the marketplace, and being called ‘Master’ by the people.”

“But you, do not let yourselves be called Master, because you have only one Master, and all of you are brothers and sisters. Neither should you call anyone on earth Father, because you have only one Father, He Who is in heaven. Nor should you be called Leader, because Christ is the only Leader for you.”

“Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.”

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Saturday, 26 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

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

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear YHVH and walk in His ways. You will eat the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home; your children, like olive shoots, will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears YHVH. May YHVH praise you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.

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Saturday, 26 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

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

Ruth 2 : 1-3, 8-11 and Ruth 4 : 13-17

Naomi had a well-to-do kinsman, Boaz, from the clan of her husband Elimelech. And Ruth the Moabite said to Naomi, “Let me go to pick up the left-over grain in the field whose owner will allow me that favour.” Naomi said, “Go ahead, my daughter.” So she went to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. It happened that, the field she entered belonged to Boaz of the clan of Elimelech.

Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, my daughter. Do not go away from here to glean in anyone else’s field. Stay here with my women servants. See where the harvesters are and follow behind. I have ordered the men not to molest you. They have filled some jars with water. Go there and drink when you are thirsty.” Bowing down with her face to the ground, she exclaimed, “Why have I, a foreigner, found such favour in your eyes?”

Boaz answered, “I have been told all about you – what you have done for your mother-in-law since your husband’s death, how you have gone with her, leaving your own father and mother and homeland, to live with a people you knew nothing about before you came here.”

So Ruth was taken by Boaz and became his wife. YHVH made her conceive and give birth to a son. The women said to Naomi, “Blessed be YHVH Who has provided you today with an heir. May he become famous in Israel! He will be your comfort and stay in your old age, for he is born of a daughter-in-law who loves you and is worth more than seven sons.”

Naomi took the child as her own and became his nurse. And the women of the neighbourhood gave him his name, saying, “A son has been born for Naomi.” They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, who was David’s father.

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Friday, 25 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Priests)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are reminded by what we have heard from the Book of Ruth, our first reading today, of the faith that Ruth, a woman hailing from the country of Moab, a foreigner, had in the Lord. Ruth stayed on at the side of Naomi, her mother-in-law despite the fact that her husband and all her other immediate family had passed away. She remained faithful to the Lord and followed her mother-in-law back to the land of Israel.

And eventually she was blessed by God for her faith, and she met her future husband, Boaz as she was working in his field. She bore a son whom she called Obed, who was the father of Jesse, and who in turn was the father of David, the famous king of Israel. All of these would not have been possible without the faith which Ruth had shown to God, her dedication and commitment to her newfound faith in Him.

In this we also see how God calls the people of all the nations to come to Him and worship Him, as even among the ancestors of the king of Israel existed the faithful foreigners and pagans who turned away from the path of their own ancestors and chose to follow God’s path instead. In this we see how God loves us all, and how each and every one of us also need to love God in the same manner. That is what God intended for us, that through His Laws, we may love Him just as He had loved us first.

That is what the Lord Jesus spoke of in the Gospel passage today, when the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law confronted Him and tried to argue with Him, presumably trying to trap Him in His own words, by asking Him which law is the most important one in the whole Laws and Commandments which Moses had received from God. But those people did not truly understand what God intended to do with His Law, and neither did they practice the Law in the manner He wanted them to do.

They did not understand that God’s laws are truly about love, loving God first and foremost before anything else, and then loving one another, loving our fellow men, our parents, our friends and all those whom we encounter in our lives in the same manner as we have loved God and just as how we love ourselves. Instead, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law became too preoccupied with the formalities and the less important aspects of the Law, focusing on the wrong things and mistaking the true purpose of those Laws.

They reinforced the strict commandment and observances of the Law, but all these were done to advance their own self-interests, that they might be praised for their supposed piety and obedience to the Law. They looked down on tax collectors and prostitutes, and closed the door of salvation to them, thinking that those people were sinners and were unworthy of God. Yet, the Lord Jesus rebuked them and showed them just how genuine and true is the love that those supposed sinners had shown to God.

Just like Ruth, those tax collectors, prostitutes and all those deemed as foreigners, pagans and sinners were able to show greater love, commitment and devotion to the Lord. In that, they have obeyed the Law of God to a far greater degree than what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. They have loved God, and desired the love of God, and as a result, God welcomed them, and forgave them their sins when they sincerely sought Him looking to be forgiven and committed to the change in their lives and actions.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to do the same as well? Are we able to change our lives in the same way? Are we able to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, and love Him sincerely from our hearts? This is what we have been called to do, and what we have been reminded by the Word of God which we have heard in the Scripture passages today.

Let us all look at the examples of the holy saints, St. Louis, the holy King of France, and St. Joseph Calasanz, a holy priest and servant of God, whose feasts we celebrate today. Let us all look at the examples of these holy men who had gone before us, and see how they have dedicated their own lives to God, so that we too may be able to follow their footsteps and walk in the same path.

St. Louis, also known as King Louis IX of France, was a very famous and renowned King of France, known as a paragon of virtue and piety, devoted wholeheartedly to the service of God and to his people, being a model king and ruler, who cared greatly for the well-being of his people, both physically and spiritually. Unlike many other rulers of his time, before and after, he used his power with justice and righteousness, and did not succumb to the temptations of power to abuse that authority which God had granted him.

Instead, St. Louis devoted himself to the improvement of the lives of his subjects and people, building churches and helping to establish the institutions of the Church to bring his people closer to God, and seeking to make peace between the feuding factions among his people, to end the bitter rivalries and conflicts among them, that they might overcome their sinful past filled with wickedness, and turn wholeheartedly towards God.

In the same manner, St. Joseph Calasanz had also shown us how to become a better follower of God as St. Louis had done. St. Joseph Calasanz was remembered for his great works of charity among the poor, even establishing a congregation of the servants of God dedicated to help the poor and ministering to them in their needs. He showed his great devotion and charity to the people who were in need, and in that way, he also dedicated himself wholeheartedly to God.

He helped to establish institutions to care for homeless and neglected children, and offered places for the poor and the homeless to stay in. He helped them to get by with their worldly needs, and helped to provide jobs and work through which they were able to sustain themselves in their needs. He was also credited with bringing peace to feuding factions in the Church, just as St. Louis had done among his people.

In all these examples shown by these two holy saints, all of us, brothers and sisters in Christ, are reminded that there are many things that each and every one of us can do as Christians to be good servants and followers of the Lord. We should follow their examples, and also the faith and dedication of Ruth and all those who have given themselves entirely to love and to serve the Lord.

Are we able to commit ourselves in this manner? Are we able to do more in order to serve Him? The one who decide this will be ourselves. We need to decide if we can give more to serve the Lord, to love Him with ever greater devotion and to have an ever greater and living faith in Him. Let us all therefore renew our commitment to Him, and renew our commitment to show the same love we show Him to our fellow men as well. May God bless all our endeavours. Amen.

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Friday, 25 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Priests)

Matthew 22 : 34-40

At that time, when the Pharisees heard how Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they assembled together. One of them, a lawyer, questioned Him to test Him, “Teacher, which commandment of the Law is the greatest?”

Jesus answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and the most important of the commandments. The second is like it : You shall love your neighbour as yourself. The whole Law and prophets are founded on these two commandments.”

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Friday, 25 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Priests)

Psalm 145 : 5-6ab, 6c-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

Blessed are they whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in YHVH their God, Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all they contain.

The Lord is forever faithful; He gives justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord straightens the bent. The Lord loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord protects the stranger.

He sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Friday, 25 August 2017 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Louis and St. Joseph Calasanz, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Priests)

Ruth 1 : 1, 3-6, 14b-16, 22

There was a famine in the land during the time of the Judges, and a man from Bethlehem in Judah departed with his wife and two sons, to sojourn in the country of Moab. Naomi’s husband Elimelech died. She was left with her two sons, who married Moabite women, one named Orpah and the other Ruth.

After living in Moab for about ten years, Mahlon and Chilion also died; and Naomi was left bereft of husband and two sons. Having heard that YHVH had come to help His people by giving them food, Naomi prepared to return home.

But Ruth clung to her. Naomi said, “Look, your sister-in-law returns to her people and her gods. You too, must return. Go after her.” Ruth replied, “Do not ask me to leave you. For I will go where you go and stay where you stay. Your people will be my people and your God, my God.”

Thus it was that Naomi returned from Moab with her Moabite daughter-in-law and arrived in Bethlehem as the barley harvest began.

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Thursday, 24 August 2017 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast day of one of the Holy Apostles, one of the Twelve Apostles of our Lord, namely St. Bartholomew the Apostle, also known as Nathanael, which we heard in the Gospel today being called by God to follow Him and to be His Apostle. And therefore, as we celebrate the feast of one of our Lord’s principal disciple, let us all recall what the Apostles had done for the sake of the Church.

The Apostles were called from diverse backgrounds and origins. Some of them were fishermen, while others were tax collectors and sinners, even some were zealots or fighters and thieves. The Apostles were called by the Lord Jesus Who called all of them and made them to become the twelve principal members of His disciples, recalling the twelve sons and tribes of the people of Israel. And they were the ones through whom God made His works in this world evident and true.

The Apostles followed the Lord Jesus and helped Him in His ministry, going ahead of the Lord to establish His presence and to prepare the people and the community for His coming. They prepared the path for the Lord and therefore they are indeed considered the pillars of the Church of God, as the invaluable foundation and key personnel involved in the establishment of God’s Church in this world. If not for their hard work and sacrifices, there would not have been the Church as we know it today.

And after the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead and ascended into Heaven, for St. Bartholomew, as was for the other Apostles, he went to various countries and places to spread the words of the Gospel and introduce the Lord to all those who had not yet heard about His salvation. He went to India to preach the faith there and many souls were saved because of his works. And from India, he went on to evangelise in the kingdom of Armenia where he met his death in martyrdom.

It was told that he managed to convince many people to embrace the Christian faith, and in fact St. Bartholomew even managed to convert the king of Armenia by his teachings and efforts. It was then that St. Bartholomew met his martyrdom when the king’s brother led the enemies of the faith and took over the saints and put them to death. By his efforts he had established the foundations of the Church in many communities, and many had been saved.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how are all these things relevant to us? What is it that the Apostles like St. Bartholomew are able to show us? They showed us the strong devotion and commitment to the Lord, one that is often leading to the moments when they had to choose between safeguarding their own interests and serving God’s will. And they indeed chose to obey the Lord even though they knew that by doing so they had placed themselves at great risk.

All of us are called to walk in the footsteps of the Apostles, as because each of the Apostles have dedicated their whole lives to God. And all of us are the successors of the Apostles, the ones who have been passed the baton which we ought to take up in order to continue the good works of the Apostles. We are called to follow the examples of the Apostles in all that they have done, in their faith and dedication, and in everything they have given up for the sake of the Lord.

There are still a lot of work that the Church has to do, brothers and sisters in Christ. There are still plenty of opportunities in which we can contribute as members of the Church. There are still many out there who are still living in the darkness and in ignorance of God’s truth and ways. And it is by our efforts that the Church will be able to bring these brethren of ours that they will be able to find their way to the Lord and therefore together we will be worthy of Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all today renew our commitment to the Lord through our actions, words and deeds. Let us rediscover that zeal which we ought to have for the Lord, that we will be able to devote ourselves in the giving of our time, our efforts and works for the greater glory of God and for the salvation of His people. Let us follow the footsteps of the Holy Apostles, St. Bartholomew and his fellow Apostles that we may advance the good cause of the Lord and bring ever more souls to the salvation in God.

St. Bartholomew, all the holy Apostles and saints of the Lord, all those who have lived worthily in God, pray for us all sinners, all of us who are still struggling daily in this world. May God be with us always and may He strengthen our faith in us, that we will always be close to Him, and may He bless us always. Amen.

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Thursday, 24 August 2017 : Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

John 1 : 45-51

At that time, Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law, and the prophets : He is Jesus, Son of Joseph, from Nazareth.”

Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” When Jesus saw Nathanael coming, He said of him, “Here comes an Israelite, a true one; there is nothing false in him.” Nathanael asked Him, “How do You know me?” And Jesus said to him, “Before Philip called you, you were under the fig tree, and I saw you.”

Nathanael answered, “Master, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” But Jesus replied, “You believe because I said, ‘I saw you under the fig tree.’ But you will see greater things than that. Truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened, and the Angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”