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Tuesday, 23 July 2013 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God our Lord is also our Father, and He cares deeply for all of us without exception. He blesses us with many things good and makes sure that all of us have enough for our daily lives. He strengthens us when we are weak, and supports us when we are down. He protects us from harm and delivers us from the evil one. The Lord has shown His power on the day when He saved the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt.

With His powerful breath and His hand, He split open the Red Sea before His people, allowing them to pass through the dry sea, towards their freedom, towards the Promised Land He promised to His people and their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He raised them up from their slavery to be His beloved people, with power and majesty, as wielded by the greatest of their kings, David and Solomon, whose kingdom passed to Jesus, the descendant of David and the Son of God, the Saviour.

Those who remain in His love and favour will indeed receive much love and grace from our Lord, and their lives will be blessed. No one will be able to harm them, and they will live long and prosper until the day that the Lord calls them again to His side. But to those who disobey His will, and to those who had brought up the anger of the Lord, they will be cast aside into the lake of fire and eternal suffering with Satan and his fallen angels, all the evils of the world, because they will be judged and found unworthy of the Lord and His perfection.

Yet, many of us today have forgotten what it actually means to be the children of God, the same God who had delivered the people of Israel from the hands of the Egyptians. We have forgotten what it means to serve the Lord, and we have turned away from His truth and His path, that we are in danger of veering off into the path towards damnation in hell.

Throughout history of salvation, the history of mankind and the history of the people of Israel, countless prophets sent by the Lord had been slaughtered and murdered by the people who preferred to continue living in the state of sin rather than repenting and returning to the Lord their God. They worshiped pagan gods and did things abominable in the eyes of God. The warnings and the prophecies of prophets they had ignored, until the Lord brought plague upon them as punishment and ultimately scattered them among the nations.

The people who had been brought away from Egypt and their slavery upon the eagle’s wings had hardened their hearts against the very One who had saved them. They rebelled constantly and continued to do things horrible in the eyes of God. They turned deaf ears to the heeding of the prophets and messengers of the Lord. And eventually, they too would turn their backs against the One that the Lord Himself had sent, that is Himself in human form, Jesus Christ, the very Messiah that the prophets had been proclaiming and the very One that the people of Israel had supposedly awaited for.

Yet He remained ever faithful to us, despite all our numerous and countless transgressions against Him, despite all the evils we have committed that is loathsome in His eyes. Such is His compassion and mercy, that He is willing to welcome us back despite our faults. But yet, we must not continue what the people had done all those while brothers and sisters, because, there is a limit to God’s patience, and He is also a jealous God and a God of justice, who will not let transgressions, when done without regard for the Lord, to go free easily.

Today, brethren, we also commemorate the feast of St. Bridget of Sweden, a pious and faithful religious who lived more than six hundred years ago, and she is one of the six patron saints of Europe. She established religious order now known as the Brigittines, and she received many visions on the Lord and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and through these visions, the Church and the faithful had been indeed blessed with greater understanding of the Lord and His mission, that is to save all mankind from death and hell, just as He had once saved the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt.

To St. Bridget had been given the visions and knowledge of God, just as the Lord had given to the prophets of the past, so that we may also know Him and seek to return to Him, sinning no more and begin earnestly our path to salvation. Let us follow the Lord and His ways, and earnestly begin our path to salvation, by offering the Lord our repentance and our contrite hearts.

With inspiration of the examples made by St. Bridget and many other saints and holy men and women of God, let us go forth and proclaim Christ our Lord to all the nations, the Christ our Lord who died for our sake, as the Lamb of sacrifice, whose Blood saves all mankind from their fate that is death. Death no longer has any power over us who believe in Christ and His saving power, just as the Pharaoh no longer had any power over the Israelites after the Lord saved them from the land of Egypt. He smote Satan just as He had smitten the Pharaoh and the people of Egypt. How great is His love for us indeed! Amen.

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Saturday, 20 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Christ had delivered us from the hands of the devil and bring us to the land of the living, that is new life in Him, and the hope of eternal life together with the saints and the angels of the Lord, for eternity. He had come, He had been victorious, and He had conquered, a glorious king triumphant over His enemies, that is Satan and his followers, his fallen angels.

He did not let His people to live forever in suffering and oppression, as He once rescued the people of Israel, the people He had first chosen among the nations, from the oppression and tyranny of the Egyptians. So the same He had done too, for all of us, all mankind, without exception, to free us all from the tyranny of the true evil, that is Satan and all sins.

He sent forth His Son to be our hope, our rescuer, and our Redeemer. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born as a humble man, had died on the cross for all of us, that through His death, and ultimately, His glorious resurrection, He broke forever the yoke of sin on all of us. Our debts of sin were paid by the ultimate price of His Most Precious Body and Blood, which He offered freely on the cross for all of us, God’s beloved children.

To those who follow the ways of the Lord, and those who repented their sins and turned back to face the Lord their God, with all their hearts, with all their strength and power, and in the true spirit of repentance in sincerity, the Lord will reward them with forgiveness, love, and His eternal embrace. He will welcome them into His kingdom and bring all of them into the land of eternal happiness, just as He had once promised the people of Israel and Abraham, their father, that they will inherit the land of prosperity, of flowing milk and honey.

But those who ignored His call and His mercy, and those who disobeyed Him will receive what is their due, that is punishment for sins and death, a fate that awaited all of us, because of our rebellion against God through sin, but which our Saviour, Jesus Christ had voided for all of us through His sacrifice on the cross, but a fate that will not be voided for those who reject Christ and persecute His people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not harden our hearts the way that Pharaoh had done in his refusal to let the people of Israel go free from their slavery. Let us rather open our hearts to God’s love and His Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit will come into us and dwell within us, transforming us from the children of darkness and sin, into children of God, that is of love and light. He is a loving God and a merciful Lord, who will forgive us from our faults and rebellion, but only if we would open our hearts. He is a just God, and One who hates all evil and sin, and therefore, if we harden our hearts and close them against Him, there will be only one sentence that awaits us, which is death, eternal damnation in hell.

Today, brothers and sisters, we commemorate the feast day of St. Apollinaris, a bishop of the early Roman Empire, one of the early leaders of the Church, who was martyred in his ministry and kept his faith to the Lord till the end faithfully. St. Apollinaris with great zeal preached the Good News of the Lord throughout many parts of the then Roman Empire, across the Mediterranean Sea, not unlike what St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles had done just decades before St. Apollinaris did.

St. Apollinaris persevered with great courage and faith, despite numerous difficulties he received along his mission and his preaching. Many opposed him, not least the pagan priests and rulers, who viewed his teachings as a threat to their influences in the society, and who also viewed him as both a rival and a rebel to the Imperial authority.

Why rebel? Because St. Apollinaris preached the Word of God in Christ Jesus, that is the Saviour of the world, in the belief in the One, true and only God, which contradicted directly with the pagan worships at the time, particularly when the contemporary Roman Emperors were increasingly worshipped as divine even when they were still living. As Christians do not worship anyone other than God, they were somewhat seen as traitors by the Romans, for rejecting that the Emperor is divine.

As such, St. Apollinaris, who preached the Gospel and led the early Christians as bishop, the path was really tough, and persecutions and rejections were very common. In the end, even St. Apollinaris, following the Apostles and disciples of Christ before him, was put to death in sacred martyrdom. Following Christ is never easy, brothers and sisters, because we have to carry our own crosses, with Christ, on the long path to salvation. Yet Christ had made the path straight for us, if we believe in Him and remain faithful in Him, that we will not go astray, and remain in the true path towards the Lord and eternal happiness.

The people of Israel too endured suffering in the desert in their journey. Following the Lord is not easy, but in the end, if we remain faithful, the Lord would reward us greatly, with none other than everlasting life and eternal happiness, that our lives of suffering would truly be worth living for the sake of the ultimate reward at the end.

But if we are not faithful, and go astray in our path, then we risk death as our ultimate end. The people of Israel constantly grumbled about their suffering and disobeyed the Lord many times, through Moses, whom they disobeyed so often as their hearts were hardened against the Lord. They did not live to see the Promised Land, and died in the desert as their punishment. So, the lesson is that, all of us should do our best, to remain faithful always and ever loving to the Lord our God. Our Lord who loves us wants our love in return, that we remain in Him just as He remain in all of us, within our hearts.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, and through the example of St. Apollinaris, may we be inspired to always persevere in our mission to bring the Good News to all nations, to the ends of the earth, without fear, and with zeal and fire of the faith in our hearts. St. Apollinaris, pray for us, and may God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Psalm 115 : 12-13, 15-16bc, 17-18

How can I repay the Lord for all His goodness to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the Name of the Lord.

It is painful to the Lord to see the death of His faithful. O Lord, I am Your servant, truly Your servant, Your handmaid’s son. You have freed me from my bonds.

I will offer You a thanksgiving sacrifice; I will call on the Name of the Lord. I will carry out my vows to the Lord in the presence of His people.

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Thursday, 18 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, come to Christ our Lord whose yoke is light, and come to the Lord who had liberated us from the yoke of sin and death. He has liberated all of us from our fate that is death through His own death on the cross, and His resurrection give us all new hope of life, in the eternal bliss of heaven.

Yes, following the Lord has its own crosses, that is difficulties, because this world that is filled with evil will certainly oppose us with all of its might, that they will try to destroy us just as they had tried to destroy our Lord Jesus Christ by condemning Him to death, the humiliating death on the cross. Yet, Christ had triumphed, and not even death could hold Him captive, but He gloriously turned hell upside down, releasing the souls of the faithful from the slavery in hell and death.

For Christ is like the new Moses, whom the Lord had sent to liberate all the people, all mankind, all of creation, instead of just the people of Israel. If Moses was sent to liberate the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt under the Pharaohs, Christ was sent to liberate everyone, without exception from our slavery under sin, with Satan as the jailer.

Following Christ will be difficult, and there will be lots of oppositions from those in the world, particularly from the allies of evil. But this is nothing if compared to the suffering and difficulties that we will face for eternity, if we do not follow Christ and choose to follow the devil instead. That is also to represent how light is the yoke of Christ, compared to the yoke of the devil, because while the yoke of Christ leads eventually to eternal happiness, and only a temporary suffering, the yoke of the devil leads to never-ending eternal death and suffering, from the complete separation of man from God.

But yet, many people seem to prefer the heavier yoke of the devil than the lighter yoke of Christ, why? That is because the yoke of the devil looks more attractive in our hearts. It looks better and also feels better than the yoke of Christ. The yoke of the devil looks sweeter, better, and more promising, and the devil had also sweetened it further with all the pleasures and offerings this world can give, whereas in the yoke of Christ, we can only see suffering, although it is a suffering accompanied by the love of God.

That was why the same had happened to the people of Israel, when they followed Moses through the desert towards the Promised Land. They rebelled and rebelled constantly against the leadership of Moses and against God Himself. They saw the desert as the sure place of death, while their life in Egypt, under slavery, they deemed to be better than the nomadic life in the desert. Yes, even in slavery! They were glad to remain in slavery rather than be free, so that they could enjoy their ‘good’ life in Egypt.

That good life in Egypt, my brothers and sisters, is truly equivalent to our current life in the state of sin. Because sinning is actually enjoyable, and the devil put no stops to ensure that we remain in our state of sin and indifference towards the merciful God. We constantly rebel against the will of God and the teachings of His prophets and apostles, as we have always done, just like the people of Israel themselves had done in the desert. They complained of their temporary suffering, as we does now, but they failed to realise that true happiness lies at the end of that suffering. Remember, the yoke of Christ is light, and it leads to salvation, while the yoke of the devil leads only to death and eternal suffering.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, do we resolve now to take up our crosses while following He who was crucified? That is to take up the Cross of Christ? Or do we slacken and let the devil has the better of us and lead us to eternal damnation? If we are to follow Christ, as He Himself had said, we must be ready to take up our crosses and suffer the rejection by evil and the world. But that is nothing, compared to if we are rejected by our Lord Himself, in which, then, there will be no hope left.

Let us resolve to follow the Lord and be ready to face all the consequences of following Him, facing it with faith, courage, and devotion, without ever going out of our way or being led astray. May the Lord who is merciful look kindly upon us, and help us during this journey of the faith, and guiding us through the persecutions and sufferings that will be inflicted upon us.

May the Lord bless us all and protect us, so that all of us will persevere, and fall not into eternal damnation in hell, but achieve eternal life in bliss in heaven, with our Lord who loves us. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Indeed, we are all brethren, brothers and sisters to one another, because all of us share the same Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who is our Brother. He did not leave mankind behind when we sinned against Him and rebelled against His love and His will. Instead, as the reading pointed out today, He came to dwell among us, and be with us, that we become His brethren, and will have part in Him and His salvation.

The Lord dwells within us, because we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, which must be kept holy at all times, and free from the filth of sin and evil. To do so, we must reflect Christ in all the things that we do, in all the words that we say, and in all the works of our hands. And to reflect Christ simply means to love, loving God with all our hearts and our entire being, and also to love our neighbours, our brethren as much as we love ourselves.

If we do all these, in the complete awareness of what we are doing, which glorify Christ more and more, we will be brought closer and ever be with God. He will accept us as His own, as His brethren, and He will protect us from the harm caused by the evil one. To us, He had shown compassion and love, just as the love shown by shepherd to his sheep. If we are lost, like the lost sheep, He will do all the things He can, in order to bring us back to Him again.

But we must also remain obedient to Christ, as even if we are already saved, we can be lost once again, if we do not remain faithful to our calling in life, that is to be with Christ and to love Him with all our strength. Especially, in our world today, it is easy for one to fall away from grace, because of the increasing materialism in this world, the temptations of pleasure and false happiness that this world provide to many people, that they began to turn away from the teachings of Christ.

Doing the will of God is what God truly desires from us all, and in following Christ and His teachings, we are doing the will of God, that is love, for one another, and for God Himself. If we show love in our actions, we are doing God’s will and therefore will always remain in God’s grace, and we will be save from damnation of death and hell that awaits those who disobeyed the Lord and continued their lives in sin.

Today, we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an important feast day for the Carmelites, a well-known religious order, which began at Mount Carmel itself, which is located in Israel today, the same location where the prophet Elijah contested against the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, the pagan god, in front of the people of Israel, on who is the true God of Israel.

Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, appeared to St. Simon Stock, who was the founder of the Carmelite Order, and gave him what is well-known today as the brown scapular, closely associated with this feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Carmelites themselves placed the Blessed Virgin Mary as the perfect role model for all faithful to follow, in their faith to the Lord, in following the example of Mary herself, in her dedication to her Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, from His birth, to His suffering on the way to Calvary and death on the cross.

So devoted is our Lady to her Son, our Lord Jesus, that she followed Him all the way through His suffering for our sake, to the cross, and stood by below Him, accompanying Him through the time of His greatest ordeal. Though sword pierced her heart, for seeing the cruel death of her Son, she persevered and our Lord gave her to His disciple, John, and gave him to His mother too.

Therefore, in the same way, our Blessed Virgin Mary had been given to us by the Lord Himself, and we had also been given to the care of our Lady, whom we celebrate today as the Lady of Mount Carmel, to be our mother and helper. Why helper? Because our Lady is the greatest of the saints, through her own position being the mother of God, but even more importantly because of her purity and dedication to the Lord and all God’s children.

Today we follow the example of the Carmelites, to give our love and dedication to the Lord, through His mother, our Blessed Virgin Mary. Because, just as the Carmelites stress in their formations and principles, there is no better way to the Lord other than through Mary, His mother. Mary is our greatest intercessor before the Lord for His mercy and help, because, just as at the wedding at Cana, Jesus did listen to His mother, when she pleaded with Him to help the wedding brides despite Him telling her explicitly that the time has not yet come for Him to reveal His power.

That is why we dedicate ourselves in prayer through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who became a guide in our journey towards the Lord. She helps us through her prayer, and because she is closest among the saints in heaven to the Lord, our prayers will be heard, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

That is why it is good for us to follow the example of the Carmelites and indeed, of our Lady herself, in their dedication to Jesus our Lord, on the love they have to our Lord and Saviour. Jesus did not mean any disrespect when He seemingly rebuked His own family when they were waiting for Him as told in the Gospel today. Indeed, Jesus actually affirmed the honoured position His mother had, because Jesus told the people that whoever does the will of God and do things for the sake of the Lord, they are His brethren, His family. Who else is more faithful and more obedient to the will of God other than Mary, our Lord’s own mother? The Virgin who readily accepted her role in the salvation of all mankind by accepting the Lord’s will for her, to be the vessel that brought the Saviour into this world.

Surely, today we must rejoice, that we have our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to intercede for our sake before her Son, our Lord and God. Through her we can be closer to Christ, and through her prayers for our sake, all of us who are sinners have greater hope of salvation, because Christ Himself will surely be moved by the petitions and pleas of His own mother, who cares for us just like her own children. Remember, when Christ gave His mother to John to be cared for, He also gave her to us, that we become her own, and receive the love and care that she had once shown Jesus.

May our Lady of Mount Carmel, our Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, pray for us and protect us from the harm of evil that is in our world, and through her, may we be able to get closer and reach higher to Christ, her Son, that in the future, we will be able to praise Him together with her, and all the saints and holy people of God in heaven. Amen.

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Monday, 15 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we reflect on the readings, which began from the opening of the Book of Exodus from the Old Testament, which told us the story of the people of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the chosen people, in Egypt, during their time of stay there. The people of Israel had been blessed by the Lord and grew exponentially in wealth and in their number, such that the Egyptians truly might have feared that the Israelites might overwhelm them in their own country.

Thus began the persecution of Israel, led by the Pharaoh, king and ruler of Egypt, who felt the threat created by the people of Israel in his lands. He oppressed them and tried to bring them under control, and therefore begun the slavery of Israel, the years of suffering in Egypt, when the people of Israel laboured under the yoke of the Pharaohs and many died. Yet, the Lord remained with His people, and He continued to bless them, and thence, they multiplied still even more.

But the Lord did not leave His people to suffer, because He cared for them and wished for their safety, and that was why He sent them a liberator, through Moses, the son of Israel lifted from the water of the River Nile by the daughter of the then reigning Pharaoh. Through Moses, the prayers of Israel were heard, and the Lord brought His people out of Egypt on eagle’s wings, with the ten plagues He sent to Egypt to punish them for mistreating the people of Israel and keeping them enslaved in suffering.

The Lord saved Israel from the slavery in Egypt, and He brought them through the Red Sea to the land of flowing milk and honey, the Promised Land of Canaan. The Lord God brought the people through the desert to Canaan, so that they can enjoy the promise that the Lord had made to Abraham, their forefather, that they, as his descendants, will enjoy the fruits of God’s blessings which had been given to Abraham and his descendants for eternity.

But the journey was not easy, and was full of trial and suffering, just as the people of Israel had endured suffering during their time in Egypt. That is because to become the disciples of the Lord is not easy, and is not straightforward. Much sacrifices had to be made, and indeed, as Christ had told His disciples, we have to take up our crosses and follow Him, otherwise we would not be worthy of Him.

That is because there is much evil in the world, ever since the beginning of time, when the evil one came and corrupted mankind and creation, with the evils that did not belong to God. Terrible things such as hatred, jealousy, greed, lust, and many other evils that had marred the perfection of God’s creations and all of His works.

But Christ would not let us suffer alone in this darkness, and that was why He came, to be the Light that rescues all from the grip of darkness. Instead, He bear all our sufferings, caused by our disobedience, so that He would blamed instead of us, punched and received blows instead of us, and died instead of us, a death on the cross.

The cross was, at the time of Jesus, the Romans’ favourite way to deal with criminals, particularly those seen as great threat to the Romans and to the society itself. Death of the cross for Jesus was to be a sure condemnation of His memory and a completely humiliating death for the so called ‘Messiah’, according to the chief priests.

Yet, the Lord prevailed, through His death, and then, most importantly, His Resurrection, the first to be Risen from the dead by His own power. The Risen Lord turned the humiliating cross, a symbol of shame, into a glorious sign of victory and triumph. The cross reminds us always that we have been victorious against the devil, and have also been triumphant in the struggle against sin and evil, because through that cross on Calvary, we had been made whole once again, and be made worthy in the presence of God.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we must be proud to show that we are the people who belongs to God, a people of the Lord, marked by none other than by the sign of the victorious cross. Through even simple gestures like making the sign of the cross before meals would signify our pride and faith in the triumphant cross, the Lord who had brought us up from the mire of sin, and like the Israelites of old, brought with the power of God’s hands out of Egypt, thus we have been brought out of our slavery of sin, into a new, free life in Christ.

Do not be afraid to show that we are Christians, and we also should not attempt to hide it whenever we make the sign of the cross, before meals, before prayers, and in many other occasions. Behold the symbol of our salvation, our pride and faith in God, the cross, to remember our Lord who had died for us, endured suffering that should have befallen us, just so that all of us may live, and not just a life that is temporary, but eternal life in heaven.

Today we also commemorate the memorial of St. Bonaventure, who was a religious and a well-known theologian, preacher, and scholar who lived in the early part of the last millenium, living just after the time of St. Francis of Assisi. He and his works advanced the theology and teachings of the Franciscans, which he was a member of, and his great contribution made the Pope elevated him to the Cardinalate.

St. Bonaventure in his hard works, ensured that the Franciscans would be known for its depth in understanding God’s teachings and also excellent oratory skills. He had laboured hard for Christ and God’s people, and He upheld the cross that was his, and he did not shirk from the duty to carry that cross. Instead he embraced it, and carried his cross alongside Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, inspired by the zeal and devotion of St. Bonaventure and other great saints, holy men and women of God, let us renew our commitment and faith to the Lord, the One who saved us from certain death, death that awaits us sinners and evildoers, but which had been voided by the power of Christ, through the outpouring of His Blood on the cross.

Let us bear our own crosses, and help one another to bear one another’s cross, and walk our way through the path to salvation, to Christ. It will not be an easy journey, as often there will be temptations and oppositions, especially by the world, but if we remain strong, and carry our crosses faithfully, we will reach the end, and we will reach Christ, our Lord who loves us. It is up to us, brothers and sisters in Christ, whether we end up in hell or in heaven. Let us be proactive in living out our faith, that our faith will not die, but blossom with love.

God bless us all, and let us ask St. Bonaventure for his intercession for us sinners. Pray for us St. Bonaventure. Amen.

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Saturday, 13 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Henry (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 10 : 24-33

A student is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. A student should be glad to become  like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If the head of the family has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of the family! So, do not be afraid of them.

There is nothing covered that will not be uncovered, and nothing hidden that will not be made known. What I am telling you in the dark, you must speak in the light. What you hear in private, proclaim from the housetops.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but have no power to kill the soul. Rather be afraid of Him who can destroy both body and soul in hell. For only a few cents you can buy two sparrows, yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father knowing. As for you, every hair of your head has been counted. Do not be afraid : you are no less worthy than many sparrows!

Whoever acknowledges Me before others I will acknowledge before My Father in heaven. Whoever rejects Me before others I will reject before My Father in heaven.

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Friday, 12 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Psalm 36 : 3-4, 18-19, 27-28, 39-40

Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and live on it. Make the Lord your delight, and He will grant your heart’s desire.

The Lord watches over the lives of the upright; forever will their inheritance abide. They are not crushed in times of calamity; when famine strikes, they still are satisfied.

Do good and shun evil, so that you will live secure forever. For the Lord loves justice and right, and never forsakes His faithful ones. The wicked instead will perish and their breed will be cut off.

The Lord is the salvation of the righteous; in time of distress, He is their refuge. The Lord helps them, and rescues them from the oppressor; He saves them for they sought shelter in Him.

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Thursday, 11 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard from the readings about the mission that Christ had entrusted all of us with. The mission that He had given to the apostles before He left this world, that is to spread the Good News of salvation to all mankind, and to all the world. Each and every Christians baptised in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit must uphold this mission and pledge ourselves to its cause, that is the cause of the Lord.

Christ had called all of us to be His disciples, to bring all the people of God back to His loving embrace, to open their eyes and their hearts to God’s divine and everlasting love. The Lord offers His love and His peace freely to all, without exception, even sinners, and especially sinners, because the Lord did come especially for the sake of sinners, those lost sheep lost in the darkness of evil and sin.

Christ gave up His life in sacrifice, as a worthy offering in atonement for all our sins, all of us, without any exceptions. He died for all mankind, past, present, and future so that all may live, and in this new life, be granted eternal life in glory with Him for eternity, as long as we keep to the covenant that He had made with us, a new covenant sealed by His Blood pouring down from the cross.

Our Lord Jesus loves us, brethren, so much that He is willing to suffer all the blows, lashes, and curses, the pain of the nails that pierced his hands and feet, so that all of us do not have to suffer death eternal in hell. For our sins and iniquities the Lamb of God had been slaughtered and sacrificed, innocent and pure as He is, He was made to bear all the sins of the world.

Sadly, as many as those who would accept His call and His words, and followed Him into a new life of purity and holiness, there are even many more who would prefer to remain in their state of sin and darkened life, and preferred the pleasures of the world and Satan to the Lord who loves them. Many would reject Him and reject His messengers and disciples, including all of us who had been called by the Lord to be His apostles in this modern era.

So if Christ is rejected by many, then we will be rejected too, but this does not mean that we should slacken or abandon the mission that has been given to us. Indeed, there are still those who would accept Christ and His Good News, and even among those who have rejected Him and rejected us, there is always still hope, that they will change and receive the Lord. We must remain strong and courageous, and embrace our mission with zeal, devotion, and most importantly, love.

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Benedict the abbot, also known widely as St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the religious order of St. Benedict, or the Benedictines. He was also an inspiration for our great Pope Emeritus, the beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in choosing his regnal name as Pope, together with Pope Benedict XV, his predecessor and the Pope of peace.

St. Benedict of Nursia lived in the first millenium in the late Roman Empire, and he was the founder of a great religious order, the Benedictines, who imposed on them what is well-known as the Rule of St. Benedict. The rule placed a great emphasis on the balance between piety and religiosity and the need for service and good works, which the Benedictines practiced through their charitable acts and service, and a pious and holy lifestyle, dedicated to the Lord in humility and obedience. And important to the Benedictines are also the concept of peace, the need to seek peace in this world, and to be peaceful in one’s own acts.

St. Benedict strengthened the Christian monasticism that was growing up at his era, and he laid much foundations for the future missionary works of the Church and religious orders that helped to preserve the Traditions of the Faith through the tumultous era of the ending of the Roman Empire and the advent of the Dark Ages. Through St. Benedict, the monastic communities had been strengthened, and therefore, the Church itself had been strengthened.

Inspired by the example of St. Benedict of Nursia and other great missionary saints of the monastic orders, we embark on this new journey of the faith in this modern era of secularism and consumerism, where God increasingly take a lesser importance in people’s minds and lives. It is our duty then, to continue the work of faith, to bring the Lord closer to many people around the world who have yet to receive the Good News of the Lord, or even those who had rejected the message of salvation outright.

There will be rejection for sure, for the world will reject us just as it had once rejected Christ Himself. But we must never give up and we must be courageous, to defend our faith, to defend the Lord, and to bring salvation to many who still live in the darkness of evil and sin. May St. Benedict of Nursia intercede for us, and pray for our sake, that God will send His helpers to aid us in our mission in this world. May St. Benedict also intercede for the sake of our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who is fighting for the Church in prayer and solitude. God bless us all, and God bless His Holy Church! Amen.

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Sunday, 7 July 2013 : 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Lord challenges all of us, to be His disciples and His followers, and what we are expected to do, when we choose to become His servants, the extensions of His will in this world. For to become the followers of Christ does not mean an easy life to us, or a leisurely work. Indeed, becoming the followers and disciples of Christ, mean that we die to this world, and abandon all the pleasures and the good that is in the world, for the sake of Christ.

There will be those who accept us, and there will likely be even more who will reject us, sometimes may not even be in a friendly manner. That is because not all people attune themselves to the Lord and His message, and many prefer to live in the ignorance provided by the world and all its temptations. To be a servant and disciple of Christ therefore means to struggle against the world and fight in this uphill battle for the sake of the Lord.

However, we must not give up, for certainly the Lord Himself did not give up on all of us. He still keeps up hope on us, and still continue to love all of us. Indeed, He embraced all of us, gave us all the love that He has in Him, that is infinite, and treat us like His own children. Nothing less indeed than giving us His own life, through His death on the cross, that we may have eternal life ourselves, those of us who believe in Him and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour.

God cares for all of us and He will bless us if we stay true to Him and follow Him as His disciples, particularly for those of us who have been called by the Lord to be His servants and serve His people. He will provide for all of us, and even if we face difficulties and opposition, as we surely will, the Lord will always be with us, and we should not need to worry at all.

The problem with our world today is that there are so much things that are good and enticing to men, and there are so much things that tempt us away from the Lord and His call. It is not that we should ignore or shun all of the world’s goodness, but we must know the limit to such goodness, otherwise we would succumb to our natural weakness of desire and greed. If we can understand self-control, we would be able to prevent the world from corrupting our hearts and blocking our path towards the Lord.

Our world has become very materialistic and secular in nature, that many people no longer place God as first in their hearts, and even no longer has the Lord in their hearts. In God’s place came in all the greed that is of the world, for material wealth, possessions, luxury, comfort, and excesses. The crazed search for more money and wealth is just one of the many examples of how our world had changed for the worse.

Especially it is increasingly becoming very difficult for the Church to find new priests today, and new servants of the Lord. Even the numbers of religious brothers and sisters have also dropped significantly, a sign in tandem with the increasing secularism of the world, and the increasing temptation of the world on us mankind.

In the past it is easy for the Church to find new priests and religious members because God still lives strong in many people’s hearts, and many willingly give up everything they have in life for the sake of the Lord, and serve His people through the Church, be it as priests, brothers, nuns, or even as lay worker. However, as I had mentioned and all of you knew, that times had changed. Now, many people are too fixated on their material possessions that they are increasingly unwilling to abandon all of them for the sake of God and His people.

However, internal reasons are not the only reasons, though it does play a very important part in why we have a great decline in the number of people in our seminaries today. The other reasons are external, from our friends, our society, and ultimately, our own families. In many parts of the world, success in life had increasingly been equated with monetary and economic success, and educational achievements, both linked to each other in such a way that, our life becomes more like an investment than a life.

Yes, as you know, in our modern world, raising a child increasingly become more and more expensive as years go by. Every year, inflation brings all living costs higher and higher, and consequently it becomes ever more difficult to raise a child, with soaring expenditures and declining income relative to those expenditures. Education, in particular, became so expensive, that educating a child in our society today becomes something like a chore.

That is why, coupled with the increasingly stronger link between education, its achievements and success in life, made so many parents becoming more and more reluctant to let their children go, when they reveal to them about their intentions in life. You see, God chooses whom He wants to be His servants, and He calls them all, through subtle means. Not many would take up that offer and that call, but many did answer and treasure the calling.

Yet, parental objections often stood in the way of the Lord’s call, because the parents thought of priestly life and a life dedicated to the service of the Lord and His people is a wasted life, a shameful life, and indeed, an investment wasted, because we gradually see our lives less as a life that we truly should see it, but merely more and more as an investment, about money and material possessions.

Friends and society also play a great deal in shaping one’s calling, because peer pressure and objections in the society do prevent one’s calling from being realised, especially when coupled with parental objection. These are in fact, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, some of the crosses that we must bear if we are to follow the Lord. This is exactly because the world does not love Christ, and neither does it welcome Him. The world follows its own ways, and those are not the ways of the Lord.

The purpose of today’s readings however is not to attack or put down parents, just because they rejected or opposed their children’s calling, but rather, to remind all of us that, life is not just about our possessions, or about how much money we have in the bank, or how big is the salary we receive in a month, or even, how many cars and other utilities we have. Life is indeed about Christ, and about loving Christ and our fellow brethren.

We Christians who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ must be brave and courageous, in defending our faith against the assaults of the world and its temptations, and must be ready at all times to take up our crosses, to walk alongside Christ in His suffering. These crosses mean to take an active part in our participation in the Church, according to our own calling, that is for those called and chosen to serve the Lord in divine priesthood, to be brave in embracing one’s calling and rejecting the voices that try to prevent one’s call from being realised; and for those in religious orders, to be faithful in prayer and service; and lastly, but not least, for the laity themselves, that they will take up a more active participation in the Church and groom themselves for better understanding of their faith.

In doing so, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have done God’s will, to be His disciples and preach the Good News to all of the world, including to our fellow brethren and ourselves. Therefore, now, let us pray that the Lord will give us strength and courage to face all the troubles in life, and also give us the understanding of the nature of God’s call and vocations, and bravely defend the faith of the Church in all of our deeds.

May the Lord give us His Holy Spirit, that we will always ever persevere, amidst the difficulties and challenges in this world, in showing God’s love to all, and also to preach the Good News of the Lord to all nations. God bless us all. Amen.