false idols

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Tuesday, 16 August 2016 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Deuteronomy 32 : 26-27ab, 27cd-28, 30, 35cd-36ab

I said I would scatter them afar and blot out their memory among humankind, but I feared the enemy’s boasting, lest the adversary misunderstand.

And say, “We have triumphed, the Lord has not brought this about.” They are a senseless and undiscerning nation. Had they wisdom, they would have known.

For how could one or two men put to flight a thousand or ten thousand, unless their Rock had abandoned them, unless their Lord had given them up?

Their day of calamity is at hand, and swiftly their doom will come. The Lord will give justice to His people and have mercy on His servants.

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Monday, 15 August 2016 : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White (Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Deuteronomy 32 : 18-19, 20-21

They have disowned the Rock Who fathered them; they have forgotten the God Who gave them birth. The Lord saw this, and in His anger rejected His sons and daughters.

He said, “I will hide My face from them and see what will become of them. They are so perverse, so unfaithful! They made Me jealous with their false gods and angered Me with their idols. I will, therefore, make them envious of a foolish people, I will provoke them to anger with an empty-headed nation.

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Thursday, 10 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 105 : 19-20, 21-22, 23

They made a calf at Horeb and worshipped the molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of a bull that eats grass.

They forgot their Saviour God, Who had done great things in Egypt, wonderful works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Sea of Reeds.

So He spoke of destroying them, but Moses, His chosen one, stood in the breach before Him to shield them from destruction.

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Thursday, 10 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Exodus 32 : 7-14

Then YHVH said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a molten calf; they have bowed down before it and sacrificed to it and said : ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.'”

And YHVH said to Moses, “I see that these people are a stiff-necked people. Now just leave Me that My anger may blaze against them. I will destroy them, but of you I will make a great nation.”

But Moses calmed the anger of YHVH, his God, and said, “Why, o YHVH, should Your anger burst against Your people whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with a mighty hand? Let not the Egyptians say : ‘YHVH brought them out with evil intent, for He wanted to kill them in the mountains and wipe them from the face of the earth.'”

“Turn away from the heat of Your anger and do not bring disaster on Your people. Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the promise You Yourself swore : I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land I spoke about I will give to them as an everlasting inheritance.”

YHVH then changed His mind and would not yet harm His people.

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Thursday, 20 August 2015 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 39 : 5, 7-8a, 8b-9, 10

Blessed is the one who relies on the Lord and does not look to the proud nor go astray after false gods.

Sacrifice and oblation You did not desire; this You had me understand. Burnt offering and sin offering You do not require. Then I said, “Here I come!”

As the scroll says of me. To do Your will is my delight, o God, for Your Law is within my heart.

In the great assembly I have proclaimed Your saving help. My lips, o Lord, I did not seal – You know that very well.

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Monday, 27 July 2015 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 105 : 19-20, 21-22, 23

They made a calf at Horeb and worshipped the molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of a bull that eats grass.

They forgot their Saviour God, who had done great things in Egypt, wonderful works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Sea of Reeds.

So He spoke of destroying them, but Moses, His chosen one, stood in the breach before Him to shield them from destruction.

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Tuesday, 8 July 2014 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 113B : 3-4, 5-6, 7ab-8, 9-10

There in heaven is our God; whatever He wishes, He does. Not so the hand-made idols, crafted in silver and gold.

They have mouths that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, noses that cannot smell.

They have hands but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. Their makers will be like them, so will all who trust in them.

O Israel, trust in the Lord; He is your help and your shield! You, family of Aaron, trust in the Lord; He is your help and your shield!

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Saturday, 5 October 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Baruch 4 : 5-12, 27-29

Take courage, my people, you who preserve the memory of Israel. You have been sold to the nations but not for your destruction; because you had aroused the anger of God, you were delivered to your enemies.

For you displeased your Creator in sacrificing to demons and not to God. You have forgotten the Eternal God, the One who nourished you. You have filled Jerusalem with sadness, she who brought you up.

For she saw the anger of God fall on you and she said, “Listen, you neighbouring cities of Zion, God has sent me a great sorrow. I have seen the captivity of my sons and daughters, which the Eternal One brought on them. I had nurtured them in joy; with tears and sadness I saw them leave. Let no one rejoice on seeing me a widow and abandoned by all. Because of the sins of my children I am now alone, because they have turned away from the Law of God.”

Take courage, my children, cry out to God, for He who sent you into exile will remember you. Thus, as you distanced yourself from God, return to Him and seek Him ten times more earnestly. For He who caused these evils to fall on you will bring you salvation and eternal joy.

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Sunday, 4 August 2013 : 18th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 3 : 1-5, 9-11

So them, if you are risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on earthly things. For you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, reveals Himself, you also will be revealed with Him in Glory.

Therefore, put to death what is earthly in your life, that is immorality, impurity, inordinate passions, wicked desires, and greed which is a way of worshipping idols.

Do not lie to one another. You have been stripped of the old self and its way of thinking to put on the new, which is being renewed and is to reach perfect knowledge and the likeness of its creator. There is no room for distinction between Greek of Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, foreigner, slave or free, but Christ is all and in all.

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Tuesday, 7 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Follow the Lord! For He is justice and truth embodied!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear the word of God, proclaiming that in Christ our Lord, lays true justice and the truth itself, however hard it is for this evil-laden world to comprehend and accept. Even among us, there are many who still do not believe truly in God, and put our trust in His justice and have faith in the truths He had taught us through His apostles.

For Christ is our great judge, who will judge every being and every mankind at the end of time, when it is time once again for Him to descend onto this world in His glorious Second Coming, when He will vindicate all who keep their faith in Him and do not give it up for the temptations and seductions of the evil one. He will reward all those who remain faithful in Him, and punish all those who stray from His way, the true way, the path of salvation.

This great judgment will separate the good ones from the bad ones, the worthy ones from the unworthy ones, like the harvester separate the good wheat from the chaff and the husks, and like the shepherd separating the goat from the sheep. So will all of us be separated based on our virtues, and whether we have faithfully kept God’s commandments in our deeds and in our daily lives.

Would we want to be separated as the bad goats as compared to be like the good sheep? Would we want to endure the eternal suffering of separation from God and His infinite love? Never forget that the true suffering in hell is not the physical fire and the torture of the flesh that is always depicted in the secular illustrations, but hell is in fact a state of eternal damnation and suffering when one is truly, completely, and forever separated from God.

It is difficult to believe in God, especially in our increasingly secular world today, as God becomes ever more distant in mankind’s hearts, when world’s increasingly seductive temptations exert greater and ever greater pull on many, steering them away from the true faith and from the righteous path in Christ. This is why the world is sinful, and it is most sinful in what is called disbelief. Not only because it has not believed in God, and had rejected the One whom God had sent, but also that it had made many to lose their faith and belief in God, because it has offered the falsehoods that Satan has offered.

Let us not be perturbed, my brethren. Let us not be shaken in our faith, and doubt our God not for even a single moment, for He is constant, and He is faithful. He is God who keeps His promises, who loves those who also love Him, and those who obey the commandments He had set, and those who follow in His way. Remember, the path of Satan, and what the deceiver offers us, may look good, but it offers only temporal satisfaction. Remember Adam and Eve, our ancestors.

True salvation, true joy, and true glory lie only in God, our one and only God and Lord. To no other being should we bend our knee to in worship, other than to He who had come down from heaven, who had lived amongst us, who died for us, that we may live, and who had risen in glory, in triumph, and conquered death. Amen.