feast of holy saints

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Thursday, 9 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Frances of Rome (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Esther 4 : 17n, p-r, aa-bb, gg-hh (Latin Vulgate version – Esther 14 : 1, 3-5, 12-14)

Seized with anguish in her fear of death, Queen Esther likewise had recourse to the Lord. Then she prayed to the Lord God of Israel : “My Lord, You Who stand alone, came to my help; I am alone and have no help but You. Through my own choice I am endangering my life.”

“As a child I was wont to hear from the people of the land of my forebears that You, o Lord, chose Israel from among all peoples, and our fathers from among their ancestors to be Your lasting heritage; that You did for them, all that You have promised.”

“Remember us, Lord; reveal Yourself in the time of our calamity. Give me courage, King of gods and Master of all power. Make my words persuasive when I face the lion; turn his heart against our enemy, that the latter and his like may be brought to their end.”

“Save us by Your hand; help me who am alone and have none but You, o Lord.”

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Friday, 10 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, in the first reading all of us heard the well-known story of how Satan, the devil, disguised as a serpent tricked our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, into eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, which caused them to sin before God, and therefore, were cast out of the Gardens of Eden, and came under the thrall of sin and death.

It was a very important and defining moment in all of the history of humanity, as the moment when mankind turned away from God and sin entered into their hearts, making them defiled and wicked in the sight of God. It was the moment when darkness overcame us and we became rebels, delinquents, all those who have not obeyed the Lord and therefore would not have had any part in the inheritance originally promised to us by God.

Our fate would have been destruction, death, and damnation in hell, together to suffer the eternity of pain and despair with Satan and his fellow rebel angels, those who have not obeyed the Lord and instead chose to follow their own paths, succumbing to the temptations of their desires, their greed and their pride. But this was not what God intended for us when He created us, because He loved us all, and wanted us all to be freed from this fate.

That is why He sent us the deliverance through His only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this world in order to deliver us from our troubles, as we witnessed in the Gospel today, in how He went around, healing the sick and those who were beset by the evil spirits, and lifting up the hearts and minds of those who were in despair and who were downtrodden.

He came to heal us all, of all our bodily complaints and diseases, all of our human and worldly afflictions, but even more importantly, He is the only One Who can heal us of our troubles in our soul, that is our sins. While all the medicines and the cures in this world are able to heal us and make us better after we take them, capable of curing even the most difficult and deadly of diseases, and new cures being discovered from time to time, nothing will ever be able to cure us from our sins, save by the grace of God.

God came offering us mercy and forgiveness, to heal us from the taints of original sin that had corrupted our hearts, minds, bodies and souls. He came offering us this healing through Christ, Who went around healing us and bringing us the revelation of His truth, God’s ways which He offers to all those who live in sin, that they may find the folly and the mistake in their current path, and therefore, hoping that they will change their ways and repent their sins.

But the problem lies in the fact that we often resist the forgiveness of God. We often run away from God’s mercy, either because we are too afraid of Him that He will be angry at us and punish us, or because we are too proud to admit that we have been wrong, and therefore, we persisted in our ways of sin, and did not repent from our faults.

All these are the common reasons why mankind often slipped further and further into sin. These are the reasons why many people were lost forever from God, because of their own reluctance, refusal and stubbornness to reject the offer of God’s mercy and love. This is what all of us Christians must take note about, and what we need to reflect on, lest we ourselves also fall to the same trap.

We should now heed the examples of the holy saint whose feast we celebrate today, namely that of St. Scholastica, a holy and devout woman, who lived in the early days of the Church. She was the twin sister of another holy saint, St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the Benedictine religious order. St. Scholastica herself led a faithful and pious life just as her brother had.

St. Scholastica dedicated her whole life to God, living in prayerful existence and it was told that she practiced many acts of charity to her neighbours and peers, and also helped many others who are in need of help, both physically and spiritually. She was an exemplary woman, whose holiness and deeds were matched by her own brother, St. Benedict, whose dedications and faith became a beacon of light leading many others to God.

As Christians, all of us should follow the example of St. Scholastica, learning to be upright and just in all of our dealings and actions. We should become examples for each other, reminding one another to remain true to the teachings of our faith in the Church, and devote ourselves day after day to the works of charity, and dedicate ourselves to those who are in need.

May the Lord help us in all of our endeavours, and may He strengthen in us our faith, and awaken the love and devotion we ought to have for Him in our hearts. May the Lord bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 10 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He groaned and said to him, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it, but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Friday, 10 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 31 : 1-2, 5, 6, 7

Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is wiped away. Blessed are those in whom the Lord sees no guilt and in whose spirit is found no deceit.

Then I made known to You my sin and uncovered before You my fault, saying to myself, “To the Lord I will now confess my wrong.” And You, You forgave my sin, You removed my guilt.

So let the faithful ones pray to You in time of distress; the overflowing waters will not reach them.

You are my refuge; You protect me from distress and surround me with songs of deliverance.

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Friday, 10 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Genesis 3 : 1-8

Now the serpent was the most crafty of all the wild creatures that YHVH God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say : You must not eat from any tree in the garden?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden, but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden God said : You must not eat, and you must not touch it or you will die.”

The serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, but God knows that the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.” The woman saw that the fruit was good to eat, and pleasant to the eyes, and ideal for gaining knowledge. She took its fruit and ate it and gave some to her husband who was with her. He ate it.

Then their eyes were opened and both of them knew they were naked. So they sewed leaves of a fig tree together and made themselves loincloths. They heard the voice of YHVH God walking in the garden, in the cool of the day, and they, the man and his wife, hid from YHVH God among the trees of the garden.

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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints or Virgins)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings, all of us heard about the account of the creation of Man, how God created the first of our kind and gave him life. He blessed them and gave them many things, and also the command and stewardship over the earth. It was also mentioned that God laid an important commandment to man, that he must not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a story which we are surely well acquainted with.

In that story we heard of how the first man, Adam and the first woman, Eve disobeyed God, when Satan disguised as a serpent tempted them to eat a fruit from the tree, and therefore gaining knowledge over good and evil to become like God their Creator. That was how mankind sinned and therefore were cast out of the Gardens of Eden, and were forced to endure sufferings on earth as a result of their disobedience.

But now let us ask this question to ourselves. Was it the forbidden fruit from the tree that had caused mankind to sin and to become wicked? Or was it because they themselves were unable to restrain their greed and failed to resist the temptations of the devil? This would become significant if we look into the Gospel passage today, where Jesus mentioned to the Pharisees and to the teachers of the Law, in their dispute about the rules of the laws that the latter tried to impose on the people of God.

We have to understand the dynamics and the historical developments of that time if we are to understand why Jesus struggled with these people, who refused to budge and adamantly tried to advance their own thinking against the truth revealed to all by God through Jesus. At that time, the Pharisees strictly enforced the rule of food prohibitions, or what is now known as the kosher rule.

They followed the old rule of Moses, which the Lord passed down to the people in the guidelines of what they ought to eat and not to eat. But at that time, the people of Israel were travelling in the desert, and they were truly rebellious and refused to obey the Lord and His ways. That was why God imposed on them the set of laws, rules and regulations that He had put in place so as to help them to control themselves and to help guide them on the way towards righteousness.

But God never intended for the laws to become a burden for His people, or as a tool to make people to lord it over others just because they conform to the rules, and while others did not. It was never God’s intention for His people to misunderstand the real meaning of His laws. Yet, that was precisely what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done.

These people were too focused on the external applications of the Law, to the point that they were blinded to their own shortcomings and failures. They were so focused on the purity of their externals and all the observations of the laws they so carefully guarded, they had forgotten the most important commandment of all, that is to love and serve the Lord with all of their might and strength.

Many of the things which they had done, they did them in order to be seen and to be praised by the people who saw them. Many might have seen how they have observed fully the entirety of the laws of Moses, all of its rules and tenets, but on the other hand, as just mentioned, their intention for doing all these were wrong. God did not have the place of honour in their hearts as He should have.

It was just as how it was at the time of Adam and Eve. At that time, they disobeyed God and therefore sinned. It was not because of the fruit they ate that they have sinned, but because from their own hearts, wickedness had arisen, the inability to restrain their greed and desires which Satan used in order to bring about our downfall. In the same manner therefore, what Jesus said was very true, that what made someone impure is not something that we eat and bring in from the outside, but rather what came out from ourselves.

God created all things good and perfect, and therefore it is not right indeed to say that anything is impure or unclean. Rather, it was what had come out from our hearts that had led us into sin. It was our vulnerabilities and our tendency to fall into the temptations of worldliness which had brought us into sin, rather than anything else outside ourselves.

It is often that we, like the Pharisees and the elders, refused to see this truth because we are proud, and we do not want to lose our face, knowing that we are not perfect inside us, but dirty and wicked. And therefore, we put on masks of purity and piety, in order to hide the fact that we are sinners and delinquent rebels before God and men. But what we are doing is that we are just running away from the problem, and often, we end up in denial, which leads us all into an even greater sin, that is the refusal to repent from our sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where perhaps we should look up to the examples of the holy saints we venerate and glorify today, namely St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita. St. Jerome Emiliani was an Italian priest whose deeds among the orphans and those who were suffering then, was greatly noted by his contemporaries, as he worked hard to ensure that these people were properly taken care of and not abandoned.

St. Jerome Emiliani established places for these people to settle in, renting houses for this purpose, and increasingly, there were more and more pious and loving people who followed in his footsteps and stepped in to help the orphans and the poor people to be able to have a decent living. Eventually a religious society founded upon the ideals and the works of St. Jerome Emiliani was established, through which many people would go on to follow in the footsteps of this great and holy saint.

Meanwhile, St. Josephine Bakhita was a former slave turned a pious nun, born in Sudan in northern Africa, and was sold to slavery at a very young age, when she was kidnapped by slave traders who sold her to the slave market. She was also sold and resold a few times between slave owners, which experiences troubled and traumatised her greatly.

Eventually she was bought by an Italian vice-consul, and through difficult moments, managed to make her way to Italy, where she received the faith and became one of the converts. She also managed to gain her freedom, and upon baptism, she chose to join the convent of religious sisters, becoming one of the Canossian sisters.

She eventually continued to serve God and His people dutifully, renowned for her great piety and faith, in her zeal in the service of God, and in how her holiness shone through her actions in life. She never forgot her experiences in life, how she had suffered through slavery and all the other injustices, and yet, as the perfect example of Christian love and virtue, it was told that when one youth asked her if she would forgive her captors and slavers, she immediately said without hesitation that she would forgive them, for without them, she would not be a Christian, a religious, and indeed, later a saint.

The examples of these two venerable saints can be our inspiration in life, brothers and sisters in Christ. We must follow in their footsteps, doing good in our lives, and not be trapped by our pride, our folly and our stubbornness to accept God’s grace, forgiveness and love. We must learn to be faithful as St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita had been faithful, and learn to love as they have loved.

May the Lord help us all, so that we may emulate the lives of His wonderful saints, and practice what they themselves had done, in our own lives. May the Lord bless us all and our works, so that they will bring much good to this world, and bring righteousness and justice upon ourselves, that we will be worthy of the Lord, and worthy to receive His promise of eternal life, purified from all of our sins. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints or Virgins)
Mark 7 : 14-23

At that time, Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. Let everyone who has ears listen.”

When Jesus got home and was away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about this saying, and He replied, “So even you are dull? Do you not see that whatever comes from outside cannot make a person unclean, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and is finally passed out?” Thus Jesus declared that all foods are clean.

And He went on, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him, for evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints or Virgins)
Psalm 103 : 1-2a, 27-28, 29bc-30

Bless the Lord my soul! Clothed in majesty and splendour; o Lord, my God, how great You are! You are wrapped in light as with a garment.

They all look to You for their food in due time. You give it to them, and they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are filled with good things.

You take away their breath, they expire and return to dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and the face of the earth is renewed.

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Wednesday, 8 February 2017 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints or Virgins)
Genesis 2 : 4b-9, 15-17

On the day that YHVH God made the earth and the heavens, there was not yet on earth any shrub on the fields, nor had any plant yet sprung up, for YHVH God had not made it rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the earth, but a mist went up from the earth and watered the surface of the earth.

Then YHVH God formed Man, dust drawn from the clay, and breathed into his nostrils a breath of life and Man became alive with breath. God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there He placed Man whom He had created. YHVH God caused to grow from the ground every kind of tree that is pleasing to see and good to eat, also the tree of life on the middle of the garden and the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

YHVH God took Man and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and to take care of it. Then YHVH God gave an order to Man saying, “You may eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will not eat, for on the day you eat of it, you will die.”

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Tuesday, 31 January 2017 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard from the Scripture passages about how the people doubted Jesus our Lord, when they made Him and His works very difficult, as they ridiculed Him, rejected Him, and refused to listen to Him. They had not believed in Him, but doubted Him and even laughed at Him, as what we witnessed when He healed the daughter of the synagogue official and brought her back to life.

It is not easy to have faith in God, and certainly our first reactions will be like that of the woman’s. The woman was fearful and unsure, even though she believed that Jesus would be able to heal her from her afflictions. That was why she did not openly approach Jesus, and chose to try to approach Jesus quietly, hoping that no one would notice what she had tried to do.

In this we also see our own fears and our own insecurities, as the woman was probably trying to hide her own conditions. At that time, such a bleeding condition in a woman would have been considered as a curse, and the people would have judged the woman, thinking that she had her condition because of her sins. But nonetheless, despite of her fears and uncertainties, she went forward regardless, and touched the cloak of Jesus.

It was her great faith that allowed her to be healed and saved from her miseries. It was the same with the synagogue official, whose faith in Jesus also saved his daughter. Had he not been faithful and called Him, and had the woman with bleeding not had such a great faith, nothing in her condition would have changed. Her faith allowed God to do His wonderful works in her, and she was saved. The same applies to the synagogue official and his daughter.

Now let us ask ourselves, how many of us have been courageous enough to be like the woman whose faith had healed her? How many of us are aware of our own sinfulness, and how wicked we are, to have that desire in us to be healed? For if the woman wanted to be healed from her bleeding affliction, each and every one of us man have even greater affliction in us, that is sin, for sin is the disease of the soul and of the whole being.

But many of us are unaware just how sick we are from all of the sins inside us, and therefore we do not take the necessary steps to seek healing and forgiveness from God. And therefore instead of being like the synagogue official or like the woman with bleeding, we instead became like the people who were bystanders in the official’s house, who did not understand what Jesus was about to do, and what Jesus was indeed capable of doing, laughing at Him when He told them that He would raise the dead girl back to life again.

Are we like them, brothers and sisters? Are we doubting the Lord and His love? Are we too busy to notice our own foolishness and weaknesses? It is important that we understand this or else we will end up losing our way amidst the darkness of this world. Today, as we celebrate the feast day of St. John Bosco, a holy priest and saint of God, perhaps it will be good for us to look into the life of this holy saint, and look for things which can help us in our journey towards the Lord.

St. John Bosco was a renowned priest and holy man, who devoted his life to the service to the people of God. He served among the people of the city of Turin, who was filled with many poor people, as a result of rapid industrialisation. He was particularly worried and disturbed seeing many of the youths prior to adulthood who fell into crime and got themselves arrested, without proper jobs and had to struggle for their lives.

Therefore, St. John Bosco helped to establish institutions meant to help these young people to renew themselves and to equip themselves with the education and the skills to help themselves persevere and survive in life later on. He established shelters for young boys who were orphans and jobless, taking them out of the streets to have a decent and disciplined life under his care and watch.

Eventually several of those who have been helped by St. John Bosco would go on to follow in his examples, and established the congregation now known as the Salesians, which now have inspired many countless others, both men and women to follow in the footsteps of the holy and devout saint. St. John Bosco is also our inspiration, and therefore, let us all also follow in his footsteps.

There are many people out there who are in need of our help, not only for material help but even more so, for spiritual guidance and help, those who have been sickened by sin, corrupted by the darkness. Instead of ridiculing and condemning others because of their sins, let us instead help each other, for after all, each and every one of us are sinners before God, Who have received the full offer of mercy from God Himself, Who through Jesus had revealed to us His salvation.

May the Lord help us all that we may persevere through our lives in faith, and that we may be able to commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and devote ourselves more completely to Him. Let us all strengthen our zeal and our faith, and in our actions, may we all proclaim the glory of God, and show love to our brethren in need, that everyone will be touched by the Lord, and be healed of their afflictions. Amen.