Feast of St. Peter Damian

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Friday, 21 February 2025 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded that each and every one of us should not allow the temptations of the world, the temptations of our pride, desire and any other obstacles from preventing us to reach the Lord and His salvation. The reality is such that many of us are often distracted by the temptations of our worldly ambitions, desires and by the many attachments we have to the things around us in this world. This is why we suffer from the consequences of our disobedience, our immersion in the actions that have led us into the path of sin. And unless we repent from those sins, then we may end up losing everything in eternal damnation in Hell.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis of the story of the Tower of Babel, that well-known story of how God confused the language of mankind, resulting in the numerous languages that we have today. In the past, all mankind spoke a common language, which made sense as we all came from the same origin, but our hubris, ambition, pride and greed all had led to us thinking that we can surpass God and have the ambition to reach up to Heaven itself, by building that great Tower of Babel. As such, God punished us and our hubris, ambition and pride by confusing the unity of our language, that gift of unity and understanding which He had given us all through His Holy Spirit, and which, once withdrawn, therefore, we are no longer united in our wicked purpose to attain what is not ours.

Through this incident, God wants us all to know that there is nothing that we do that can be possible without God being part of the equation, and without God, we are truly nothing. It is because of God that we have the power, ability and the means to achieve whatever it is we have accomplished throughout history and throughout our human existence and all the civilisation we have all around us. But this punishment is not something that is meant to last forever, as God showed how He can reverse this as He did in sending His Holy Spirit upon His disciples at the event of Pentecost Sunday, fifty years after the Lord’s Resurrection. And as we all know from the Pentecost, the exact reverse of what happened at the Tower of Babel occurred, with the disciples being given the gift of tongues, able to perceive, understand and speak various languages even when many of them were uneducated and illiterate prior to this.

Then, in our Gospel passage taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard the Lord Jesus speaking to His disciples and indirectly also to all of us as His disciples and followers, reminding us that if we want to truly follow Him and commit ourselves to His path, then all of us must make the effort to abandon our worldly attachments, desires and all the other ambitions, desires for pleasures, fame and glory, all the things of the world which can distract and prevent us from truly being able to commit ourselves to God. After all, if we are divided in our focus and attention, between the Lord and our worldly ambitions and desires, how can we truly follow and obey the Lord faithfully as we all should have done?

That is why the Lord reminded each and every one of us that we have to make a choice and stand in our faith, to be committed wholeheartedly to Him, and not to allow any kinds of worldly temptations to pull us away from the path of righteousness. It is easy for us to fall into the wrong path otherwise, and the Lord succinctly put it with His words, ‘What good is it to gain the whole world, while destroying your soul?’ reminding us through His disciples at that time that we should always be ready to deny ourselves and our ambitions and desires while making the effort to follow Him, and the fact that no earthly treasures, glory or riches can match the true treasures that we will find only in the Lord alone. There is nothing in this world that can truly satisfy us, or which will last us forever.

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Peter Damian, a renowned servant of God who has lived his life in great dedication to God and who has contributed immensely to the Church and to the benefit of the faithful and holy people of God. Although he was born into a noble family, but his family was poor and he initially had a rather terrible life in his younger years because his relatives mistreated him. Eventually, the young St. Peter Damian managed to be sponsored for his education and he advanced rapidly in his academics, that according to history, he already became a famous canon lawyer and teacher in his early twenties. He then devoted himself to religious life, becoming a Benedictine monk and priest, committing himself thoroughly to God and His Church.

St. Peter Damian would then go on to serve the Church firstly as an exemplary religious and then as a dedicated reformer, helping the Church in the process of its reforms especially against the corrupt practices and influences that had crept in and affected many, both the clergy and the laity alike at the time. He was closely involved in the process of reforms, encouraging the Pope and the other church leaders to take action against those who brought scandal to the Church so that they would no longer bring about confusion and division in the Church and among the faithful. He was made a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church by Pope Stephen IX, and as Papal envoy and legate, was actively involved in some of those reform processes. Through his commitment and works which lasted to the end of his life, many decades of faithful service to God, St. Peter Damian truly showed us all how we should follow the Lord wholeheartedly as His disciples and followers.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have heard from our Scripture readings today and from the life and inspiration of St. Peter Damian, our holy predecessor, we are all reminded to be focused on the Lord at all times, distancing ourselves from worldly ambitions, temptations and all the things that can lead us astray into the wrong path in life. Let us all learn to be humble as our predecessors, especially that of St. Peter Damian and how he had shown this through his life and examples, and be truly committed to the Lord, in doing whatever we can to contribute to the good works of the Church in everything we do. Let us all always be active in contributing our time and effort as always, and do our part to glorify the Lord by our lives. Amen.

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Friday, 21 February 2025 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Mark 8 : 34 – Mark 9 : 1

At that time, Jesus called the people and His disciples, and said, “If you want to follow Me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me. For if you choose to save your life, you will lose it; and if you lose your life for My sake and for the sake of the Gospel, you will save it.”

“What good is it to gain the whole world, while destroying your soul? There is nothing more precious than your soul. I tell you : If anyone is ashamed of Me and of My words among this adulterous and sinful people, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the Glory of His Father with the holy Angels.”

And He went on to say, “Truly I tell you, there are some here who will not die before they see the kingdom of God coming with power.”

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Friday, 21 February 2025 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Psalm 32 : 10-11, 12-13, 14-15

The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and brings to nothing the peoples’ designs. But His plan stands forever, and His heart’s design through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord – the people He has chosen for His inheritance. The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole race of mortals.

From where He sits He watches all those who dwell on the earth – He Who fashions every heart observes all their deeds.

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Friday, 21 February 2025 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Genesis 11 : 1-9

The whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved from east, they found a plain in the country of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in fire.” They used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. They said also, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven; so that we may become a great people and not be scattered over the face of the earth!”

YHVH came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man were building, and YHVH said, “They are one people and they have one language. If they carry this through, nothing they decide to do from now on will be impossible. Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language so that they will no longer understand each other.”

So YHVH scattered them over all the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there YHVH confused the language of the whole earth and from there YHVH scattered them over the whole face of the earth.

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Wednesday, 21 February 2024 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded of the need for us all as Christians, as God’s beloved and holy people to heed God’s call and embrace His mercy, compassion and love. Each and every one of us have been given the opportunities and chances to come back to Him, as He offers us always His ever generous and plentiful mercy and redemption. Yet, many of us still resist God’s generosity and love, preferring to follow our own path filled with sin and wickedness. That is why many of us are still distant from the grace and righteousness that God has called us into, and many of us are still trapped by the many attachments we had for worldly matters, goods and things around us. Those temptations have often become serious obstacles preventing us from returning to the Lord.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Jonah in which the ministry of Jonah to the city and the people of Nineveh has been highlighted to us all. At that time, the prophet Jonah had been sent by God to the people of Nineveh, the then great capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire, which had ruled over many other nations and states, and committed many atrocities and vile deeds during their campaigns of destruction and conquest. They were a warlike and proud race of people, who had glorified themselves over their conquest of many of those whom they had defeated, and therefore, God sent Jonah to them to remind them of the consequences and the retribution for their many sins and wickedness, and that in the end, whatever earthly glory they had gained and amassed, all are nothing before the Lord.

That was why Jonah spoke of the great destruction that would soon befall Nineveh, the great and mighty city, because of the multitudes of their sins, a fate that was echoed and preceded by the well-known case of the destruction and doom of Sodom and Gomorrah, which were destroyed by the Lord for their many sins and wickedness. Those people had disobeyed the Lord, followed the path of worldliness and sins, and as such, they were crushed by a storm of fire and brimstones, and the whole two cities were overturned, crushed and destroyed completely, erased from the face of the earth. The same fate could have befallen Nineveh as well, if they had not repented in the manner that they did, like those people who once lived in Sodom and Gomorrah.

Yet, as we heard and as I mentioned, the people of Nineveh immediately believed in the Lord and in the warnings which He presented to them through the prophet Jonah. They humbled themselves and repented from their sins, showing genuine regret for all the wicked things which they had done, and hence, the Lord did not carry out the destruction and the damnation which He had planned for them. This also shows us all that God’s love for us is truly great and wonderful, and that even sin and darkness, evil and wickedness of the world cannot come in between us and God’s love and grace. God’s mercy and love transcends the chasm of sin which had separated us from the grace and love of God all these while.

Then in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel of St. Luke in which the same story of Jonah and the people of Nineveh were also presented to us, in the manner how the Lord Jesus used that together with the story of the coming of the Queen of the South or the Queen of Sheba to Jerusalem, in order to highlight how many of the people to whom the Lord had been sent to, were lacking in their faith and trust in God, that they failed to believe in the One Whom God had sent into their midst, despite the obvious signs and all that the Lord Jesus Himself had done, in fulfilling everything that God had promised to His people from the very beginning of time. This was also presented as an irony and comparison, between the attitudes of the people of that time with those in Nineveh and that of the Queen of the South.

That is the people who should have believed in the Lord and followed Him, chose to shut their ears, close their hearts and minds against Him, rejecting and doubting Him, questioning His authenticity and authority, refusing to trust in Him or put their faith in Him. They turned their backs against the Lord Who has always been so loving and merciful, kind and compassionate towards them, seeking in the false leads and pleasures of the world instead. Meanwhile, the tax collectors, prostitutes, foreigners and pagans whom the Jewish people, especially the Pharisees among them, had looked down upon, were indeed closer to God and His salvation, because they, like the people of Nineveh in the past, sought to repent and turn away from their sins, embracing God’s love and mercy. This is what we all should be doing as well, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Peter Damian, a great servant of God and a holy man of God, whose dedication and actions, contributions to the Church and the community of the faithful inspired many throughout Christendom and through time right to this very day. St. Peter Damian was a great religious and servant of God, who had dedicated his life to the works of the Lord and to the good of His Church, and he was also involved in the great reforms of the Church which he spearheaded, as he was involved in many programs to help restore the sanctity and purity in the Church, especially amongst the members of the clergy and the Church hierarchy. He himself resisted the temptations of worldly glory, and giving up any such ambitions, chose to become a religious and dedicated himself to God as a religious.

St. Peter Damian however was deeply involved in the works of the reforms of the Church, due to his good friend, who would eventually be elected as Pope St. Gregory VII. As a religious Benedictine monk, although he lived in his monastery, but St. Peter Damian continued to watch closely the affairs and workings of the Church of his time, and later on, when Pope St. Gregory VII chose his advisors, he placed St. Peter Damian as one of his close collaborators, being therefore closely involved in the process of reforms. The next Pope who succeeded Pope St. Gregory VII also treasured the contributions of St. Peter Damian and insisted to make him as a Cardinal, which St. Peter Damian resisted for a while, before eventually relenting and he was thus consecrated as the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia as a chief and very important advisor to the Pope, continuing with his works and missions in reforming the Church.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore make good use of the examples shown to us by this holy man of God, St. Peter Damian, in all that he had done for the sake of God’s Church, and also remind ourselves of the need for us to repent and turn away from all of our many sins and wickedness. Let us all be the beacons of hope and strength for one another, doing whatever we can so that by our loving examples and inspirational actions, filled with love and grace of God, we may help many others to come ever closer towards God, and to be redeemed from their sins, like how the people of Nineveh had done in the past, in embracing God with great desire to be forgiven and to be redeemed from their sins. Let us all come towards the Lord with contrite hearts and minds, and seek Him with ever greater commitment from now on, especially as we journey through this blessed time of Lent. May God be with us always throughout this journey of faith and life, and throughout this Lenten season. Amen.

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Wednesday, 21 February 2024 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 11 : 29-32

At that time, as the crowd increased, Jesus spoke the following words : “People of the present time are troubled people. They ask for a sign, but no sign will be given to them except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah became a sign for the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a sign for this generation.”

“The Queen of the South will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and here, there is greater than Solomon. The people of Nineveh will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for Jonah’s preaching made them turn from their sins, and here, there is greater than Jonah.”

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Wednesday, 21 February 2024 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 50 : 3-4, 12-13, 18-19

Have mercy on me, o God, in Your love. In Your great compassion blot out my sin. Wash me thoroughly of my guilt; cleanse me of evil.

Create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit. Do not cast me out of Your presence nor take Your Holy Spirit from me.

You take no pleasure in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, You would not delight in it. O God, my sacrifice is a broken spirit; a contrite heart, You will not despise.

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Wednesday, 21 February 2024 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Jonah 3 : 1-10

The word of YHVH came to Jonah a second time : “Go to Nineveh, the great city, and announce to them the message I give you.”

In obedience to the word of YHVH, Jonah went to Nineveh. It was a very large city, and it took three days just to cross it. So Jonah walked a single day’s journey and began proclaiming, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

The people of the city believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Upon hearing the news, the king of Nineveh got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. He issued a proclamation throughout Nineveh :

“By the decree of the king and his nobles, no people or beasts, herd or flock, will taste anything; neither will they eat nor drink. But let people and beasts be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call aloud to God, turn from his evil ways and violence. Who knows? God may yet relent, turn from His fierce anger and spare us.”

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not carry out the destruction He had threatened upon them.

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Tuesday, 21 February 2023 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, each and every one of us as Christians are called to be righteous and good, worthy of our Lord, virtuous and full of God’s grace in all things. All of us are called to be humble and good disciples and followers of our Lord, doing His will and committing ourselves to His cause first and foremost in our lives, and not giving in to the many temptations all around us, the temptations of pride and our human ego, and of worldly greed and desires, which can lead us down the wrong path of sin and evil. This is particularly timely and apt considering that we are going to begin the season of Lent tomorrow with Ash Wednesday, and hence, today we should spend some time to reflect on what we have just heard in the Scriptures.

In our first reading today, we heard from the prophet Sirach the words of reminders and encouragement which he spoke to the people of God regarding the matter of following the Lord and obeying His Law and commandments. The prophet Sirach told the people of God that they ought to be righteous and to do good always in their lives, in their every actions, and that they should be ready to endure challenges and trials for the sake of the Lord and for their faith in Him. He reminds all the faithful that their calling as the people of God is to keep their faith and trust in God even in their darkest and most difficult moments in life, and they ought to remain focused on God and His path despite the many temptations, pressures and coercions to do otherwise.

Contextually, the Book of Sirach was written by the author about two centuries prior to the birth and life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a few centuries after the destruction of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon. During all those centuries and right up to the time of the prophet Sirach, the people of God had often been disobedient and rebellious against God, often not following the Law and commandments that He has set before them and preferring to do things in their own way, and allowing themselves to be led by their own wicked desires and ambitions, their pride and ego, which led them to their downfall. The prophet Sirach himself lived at a time of renewed difficulty for the faithful as it was during the beginning of the persecution of the faithful by the Greek authorities of the Seleucids, which would eventually lead to the Maccabean Revolt.

Hence, the prophet Sirach’s words were timely reminder to the people of his time and even to all of us that they must always remain true to their faith in God despite the many trials and challenges that they might have had to face along their life and journey. The prophet told them all to remain strong in faith and to do what the Lord had taught and commanded them to do so that in all things they would be truly worthy of God, and be righteous and good examples in the midst of their own community and as inspirations and good role models for many others all around them. All of them are reminded to be humble in accepting God’s help, grace and guidance in every single moments of their lives. They should inspire others to live their lives faithfully as well and not instead be sources of scandal for the Lord and their faith because of their actions.

In our Gospel passage we then heard of the Lord speaking to His disciples and teaching them that, in order for them to truly become His disciples, they all must be ready to abandon their prideful and ambitious thoughts, and their many temptations of worldly glory and status, power, influence, fame and more, among many other things. This happened just after the disciples failing to cast out the evil spirits from a boy who was possessed and struck deaf and mute, as we heard in the Scripture readings yesterday. The disciples were unable to do so because they were lacking in faith, and were likely swayed by pride and hubris, thinking that all the miracles and wonders they performed were due to their own powers and abilities, and forgetting that they did all that by the grace and power of God.

They were all reminded that in following the Lord they must be humble and obedient to God, and to put themselves after Him and others around us. Basically, pride, hubris, ego, ambition, greed and all those things will not bring us any good things at all. It will only end up leading us down the wrong path in life, bringing us further and further away from the righteousness of God. All of us as disciples and followers of the Lord must be like what the Lord Himself said, as He took up one child and told them that their faith ought to be like that of the little child. Why is that so? That is because the faith of a child is truly pure, pure in faith and purpose, as unlike all of us who are laden with worldly concerns, desires and attachments, a child had none of that yet. Essentially as Christians, all of us are reminded to have the same kind of faith and life, wholly centred on the Lord and His truth.

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Peter Damian, a great saint and Church father, whose life and works can truly inspire all of us to be faithful to the Lord in many ways, as he himself led a good and devout life, filled with faith and dedication to God. St. Peter Damian was a great intellectual and theologian who gave up the greatness of secular and worldly life to become a Benedictine monk. He was renowned for his great piety and dedication to his mission and works, in his efforts in reforming the Church and Christian faithful, beginning with his own Benedictine community, and then in tandem with the efforts of a few Popes of that time, beginning with Pope Gregory VI and up to Pope St. Leo IX and his friend, Pope St. Gregory VII.

Back then, the corruptions of worldly vices, attachments, ambitions and sins have slowly crept up into the Church and into its various communities, affecting both the clergymen and the laity alike. St. Peter Damian helped to reform the Church through his great vision and desire to root out from the Church those worldly corruptions and vices which had caused so many scandals and for so many of the faithful to fall into sin and evil ways. He rooted out corrupt practices and helped to straighten the ways of many of the faithful, in his various capacities as Papal envoy and legate, and as a member of the College of Cardinals, his role as a Cardinal and hence close Papal confidant and advisor was crucial in the reestablishment of order and virtue in the life of the Church of that time. And despite his high office and influential position, St. Peter Damian remained humble and thoroughly committed to his calling, and not swayed by worldly temptations of power and glory.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all discern what we have just discussed, including the life and examples of St. Peter Damian in remembering that as Christians each and every one of us are also expected to live our lives with genuine faith in the Lord, and root out from ourselves, from our hearts and minds, the corruption of sin and temptations of pride, ego, ambition, hubris, greed and others. Let us all remind ourselves of this as we are embarking on the journey through the season of Lent beginning tomorrow on Ash Wednesday, that through this penitential time and season, we may always be growing ever closer to God and distance ourselves from sin and its wickedness. May God bless us in our every good efforts and endeavours, all for His greater glory, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 21 February 2023 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Mark 9 : 30-37

At that time, after leaving the place where He cast out evil spirit from a deaf and dumb boy, Jesus and His disciples made their way through Galilee, but He did not want people to know where He was because He was teaching His disciples. And He told them, “The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill Him, but three days after He has been killed, He will rise.”

The disciples, however, did not understand these words and they were afraid to ask Him what He meant. They came to Capernaum and, once inside the house, Jesus asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they did not answer, because they had been arguing about who was the greatest.

Then He sat down, called the Twelve and said to them, “If someone wants to be first, let him be last of all and servant of all.” Then He took a little child, placed him in their midst, and putting His arms around him, He said to them, “Whoever welcomes a child such as this in My Name, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes not Me but the One Who sent Me.”