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Monday, 22 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

God, our Father, knows us, dear brothers and sisters. He knows us truly inside out. He knows everything that we do in our lives, whether it is done in the open, or done in secret. He knows our hearts and know our thoughts. Is he not our shepherd and we His sheep? He knows us and chose us, and justifies us.

It is not up to us and not our right to judge others, especially based on our perceptions and prejudices on them, which clouds our own judgment. The Lord, who is our shepherd, is also the Chief Judge who deems the ones worthy to enter the Kingdom of God, because He knows us and He knows if we are worthy for Him.

That was why He showed to Peter, and through Peter to the apostles, how He made all the people, His children worthy of Him, by showing that the ancient laws of unclean foods is no longer essential for the faithful ones in Him. Just as Christ Himself had rebuked the Pharisees, that one can only be made unclean by what comes out of that person, and not by something that the person takes into himself, therefore God made it clear that who a person is, and that person’s characteristics does not affect one’s prospect of salvation in God.

For God loves all mankind, and He sent Christ His Son, not only to the Jews, but in fact to all mankind, to save all of them, and not just the Jews, God’s first chosen people, from the slavery of sin and Satan. He did not discriminate between the Jews and the Gentiles, but as long as those whom He had chosen among the nations loves Him just as much as He had done, He would shower them with all graces and blessings, and promise them salvation that is due to them.

For it is one’s own faith and belief in the Lord, and their trust in Him that justifies someone, whom the Lord, as our shepherd, can see in all those who believe in Him, as the ‘good sheep’, as compared to the ‘bad sheep’ that is those who disobeyed the Lord’s commandments and refused to love Him just as He had done. Many of the Jews at the time of the Acts of the Apostles believed in God and converted to the faith, but there are even more who opposed the Lord and persecuted God’s faithful ones.

This being amidst growing conversion among the Gentiles, who were called to receive the Good News of the Lord, who having never heard of God and His love and teachings before, now hearing the message through the apostles, felt the true feelings of love and desire for God in their hearts and soul. Therefore, it is not right to discount them by the fact that they were not Jews, and therefore as some Jews would argue, did not belong to the ‘chosen people’ of God.

For being the chosen people of God, entails obedience and love, which God had always shown to His people, and yet Israel often rebelled and disobeyed God’s will, and preferred worldly gods and temptations instead of God’s love. God, our Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and conversely, all of us who truly have faith in Him, and therefore His sheep, knows Him, and answers only to Him. We ought not to be swayed by the call of the false shepherds, who are the agents of Satan, the evil one, who tried in vain to snatch the people of God and drag them into hell and damnation with him.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive to rebuke Satan and his temptations, and answer only to Christ, our one and true Good Shepherd, and put ourselves ever closer into God’s infinite love. Let us remain in God’s love, and remain His faithful children, and let ourselves be led by Him in our daily lives. Let us not judge one another by appearance or by our backgrounds, but rather look deeper into each one of us, and surely we will find that all of us has God’s love in us, that makes all of us truly beautiful, especially in the eyes of God. Amen.

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On the Altar Crucifix and the Benedictine Arrangement

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Priests and laity alike must always remember, that when we worship, all is to glorify God, and not ourselves.

That is why I also highly recommend Pope Benedict XVI’s recommendation on the Benedictine arrangement, that is when the priest celebrate the Mass ad populum (facing the people), there should be an altar crucifix on the altar itself, because that crucifix is for the priest to focus himself on the Lord, and not at all the people’s attention to him.

Facing the people means that priests are more prone to self-glorification and vanity, as now they are truly visually aware that all the attention in the church are on them. So, they need to make sure that their internal orientation towards the Lord is firm, and that is why the altar crucifix, to remind them at all times during the Mass.

The big crucifix behind the priest is for the people, the congregation to focus their attention to the Lord, but because of its location, it is not visible to the priest, hence, the presence of two altar crucifixes. They may be two in physical appearance, but one in spirit, and one in purpose and intention.

Then let me end with my favorite phrase from the Psalm (Psalm 115)

Non nobis, non nobis, Domine
Sed Nomini tuo da gloriam

Not to us, not to us, o Lord
But to Your Name we give glory

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Saturday, 16 March 2013 : 4th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s readings we see how, the righteous ones and the ones sent by the Lord, the prophets, and even our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, received slander, persecution, and were actively rejected by many in the society, not least by those who indeed should have been closer to God than that of the rest of the society.

These people are the Pharisees, the priests and the experts in the Law of God, passed through Moses, they are also expert in the Torah and the writings of the words of the prophets, that it is why they could say that no prophet is ever said to come from Galilee, because basically they really know the prophets, their sayings, and the Law itself. But yet, they have failed to see God, and failed to see His works, when it was already in fact right in front of their eyes.

The reason for their failure to see the good works of the Lord is that they have been blinded, their eyes had been blocked by the very arrogance and pride that clouds their heart and hardened that heart against the love of God. Jealousy became the order of the day, as these priests, instead of being happy and supportive of Christ’s good works, they slandered Him, accused Him of using the devil to perform miracles, and plotted against Him to kill Him. They would eventually succeeded in capturing Him after the Lord’s Last Supper, put Him on trial, and brought Him to Pilate to be condemned to death, death on the cross.

We should not follow their examples, and we too should lower our pride and our selfishness before God. We must put the Lord ahead of men, and put our attention on the Lord ahead of any personal glorification through majesty, wealth, or even simplification, and publicity. Priests and leaders of the Church must strive to remain humble in their ministry.

But remember, very importantly, never dabble in the false sense of humility through excessive display of humility or simplification, especially and certainly, we must never let the Holy Mass be simplified to the point that it loses the sanctity and meaning, as the Holy Sacrifice where Jesus offers us His Most Precious Body and Blood.

Very often people has misunderstood the noble simplicity as mentioned in the Vatican II document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, focusing way too much on the simplicity, that it is no longer noble. There is a need for balance, that the liturgy does not become too flagrant a display of excessive wealth and worldliness, but at the same time also there should be proper decorum and avoidance of insertion of non-liturgical elements into the Mass, and also avoidance of stripping the Mass so much that it ceases to be solemn and devout.

Instead, the way is to live a life of prayer and dedication to God, and strive to put the Lord ahead of ourselves, and to make God the centre of our lives. Through the Mass, the centre of our faith, we can make the Lord indeed as the centre of our life, via the solemn and magnificent liturgy and execution of the Mass, that the Lord is glorified at the Mass.

Remember that the Mass is not about self, and it is not to be centred at the priest-celebrant, but to be centred to the Lord Himself. The vestments, the beautiful adornments, and the solemn atmosphere in the Mass is dedicated entirely to God, that we glorify the Lord, and through these external glorification, we bring mankind closer to God, simply by unearthly experience that all of us can experience in the Mass, through a solemn and devout liturgy of the Mass.

We humble ourselves before the Lord, and focus our attention on the glorious cross of Christ, both for us behind the altar, and for the priest, the altar cross, according to the Benedictine Altar arrangement, that all of us will put our full attention in Christ, and not on men. The cross must be the centre of our focus, our attention, and also be the focus of our hearts, that we continue to keep Christ in all things that we do, so that in whatever good that we do, God will be present, and will justify us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us rediscover our faith, particularly in this Holy Year of Faith, that we can grow much deeper in our understanding of the Mass and its liturgical contents, and learn to place the Lord at the centre of our lives, and grow stronger in our faith and love of God day by day. May we follow in Christ’s footsteps and not be proud, neither be vain, by discarding the darkness and veil of pride that blocks our heart from truly receiving the love and grace of our God. Amen.