for the greater glory of God

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Tuesday, 1 September 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard how the Lord had sent His Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, to be our Saviour, to bring us from the darkness and into the light. Through Christ, He had brought us away from the certainty of death and from the dominion of Satan and his allies. And from us He had cast out the demons and the evil spirits that dwelled inside us, and in its place, He places within us His Word, His own Divine Presence, and the Holy Spirit.

The Lord has come to deliver us from the forces of evil that assailed us, and He has come to bring us from the punishments which were designed for us, because of our sins and our rebellions against God. We are the children of the Light, greatest and most beloved among all of God’s creations, and we were special, but because of our inability to resist our temptations, that brought about our fall from grace.

We would rather follow the devil’s instructions and accept his offers, because it seems to be more lucrative and beneficial for us. That is because the devil knows exactly what we have in us, our desires and wants, and he is tapping on those to bring about our downfall. Satan was once the prince of the heavenly forces and the greatest, most brilliant and mightiest of the angels of God, Lucifer, the lightbringer, but he was brought down by his own pride and wickedness.

As he fell from grace, Satan must have been jealous on the glory and grace that God had bestowed on men, on our ancestors, for He created them to be His most beloved and greatest creatures. Therefore, just as He has fallen from grace and was cast down, he was likely determined to bring us down with him as well. That was why he tempted Adam and Eve, and their failure to keep up their faith brought about their fall as well.

But God is a loving God, who loves us all very greatly beyond compare. Even though we have sinned before Him, and even though He hates our sins and wickedness, but He still has His love for us. For we were created to share in His love, in His very own image, and to us He has given dominion over all creations. But we were unable to match up to what the Lord expected of us.

Yet, He is still willing to give us a chance, just as He had given those who came before us many, many chances at repentance and forgiveness. He openly offered His mercy, and through Jesus, He made it clear that sinners may come to Him and be freed from the bonds that had held them, namely the bonds of sin. The Lord cast out the evil spirits from them, and in this, He showed all that He values us more than anything else.

Now we also have to realise that, as powerful, mighty and scary the devil is, or his allies, they all have no power against God who is all powerful and Almighty. No matter what hubris the devil had lavished and shown, even he, being a mere angel, mighty as he was, is still subject to the Lord, who is his Lord and God, as painful and as horrible as it is for Satan to admit this fact.

He tried to undermine and to stop the Lord’s work at saving His people, by condemning them before His presence, as he had done with Job, and when he was unsuccessful, he continued to pester us, and tempted us all the more, trying hopefully to steer us far away from finding the salvation in God. And in the end, he even tried to tempt Jesus Himself, not knowing that He is God, the Divine Word who took up the flesh of Man.

Jesus made it clear that He had the authority over the evil spirits, just as He is the Master and Lord of all things. And He wants all sinners and those troubled in heart to be healed and to be brought back to the grace of God. This is what He wanted, and what He had done for us, even unto bearing the cross of sins and sufferings and died for us on Calvary.

God had done so much for us, and He has been willing to go the extra mile to help us and deliver us from certain destruction because of our own actions and faithlessness. Shall we do the same as well? It is just right and honourable for us all to return Him the love and dedication He had shown us. And how do we do so? It is by living righteously and sinning no more, and in all of our words and actions, let us all always be mindful of the Lord and His love for us.

Let us all bless the Lord and let us from now on walk again in His path, so that by doing so, we will be found just and worthy to receive the eternal life and the fullness of grace and inheritance He had promised all who remain faithful to Him. Let us all reject and rebuke Satan and all of his lies, and all of his wicked temptations and falsehoods, and let us seek and worship the Lord our God alone. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 1 September 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 4 : 31-37

At that time, Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and began teaching the people at the sabbath meetings. They were astonished at the way He taught them, for His word was spoken with authority.

In the synagogue there was a man possessed by an evil spirit, who shouted in a loud voice, “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I recognise You : You are the Holy One of God.”

Then Jesus said to him sharply, “Be silent and leave this man!” The evil spirit then threw the man down in front of them, and came out of him without doing him harm. Amazement seized all these people, and they said to one another, “What does this mean? He commands the evil spirits with authority and power. He orders, and you see how they come out!”

And news about Jesus spread throughout the surrounding area.

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Tuesday, 1 September 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 26 : 1, 4, 13-14

The Lord is my Light and my Salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the rampart of my life; I will not be afraid.

One thing I ask of the Lord, one thing I seek – that I may dwell in His house all the days of my life, to gaze at His jewel and to visit His sanctuary.

I hope, I am sure, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Trust in the Lord, be strong and courageous. Yes, put your hope in the Lord!

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Tuesday, 1 September 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Thessalonians 5 : 1-6, 9-11

You do not need anyone to write to you about the delay and the appointed time for these events. You know that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When people feel secure and at peace, the disaster will suddenly come upon them as the birth pangs of a woman in labour, and they will not escape.

But you, beloved, are not in darkness, so that day will not surprise you like a thief. All of you are citizens of the light and the day; we do not belong to night and darkness. Let us not, therefore, sleep as others do, but remain alert and sober.

For God has not willed us to be condemned but to win salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord. He died for us so that we might enter into life with Him, whether we are still awake or already asleep. Therefore, encourage one another and build up one another, as you are doing now.

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Monday, 31 August 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about how Jesus was rejected in His own hometown of Nazareth in the region of Galilee, where His foster father Joseph and His mother Mary hailed from. Jesus proclaimed the truth about Himself, and He told them of God’s salvation that would come through Him. But the people of Nazareth refused to believe in Him, especially if He did not perform the miracles He had performed in other places.

They were truly a superficial people, a terrible human tendency, which is also often affecting many of us as well. They focused on what they saw and witnessed, and yet they were unable to look beyond the veil of appearances into what lies inside, which also explains why they were unable to understand that Jesus is the Lord, the Messiah, King of kings, although He chose to come into this world in a humble form of a Man, born of a family of poor carpenter.

They were unable to comprehend that appearances, wealth, power and worldly things are not always the measure of everything. These are the things that we mankind often value and treasure, but these are at the same time, temporary and not everlasting. The treasures of the world can be destroyed and changed, and these can be lost, but the true treasures that we all ought to find are everlasting.

Jesus taught us all that those who put their trust in human power shall be disappointed, just as the foolish man who built his house on the foundation of sand. All the human glory, wealth, goodness of this world, all the praise and fame we have, all are merely illusions and replica of what is to come for us. They will not come with us when we go forth to the life that is to come, and when we die, we are to leave all these behind with this world.

Let us think about this as we go on carrying out our daily lives. Are we too preoccupied with maintaining our status, our possessions, our affluence and everything else that distract us from our true destination and goal in life? Are we too preoccupied with things that are unsteady and are truly shaky foundations for our life? We should instead place ourselves on the steady and strong foundation that can be found only in God.

In the first reading today, St. Paul in his epistle to the Church in Thessalonica spoke of what will happen to us all and all those who are still living at the time when the Lord comes again as He had promised. The Lord will come again and reward all those who have kept their faith in Him, and He shall bless all of them forever. This is the promise of eternal inheritance and the true treasures we shall receive if we all remain faithful.

God is always faithful, and when He promised us that those who have died in Him, just and righteous, shall be rewarded and shall receive the promised life eternal, when He calls on them. This is the treasure that we ought to find, and thus not to dwell on the earthly and worldly treasures that do not last and can be destroyed. We seek the eternal gift and treasure that will not be destroyed and lasts forever.

Let us all from now on devote ourselves anew to our Lord, our loving God. Let us all be filled with love for Him, and with joy and hope in the life which He had promised us with. May Almighty God be with us always, and bless us for the faith which we have shown Him from our hearts. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Monday, 31 August 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 4 : 16-30

At that time, when Jesus came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, as He usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed Him the book of the prophet Isaiah.

Jesus then unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written : “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me. He has anointed Me to bring Good News to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and new sight to the blind; to free the oppressed and to announce the Lord’s year of mercy.”

Jesus then rolled up the scroll, gave it to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. Then He said to them, “Today these prophetic words come true, even as you listen.”

All agreed with Him, and were lost in wonder, while He spoke of the grace of God. Nevertheless they asked, “Who is this but Joseph’s Son?” So He said, “Doubtless you will quote Me the saying : Doctor, heal Yourself! Do here in Your town what they say You did in Capernaum.”

Jesus added, “No prophet is honoured in his own country. Truly, I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens withheld rain for three years and six months and a great famine came over the whole land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in the country of Sidon.”

“There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, the prophet, and no one was healed except Naaman, the Syrian.” On hearing these words, the whole assembly became indignant. They rose up and brought Him out of the town, to the edge of the hill on which Nazareth is built, intending to throw Him down the cliff. But He passed through their midst and went His way.

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Monday, 31 August 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 95 : 1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12a, 12b-13

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

How great is the Lord and worthy of praise! Above all gods He is to be feared. For all other gods are worthless idols but YHVH is the One who made the heavens.

Let the heavens be glad, the earth rejoice; let the sea and all that fills it resound; let the fields exult and everything in them.

Let the forest, all the trees, sing for joy. Let them sing before the Lord who comes to judge the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.

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Monday, 31 August 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Thessalonians 4 : 13-18

Brothers and sisters, we want you not to be mistaken about those who are already asleep, lest you grieve as do those who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose; it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus. God will bring them together with Jesus and for His sake.

By the same Word of the Lord we assert this : those of us who are to be alive at the Lord’s coming will not go ahead of those who are already asleep. When the command by the archangel’s voice is given, the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, while the divine trumpet call is sounding.

Then those who have died in the Lord will rise first; as for us who are still alive, we will be brought along with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the celestial world. And we will be with the Lord forever. So, then comfort one another with these words.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God who gave His people the Law that became the guide and the way for them to follow, that they may find their way to Him. God provides them with those laws and instructions, because they were a people who were easily distracted and swayed by the temptations of the world, and by all the forces the devil arrayed against them.

Therefore, the Lord revealed to them through Moses the guidelines and rules to help them to maintain their lives to be holy and good at all times. This is meant to help them to overcome their wickedness and their predisposition to sin. This is meant to help them to control themselves, so that they would not fall into the temptations of Satan, and that they may walk righteously in the sight and presence of the Lord.

But those same people had also remained stubborn and unbending, refusing often to follow the laws of the Lord, and they preferred to follow their own ways and paths. They failed to understand why the Lord gave them those laws, and even complained why they were oppressed with such laws and regulations. They thought that they wanted freedom, to be free from the restrictions and boundaries set by the Lord.

God knows us well, brothers and sisters in Christ. He knows all the things that we can do, and which we are fully capable of, and He is trying in His own manner and ways, to help us to overcome this. But ultimately, all these stem from one fact that we must all be fully aware of, that our Lord and God is loving, merciful and caring, especially towards all of us, who are the greatest and most beloved of all His creations.

He loves us all, and He certainly does not want any of us to be lost in the darkness. That is exactly the true essence and meaning of the Law, that is love, and namely love that is everlasting and not bound by the selfish love of oneself. The Law is love, because it teaches us firstly to love the Lord our God, by the giving of ourselves, of our hearts, minds and entire being to the One who loves us so much, that He was willing to send His own Son to save us from death.

And the Law also spoke of love that we need to show for one another, the care and concern, the compassion and love which we ought to show our brethren, so that in all the things we say, in all the things we commit and do, we may always show the love of God and practice the same to our fellow men. And yet, for a long time, by the time of Jesus, few understand this true significance and impact of the Law.

Instead, they misunderstood the Law as a tool to shore up their own vanity and selfishness, thinking that if they obeyed the Law and the Lord more according to what had been written, then they would be granted what they wanted. They pursued the Law and obeyed them to the letter, not because they loved the Lord or cared about Him and His ways. Instead, they obeyed the laws of Moses because they wanted to look and appear good before the people.

It was their ego which became their undoing, as in their hearts, greed, desire, arrogance and pride, and many other negative emotions were gathered together and bloomed up to form the ego and the vanity with which they showed their Lord just how wicked they were. They were serving their own interests, and when in their hearts and minds, they only saw their own glory among the people of God.

They observed the laws of the washing of hands before meal because they wanted to be seen as pious and righteous by the people. Just as on another occasion, Jesus also rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because of their attitude in prayer, for they liked to gather in public places and marketplaces, praying loudly and with zealous appearances to gain the support and acclaim from the public.

But inside they were rotten and wicked. They had no consideration for the people they had been entrusted with. On the other hand, it was the poor and the weak, those who have nothing or little with them, the simple and the ones who lived righteously, who truly had the Lord in their hearts and in their minds. They lived righteously and in their actions, even though they were poor and lacking in worldly things, they did not lack the treasures which they have in God.

When Jesus spoke of the prayer as compared between a Pharisee and a tax collector in one of His parables, He was speaking of the reality of the situation and the contrast we have just discussed. The Pharisee prayed proudly and filled with hubris as well as self-praise about Himself, and he even looked down on the tax collector whom he branded a sinner and a filthy and unworthy person.

On the contrary, the tax collector humbled himself greatly before the Lord, fully aware of his sins and faults, and he offered repentance and true devotion, which came out of his heart, the desire to seek the Lord with all of one’s might. In the end, it is the prayer of the tax collector that God will hear and fulfil, as it was made from the heart, the outpouring of love and devotion which flows from the heart of a worthy and righteous man.

On the day of judgment, this tax collector, a sinner, will rank far higher than that of the Pharisee or the teacher of the Law, because although they were outwardly and externally seeming to be pious, but what truly matters to the Lord is not sacrifices and external faith or piety. While these are indeed important too, but without the correct internal orientation of one’s faith and devotion, all other things including the external devotions would mean nothing.

In one occasion, God made it clear to St. Peter, His Apostle, that His will is such that all things are to be considered clean and good. In a vision, He offered Peter animals of all kinds that by Jewish dietary laws and food prohibition laws are considered as unclean, and He asked him to eat them. Peter refused them saying that nothing impure and unclean had ever entered his mouth.

God replied him saying that what He had deemed to be clean, no man should mark as unclean. And this is alluding to both the dietary prohibitions, as well as bringing the faith to the Gentiles, whom the Jews up to then considered as pagan, unclean and unworthy of salvation. God had made all of mankind equal in the beginning, and no one had better standing than the other, based on their race, background or anything save their own actions.

Thus, it is truly absurd and folly to think that something from the outside such as food, or external matters such as race, origins and physical appearances made someone righteous, for these mean nothing if their insides, the heart and soul are filled with wickedness and lacking in God’s love and grace. Instead of focusing on externals as the Pharisees had done, we should first look deep inside ourselves.

Yes, look deep inside our hearts, discern and think, whether our every words and actions have been done in accordance with the will of God. For God had instructed us to be selfless, to love Him with all our might and to love one another equally as we love ourselves. Let us ponder on this, so that we will not fall into the same trap that befell the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who were trapped by their own ego and vanity.

May Almighty God be with us always, and help us to see beyond ourselves and our greedy desires. May all of us be closer to the Lord, and place His Law and love inside our hearts, so that by our understanding of the true purpose and meaning of His laws and precepts, we may be found righteous and just, and be made worthy of eternal life and salvation. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 August 2015 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 1-8, 14-15, 21-23

At that time, one day the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them there were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews, never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : ‘This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules.’ You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

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. 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.”