freedom from sins

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Thursday, 20 October 2016 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Ephesians 3 : 14-21

And now I kneel in the presence of the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth has received its name. May He strengthen in you the inner self through His Spirit, according to the riches of His glory; may Christ dwell in your hearts through faith; may you be rooted and founded in love.

All of this so that you may understand with all the holy ones the width, the length, the height and the depth – in a word, that you may know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge, that you may be filled and reach the fullness of God.

Glory to God Who shows His power in us and can do much more than we could ask or imagine; glory to Him in the Church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever. Amen.

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Wednesday, 19 October 2016 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues, Priests and Companions, Martyrs, and St. Paul of the Cross, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)
Ephesians 3 : 2-12

You may have heard of the graces God bestowed on me for your sake. By a revelation He gave me the knowledge of His mysterious design, as I have explained in a few words. On reading them you will have some idea of how I understand the mystery of Christ.

This mystery was not made known to past generations but only now, through revelations given to holy Apostles and prophets. Now the non-Jewish people share the inheritance; in Christ Jesus the non-Jews are incorporated and are to enjoy the Promise. This is the Good News of which I have become minister by a gift of God, a grace He gave me, when His power worked in me.

This grace was given to me, the least among all the holy ones : to announce to the pagan nations the immeasurable riches of Christ and to make clear to all how the mystery hidden from the beginning in God, the Creator of all things, is to be fulfilled.

Even the heavenly forces and powers will now discover through the Church the wisdom of God in its manifold expression, as the plan is being fulfilled which God designed from the beginning in Christ Jesus, our Lord. In Him we receive boldness and confidence to approach God.

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Monday, 17 October 2016 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Ephesians 2 : 1-10

You were dead through the faults and sins. Once you lived through them according to the world and followed the Sovereign Ruler Who reigns between heaven and earth and Who goes on working in those who resist the faith. All of us belonged to them at one time and we followed human greed; we obeyed the urges of our human nature and consented to its desires. By ourselves, we went straight to the judgment like the rest of humankind.

But God, Who is rich in mercy, revealed His immense love. As we were dead through our sins, He gave us life with Christ. By grace you have been saved! And He raised us to life with Christ, giving us a place with Him in heaven. In showing us such kindness in Christ Jesus, God willed to reveal and unfold in the coming ages the extraordinary riches of His grace.

By the grace of God you have been saved through faith. This has not come from you : it is God’s gift. This was not the result of your works, so you are not to feel proud. What we are is God’s work. He has created us in Christ Jesus for the good works He has prepared that we should devote ourselves to them.

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Saturday, 15 October 2016 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa of Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Ephesians 1 : 15-23

I have been told of your faith and your affection towards all the believers, so I always give thanks to God, remembering you in my prayers. May the God of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Father of Glory, reveal Himself to you and give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation, that you may know Him.

May He enlighten your inner vision, that you may appreciate the things we hope for, since we were called by God. May you know how great is the inheritance, the glory, God sets apart for His saints; may you understand with what extraordinary power He acts in favour of us who believe.

He revealed His almighty power in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and had Him sit at His right hand in heaven, far above all rule, power, authority, dominion, or any other supernatural force that could be named, not only in this world but in the world to come as well.

Thus has God put all things under the feet of Christ and set Him above all things, as Head of the Church which is His Body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all.

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Friday, 14 October 2016 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Callixtus I, Pope and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Ephesians 1 : 11-14

By a decree of Him Who disposes all things according to His own plan and decision we, the Jews, have been chosen and called and we were awaiting the Messiah, for the praise of His glory. You, on hearing the word of truth, the Gospel that saves you, have believed in Him.

And, as promised, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, the first pledge of what we shall receive, on the way to our deliverance as a people of God, for the praise of His glory.

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Thursday, 13 October 2016 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Ephesians 1 : 1-10

Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, to you who share Christian faith : receive grace and peace from God our Father and from Jesus the Lord.

Blessed be God, the Father of Christ Jesus our Lord, Who in Christ has blessed us from heaven with every spiritual blessing. God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and without sin in His presence.

From eternity He destined us in love to be His adopted sons and daughters through Christ Jesus, thus fulfilling His free and generous will. This goal suited Him : that His loving kindness which He granted us in His Beloved might finally receive all glory and praise.

For in Christ we obtain freedom, sealed by His Blood, and have the forgiveness of sins. In this appears the greatness of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and understanding, God has made known to us His mysterious design, in accordance with His loving kindness in Christ. In Him and under Him God wanted to unite, when the fullness of time had come, everything in heaven and on earth.

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Wednesday, 12 October 2016 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Galatians 5 : 18-25

But when you are led by the Spirit you are not under the Law. You know what comes from the flesh : fornication, impurity and shamelessness, idol worship and sorcery, hatred, jealousy and violence, anger, ambition, division, factions, and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. I again say to you what I have already said : those who do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is charity, joy and peace, patience, understanding of others, kindness and fidelity, gentleness and self-control. For such things there is no Law or punishment. Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its vices and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us live in a spiritual way.

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Tuesday, 11 October 2016 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. John XXIII, Pope (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Galatians 5 : 1-6

Christ freed us to make us really free. So remain firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery. I, Paul, say this to you : if you receive circumcision, Christ can no longer help you. Once more I say to whoever receives circumcision : you are now bound to keep the whole Law.

All you who pretend to become righteous through the observance of the Law have separated yourselves from Christ and have fallen away from grace. As for us, through the Spirit and faith, we eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. In Christ Jesus it is irrelevant whether we be circumcised or not; what matters is faith working through love.

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Monday, 2 November 2015 : Feast of All Souls, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate All Souls’ Day, when we commemorate and pray for the souls of all our brethren who have departed from this world ahead of us. We pray for the sake of their souls so that by the grace and the mercy of God, they may be found worthy of God’s everlasting kingdom. We pray that the souls in purgatory may be rid of their sins, and gain entry soon to the kingdom of heaven.

Today is not a day of sorrow and gloom, but a day of hope. For on this day, although we are reminded ever of our humanity and mortality, that all of us, without exception will succumb to death, but this death is not an everlasting death. It is because one Man had shown us the way, that death does not have the final say, for God has given us Jesus our Lord, to bring us from death into eternal life by His resurrection from the dead.

That means death is not an eternal separation, but a temporary one, where now we cannot see those who have departed physically in this world, but in the world to come, we shall see each other again and live a life filled with true joy in the presence of God for eternity. This is the hope brought about by our Lord’s resurrection, through which He has dealt death an ultimate defeat.

If yesterday, on the feast of All Saints, I spoke of a Universal Church that does not consist just of us all the faithful still living on earth, the Church Militant, but also consisting of the hole men and women deemed worthy of heaven, the saints of God, who are the Church Triumphant, and then also the souls of the faithful dead who are the Church Suffering, the souls in holy purgatory.

If you wonder, brethren, why ‘suffering’? This is because when someone reaches the end of his or her earthly and mortal life, there are three possible paths for them to go to from there. The first one, is the most difficult one to achieve, that is the path of the saints. This path is taken by those who lives have been filled with much piety, good deeds, faith and genuine love for God and for their fellow men. As a result, although they too are sinners, God deems that their venial sins have been completely overcome and absolved by their good deeds.

God blessed them and welcomed them into the glory of heaven. And the Church officially recognised some of them as saints, those who have been deemed worthy of heaven after their death. Then, there exists another path, which many had taken, that is the path of hell and eternal damnation. This is meant for all those who have been wicked in their lives, having committed mortal sins such as murder, disrespect for life and for the Lord, disrespecting the Church and its teachings, and other serious errors, from which they refused to repent.

These souls are lost from us and from the Lord forever, as these souls directly go into hell and without any hope for escape or redemption. They were unrepentant and therefore in His wrath, God also rejected them just as they have first rejected Him. Today, on this All Souls’ Day, these are not the souls whom we are praying for, for there is truly no benefit to pray for those who have been marked as eternally lost from us and condemned.

Of course, the fact is that we do not know who belong to this category, for it is only God, the true Judge of all, have the final decision of who is to receive eternal damnation and hell, and who to be given an opportunity or to receive the glory of eternal heaven. So we should not directly condemn so and so as evil, or deserving of hell, since all of us are sinners, and each and everyone of us are at the same risk.

Then, we come to the group in the middle, those who were not outrightly evil and wicked, so as to deserve hell and eternal damnation, and those who were also not sufficiently upright and holy so as to deserve eternal life and heaven right away, which ends up in the place called purgatory. It is in the teaching of the Church that the souls of the faithful dead, who have kept their lives mostly in line with the faith and in obedience to the Lord, but still having sufficient amount of venial sins have to spend some time in this place for the purification of their souls.

Why is this so, brethren? That is because we have to realise that while God loves us all and cares for all of us, but with us there still lies the obstacles of sin. Sin is an obstacle and a barrier that prevents us from our full and complete reconciliation with our Lord. It was because of sin, caused by disobedience, that had separated our ancestors from the grace and the blessings which God had intended to be ours for eternity.

God is good and perfect, and so good and holy such that no sin, even the smallest amount of sin should be ever present in His presence. A sinner that stands in the presence of God shall be subjected to the wrath of God and be destroyed immediately. Then, one may then ask, how about the saints then? Were they not once sinners too when they still walked on this earth?

Yes, indeed, they were once sinners too, but on the account of their great merits and their faith to God, their numerous good actions and deeds had been judged to be sufficient to atone completely for the sake of their sins. This means that all of the multitudes of their sins have been considered as being paid completely in full by their merits, as they placed their complete trust in the Lord Jesus.

What Jesus our Lord did when He gave up His life for us on the cross, was that He took up all of the original sins and the wickedness that had tainted all of us, and offering Himself as the perfect offering and sacrifice for our sins, He had liberated us all from the darkness and the sins that afflicted us all. He gave us all a new hope of salvation, for He conquered death, the ultimate consequence of sin.

This means that while once we looked at death and eternal death as our fate, and hell is our destination, but with our Lord’s intervention, He has lifted us all up and gave us a chance to enter the glorious heaven and be recipients of the original graces and blessings intended for us. But of course, as mentioned earlier, there are those who rejected this offer, and indeed, hell is their reward.

Today, on this Feast of All Souls’ Day, the ones whom we are concerned with are those souls in purgatory, who are spending their time separated temporarily from their Lord and delayed in their entry into the glorious heaven because of their residual sins. They are suffering the flames of suffering in purgatory, not because they are unworthy or wicked, but rather because they need to suffer for a while the consequences of the sins that they had remaining in them before they can enter into the presence of God, purified and cleansed.

Through our genuine and sincere prayers for these souls in purgatory, we are able to help them to reduce their time spent in purgatory, and by asking God for His mercy and for His love for these souls, we hope that the souls of our beloved brethren currently will be able to enjoy soon the glories and the joys of heaven, in the presence of our loving God, who is just and merciful.

And remember, just as we pray for them, they are also praying for us. The souls in purgatory still remember all of us, and just as they have lived their earthly lives committing good deeds and sins, they realised how their sins have made them to suffer temporarily, and those sins prevented them from directly enjoying the blessings of God in heaven. Thus, they are praying for us, that we will realise our own sins, and repent so that we will not suffer the same suffering they encountered in purgatory.

May Almighty God therefore hear our prayers, and together with the saints, and the souls in purgatory, let us all pray together as one whole Universal Church, that more and more people will be brought closer to salvation, that all of us may escape the threat of hell, and be brought ever closer to heaven, the destination that we are all looking forward to. May God receive the souls of the faithful departed and give them the everlasting joy of heaven. Amen.

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Monday, 2 November 2015 : Feast of All Souls, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple

Mark 15 : 33-39 and Mark 16 : 1-6

When noon came, darkness fell over the whole land and lasted until three o’clock; and at three o’clock Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabachthani?” which means, “My God, My God, why have You deserted Me?”

As soon as they heard these words, some of the bystanders said, “Listen! He is calling for Elijah.” And one of them went quickly to fill a sponge with bitter wine, and putting it on a reed, gave it to Him to drink, saying, “Now let us see whether Elijah comes to take Him down.”

But Jesus uttered a loud cry and gave up His Spirit. And immediately the curtain that enclosed the Temple sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom. The captain, who was standing in front of Him, saw how Jesus died and heard the cry He gave, and He said, “Truly, this Man was the Son of God.”

When the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they might go and anoint the body. And very early in the morning on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb.

They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” But as they looked up, they noticed that the stone had already been rolled away. It was a very big stone. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man in a white robe seated on the right, and they were amazed.

But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified; He has been raised and is not here. This is, however, the place where they laid Him.”