freedom

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Thursday, 19 December 2013 : 3rd Week of Advent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the two related stories of how two great men were born, both of them the faithful and great servants of God the Most High, and each entrusted with great missions, to prepare the way for what was to come. They were prepared especially for that, and they were consecrated to God for that purpose.

They were prepared and destined for a life totally dedicated to God and His purposes, and that was why they were what is called the Nazirites, who did not give themselves to the corrupting influences of the world, and fully gave themselves to God and to His will. They were indeed Samson, one of the later judges of Israel, renowned for his strength and his exploits against the Philistines, and John the Baptist, the one who prepared the way for the coming of the Lord.

Although they lived in different era and time, and had different backgrounds and missions in general, but their missions are truly about the same things, that is about bringing the people of God back towards the Lord and to bring help and succour to the people of God living in the darkness and in the suffering of the world.

Samson used his strength and power given from God to fight against the Philistines who were oppressing the people of God at that time. And just as he wrestled lions and bears, he also wrestled against these pagans who oppressed God’s people. And even though he would later fall into temptation in the woman Delilah, eventually he repented, and with the last of his power, he made a building to crash down on the Philistines just as they were making fun of him, killing even more of them in death than when he still lived.

St. John the Baptist, who baptised many people in the Jordan was both the messenger of God’s Good News, proclaiming to the people of the imminent and impending arrival of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and who brought many people to repentance through his repeated and ceaseless calls to the people to seek God’s forgiveness for their sins. He persevered even despite rejection and ridicule by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

The examples given in the birth, life, and experiences of these two men of God highlighted to us of the nature of our faith itself. God is with us, and He loves us. He continued to repeat this over and over again to us, sending prophets after prophets and messengers after messengers to show His love for us. In Samson, He made His power manifest and liberate His people from persecution, oppression, and suffering.

In John the Baptist, God made clear His care and love for us, seeking our redemption, through our repentance, that we abandon our sinfulness and our sin-tainted past, and leading a new life dedicated solely to the Lord, just as these two men of God had been dedicated to the Lord. He did not want us to perish because of our sinfulness and our tainted selves, and that was why He sent John to us, to lead the way for Christ.

We all know of this love our Lord has for all of us and we should not spurn it as many of our ancestors had done in the past. They rejected the people He had sent to them, ridiculed them, persecuted them, and even spilled their blood. Should we do the same then, brethren in Christ?

No, we should indeed change our ways, repent and promise that we will turn our back on sin, and from now on follow a way of life acceptable and worthy of the Lord our God. We ought to heed what St. John the Baptist had called the people of his time to do, to repent and prepare for the coming of the Lord. Be liberated and be free from the power of sin, just as Samson broke free the bonds of Israel from their Philistine masters.

And ultimately, we too, brothers and sisters in Christ, who belong to the Church of God, have the same responsibility as these saints and holy men of God, to be the extension of God’s will, hands, and power in this world. We ought to go out and proclaim the Good News to others, and help bring God’s people back towards Him. It is through our mouths and through our hands, that we will bring great glory to God and to His people.

Therefore, today, let us renew our faith and our commitment towards the Lord. May the Lord who empowered John the Baptist and Samson, also empower us to do the same as what they had done, and bring the Lord and the Good News of His salvation closer and closer to many, especially to those who are lost. Amen.

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Wednesday, 18 December 2013 : 3rd Week of Advent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the day is coming indeed, when the Lord will come again to be with His people, at which time, He will gather all those who remained faithful to Him and to His ways and His laws, rewarding them with the promises He had shown to them.

This coming Christmas, which celebration we are preparing for in this Advent season, celebrates indeed the already past coming of Christ, promised to the people of God through the prophets, which had happened in the birth of Jesus Christ the Messiah, as the Son of the virgin, given with power and authority as the Word of God made flesh. This was the first coming of the Lord, and one which we are most familiar with, but there is yet another dimension for Christmas.

This other dimension, is the awaiting of the promised Second Coming, when Christ will come again to be with His people. Remember that Christ is also called Emmanuel, which means that God is with us. God is indeed always with us, even though He may not be visible physically to us, and many of us indeed question if He even exists at all!

God loves us, brethren, very, very much. He does not abandon His people when they were in need, and He sent them many help along the way, in the form of the prophets, messengers, and many other forms unknown to us. It is mankind who often spurned His love and rejected His help, and yet we complained because we thought that God did not care for us.

And He showed that by making Himself as one of us, He who is divine, almighty, omnipotent and all powerful beyond measure, would lower Himself to be a lowly and weak human like us. That was the proof of our Lord’s love and dedication for all of us. And by doing that, He truly made complete His own promises, that He will be with us, as God who is not distant and uncaring on the conditions and plights of His people. Instead, He became one of us, like one of us, with all of our human weaknesses, emotions, and others, save for sin.

And as mentioned, Jesus came into this world not just for leisure or for holiday, or to enjoy His time with us all. Yes, indeed, He did enjoy the time He had while He was in this world. He was happy, surrounded by all His beloved ones, and even though He faced stiff oppositions from those who hated Him, He continued to seek for their redemption and return to the path towards salvation.

He came so that He can lead us all to be free from sin, our slavery by sins and evil! Yes, just as the people of Israel, the first to be chosen by God, had been liberated from their slavery in Egypt, the Lord too would liberate every men and women from their slavery by sin, ever since sin first entered into the hearts of mankind.

And while He sent Moses to be His tool for the deliverance of Israel, to be His tool and to represent His hand in delivering salvation and freedom to the people of God, He spared no expense in liberating us all, for ever, from the slavery under sin. He gave mankind hope in the words He had revealed to the messengers and prophets He had risen for mankind through the ages. And those words, promises and prophecies were fulfilled perfectly when Jesus came into this world, and when He fulfilled the long drawn plan of salvation.

Jesus is the Lord Himself who came to be our deliverer, to be the shepherd to lead us all out of the darkness of sin into the light of God, just as Moses led the people through the desert. And that is what we are going to celebrate about in Christmas, and what we are rejoicing for. We do not rejoice for the physical gifts, gadgets, and all the good things that we receive from each other during gift exchange at Christmas. We rejoice because of Jesus, who came unto us born as a humble man, which we celebrate as Christmas.

Sadly, just as the people of Israel grumbled and protested against the Lord because of the difficulties they faced along the way, we too often grumble and rebel whenever things do not go our way. We often prefer to choose the easy way out, and disobey God and His will. The people of Israel indulged themselves in the worship of the pagan gods, the golden calf and the gods of the people around them, enjoying the corrupted fruits of the world. So we too often enjoy the corrupted fruits of this world.

As we approach Christmas, brethren, we ought to take some time and reflect. Have we all made our Christmas truly centred on Christ? Have we all made Christ to be the One we celebrate with joy this Christmas? And not just this Christmas but from now on henceforth? It is not an easy path that we will have to take and endure, but if we make the effort, we will be well rewarded.

Let us all make the commitment to seek the Lord Jesus, who came to save us all and liberate us from the slavery under the power of sin. Let us all come and seek Him and follow Him, on the way towards salvation in Him, and let us always be faithful and remain loving towards our God and our Saviour. May the Lord continue to strengthen us, bless us, and watch over us as we walk through this life in this world. God be with us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 15 December 2013 : Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or Rose (Gaudete Sunday)

Psalm 145 : 7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

The Lord gives justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord straightens the bent. The Lord protects the stranger.

The Lord sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Sunday, 15 December 2013 : Third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or Rose (Gaudete Sunday)

Isaiah 35 : 1-6a, 10

Let the wilderness and the arid land rejoice, the desert be glad and blossom. Covered with flowers, it sings and shouts with joy, adorned with the splendour of Lebanon, the magnificence of Carmel and Sharon. They, my people, see the glory of YHVH, the majesty of our God.

Give vigour to weary hands and strength to enfeebled knees. Say to those who are afraid : “Have courage, do not fear. See, your God comes, demanding justice. He is the God who rewards, the God who comes to save you.” Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unsealed. Then will the lame leap as a hart and the tongue of the dumb sing and shout.

For the ransomed of YHVH will return : with everlasting joy upon their heads, they will come to Zion singing, gladness and joy marching with them, while sorrow and sighing flee away.

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Sunday, 8 December 2013 : Second Sunday of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 11 : 1-10

From the stump of Jesse a shoot will come forth; from his roots a branch will grow and bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him – a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and power, a Spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord.

Not by appearances will He judge, nor by what is said must He decide, but with justice He will judge the poor and with righteousness decide for the meek. Like a rod, His word will strike the oppressor, and the breath of His lips slay the wicked. Justice will be the girdle of His waist, truth the girdle of His loins.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will rest beside the kid, the calf and the lion cub will feed together and a little child will lead them. Befriending each other, the cow and the bear will see their young ones lie down together. Like cattle, the lion will eat hay.

By the cobra’s den the infant will play. The child will put his hand into the viper’s lair. No one will harm or destroy over My holy mountain, for as water fills the sea, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.

On that day the “Root of Jesse” will be raised as a signal for the nations. The people will come in search of Him, thus making His dwelling place glorious.

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Friday, 6 December 2013 : 1st Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Nicholas, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)

Isaiah 29 : 17-24

In a very short time, Lebanon will become a fruitful field and the fruitful field will be as a forest. On that day the deaf will hear the words of the book, and out of the dark and obscurity, the eyes of the blind will see. The meek will find joy and the poor among men will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.

For the tyrant will be no more and the scoffers gone forever, and all who plan to do evil will be cut down – those who by a word make you guilty, those who for a bribe can lay a snare and send home the just empty-handed.

Therefore YHVH, Abraham’s Redeemer, speaks concerning the people of Jacob : No longer will Jacob be ashamed; no longer will his face grow pale. When he sees the work of My hands, his children again in his midst, they will sanctify My Name, they will sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and stand in awe of the God of Israel.

Those who err in spirit will understand; those who murmur will learn.

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Wednesday, 13 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brethren in Christ, today we listen again to the healing miracle of the ten lepers by the power of Christ our Lord. The Lord has authority over all things, as the Lord and Creator of all things in this universe. He alone has the power to alter everything as He saw fit. He had come down to us in Jesus His Son, to bring about concrete change to all of us, reaching out to us all as we are all in one way or another, sick.

Yes, we are sick, and we are ill, brethren! Not the illness of the physique or those that are visible to the eyes, but the illness that is inside our souls. This is what Christ had come to us to cure. For physical illnesses and diseases can have many cures but for this illness of the soul, there is only one and only cure, that is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus, as He Himself had said, came especially for the sick and for those who are downtrodden. And yes, we are all sickened, brothers and sisters, and this sickness, that is of our soul, is the illness of sin. Yes, sin is our suffering and the pain that had infected us, affected us, and made us all unworthy before God our Lord.

Sin is a leprosy, yes the most terrible form of leprosy indeed, that is the leprosy of the soul. All of us have sinned at one point of our lives, and indeed, even from day to day we have sinned and inflict on ourselves more and more of this leprosy. And just like leprosy, sin spread like disease, affecting all of us, corrupting the health of our souls. Sin has no bounds and it affects everything.

Yet, unlike our diseases of the body, which inflicts physical pain and suffering to us, which none of us would certainly like, sin is often enjoyable and even attractive to many of us, that we are constantly always tempted to commit sin in our daily lives. That is why, sin is so dangerous, and we all ought to be careful, lest we all fall into corruption of sin.

The Lord Jesus came to us to heal us from this affliction, just as He showed His power by healing the lepers, the paralysed, those with physical debilitation, as those with spiritual illness, as those whose demons He had cast out. But often, we are too proud to admit our sinfulness and indeed, this illness, this leprosy of our souls. We are like those portrayed by the Book of Wisdom in our first reading as the proud and the mighty, those who do not bend their knees to acknowledge our Lord, the Master of all.

We are also often like the nine other lepers, the ones who did not return to Jesus after knowing that they have been healed. Jesus did not ask them to give Him thanks or worship Him for what He had done, but yet the one leper, the Samaritan, returned and give thanks and glory to God. For he knew that it is God who is the One with the power and authority, healing him from the leprosy that had affected him.

We are often like the nine other lepers, because we are often too immersed in our joy and happiness, when we received good things from God, that we failed to give Him thanks for all the blessings He had granted us. We often even give glory to ourselves and praise ourselves instead of God. That is what happened to the nine other lepers, that they were so engaged in their happiness, that they dashed off back to their old lives without stopping and use the chance to thank God as the Samaritan had done.

Nevertheless, brethren, we must not think that God does not want us to be happy, as what He wants from us is merely our love for Him. It is only right and just that we thank Him for the multitudes that He had given us. Not the least of which, is the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the greatest gift God had given us mankind, because in Jesus, we are saved and given a new lease of life, and He did this precisely by striking against that leprosy of the soul, that is sin!

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us take time to reflect, whether for the many good things God had given us, we have thanked Him properly for them. God does not need us to utter a long litany of thanks, as what He truly needs is, none other than our love, and our wholehearted dedication to Him. May the Lord who loves us dearly, continue to bless us and watch over us, as we grow in His love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 12 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Wisdom 2 : 23 – Wisdom 3 : 9

Indeed God created man to be immortal in the likeness of His own nature, but the envy of the devil brought death to the world, and those who take his side shall experience death.

The souls of the just are in the hands of God and no torment shall touch them. In the eyes of the unwise they appear to be dead. Their going is held as a disaster; it seems that they lose everything by departing from us, but they are in peace.

Though seemingly they have been punished, immortality was the soul of their hope. After slight affliction will come great blessings, for God has tried them and found them worthy to be with Him; after testing them as gold in the furnace, He has accepted them as a holocaust.

At the time of His coming they will shine like sparks that run in the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will be their king forever. Those who trust in Him will penetrate the truth, those who are faithful will live with Him in love, for His grace and mercy are for His chosen ones.

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Monday, 11 November 2013 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Wisdom 1 : 1-7

Love justice, you who rule over the world. Think rightly of God, seek Him with simplicity of heart, for He reveals Himself to those who do not challenge Him and is found by those who do not distrust Him.

Crooked thinking distances you from God, and His Omnipotence, put to the test, confounds the foolish. Wisdom does not enter the wicked nor remain in a body that is enslaved to sin. The Holy Spirit who instructs us shuns deceit; It keeps aloof from foolishness and is ill at ease when injustice is done.

Wisdom is a spirit, a friend to man, and will not leave the blasphemous unpunished, because God knows His innermost feelings, truly sees His thoughts and hears what He says. For God’s Spirit has filled the whole world and He who holds together all things, knows each word that is spoken.

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Friday, 8 November 2013 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Today, we listened to the words of the Gospel, in which the Lord told His disciples on the parable of the dishonest steward, in which the steward was accused of making dishonest acts with his master’s accounts, and in his fear of his own future, he committed even more dishonesty, all to save himself and provide for himself.

It may seem to some who reads this passage at a face value, that the Lord endorses the actions of the steward, by saying that the master of the steward praises him for his astuteness and crafty nature. In truth, the Lord says that while the methods used by the steward is a good method and a smart move, but that is for this world, and not for the world of the next, that is eternal. It is either eternity in suffering or glory and joy.

We like to trust in our own strength, power, and ability, and we like to follow in the ways of this world, that is deceit, dishonesty, pride, arrogance, that we become over time, more and more like that of the dishonest steward. To be worthy servant of God, then we must break free from the entanglement of the evils of this world. The lures of this world’s pleasures are great indeed. It is up to us to cast out those habits.

We all have been made the stewards of creation, given to all of us as our charge, at the time when God created all of us. We have been entrusted this world as our dominion, that we would divide, multiply, and ultimately be responsible for all those who had been granted to us as our rightful possessions. It is in our power and dominion, to choose whether to do what is good or what is bad and deceitful, on our duty as stewards of God and His creation.

Be honest, be faithful, and be true to God and to our fellow men. We should not let our ego or our desire to affect our actions and our deeds. We ought to rise from the depth of our sinfulness and egoistic nature, thinking and caring only for ourselves, and rise up to love and commit ourselves towards caring for our brothers and sisters in Christ. That is the way that we should follow, indeed as the Lord asked of us, to die to ourselves, and to die to our ego. That we cast away this veil of ego and embrace humility.

The root of corruption and evil is truly when one succumbs to his or her own ego, and allow that ego to take over themselves and their actions. When we begin to put ourselves and our own interests ahead of that of the others, then we begin our path to downfall and destruction. But this does not mean that we cannot escape from that path. It requires great effort and dedication to the cause, for us to reorientate ourselves to the path of righteousness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, much is expected from us, as we have been given much. We have been given our skills, abilities, and talents, that we are indeed expected to utilise them, for good and for the benefit of all those around us. We cannot be negligent and ignorant of what has been entrusted to us. Let us therefore, from now on, resolve to become, truly better stewards and caretakers of God’s creations.

May the Lord who is love and mercy, and may He who grant us His gifts and goodness, empower us with His Spirit, that we will always be strong, against temptations and assaults by the evil one. Be with us Lord and strengthen us, that we, Your children, will be always loving as You are. God bless us all. Amen.