Friday

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Friday, 27 March 2020 : 4th Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Wisdom 2 : 1a, 12-22

Led by mistaken reasons they think, “Let us set a trap for the Righteous, for He annoys us and opposes our way of life; He reproaches us for our breaches of the Law and accuses us of being false to our upbringing. He claims knowledge of God and calls Himself Son of the Lord. He has become a reproach to our way of thinking; even to meet Him is burdensome to us. He does not live like others and behaves strangely.”

“According to Him we have low standards, so He keeps aloof from us as if we were unclean. He emphasises the happy end of the righteous and boasts of having God as Father. Let us see the truth of what He says and find out what His end will be. If the Righteous is a Son of God, God will defend Him and deliver Him from His adversaries.”

“Let us humble and torture Him to prove His self-control and test His patience. When we have condemned Him to a shameful death, we may test His words.” This is the way they reason, but they are mistaken, blinded by their malice. They do not know the mysteries of God nor do they hope for the reward of a holy life; they do not believe that the blameless will be recompensed.

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Friday, 20 March 2020 : 3rd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we draw ever closer to the most important time in the entire year, that is the celebration of the Passion of the Lord in the Holy Week and His Resurrection in Easter, all of us are called to embrace God’s mercy and forgiveness, as He is truly merciful and kind, compassionate and loving. He wants us all to be reconciled to Him, but this requires us to make the effort to seek Him and to change ourselves to embrace His mercy.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Hosea, is that classic reading for this season of Lent, calling all of us God’s people to repentance and to seek forgiveness for our faults and sins. Through that passage we hear the strong reassurance from God through His prophet Hosea, of the Lord’s desire to be reconciled with us, of His kindness and willingness to welcome us back to His presence and to make us worthy once again of Him.

At that time, the prophet Hosea lived through the final years of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which had been battered hard by their enemies and all those seeking to conquer them. And all of that were caused by their disobedience against God, generations after generations of following the false prophets and worshipping the false, pagan idols and refusing to follow the Law and the commandments of the Lord that their ancestors had once followed. But despite all of these things, God still loved His people as He revealed to them through Hosea.

Indeed, that is why love is a fundamental reason for our creation and our relationship with God, Who is always ever loving and filled with compassion towards each and every one of us. Without God’s love, there would have been no reason for Him to spare us all when we disobeyed Him, just as the Israelites of old disobeyed Him and chose to worship the pagan idols and commit all sorts of wicked actions and deeds throughout their lives. God could have easily willed them all to destruction and annihilation, but He did not do so because of His great love.

This ties in well with what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in the encounter between the Lord Jesus and a teacher of the Law who asked Him of what is the most important Law of all the commandments and Law God has given to His people, probably to test Him and see His answer. The Lord then answered that the most important Law and truly, the essence of the Law and the commandments can be summarised into two main commandments, that is first of all, to love God with all of our strength and might, and to show the same love to our fellow brothers and sisters.

As we can see, love is the foundation of the Law and also the foundation of what we all need to do as God’s people, in being faithful to Him. Unless we have this love within us, sincere and genuine, no matter how many things we do, no matter what piety and pious actions we commit, all the commandments, rules and laws, all these will mean nothing because instead of bringing us closer to God and making us grow deeper and stronger in our love and devotion towards Him, we may end up like many among the Pharisees who were hypocrites in faith, seeking to advance their own personal agenda and desires in their observances of the Law.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called to have this love for God and also for our fellow brothers and sisters, our neighbours and fellow men, even strangers and also even those who hated us and had wronged us. This is the challenge that God is giving us this Lent, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the upcoming time of the Holy Week and Easter. Are we able and willing to show genuine, sincere and selfless love in our actions and interactions with our neighbours and all we encounter?

We are all challenged to spend more quality time with God, to love Him and to serve Him with ever greater devotion from now on, that we deepen our relationship with Him through prayer, through regular and meaningful participation at the Holy Mass, through our obedience to the laws and commandments He has entrusted to His Church, and which we ought to follow and obey with understanding and desire to purify ourselves of our sins and faults.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all reject sin firmly and endeavour to turn ourselves to the love and mercy of God. Let us all devote more time and attention to be closer to God and to distance ourselves from the many temptations present all around us, being firm in our desire to be reconciled and saved by God’s grace and love. May God be with us always, and may He strengthen us all in our faith, and continue to love us all throughout our lives. Amen.

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Friday, 20 March 2020 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Mark 12 : 28b-34

At that time, a teacher of the Law came up and asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is : Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And after this comes a second commandment : You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these two.”

The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master; You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”

Jesus approved of this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.

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Friday, 20 March 2020 : 3rd Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 80 : 6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11ab, 14 and 17

Open wide your mouth and I will fill it, I relieved your shoulder from burden; I freed your hands. You called in distress, and I saved you.

Unseen, I answered you in thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear, My people, as I admonish you. If only you would listen, o Israel!

There shall be no strange god among you, you shall not worship any alien god, for I the Lord am your God, who led you forth from the land of Egypt.

If only My people would listen, if only Israel would walk in My ways. I would feed you with the finest wheat and satisfy you with honey from the rock.

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Friday, 20 March 2020 : 3rd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Hosea 14 : 2-10

Return to your God YHVH, o Israel! Your sins have caused your downfall. Return to YHVH with humble words. Say to Him, “Oh You Who show compassion to the fatherless forgive our debt, be appeased. Instead of bulls and sacrifices, accept the praise from our lips. Assyria will not save us : no longer shall we look for horses nor ever again shall we say ‘Our gods’ to the work of our hands.”

I will heal their wavering and love them with all My heart for My anger has turned from them. I shall be like dew to Israel like the lily will he blossom. Like a cedar he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow and spread. His splendour will be like an olive tree. His fragrance, like a Lebanon cedar.

They will dwell in My shade again, they will flourish like the grain, they will blossom like a vine, and their fame will be like Lebanon wine. What would Ephraim do with idols, when it is I Who hear and make him prosper? I am like an ever-green cypress tree; all your fruitfulness comes from Me.

Who is wise enough to grasp all this? Who is discerning and will understand? Straight are the ways of YHVH : the just walk in them, but the sinners stumble.

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Friday, 13 March 2020 : 2nd Week of Lent, Seventh Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Scriptures the story of the sons of Israel or Jacob, namely Joseph and his brothers, and we heard how Joseph was treated by his jealous brothers, betrayed and almost killed if not for the intervention of one of his brothers, ended up being sold to slavery and eventually was brought to Egypt. In the Gospel we heard a kind of parallel and similar story in the parable of the wicked vineyard tenants as told by the Lord Jesus to His disciples.

Through these readings we heard about the plots and the wicked acts which people acted against their own fellow brothers, as we heard first of the treatment of Joseph by his brothers. The brothers were irritated and angered, jealous and prejudiced against Joseph because of Joseph’s dreams and God’s vision that He has revealed through those dreams, in which the brothers misunderstood as Joseph trying to lord over them, which was compounded by the favouritism which Jacob showed to Joseph and his brother Benjamin.

The brothers desired to have that attention and the treatment which Joseph had enjoyed from his father, and that was why, they were angry at him when he recounted to them the contents of his dream. They plotted against him and threw him into a well, eventually sold him to the slavers and lied to their father that Joseph had been killed by wild animals. Yet, in the end, we all know that Joseph went to Egypt ahead of his family as part of God’s greater agenda and plan for His people, despite the plots of Joseph’s brothers.

In the Gospel we heard the peculiarly similar story of a vineyard owner who sent his servants to collect the dues and rents of the tenants whom he had entrusted with the care of the vineyard he leased out to them. Those tenants were wicked and desired to keep everything they gained to themselves, and hence persecuted and killed the servants sent to them. The tenants also then killed the son of the vineyard owner, whom the owner sent to them thinking that the tenants would respect his son.

In the end, the owner came down himself and crushed all those wicked tenants, punishing them all for the wickedness and the evil things which they had committed for their greed and ego. They lost everything and were punished justly by the owner. And all these is a parable used by the Lord to describe the relationship between God and His people, as the owner of the vineyard represents God, while the son of the owner represents none other than Christ Himself, the Son of God sent into the world. The vineyard represents the world itself while the wicked tenants represent all those who refused to believe in the Lord and in Christ.

What all of us ought to learn from all these which we have heard from the Scriptures today is that if we allow ourselves to be swayed by the temptations of greed and desire, of pride and ego, we will likely end up like those wicked tenants who acted with such evil against their fellow men and even against the son of their master and landlord. It would also just be like the despicable act which the brothers of Joseph committed to gain for themselves favour and inheritance.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is very important during this season of Lent that we reflect on our own lives and think carefully how we have lived our lives thus far, and how we want to proceed from now on. Are we going to seek worldly glory and honour, human praise and fame, or pleasures of all sorts, or are we instead going to focus our attention on God and put our effort to live our lives according to His ways and obey His laws?

The choice has been given to us, and through the passages of the Scriptures today we are shown just how dangerous the temptations of worldly desires and our greed can be, in leading us into sin and from there, into an ever deeper trap of sin and malice, wickedness and evil. Are we going to follow these temptations and allow ourselves to be tempted, especially by the devil and all of his evil forces who are always out and about trying to pull us down this path?

Let us all strive therefore to be more committed and to be more faithful as we progress along this season of Lent, renewing our faith in God and growing in our relationship with Him. And today, as we also celebrate the seventh Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, our Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff, the leader of the whole Church, let us all also unite our prayers for him, that God may help him and guide him in leading the Church, together with all of us Christians, all growing in faith as God’s one united Church.

May God bless us all, bless our Pope and may He strengthen His Church and all of us in our conviction and desire to love Him and to serve Him more, through our righteous and virtuous actions, and by distancing ourselves from the many worldly temptations all around us. Amen.

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Friday, 13 March 2020 : 2nd Week of Lent, Seventh Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 21 : 33-43, 45-46

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Listen to another example : There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a hole for the winepress, built a watchtower, leased the vineyard to tenants, and then went to a distant country.”

“When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants seized his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned a third. Again the owner sent more servants, but they were treated in the same way.”

“Finally, he sent his son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they thought, ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him, and his inheritance will be ours.’ So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”

“Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?” They said to him, “He will bring those evil men to an evil end, and lease the vineyard to others, who will pay him in due time.” And Jesus replied, “Have you never read what the Scriptures say? The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it.”

“Therefore I say to you : the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you, and given to a people who will yield a harvest.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they realised that Jesus was referring to them. They would have arrested Him, but they were afraid of the crowd, who regarded Him as a Prophet.

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Friday, 13 March 2020 : 2nd Week of Lent, Seventh Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 104 : 16-17, 18-19, 20-21

Then the Lord sent a famine and ruined the crop that sustained the land; He sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

His feet in shackles, his neck in irons till what he foretold came to pass, and the Lord’s word proved him true.

The king sent for him, set him free, the ruler of the peoples released him. He put him in charge of his household and made him ruler of all his possessions.

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Friday, 13 March 2020 : 2nd Week of Lent, Seventh Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Rome (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Genesis 37 : 3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28

Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other children, for he was the son of his old age and he had a coat with long sleeves made for him. His brothers who saw that their father loved him more than he loved them, hated him and could no longer speak to him in a friendly way.

His brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, and Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing the flock at Shechem.” So Joseph went off after his brothers and found them at Dothan. They saw him in the distance and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

They said to one another, “Here comes the specialist in dreams! Now is the time! Let us kill him and throw him into a well. We will say a wild animal devoured him. Then we will see what his dreams were all about!” But Reuben heard this and tried to save him from their hands saying, “Let us not kill him; shed no blood! Throw him in this well in the wilderness, but do him no violence.” This he said to save him from them and take him back to his father.

So as soon as Joseph arrived, they stripped him of his long-sleeved coat that he wore and then took him and threw him in the well, now the well was empty, without water. They were sitting for a meal when they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with spices, balm and myrrh, which they were taking down to Egypt.

Judah then said to his brothers, “What do we gain by killing our brother and hiding his blood? Come! We will sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him, for he is our brother and our own flesh!” His brothers agreed to this. So when the Midianite merchants came along they pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the well. For twenty pieces of silver they sold Joseph to the Midianites, who took him with them to Egypt.

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Friday, 6 March 2020 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, through our Scripture passages today as we continue to progress through this season of Lent, we are all reminded that we cannot be complacent in life and in our way of living our faith, as we can easily slip and fall into the many temptations and trials found in life all around us, and be trapped once again in the dangerous trap of sin. The devil knows this very well and he will indeed try his best to tempt us and to drag us deep into sin.

In our first reading today, as we heard of the passage taken from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, we heard God speaking to all of His people through the prophet Ezekiel revealing how He loved each and every one of us, His beloved children and people, and He wanted us all to be reconciled with Him and be saved from certain destruction because of our own sins. He revealed that He did not wish for the destruction of sinners and their damnation, but the reality is such that those who are condemned did so by their own conscious rejection of God’s righteous ways.

In that same passage then, we also heard how our salvation in God is not a done deal or assured for us unlike what some of us have preferred to believe, those who claimed that once we have been saved by faith, we will always be saved no matter what. Instead, God revealed to us all through the prophet Ezekiel that our faith and our salvation by that faith is also dependant on our actions and direction in life.

Those who are righteous, if they fall into sin and wickedness, will be judged by those same sins they committed, and if found wanting, will be condemned because of them. On the other hand, those who are wicked, if they repent from their wickedness and act righteously, they will be saved by those righteousness and faith that they have shown through their change in attitude in life. This is the essence of what we have heard in our that passage from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel today, that God loves us all and despises our sins.

God treasures us, His people though we are sinners, because He ultimately created us out of love and has that strong desire to love all of us and share His love with us. It is our wickedness and sins that made us to be unworthy and corrupted, regardless of whether we have been considered as righteous or wicked previously by others. That is why we are reminded not to be complacent in how we live our faith and our lives, that we have to be always ready and prepared to face the temptations and pressures that will come our way.

The devil and all of his wicked allies, the demons and evil spirits are always ready out there to tempt us, to sway us and to force and coerce us to go down the path of sin and darkness, and no one among us is free or immune to their corrupting influences and efforts. The more righteous we are and the better we have been in living our faith, the busier the devil and all of his wicked allies will in fact be, in trying to subvert us and to turn us into the path of sin.

That is why, we have to be vigilant all the time and strive to be righteous in the eyes of God and men alike. And it is also very important that we must have humility within us, as without humility it is likely that we will be easily overcome by pride and arrogance, hubris and the ego in our hearts and minds. And when we allow pride to overcome us, it is when it will be very easy for the devil to wrest us away from God’s path into the path of sin. After all, when we allow pride to overcome us and control our lives, we will end up focusing on ourselves more and God will be put aside and become secondary to us in importance.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we progress through this blessed season of Lent let us all make good use of the time and opportunity that God has given us so that we may rediscover our faith in the Lord once again, and allow ourselves to centre ourselves once again on Him. This is why this time of Lent is the perfect opportunity for us to reorientate ourselves and to turn away from sin, be more humble before God and admit before Him our sinfulness and wickedness, all our shortcomings and mistakes.

Remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that God alone can forgive us our sins and heal us from this terrible affliction on our souls. If we allow sin to inhabit our hearts and minds, our beings for any moment longer, and worse still, to indulge on those sins, sooner or later we will fall deeper and deeper into the path of wickedness, and in the end, be judged by those wickedness we have committed. Instead, let us all heed what the Lord Himself had spoken to us in our Gospel passage today, calling on all of us to be righteous in all things and to be truly faithful in all of our ways in life.

Let us all be more loving towards our fellow brethren from now on, and let us devote more of our time and attention to the Lord and follow His Law and commandments daily. Let us show mercy and compassion on those who have wronged us and let us be more loving and compassionate in all of our actions and deeds. May God be with us always, and may He strengthen us all that we may have the courage to carry on living our lives with genuine faith from now on. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.