Friday

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Friday, 14 September 2018 : Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Philippians 2 : 6-11

Though He was in the form of God, He did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking on the nature of a servant, made in human likeness, and in His appearance found as a Man.

He humbled Himself by being obedient to death, death on the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the Name which outshines all names, so that at the Name of Jesus all knees should bend in heaven, on earth and among the dead, and all tongues proclaim that Christ Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father.

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Friday, 14 September 2018 : Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 77 : 1-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38

Give heed, o My people, to My teaching; listen to the words of My mouth! I will speak in parables; I will talk of old mysteries.

When He slew them, they repented and sought Him earnestly. They remembered that God was their Rock, the Most High, their Redeemer.

But they flattered Him with their mouths; they lied to Him with their tongues, while their hearts were unfaithful; they were untrue to His Covenant.

Even then, in His compassion, He forgave their offences and did not destroy them. Many a time He restrained His anger, and did not fully stir up His wrath.

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Friday, 14 September 2018 : Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Numbers 21 : 4b-9

The people were discouraged by the journey and began to complain against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is neither bread nor water here and we are disgusted with this tasteless manna.”

YHVH then sent fiery serpents against them. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, speaking against YHVH and against you. Plead with YHVH to take the serpents away.”

Moses pleaded for the people and YHVH said to him, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; whoever has been bitten and then looks at it shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a standard. Whenever a man was bitten, he looked towards the bronze serpent and he lived.

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Friday, 7 September 2018 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the Lord speaking to us through His parable, of the wineskin and wine, and of new and old cloths, as He taught His disciples about the importance of the conversion of hearts, minds and all of our being in order for us to be able to follow the Lord, Our God, with all of our strength and ability. The wineskin and the cloth represents the state of our lives, whether we are attuned to the Lord or instead, attuned to the world.

First of all, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law came to Jesus asking about the behaviour and habits of His disciples, as contrasted to the disciples of St. John the Baptist, and to the Pharisees themselves, who have obeyed the whole rigorous commandments, rules and regulations of the Jewish tradition. They were slandering the Lord and His disciples, because they have not followed the traditions of the Jewish people.

But the Lord countered their argument by saying that His disciples did not fast as the disciples of St. John and the Pharisees had done, because God Himself was with them, and therefore, they should not weep or mourn at a time when the Lord was with them. In fact, they should be happy and rejoice without end. But the Lord told them a premonition of His own death, by saying that the time would come for Him to be taken away from His disciples.

The new wineskin and the old wine represent the contrast between the ways and the ideas of the Lord, from those espoused by the world, exemplified by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Should we follow the examples of the faith of the Pharisees, as well as the teachers of the Law, in their faith? The Lord answered with a firm no, through His parable. Their faith was one of hypocrisy, as the Lord Jesus often mentioned to His disciples.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law practiced their faith by fasting, by saying long prayers and public show of devotion, in order to be seen by the people, and to be praised by them. But in their hearts and minds, they did not have true faith in God, or love for Him. They practiced their faith in order to gain worldly favour and benefits, a selfish and self-centred attitude rather than a true act of faith.

When the Lord mentioned about the new wineskin and old wineskin, and new cloth and old cloth, He was referring to the ways of the Pharisees, as well as all the self-centred attitudes and all the selfishness in our hearts and minds as the old wineskins for the new wine that the Lord is offering us, or as the old, torn piece of cloth on which the Lord’s new cloth is to be patched on.

This means that, all sorts of worldliness and selfishness as how we mankind often practice, are incompatible with the Lord’s ways. The Lord’s ways are love, compassion, mercy, selflessness and tenderness, while our worldly ways are hatred, anger, jealousy, selfishness and greed. If we continue to live our life according to how we have always lived it in this world, then we cannot call ourselves as true Christians.

And for us to be able to follow the Lord with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, it therefore requires us to make a profound change to ourselves, to our attitude and our way of life. To be a Christian requires us to follow Christ with all of our efforts, to be wholly converted to Him, and to be ready to follow Him each and every moment of our lives.

Are we willing to change our way of life, in order to suit what the Lord has asked us to do? Are we willing to embrace the teachings and the truth of Christ fully with our whole support? We have been called to bear our crosses in life and follow the Lord. So, are we ready to commit ourselves to the Lord? Let us all turn ourselves to be true and devout servants of Our God from now on, by deepening our relationship with Him through prayer and time spent in quality time with Him.

May the Lord continue to guide us through life, and may He empower each and every one of us to live faithfully, in each and every actions we take, and at every moments of our life. Amen.

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Friday, 7 September 2018 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 5 : 33-39

At that time, some people asked Jesus, “The disciples of John fast often and say long prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why is it, that Your disciples eat and drink?”

Then Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them. But later, the Bridegroom will be taken from them; and they will fast in those days.”

Jesus also told them this parable : “No one tears a piece from a new coat to put it on an old one; otherwise the new coat will be torn, and the piece taken from the new coat will not match the old coat. No one puts new wine into old wine skins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and be spilt, and the skins will be destroyed as well.”

“But new wine must be put into fresh skins. Yet, no one who has tasted old wine is eager to drink new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

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Friday, 7 September 2018 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 36 : 3-4, 5-6, 27-28, 39-40

Trust in the Lord and do good, dwell in the land and live on it. Make the Lord your delight, and He will grant your heart’s desire.

Commit your way to the Lord; put your trust in Him and let Him act. Then will Your revenge come, beautiful as the dawn, and the justification of your cause, bright as the noonday sun.

Do good and shun evil, so that you will live secure forever. For YHVH loves justice and right, and never forsakes His faithful ones. The wicked, instead, will perish, and their bread will be cut off.

The Lord is the Salvation of the righteous; in time of distress, He is their refuge. The Lord helps them, and rescues them from the oppressor; He saves them for they sought shelter in Him.

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Friday, 7 September 2018 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 4 : 1-5

Let everyone then see us as the servants of Christ and stewards of the secret works of God. Being stewards, faithfulness shall be demanded of us; but I do not mind if you or any human court judges me. I do not even judge myself; my conscience indeed does not accuse me of anything, but that is not enough for me to be set right with God : the Lord is the One Who judges me.

Therefore, do not judge before the time, until the coming of the Lord. He will bring to light whatever was hidden in darkness and will disclose the secret intentions of the hearts. Then each one will receive praise from God.

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Friday, 31 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the readings of the Scriptures again reminding us the importance for us to listen to God and to trust in His will and obey His commandments, for His ways and wisdom are far greater than the very greatest of our wisdom and intellect, and no human achievement is indeed possible without God’s blessings.

In the first reading today taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, we heard of St. Paul speaking of the truth which the Lord had brought to His people, His wisdom which has been revealed to the whole world. And he pointed out how there were those who refused to listen to the Lord or shutting themselves off from the truth simply because they could not get rid of their pride and arrogance.

And this is related to what we heard in today’s Gospel passage, where we heard the Lord Jesus teaching His disciples by the means of a parable. He spoke to them about the parable of the five wise women and the five foolish women, comparing them to the comparison between the wisdom of men and the wisdom of God. The five foolish women represented those who put their trust in human wisdom and refused to obey God’s truth and wisdom.

Meanwhile the five wise women represented all those who trusted in the Lord and obeyed Him. Those who were wise were prepared for the coming of the bridegroom who was delayed in coming, while the ones who were foolish were caught unprepared by the delay and were not ready when the bridegroom suddenly came in the middle of the night. This is actually a reminder of how fleeting and impermanent our human existence is.

How is that so? First of all, many of us live our lives in this world with the intention to satisfy our own desires and wants. We live our lives seeking for things that make us happy such as having more money, more material goods, more prestige, fame, glory and other parameters of ‘success’ as defined by the world.

And quite a few among us were obsessed with attaining more and more of those indicators of worldly success and to satisfy our ever growing desire. We must know, brethren, that we mankind are very difficult to satisfy with any sorts of worldly goodness and temptations, for the more that we have and gained, the more it is that we desire, for even more of what we have gained.

We must remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that it does not matter how much money we accumulate, or how much prestige and fame we gather in the community and the society, or how many possessions and things we have with us, but none of these will matter when we are called to face the day of reckoning, when we encounter the moment of our death as the Lord willed it.

All of us spend much of our time trying to enrich ourselves in various ways, and to gather for ourselves as many worldly satisfactions as we could gather. But in the end, none of these could give us the chance to live even a moment longer than the time given to us by the Lord. And in the end of it all, many of us would come to regret that we have not done what we should have done, and instead, falling into temptation, we sinned against God and disobeyed Him.

As a result, many have fallen into damnation out of our inability to resist the many temptations the devil has prepared against us, and out of our own lack of commitment to the Lord, as well as our lack of preparation, that we are caught unprepared when the time comes for each one of us to give an account of what we have done and what we have failed to do in our respective lives.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard our Scripture passages today, let us all spend some time to reflect on each and every one of our lives today. Let us all think of how we can improve our lives by living them more closely attuned with the Lord, and by devoting ourselves ever more to the Lord, Our God. Let us all seek to be more faithful, from now on, by truly living up to our faith in each and every action we do.

May the Lord strengthen us in our faith and affirm us in our commitment to live each and every day of our lives with us all being ever ready and ever prepared whenever it is the Lord wants to call us to Himself. We are called to be holy just as Our Lord is holy. Therefore, let us from now on be true Christians, filled with God’s love and faith. Let us all put our complete trust in Him and not in our worldly strengths. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 31 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 25 : 1-13

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “This story throws light on what will happen in the kingdom of heaven : Ten bridesmaids went out with their lamps to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were sensible. The careless bridesmaids took their lamps as they were, and did not take extra oil. But those who were sensible, took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom delayed, they all grew drowsy and fell asleep.”

“But at midnight, a cry rang out, ‘The bridegroom is here, come on and meet him!’ All the maidens woke up at once, and trimmed their lamps. Then the foolish ones said to the sensible ones, ‘Give us some oil, for our lamps are going out.’ The sensible ones answered, ‘There may not be enough for us and for you. You had better go to those who sell, and buy some for yourselves.'”

“When the bridegroom came, the foolish maidens were out buying oil, but those who were ready went with him into the wedding feast, and the doors were shut. Later the other bridesmaids arrived and called out, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered, ‘Truly I do not know you.'”

“So stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”

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Friday, 31 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 32 : 1-2, 4-5, 10-11

Rejoice in the Lord, you who are just, praise is fitting for the upright. Give thanks to Him on the harp and lyre, making melody and chanting praises.

For upright is the Lord’s word and worthy of trust is His work. The Lord loves justice and righteousness; the earth is full of His kindness.

The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and brings to nothing the peoples’ designs. But His plan stands forever, and His heart’s design through all generations.