Friday

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Friday, 27 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Angela Merici, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Virgins)
Mark 4 : 26-34

At that time, Jesus also said, “In the kingdom of God it is like this : a man scatters seed upon the soil. Whether he is asleep or awake, be it day or night, the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how. The soil produces of itself : first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when it is ripe for harvesting, they take the sickle for the cutting : the time for the harvest has come.”

Jesus also said, “What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall we compare it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown, is the smallest of all the seeds scattered upon the soil. But once sown, it grows up and becomes the largest of the plants in the garden, and even grows branches so big, that the birds of the air can take shelter in its shade.”

Jesus used many such stories, in order to proclaim the word to them in a way that they would be able to understand. He would not teach them without parables; but privately to His disciples He explained everything.

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Friday, 27 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Angela Merici, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Virgins)
Psalm 36 : 3-4, 5-6, 23-24, 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.

The Lord is the One Who makes people stand, He gives firmness to those He likes. They may stumble, but they will not fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.

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, 27 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Angela Merici, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Virgins)
Hebrews 10 : 32-39

Remember the first days when you were enlightened. You had to undergo a hard struggle in the face of suffering. Publicly you were exposed to humiliations and trials, and had to share the sufferings of others who were similarly treated.

You showed solidarity with those in prison; you were dispossessed of your goods and accepted it gladly for you knew you were acquiring a much better and more durable possession. Do not now throw away your confidence that will be handsomely rewarded.

Be patient in doing the will of God, and the promise will be yours : A little, a little longer – says Scripture – and He Who is coming will come; He will not delay. My righteous one will live if he believes: but if he distrusts, I will no longer look kindly on him. We are not among those who withdraw and perish, but among those who believe and win personal salvation.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded of the new covenant which God had made with us all, His people, that is with all of mankind. And He had made all of these through the mediation of Christ, Who is the Mediator of the new covenant, by which all of us are to receive salvation and grace, because Christ Himself had done the amazing and unimaginable deed of laying down His own life for the sake of our salvation.

Through Him, God had placed into our hearts the truth about Himself, what He had revealed to the whole world about His salvation. He had sent us His Holy Spirit, through Whom the truth is placed into our hearts, so that all of us who have believed in Him, and received the Holy Spirit will understand fully what it means for us to follow the Lord our God, and to walk in His ways.

However, this is also where we need to take note how in the Gospel passage today, it was mentioned that Jesus called His disciples, the primary twelve members among them in particular. They are known as the Twelve Apostles, whose names we are certainly quite familiar with. They were called by Jesus, together with the other Apostles and disciples, to be His witnesses and helpers in the good works He was bringing into the world for our salvation.

Through this, we can see how God needs our help to continue His good works in this world, as the works He has started are certainly not yet complete. All these works are still ongoing, and there are even more things to be done. There are many people who have yet to witness and experience the truth of the Lord, and there are many others who have yet to receive the Good News unlike us.

The works of the Apostles, who preached and witnessed for the Lord are still ongoing, as we are the ones who are now called to be the modern day disciples and witnesses of our God and of our faith in Him. Through us God will make His truth known to all, that He establishes a new covenant with us, and by that we are altogether saved. It is up to us then to lead others, our brethren, to walk on this path towards God’s salvation and grace.

And how do we do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? The saints Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian whose feasts we are celebrating today, had shown many others what it meant to be a disciple of Christ, and what are to be expected from us if we are to take His side and defend our faith in Him. They lived during times of great difficulty for the faith, when being a Christian meant that one could be prosecuted and arrested by the state, and persecution of the Church and the faithful were rampant.

Pope St. Fabian was the leader of the Universal Church and the faithful both across the Roman Empire and all Christendom, as well as in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor at the time, the Emperor Decius was particularly hostile against Christians and their faith, and he ordered a distinctively brutal persecution against them.

As the leader of the flock of God, Pope St. Fabian did not fear the threat of persecution and suffering. Instead, he continued to minister courageously to the people of God, going from places to places and minister to those who need help. Eventually he was arrested and tortured, and as an example to all the other Christians, the Emperor Decius sentenced the faithful saint to death, and thus, in doing what he had been called to do, Pope St. Fabian met his end in glorious martyrdom.

Then, St. Sebastian was a soldier in the employ of the Roman Emperor, told to be a courageous man whose skill earned him a place in the contingent of the Imperial guardsmen. The Emperor at that time, Diocletian was also renowned infamously for his brutal persecution of the Christian faith and the faithful. All the Roman soldiers were ordered to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, who was then treated as a living god, and those who refused to do so were persecuted.

St. Sebastian courageously refused to offer sacrifices to the Emperor as ordered, because he stood by faithfully to his Christian faith. He refused to obey the Emperor’s orders even though he fully knew that doing so would bring about the wrath of the Emperor and would almost certainly mean his death. He did not want to compromise his faith and kept strongly to the faith which he had in the Lord.

And thus, by his courage, he was tortured and put to death, after a long and miraculous process where we were told that he was shot with arrows but did not die because of the Lord’s intervention, before finally he was martyred with a sword. Through their examples, Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian had shown us all that being a Christian require commitment and courage, and real action instead of inaction.

We, as the modern day successors of the Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ should be role models for our brethren, and become genuine and real witnesses for Him, even though persecution, challenges and difficulties may come in our way to hinder us and stop us from doing whatever it is that we want to do for this purpose. Let us all pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that God will give us the courage and strength to do so.

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the holy saints and martyrs who had gone before us, and who have left behind their illustrious examples for us to follow. Let us all follow in the footsteps of Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian in their total commitment to the Lord and their courageous faith. And finally, let us all continue to pray for the unity of all Christians that all those who believe in God may come together and be reunited in the Church of Christ under the leadership of His Vicar, our Pope. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Mark 3 : 13-19

At that time, Jesus went up into the hill country, and called those He wanted and they came to Him. He appointed twelve to be with Him, and He called them ‘Apostles’. He wanted to send them out to preach, and He gave them authority to drive out demons.

These are the Twelve : Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, which means ‘men of thunder’; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 84 : 8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Show us, o Lord, Your unfailing love and grant us Your saving help. Yet Your salvation is near to those who fear You, and Your Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Hebrews 8 : 6-13

Now, however, Jesus enjoys a much higher ministry in being the Mediator of a better covenant, founded on better promises. If all had been perfect in the first covenant, there would have been no need for another one. Yet God sees defects when He says : The days are coming – it is the word of the Lord – when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not keep My covenant, and so I Myself have forsaken them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come : I will put My law into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people.

None of them will have to teach one another or say to each other : Know the Lord, for they will know Me from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and no longer remember their wrongs. Here we are being told of a new covenant; which means that the first one had become obsolete, and what is obsolete and ageing is soon to disappear.

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Friday, 13 January 2017 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the matter of the forgiveness of sins, as Jesus our Lord healed the paralytic man, telling him that He has forgiven him his sins, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law refused to believe that He was capable of forgiveness of sins, as to them, only God could forgive sins, and they did not believe that He is truly God.

This was precisely pointed out in the first reading today from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, how two different types of people heard and received the Good News of the Gospel, but they acted differently, and thus different outcomes were recorded. In one group, the people who heard the Gospel believed in the message of the Lord, and they welcomed the truth of God in their hearts, and therefore they were saved.

However, in the other group, they refused to believe, and therefore the Word had no place in their hearts. They closed their hearts against the truth of God, and in their stubbornness, they had brought about their own downfall. God had freely offered His mercy, love and forgiveness, but if those people refused to accept them, then they would not be forgiven their sins and trespasses.

That was why the paralytic man was healed from his afflictions, because of his faith in God, Who made His good works true through Jesus His Son. He had sent His Son into the world in order to save it, and thus through Jesus, He had brought about His healing and forgiveness into the world. The paralytic man had been made whole in body and spirit, healed from his sickness and also forgiven from his sins.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law on the other hand, even though they were perfectly fine in the body, not afflicted by human diseases and weaknesses, but in their hearts, their sins remained. Sin is the disease of the soul, which gnaws away at our very being, and corrupting us from the inside out. This is why Jesus often rebuked them, at their impurities of their interior beings, while they insisted on outward appearances and exterior piety.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ask ourselves, are we open to receive God’s mercy and forgiveness? Or are we more like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who in their pride and greed refused to believe in the truth that Jesus our Lord had taught to all of them. They refused to acknowledge their sinfulness and wicked ways, and they adamantly refused to change their ways.

That is the attitude of those who have condemned themselves to an eternity of sufferings. Rather, as Christians, all of us should learn to be more like Christ, our Lord, following Him in His humility and obedience to the will of the Father. We should erase from our hearts all sorts of human pride and all the things that prevent us from finding the grace and forgiveness in God. And most importantly, we should be concerned for each other, helping one another to reject false ways and adhere to the true faith in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us should also follow the examples of today’s saint, St. Hilary of Poitiers. St. Hilary of Poitiers lived during the waning years of the Roman Empire, with the Christian community troubled by the heresy of Arianism, which had gained much traction amongst the people. The false teachings of Arius had misled many into the wrong paths, and there were many who adamantly refused to see the truth in the orthodox and true faith.

St. Hilary of Poitiers worked hard among the people, through his preaching and outreach to them, telling them the truth about God, and dispelling the falsehoods and the lies of Arianism and the other heresies of the faith. He devoted his time to bring the people who had been lost in the darkness that they may find their way back to the light of God, and to those who were still adamant against repentance, he rebuked them and cast them out from the Church.

He did not have it easy as he worked among the people to bring them back to the Church, as it was often that he faced rejection and ridicule, and he was even persecuted and people plotted against him. He had to endure humiliation and even exile in his life. As Christians, we should follow his good examples, and be inspired by his dedication to the Lord, and be like him in his desire to bring his brethren in faith back to the true way towards the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be good and faithful Christians like St. Hilary of Poitiers, devoting our life to the Lord, believing in Him and placing our complete trust in Him. Let us not be blinded by our pride and let us not be distracted by our human desires, but instead, let us do our best to help one another to remain true to our Lord and to His truth. May the Lord bless all of our endeavours. Amen.

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Friday, 13 January 2017 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)
Mark 2 : 1-12

At that time, after some days, Jesus returned to Capernaum. As the news spread that He was in the house, so many people gathered, that there was no longer room even outside the door. While Jesus was preaching the Word to them, some people brought a paralysed man to Him.

The four men who carried him could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened the roof above the room where Jesus was and, through the hole, lowered the man on his mat. When Jesus saw the faith of these people, He said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

Now some teachers of the Law, who were sitting there, wondered within themselves, “How can He speak like this, insulting God? Who can forgive sins except God?”

At once Jesus knew in His Spirit what they were thinking, and asked, “Why do you wonder? Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise, take up your mat and walk?’ But now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

And He said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take up your mat and go home.” The man rose and, in the sight of all those people, he took up his mat and went out. All of them were astonished and praised God, saying, “Never have we seen anything like this!”

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Friday, 13 January 2017 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)
Psalm 77 : 3 and 4bc, 6c-7, 8

Mysteries which we have heard and known, which our ancestors have told us. We will announce them to the coming generation : the glorious deeds of the Lord, His might and the wonders He has done.

They would teach their own children. They would then put their trust in God, and not forget His deeds and His commands.

And not be like their ancestors, stubborn and rebellious people, a people of inconstant heart whose spirit was fickle.