Friday

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Friday, 12 November 2021 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Wisdom 13 : 1-9

The natural helplessness of humans is seen in their ignorance of God. The experience of good things did not lead them to the knowledge of Him Who is. They were interested in His works, but they did not recognise the Author of them.

Fire, wind, air, the sphere of the stars, rushing water and the lights in the sky were held as the rulers of the world. If, charmed by such beauty, they took them for gods, let them know how far superior is their sovereign. And if they were impressed by their power and activity, let them understand from this how much mightier is He Who formed them. For the grandeur and beauty of creatures lead us to ponder on their Author, greater and more magnificent.

No doubt these people are not to be blamed severely, for possibly they strayed though they searched for God and desired to find Him. They pondered over the created things that surrounded them and were captivated by the sight of such beauty. Even so they are not to be excused, for if they were able to explore the world, why did they not discover first the world’s Sovereign?

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Friday, 5 November 2021 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all called and reminded to be prudent in how each and every one of us live our lives so that we do not end up falling into the temptations of pride and sin. We are called to remember that we live in this world to serve the Lord and not to serve our own selfish desires and greed, not for our own gain and benefits, but rather for the greater glory of God.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Rome, we heard of the Apostle speaking to them regarding the matter of serving God and all that he had done to glorify the Lord and to proclaim His truth among the nations. In that occasion, St. Paul told all of the people that everything that he had done, all the great deeds and hard works he had made and contributed, were all done for the greater glory of God, and when he boasted, he boasted not about himself or his own personal achievements. Rather, everything were done for the greater glory of God.

That was how St. Paul dedicated himself, his life and his efforts to serve the people of God, to bring more and more to follow the Lord and to know His truth, by going from place to place and reminding the people of the Lord’s truth and salvation. He always strived to seek the salvation of many, both Jews and Gentiles alike, reaching out to them and speaking courageously despite the challenges and trials that he had to go through, the opposition and persecution that he had to endure in the process, all those things he did not do for himself, but for God’s glory.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord speaking to His disciples using the parable of the dishonest steward, which may sound rather strange to us if we do not understand the context of what we have been hearing, and what actually the Lord intended to tell the people and His disciples using that parable. In that parable, we heard the Lord relating the story of a dishonest steward who was about to be dismissed from service because of his alleged mismanagement of his master’s property.

That dishonest steward is a representation of those who have been wicked and unfaithful, a rebuke and criticism which the Lord actually made against the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in an indirect manner, because they had acted in the same way as that dishonest steward. How is that so? That is because the dishonest steward who had been dishonest in his dealings and in his mismanagement, chose to commit even more vices and selfish deeds to preserve himself. In doing what he had done, he in fact had proven that what was alleged about him regarding his mismanagement was likely to be true.

The dishonest steward acted in order to enrich and take care of himself, and to advance his own desires and cause, and as he was about to be dismissed, he also thought about himself first and thinking how he could secure for himself a good life even after he was dismissed. That is exactly what happened when we allow ourselves to be misguided and led by our desires, our ego and our greed. All those things lead us down the slippery path of disobedience and sin, and just as the dishonest steward, we may end up doing more and more dishonest, unjust and evil actions to satisfy ourselves and our desires.

As Christians, all of us are reminded to distance ourselves from this attitude and way of life. Worldly things and matters like money and possessions by themselves are not inherently evil, but it is our desire and attachment to them which led us to disobey the Lord and to fall into the path of evil. As such, like St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle and as we have heard regarding his actions and works, first and foremost we have to seek the glory of God and focus ourselves on Him rather than to focus our attention on ourselves. We must strive not to indulge our ego and desires.

Let us all help one another in this, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we will not end up falling into the temptations and the allures of the evil one, in all of his many efforts to lead us to our downfall. Let us all help one another in focusing our attention and effort on the Lord. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us in our journey of faith, that we may remain faithful through life, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 5 November 2021 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 16 : 1-8

At that time, Jesus told His disciples, “There was a rich man, whose steward was reported to him because of fraudulent service. He summoned the steward and asked him, ‘What is this I hear about you? I want you to render an account of your service, for it is about to be terminated.'”

“The steward thought to himself, ‘What am I to do now? My master will surely dismiss me. I am not strong enough to do hard work, and I am ashamed to beg. I know what I will do : I must make sure that when I am dismissed, there will be people will welcome me into their homes.'”

“So he called his master’s debtors, one by one. He asked the first debtor, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ The reply was, ‘A hundred jars of oil.’ The steward said, ‘Here is your bill. Sit down quickly and write fifty.’ To the second debtor he put the same question, ‘How much do you owe?’ The answer was, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ Then the steward said, ‘Take your bill and write eighty.'”

“The master commended the dishonest steward for his astuteness : for the people of this world are more astute, in dealing with their own kind, than are the people of light.”

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Friday, 5 November 2021 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4

Sing to YHVH a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

YHVH has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love, nor His faithfulness to Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God’s saving power. All you, lands, make a joyful noise to YHVH, break into song and sing praise.

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Friday, 5 November 2021 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 15 : 14-21

As for me, brothers and sisters, I am convinced, that you have goodwill, knowledge, and the capacity to advise each other; nevertheless, I have written boldly in some parts of this letter, to remind you of what you already know. I do this, according to the grace God has given to me, when I was sent to the pagan nations. I dedicated myself to the service of the Good News of God, as a minister of Christ Jesus, in order to present the non-Jews to God, as an agreeable offering, consecrated by the Holy Spirit. This service of God is, for me, a cause of pride, in Christ Jesus.

Of course, I would not dare to speak of other things, but what Christ, Himself, has done, through me, my words and my works, with miracles and signs, by the power of the Holy Spirit – so, that, non-Jews may obey the faith. In this way, I have extended the Good News to all parts, from Jerusalem to Illyricum.

I have been very careful, however, and I am proud of this, not to preach in places where Christ is already known, and not to build upon foundations laid by others. Let it be as Scripture says : Those not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand.

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Friday, 29 October 2021 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all presented with the reality of what being a Christian is all about. To be a Christian means that we have to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and do what He has commanded us to do. We must seek the Lord and focus ourselves on Him alone, and our whole existence and our ways must reflect the fact that we belong to God, and God alone.

In our first reading today, we heard the words of St. Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome as he spoke out regarding the experiences he had as a Jewish convert to the Christian faith himself, in his ministry and works among the Jews and Gentiles all across the Mediterranean. St. Paul encountered difficulties and challenges, when there were those who refused to believe in Him and rejecting him, as well as happy and fruitful moments when the people were willing to listen to him and embrace God’s truth, from among the Jews and Gentiles alike.

What he mentioned in today’s first readings was comparing just how much more saddened and afraid he would be if he were to invoke God’s wrath and to be separated from Him as compared to how anguished he had been of having been treated badly by his own fellow Jewish countryman, many of whom treated him badly and accused him of wrongdoings in opposition to his courageous and sincere work in their midst, especially from those who were members of the Pharisees and all those who were sympathetic to their views and ideas.

Through what we have heard in St. Paul’s expression, it was clear that St. Paul wanted his own people, the Jews, or the descendants of the Israelites, God’s chosen people, to be saved and redeemed, and to follow the right path as shown by the Lord, but which was still resisted by many among them. And much of this resistance came about because of their stubborn attitude in adopting a strict interpretation of the Law, as we heard in our Gospel passage today, how the Pharisees took issue with the Lord performing His miracles and works on the Sabbath.

Many of the Pharisees held the view that the Lord Jesus was a false Messiah because He and His disciples disregarded the Law of the Sabbath or were breaking the Law, which they considered to be improper, and some among them even considered it downright blasphemous. As a result, they often opposed the Lord and tried to accuse Him of wrongdoing in various opportunities, and after His death and resurrection, since the Apostles and the other disciples continued these works, thus, the attention of the Pharisees and the Jewish authorities naturally turned towards them.

St. Paul himself was a former Pharisee who was called by the Lord, from a great persecutor of Christians turned to be one of its greatest champions and defender of the faith. That was likely why he was also saddened at the attitude of his former fellow Pharisees who continued to resist the truth of God and the works of those whom the Lord had entrusted His Church to, for their stubborn refusal to abandon or compromise their very strict interpretation of the Law, as well as their feeling of superiority against those whom they deemed to be less worthy than they were.

The Lord Himself in our Gospel passage today pointed out the folly of their arguments, as He showed that mankind cannot blindly follow the Law or interpret it in their own way without truly understanding the meaning and the purpose of the Law. God had intended the Law to be the guide and help for man to find their way to Himself, and yet, His people had instead become too fixated and focused on the applications and the practices of the Law which led to many of them obeying the Law for the sake of obeying it, or even making use of it to benefit themselves out of pride, ambition and desire.

This is why, today, through all that we have heard and discussed, we are all reminded that as Christians we have to do our best to keep ourselves away from the many temptations to follow our desires and the pleasures of worldliness, to be righteous and just, as the Lord our Master, our Father and Creator has been righteous and just. We are all called to put our trust and faith in Him, and persevere against the trials and challenges of worldly desires and the temptations of the devil and his fellow wicked forces. May God bless us all and may He strengthen each and every one of us to follow Him with all of our might and strength. Amen.

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Friday, 29 October 2021 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 14 : 1-6

At that time, on one Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and He was carefully watched.

In front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy; so Jesus asked the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?”

But no one answered. Jesus then took the man, healed him, and sent him away. And He said to them, “If your lamb or your ox falls into a well on a Sabbath day, who among you does not hurry to pull it out?” And they could not answer.

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Friday, 29 October 2021 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 147 : 12-13, 14-15, 19-20

Exalt YHVH, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.

He grants peace on your borders and feeds you with the finest grain. He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word.

It is He, Who tells Jacob His words; His laws and decrees, to Israel. This, He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them. Alleluia!

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Friday, 29 October 2021 : 30th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 9 : 1-5

I tell you, sincerely, in Christ, and my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit, that I am not lying : I have great sadness and constant anguish for the Jews. I would even desire, that, I myself, suffer the curse of being cut off from Christ, instead of my brethren : I mean, my own people, my kin.

They are Israelites, whom God adopted, and on them, rests His glory. Theirs, are the Covenants, the Law, the worship and the promises of God. They are descendants of the patriarchs, and from their race, Christ was born, He, Who, as God, is above all distinctions. Blessed be He forever and ever. Amen!

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Friday, 22 October 2021 : 29th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, all of us are reminded of the need for all of us to go forth and to proclaim the truth of God in all of our communities and to be inspiration for one another in faith, just as we look upon the inspirations of our many holy predecessors, those who have gone before us and whose lives have been exemplary, righteous and good, as beacons of God’s light and truth.

Today, we focus our attention on one of these faithful and courageous servants of God, namely that of Pope St. John Paul II, whom many of us surely knew very well. Many of us have known him when he was still in this world and being our Pope. His Pontificate of almost twenty-seven years was the longest in recent memory, and one of the longest overall, and therefore many of us have spent a significant period of time under his leadership as our Pope, Supreme Pontiff and Vicar of Christ.

No doubt that many of us may know quite a lot about Pope St. John Paul II, but I want us all to spend the time today to reflect on his life and actions, his life of service to God, of commitment and the courage which he had shown in opposing injustice and persecution of the Christian faith, his upholding of fundamental Christian values and teachings amidst the pressure of conflicting worldly agenda and corruption of worldly desires and sins, and in his great leadership of the entire Universal Church.

Pope St. John Paul II was born in Wadowice in Poland in the year of Our Lord 1920, just over a century ago. He was born into a loving and devout family in Poland, a country that had just then regained independence after over a century of oppression and conquest by its neighbouring countries. He was born as Karol Jozef Wojtyla, to a father who was an army officer and a mother who was a schoolteacher. He had an elder brother whom he adored and looked up to, who was a physician.

However, he had family tragedy early on in life, as he lost his family members one by one, his mother and then elder brother, before eventually his own father just right at the start of the Second World War. Nonetheless, the young Karol Wojtyla with the guidance of his friends and relatives, and his faith in the Lord, remained strong and courageous, even during those difficult years when Poland was engulfed in the midst of the great Second World War. He joined the seminary and went through formation during those difficult period, and having even suffered a close call to death.

And as the great war came to its end, the tyranny and persecution of the NAZI German reign was replaced by an equally oppressive regime installed by the Communists from the Soviet Union, a regime that would last for more than four decades and saw great sufferings for many of the Polish people. The future Pope was ordained a priest shortly after the end of the war and began his ministry in a country that has become officially atheist and hostile against the Christian Church and faith. As a young priest, Karol Wojtyla learnt to manoeuvre around the restrictions and oppressions while staying true to his faith.

Eventually, he was chosen and ordained as bishop, first as the Auxiliary Bishop of Krakow and eventually as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow, during which he was also instrumental in his role and participation during the Second Vatican Council. Then, in a public show of defiance against the Communist regime in Poland, the then Archbishop Wojtyla led the faithful in establishing the parish church in the town of Nowa Huta, which had been the proud project of the Communists as a new city in which no church would be present. He led the faithful in prayer and in putting the foundation for the church there, which after many years, was eventually completed about a decade later.

And then, by the grace of God, he was elected as the successor of St. Peter, succeeding Pope John Paul I, who had a short reign of just thirty-three days after another Pope, Pope St. Paul VI. Adopting the regnal name of his predecessor, Pope St. John Paul II then led the Church in an amazing period of twenty-seven years, in which not only that he led to the beginning of the downfall of Communism in many parts of the world, including in his own native Poland, where he led to a great rejuvenation of the faith and the Church, and inspired popular uprisings that eventually led to the downfall of the Communist regime.

In the matter of faith and Church teachings, Pope St. John Paul II was instrumental in the stabilisation of the situation following the Second Vatican Council and was remarkable in his efforts and stance against the tide of relativism and attempts to change Church teachings. He led the Church into the third millennium and through his years of suffering and perseverance, he inspired many of the people of God to remain faithful and true to God, even amidst great sufferings they experienced in life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we recall the great life and the amazing faith which Pope St. John Paul II has shown us, all of us are encouraged to follow his good examples and we are all called to walk in his footsteps, in following what he has done in being faithful, as a successor of St. Peter, to whom the Lord Jesus had entrusted His flock and people in our Gospel passage today. Pope St. John Paul II had committed himself to the mission entrusted to him, and we ourselves should live our lives fulfilling the missions that each and every one of us have as Christians.

Let us all be great and exemplary role models for one another, and let us be filled with faith and love for God. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us in our respective journey in life, and may He bless our every good works, efforts and endeavours, all for His greater glory, now and always. Amen.