fruits

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Thursday, 9 May 2013 : Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today is Ascension day, a very important day in our faith, because today we celebrate a central tenet of our faith. That is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is resurrected on the third day after dying on the cross for the salvation of all  mankind, but that today, most importantly, we celebrate the glorification of God, in which Christ, who had descended to this world as a humble man, returns to His glory in heaven as the divine God.

For Christ, our Messiah and our Lord, is both fully man and fully divine at the same time, with both of His human and divine nature united indivisibly in a mysterious and holy link that is beyond our best understanding. In Christ, who had been made incarnate to be a lowly human like us through His birth in Mary, His mother, lies our salvation, and our only hope.

Because, Christ, who is the Lamb of God, gave up Himself to be the sacrifice for the sake of our sins, just as God instructed the people of Israel to sacrifice unblemished lambs to erase their sins and their unworthiness before God. Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God is not merely unblemished, but also perfect, and as the only perfect and worthy sacrifice to take away all the sins of the world, once and for all, through the sacrifice He made on Calvary.

We celebrate this every time we celebrate the Mass, in which the bread and the wine that we offer are truly turned into the Precious Body and the Precious Blood of the Lamb, which He Himself had offered to His disciples at His last supper, so that He will continue to live in them, and therefore remain within us, that He will be within us, and therefore belong to Him and the Father. We have all been mark as His own, and we will not be lost, as long as we keep Him ever in our hearts, and invoke Him in all our actions.

He may be no longer with us in physical form, because He was indeed taken up to heaven with His glorious Ascension, when He parted ways from His disciples and left physically this world, but He actually remains with us, within all of us, that we are empowered with His presence. He granted us the Holy Spirit, the Helper, which came to the Apostles at Pentecost, and from them, the Holy Spirit is passed down to us, with the Sacrament of Baptism and strengthened at Confirmation, the fire of the spirit is burning with us, the living symbol of Christ’s presence within each one of us.

This Spirit that we have within each of us will stay dormant if we do not do anything to make use of the gifts that the Spirit had granted within each of us. Yes, all of us have the power and ability to make the difference, in our own lives, and in the lives of many of those who are around us. The Spirit has planted within us the seeds of faith and love, and these seeds will not sprout unless we provide them with ever greater faith and love, that can only be provided through solid and true actions made in the name of the Lord, and reflecting that we truly are God’s children.

If we allow the Holy Spirit to grow within us and use our beings to bring about love and peace in both ourselves and those around us, it will allow us to grow and bear much fruit, fruits of love and blessings, the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Christ who was taken up on Ascension will come again as He promised all of us, in His Second Coming, which is coming soon. When He comes again, He will see if we, the plants that He, the seed spreader, had grown to the results that He wants.

If we do not bear any fruit, like that of the barren tree, He would destroy us and curse us, because we have not bear any fruit, despite having been planted with seeds of faith. Just like those who had been given money by the master to be invested, but wasted the money in idleness, and did not invest it to let the value of the money to grow for profits. In this, the love that God had given us had become useless, because love cannot just remain within ourselves, because love is between us and another party, and remember that the Lord Himself had commanded us to love both Himself, and our fellow brethren.

The Lord Himself has told us that to love the least and weakest of our brethren, we have loved Him. That is why to just love the Lord alone, is in fact not sufficient, because this love that we have is not perfect, and can only be made perfect by us also loving our fellow brethren, particularly those who lacks, and those who are weakest and persecuted. Therefore, only in living our faith, and using the gifts that the Holy Spirit has placed in us that we can truly bear fruit and be found worthy when Christ once again comes into this world to judge it.

He will welcome and congratulate us, if we had done what we can to fulfill His wishes and His commandments. He will say to us, “Well done, My faithful servants. Come and take your rightful place at My Kingdom.” But if we do not make use of the chance we have now, and waste it on idleness, or worse, that is to spurn God’s love and Spirit, and indulge instead in the worldly temptations and pleasures and the world of hatred, we would be banished by the Lord from His presence, because we will be found unworthy of Him.

The Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ therefore, serves also as a reminder. Indeed, we rejoice in His glorification and ascension in heaven, to take up His rightful place at the right hand of the Father, but as the angels had said to the disciples on that day, that Christ will come again and that time when He comes again, He will judge the world and gather His faithful ones to Himself while banishing those who strayed from His way, together with Satan and his fallen angels, into the eternal damnation that awaits them.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us not be complacent, and let us strive to be always ready for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, which indeed will come soon, and will come at a time when many are at their most unprepared moments. Do not be caught unprepared, and let us make sure that all of us, from now on, put Christ at the very centre of our lives, and reflect Christ in all our thoughts, our words, and our actions, that we show that we belong to Christ and to Him alone.

Love one another and love God with all our hearts, our minds, and our beings. Put our trust completely in Him, and let Him transform us with His Holy Spirit, and bear much fruit in us, the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Remember that Christ ascended to heaven, is always within all of us, with all of us serving as the Holy Temples of His Divine Presence. May God be with all of us, always, till the end of time. Amen.

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Sunday, 21 April 2013 : 4th Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, World Day of Prayer for Vocations (50th Anniversary) (Scripture Reflection)

It is always sad when we hear about those who reject the Lord, and who refused to believe in God and His message through Christ our Lord, who had died on the cross and risen, and had shown Himself to many of the faithful, that many would have hope of eternal life in God. That was exactly what happened during the mission of St. Paul to the faithful in the pagan lands of Antioch and beyond, when the Jews, blinded in their hatred and jealousy, spread falsehood and lies in rejection of the Lord.

God is our Lord, and He is our shepherd, the Good Shepherd, who laid down His life for His sheep. He died on the cross, as our shepherd, that we, who are His sheep, may gain life through Him, and that the wolves, led by Satan, would not be able to attack us and snatch us from His hands. He as our shepherd gave Himself in sacrifice to the hands of the agents of Satan, so that we would be safe and would live.

As Christ had said to the disciples and to the people in His teaching, that His sheep would know Him, just like the sheep knows the true shepherd, and not those paid to be shepherds or the thief, He said that to show that all of us who truly believe in Him and those who belong to Him would recognise Him as their shepherd, their Lord, and God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our world today, there are many false shepherds who would want to deceive the faithful and lead the sheep of the Lord away from the true path and pasture of the Lord. There are many temptations and evil in this world, that shake even faithful shepherds that the Lord had chosen for His sheep, His people. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, be careful, that we will not fall into the trap of Satan that he sprang through his false agents and prophets, proclaiming falsehood instead of truth.

Today, we mark the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, and it is indeed appropriate, for the Fourth Sunday of Easter is also Good Shepherd Sunday, and priests, who we pray for today, and those aspiring to the priesthood and service of the Lord had been chosen by the Lord as shepherds for His people. Today happened to be the fiftieth anniversary of this prayer day, which was promulgated in 1963, during the Second Vatican Council.

Sadly, in recent decades, we saw the vocations to the priesthood in rapid decline, and the number of priests often no longer sufficient to serve all the needs of the faithful as it was in the past. Imagine a large flock of sheep with a single, poor shepherd to herd all of them and guide them! It is not an impossible task for them to do, but certainly many of our priests are burdened with ever greater task, both to administer to the growing number of the faithful in Christ, and on the other side, to combat the rising secularism and evils in our world today.

We need more good, holy, faithful, and dedicated priests to harvest the good harvest of the Lord, which had been bountiful in the wake of the evangelisation attempts of the past decades, especially in Asia and Africa, where our Church is rapidly growing, and with more and more people turning towards the Lord. The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the labourers are few. But the laity too can play a part in providing support to our shepherd priests in various ways and means available to us.

Parents should cultivate good faith and morale in their children, that they will grow up to be good and devoted children of God. Then in the future, these children will become good husbands and wives, caring for one another in love, and for their children. And if God wills it, some of those would be called to serve Him and the people of God either through the sacred priesthood or religious life.

We who are parents should be happy if one of our children are chosen by God to be His shepherds to guide His flock. The community too should provide care and support, ensuring that the children would grow up in a fertile soil for their faith, that would allow them later to be dedicated, faithful, and obedient shepherd of the flock of the Lord. Do not be judgmental and prevent your children from choosing the path of vocation, as if it is the Lord’s will that this happens, you will be against God yourself.

Many of us are too fixated with achievements in life, and therefore, placed too much emphasis on results and material possessions. This is one very major reason, especially in Asia, why many parents oppose, either openly or discreetly, on their children’s decisions to dedicate themselves to God. We are too fixated on the idea of our children’s success, which we often attribute to wealth and possessions, and affluence, to the point that we often dismiss priesthood as a ‘career’ that has no prospect, and therefore is not for our children to take.

There was a story of a young man who was rejected from entering the seminary, just because the decision to enter the seminary was not his own, but his own parents’, who decided that because he was rather ‘useless’ in life and unable to achieve anything of good, he should be entering the seminary and become a priest instead. While this may not be true anymore today, but I am sure, many of us whose children are aspirants to the priesthood and religious life are reluctant to ‘let them go’ because of reasons similar to the one mentioned.

Our priests and those who serve the Lord must be of good quality, well prepared and trained, and also having a good intellect and knowledge, both of the faith and the vocation which he is about to embark into, but most importantly, they must be dedicated, loving, and faithful, to God, and to His children to whom they are about to give themselves entirely to, as the bride of the Church of God.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, as we commemorate this Good Shepherd Sunday, and the fiftieth anniversary of the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, let us take a step back and reflect, that many of us are called to serve the Lord, in various ways, some of us as laity, and others as priests and servants of the Lord, through the Church.

Let us not say no to the Lord, and let us not close our hearts and our minds to His calling. Let us open ourselves fully to God’s love, and allow Him to lead us in our path, that we will be able to maximise the life that we had been granted, that in this life, we would be able to improve the life of others, through prayer and service, and through dedication into works of love, for the sake of our most beloved brethren.

Pray for one another, and pray for more vocations in the Church, pray for more good and holy priests to serve the Lord and His people, and never cease to continue our own roles and works in helping one another, physically and spiritually. When we see a growing vocation, let us support instead of chastising or badmouthing the person to the point that such a potential be wasted. Trust in the Lord, and do not worry, for God will take care of everything. He is our shepherd, and He cares for us. He will not leave us hungry nor thirsty, because by His death and resurrection, He gave us an eternal spring and bread of life. Amen.

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(Easter Vigil) Saturday, 30 March 2013 : Easter Vigil of the Resurrection of the Lord, Holy Week (First Reading)

Genesis 1 : 1 – Genesis 2 : 2

In the beginning, when God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth had no form and was void; darkness was over the deep and the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.

God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. God saw that the light was good and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light ‘Day; and the darkness ‘Night’. There was evening and there was morning : the first day.

God said, “Let there be a firm ceiling between the waters and let it separate waters from waters.” So God made the ceiling and separated the waters below it from the waters above it. And so it was. God called the firm ceiling ‘Sky’. There was evening and there was morning : the second day.

God said, “Let the waters below the sky be gathered together in one place and let dry land appear.” And so it was. God called the dry land ‘Earth’ , and the waters gathered together He called ‘Seas’. God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let the earth produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants, fruittrees bearing fruit with seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And so it was. The earth produced vegetation : plants bearing seed according to their kind and trees producing fruit which has seed, according to their kind. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning : the third day.

God said, “Let there be lights in the ceiling of the sky to separate day from night and to serve as signs for the seasons, days, and years; and let these lights in the sky shine above the earth.” And so it was. God therefore made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day and the smaller light to govern the night; and God made the stars as well. God placed them in the ceiling of the sky to give light on the earth and to separate the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning : the fourth day.

God said, “Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth under the ceiling of the sky.” God created the great monsters of the sea and all living animals, those that teem in the waters, according to their kind, and every winged bird, according to its kind. God saw that it was good. God blessed them saying, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds increase on the earth.” There was evening and there was morning : the fifth day.

God said, “Let the earth produce living animals according to their kind : cattle, creatures that move along the ground, wild animals according to their kind.” So it was. God created the wild animals according to their kind, and everything that creeps along the ground according to its kind. God saw that it was good.

God said, “Let us make man in Our image, to Our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the cattle, over the wild animals, and over all creeping things that crawl along the ground.” So God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky, over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

God said, “I have given you every seed-bearing plant which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree that bears fruit with seed. It will be for your food. To every wild animal, to every bird of the sky, to everything that creeps along the ground, to everything that has the breath of life, I give every green plant for food.” So it was.

God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. There was evening and there was morning : the sixth day.

That was the way the sky and earth were created and all their vast array. By the seventh day the work God had done was completed, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work He had done.

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Thursday, 28 February 2013 : 2nd Week of Lent (First Reading)

Jeremiah 17 : 5-10

That is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”

“Blessed is the man who puts his trust in YHVH and whose confidence is in Him! He is like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots towards the stream. He has no fear when the heat comes, his leaves are always green; the year of drought is no problem and he can always bear fruit.”

“Most deceitful is the heart. What is there within man, who can understand him? I, YHVH, search the heart and penetrate the mind. I reward each one according to his ways and the fruit of his deeds.”