Glorious Easter

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Sunday, 2 June 2019 : Seventh Sunday of Easter, World Communications Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the seventh one in the season of Easter, we also celebrate the occasion of the World Communications Sunday, and this is important because as Christians, all of us are called to communicate first of all, to God our heavenly Father, and then to one another, engaging each other in meaningful and Christ-centric conversations and dialogues.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus praying before His disciples to His Father in heaven, highlighting the very reason we celebrate this World Communications Sunday. Prayer is a form of communication, and when it is done right, prayer can be a very intimate and a form of a very close contact between us and God. In prayer, we do not just talk or speak what we want or ask God to grant us our desires, but instead, we open ourselves, our heart, our mind and our whole being to God.

And this is what the essence of prayer is all about. The Lord Jesus prayed frequently and regularly to His Father, speaking with Him and being fully attuned to His will. He showed us all what it means to be having true and genuine communication with God, which all of us should also be having, a genuine and active communication with our Lord, Father and Creator. Without prayer and communication with God, how can we know what it is that God wants us to do with our lives?

That lack of genuine connection and communication with God was the very reason why many of us mankind living in this world have not been attuned to God and His ways. If we have been attuned to God’s will and thoughts, then what happened in our first reading today would not have happened in the first place. In that occasion, we heard of how the faithful servant of God, St. Stephen suffered at the hands of his persecutors, who struck at him and refused to listen to the truth he has preached to them.

At that time, the Church was still at its very beginning stage, and there were many of the people who had misconceptions and misinterpretations on what the Church and its teachings were all about. The Jewish authorities, the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council, many of the priestly class and the Pharisees opposed the works of the Lord and His Apostles, refusing to listen to what they have passionately spoken about, and insisting on their own ideas and thoughts.

And why all these happened? It is because of mankind’s own pride and ego, their refusal to let go of their selfishness and their own sense of superiority, the pride and ego which affected their way of thinking and their thoughts. They maintained that they were right and did things according to the way that they thought was right, even though the Lord had tried to open up their minds and reach out to them, through His many messengers and servants.

That was why when St. Stephen preached to them filled with the Holy Spirit, revealing before them the truth of God and how God had prepared everything and provided everything for His people from the very beginning, they took offence at his words and became very angry, because they were stirred in their pride and ego. They refused to admit that they could have been wrong and mistaken, or that there could be another truth besides what they have always held to be right.

Many of them were outwardly pious, praying and showing their devotions in public. But the Lord Himself criticised these people earlier on, saying how many of them were hypocrites in faith, as they did not have true and genuine faith in God. They did what they have done because they wanted to be seen and therefore praised by the people for their piety and actions. The Lord did not have a central place in their hearts and minds.

That was why they were not attuned to God’s truth, and their thoughts and ways were discordant and wayward. They did not have a good communication and connection with God, and as a result, they were not attuned and aligned with the truth of God and His will. And that is why even among us Christians, there are many of us who do not have a good and healthy communication and relationship with God.

Many of us take our faith for granted, and taking for granted the love and compassion that God has for each and every one of us. We do not pray in the right way, as we pray like the Pharisees, with ulterior motives and desires, in wanting to gain something, focusing on ourselves and our selfish desires and our pride instead of on God. The true essence of prayer is one of genuine communication with God, where instead of us being someone who demand of God taking action in doing something for us, we become active communicators with God.

And this means for us to open our hearts, minds and our entire being to the Lord so that not only that we can speak our hearts and minds to God, Who knows everything that are in them, but also that God may speak in the depth and in the silence of our own hearts and minds, that He may stir in us the knowledge of His truth, and grant us wisdom and understanding of His ways. This is in essence what each and every one of us as Christians must do.

But that is not all, as first of all, of course we must be attuned to God, through a good and living relationship with God, but then we must also live our faith through good communication with our fellow brethren, by being authentic witnesses of our faith. Our Christian faith is one of evangelisation and exemplary actions, as all of us have been commanded and sent forth by God, in the last commandment He gave to us all, the Great Commission He has entrusted to us, His Church.

And that Great Commission is that all of us are sent into the world, to call all the people, of all races and origins, of all backgrounds and ways, to be true believers in God, the loving Father and Creator of all things. And the best way to communicate is often not through words, as we may think that in order to be witnesses to our faith we must be very good speakers and be inspirational and charismatic in all the things we do. No, brothers and sisters in Christ, what we need to do is in fact simple things, our everyday actions and all the things we do in our dealings with one another.

That means, in how we interact with each other, with our fellow brethren, we must always keep in mind what it means for us to be Christians. God must be at the centre and be the focus of all the things we say and do. And if God is at the centre of our lives and our relationship with Him is good, through genuine prayers as we mentioned and discussed earlier, then we will grow more attuned to Him in our lives and actions. And naturally, we will gradually become more and more reflective of God’s love and wonders in our own lives and actions.

Let us all therefore be great communicators in our own ways, as how God wants us to be, in what He has blessed us with, our abilities and respective talents. Let us all be exemplary in our lives, so that by our every words and actions we may become true and genuine witnesses of the Lord. May God bless us all in our efforts and in everything we say and do. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 June 2019 : Seventh Sunday of Easter, World Communications Sunday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 17 : 20-26

At that time, Jesus prayed to God His Father, “I pray not only for these, but also for those who through their word will believe in Me. May they all be one, as You Father are in Me and I am in You. May they be one in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.”

“I have given them the glory You have given Me, that they may be one as We are One : I in them and You in Me. Thus they shall reach perfection in unity; and the world shall know that You have sent Me, and that I have loved them, just as You loved Me.”

“Father, since You have given them to Me, I want them to be with Me where I am, and see the glory You gave Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these have known that You have sent Me.”

“As I revealed Your Name to them, so will I continue to reveal it, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and also may be in them.”

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Sunday, 2 June 2019 : Seventh Sunday of Easter, World Communications Sunday (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Revelations 22 : 12-14, 16-17, 20

I am coming soon, bringing with Me the recompense I will pay to each one, according to his deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. Happy are those who wash their robes, for they will have free access to the tree of life, and enter the city through the gates.

I, Jesus, sent My Angel, to make known to you these revelations concerning the churches. I am the Shoot, and Offspring of David, the radiant Morning Star. The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come!” Whoever hears, let him say, “Come!” Whoever thirsts, let him approach, and whoever desires, let him freely take the water of life.

He Who has declared all this says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus.

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Sunday, 2 June 2019 : Seventh Sunday of Easter, World Communications Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 96 : 1 and 2b, 6 and 7c, 9

YHVH reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the distant islands be glad. Justice and right, are His throne.

The heavens proclaim His justice, all peoples see His glory. Let all spirits bow before Him.

For You are the Master of the universe, exalted far above all gods.

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Sunday, 2 June 2019 : Seventh Sunday of Easter, World Communications Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 7 : 55-60

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, fixed his eyes on heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus at God’s right hand, so he declared : “I see the heavens open and the Son of Man at the right hand of God.”

But they shouted and covered their ears with their hands and rushed together upon him. They brought him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning him, Stephen prayed saying : “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Then he knelt down and said in a loud voice : “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” And when he had said this, he died.

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Saturday, 1 June 2019 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture reminding us all of the truth which all of us have received from none other than God Himself, through the very words of Our Lord Jesus as written in the Scriptures and through the inspiration given to the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord by the Holy Spirit. Through this truth, we have received the true meaning of what it means for us to be followers of the Lord.

In the first reading today we heard about the passion and the courage by which Apollos, one of the Lord’s disciples, went about many places making testimonies and preachings, leveraging on his great charisma and popularity to attract many people to the faith. Although Apollos did not have the full knowledge of the truth, but his passion and commitment to do what the Lord had called him to do was truly remarkable.

And we heard how some of the disciples came to Apollos and instructed him in the fullness of the truth as passed onto them by the Apostles and through the Holy Spirit. This was exactly what the Lord Jesus mentioned in the Gospel passage we heard today, of the moment when He would reveal everything to His disciples and no longer speaking in veiled language and parables.

The Lord revealed His truth to His disciples and by sending them the Holy Spirit, He explained the meaning of this truth, which was then preserved through the Church, by the hard work and the commitment of the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord, who committed themselves to the propagation of the truth and the conservation of those same truths as recorded in the Scriptures and supplemented by the Apostolic traditions of the Church.

When the Apostles and the disciples went on with their evangelisation and missionary works, they stood up for the truth of God, even in the midst of opposition from the world, from all those who did not want the truth to be propagated. And many of them had to suffer and endure persecutions because of their defense of those truths. They went to prison, were tortured and not few were martyred for their faith.

Today, we celebrate the feast of one of those many martyrs of the truth of God. St. Justin the Martyr was a renowned Roman martyr and saint who was one of the early teachers of the faith who was once an intelligent pagan that has great eloquence in knowledge and philosophy. He became a Christian when he encountered an old Syrian Christian man who opened his eyes and mind to the truth of God.

From then on, St. Justin rededicated himself to the service of the Lord and made use of his great intellectual skills and knowledge to the purpose of the propagation of the Christian truth and faith. Many more people were themselves converted to the truth of God through the many works of St. Justin, as he travelled from places to places spreading God’s truth to everyone whom he encountered.

He was imprisoned and made to suffer by his enemies, the pagan philosophers who opposed him and sent him to the Roman authorities who tortured him and some other of the saints, eventually ended with his beheading. But even through his suffering and martyrdom, St. Justin continued to inspire many more people and more of the faithful throughout the centuries, to remain strongly attached and to stand by the truth of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? Are we able and willing to stand up to the truth of God in the same way as St. Justin and many of our committed predecessors had done? We ourselves have received the same truth from God through His Church, and just as the Apostles and the disciples had laboured hard in order to continue the spreading of the truth, we too have the same charge and responsibility to do the same.

Let us all devote ourselves anew therefore to the way of the Lord’s truth, by being sincere and being as committed as possible, in all the things we say and do, to be exemplary in everything we act so that everyone who witness us, our words and all of our actions will see God’s truth being fully alive and shown in our own lives and actions. May God be by our side always and strengthen us in our faith and in our understanding of His truth. Amen.

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Saturday, 1 June 2019 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

John 16 : 23b-28

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My Name, He will give you. So far you have not asked in My Name; ask, and receive, that your joy may be full.”

“I taught you all this in veiled language, but the time is coming when I shall no longer speak in veiled language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. When that day comes, you will ask in My Name; and it will not be for Me to ask the Father for you, for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and you believe that I came from the Father.”

“As I came from the Father, and have come into the world, so I am leaving the world, and going to the Father.”

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Saturday, 1 June 2019 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 46 : 2-3, 8-9, 10

Clap your hands, all you peoples; acclaim God with shouts of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared; He is a great King all over the earth.

God is King of all the earth; sing to Him a hymn of praise. For God now rules over the nations, God reigns from His holy throne.

The leaders of the nations rally together with the people of the God of Abraham. For in His hands are the great of the earth, God reigns far above.

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Saturday, 1 June 2019 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Acts 18 : 23-28

After spending some time at Antioch, Paul left and travelled from place to place through Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening the disciples. A certain Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, arrived at Ephesus. He was an eloquent speaker and an authority on the Scriptures, and he had some knowledge of the way of the Lord.

With great enthusiasm he preached and taught correctly about Jesus, although he knew only of John’s baptism. As he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, Priscilla and Aquila heard him; so they took him home with them and explained to him the way more accurately.

As Apollos wished to go to Achaia, the believers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he greatly strengthened those who, by God’s grace, had become believers, for he vigorously refuted the Jews, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Messiah.

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Friday, 31 May 2019 : Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we all celebrate the Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of Our Lord and God, Jesus Christ. On this day we recall the moment when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea, upon hearing how her elderly cousin had miraculously become pregnant with a child as told to her by the Archangel Gabriel.

In the occasion celebrated today, the essence of it is the joyful expectation of the coming of God’s salvation to His people, the fulfilment of His promise and the affirmation of His love for His people, after a long awaited period of expectation and waiting for the coming of the light of salvation to the world filled with suffering and darkness. The Lord revealed His salvation to all of His people not in glorious way, but through a humble woman coming to visit another elderly woman.

God fulfilled His promise in sending His Saviour, in the womb of this holy woman, a humble and unknown virgin from a small Galilean village of Nazareth, a most unlikely source of God’s salvation and work, and yet, that was the reality of what had happened. God came into this world not as a mighty conqueror or a triumphant King, but rather, as a humble Child borne by a humble and simple woman from humble and unknown origins.

Ultimately, in the end, this proves a very important point that God did not do His works by human might, power and means, but by His own power and mysterious ways. And that was exactly how God worked His wonders and salvation to all of us. He has done everything He wanted to do, so that all of us might be saved and receive from Him the assurance of eternal life and glory.

In our Gospel passage today, we listened to the words of Mary, in a song she sang when filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit. This song is known today as the Magnificat, a great song of praise and glorification, a song of great thanksgiving and submission to God. Mary essentially summarised all that God had done for each and every one of us, showing us His love and His faithfulness, that He will not abandon us even when we are in great need.

God has always been faithful to us, and He gave us everything we need, and the greatest of His many gifts is none other than the gift of His own Son, Our Lord Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour. And in the Visitation, it was symbolic of God coming into our midst, even when He was still in the womb of His mother Mary, and the response that St. John the Baptist, who was also in Elizabeth’s womb, should be the same response that we have as well.

St. John the Baptist, even as a baby, recognised his Lord and Master, and was so joyful, leaping with joy in his mother’s womb. This joy was the same joy that Mary felt and expressed in her song, in the great love and providence which God has given His people, in not leaving them behind in their fate and in the darkness of the world. The Lord Who loves and provides has become the source of all of our joy and happiness.

Unfortunately, in our world today, many of us cannot recognise God’s presence and His love for us. We tend to seek those who give us worldly joy and happiness, seeking comfort in money, power, human praise, glorification and pleasures of the flesh, that distract us from being able to recognise God being present in our midst and in our lives. Are we then able to resist these temptations of the false and temporary, worldly joys, and instead seek the true comfort of God?

Let us all be firm in our faith and in our hope, knowing that God is always watching over us and protecting us, providing us with all that we need. Let us all strive to be ever more committed and draw ever closer to the Lord, from now on, with a new commitment and courage. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.