Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)
Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4
Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.
The Lord 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 the Lord, break into song and sing praise.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)
Romans 1 : 1-7
From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, an apostle called and set apart for God’s Good News, the very promises He foretold through His prophets in the Sacred Scriptures, regarding His Son, who was born in the flesh a descendant of David, and has been recognised as the Son of God endowed with Power, upon rising from the dead through the Holy Spirit.
Through Him, Jesus Christ, our Lord, and for the sake of His Name, we received grace and mission in all the nations, for them to accept the faith. All of you, the elected of Christ, are part of them, you, the beloved of God in Rome, called to be holy : May God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, give you grace and peace.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are ever reminded of the love and kindness that God has shown us all these while. We are also reminded of the love and dedication that God has for us, by sending a deliverance to us in His Son, Jesus Christ. We are then finally reminded of the promise of salvation and eternal joy that He had made with us, through the covenant, the new covenant sealed by the Blood of His Son Jesus on the cross.
That everlasting joy, the happiness that never ends will be ours, if we remain faithful to the Lord, and if we are consistent in our commitment to the Lord and His cause. If we do so, we will receive rich rewards in the end, while those who diverge from the path of righteousness and turned their backs to the Lord, they will be damned to eternal suffering in hell.
However, brothers and sisters in Christ, we must not be focused too much on the rewards and punishments that await us at the end of our lives. Our love for the Lord must not be because of our fear of punishment or indeed because we desire rewards from the Lord. In that manner, our love and devotion to the Lord must be really genuine and pure, without any hidden desires or purposes.
The Lord rewards the just and all those who keep His commandments, staying true to His laws and words, tempted not by the worldly pleasures and evils. He loves us dearly and wants us to remain in His grace. He is loving and forgiving, caring for all of us. But if we divert from the path of the Lord, and walk in the land of the wicked, His anger will be upon us.
But the Lord is angry at us not because He does not love us, but precisely because He cares for all of us with all of His heart. He sent us prophets and helpers along time, and all these times, He had given much of His attention to us, that we can be saved, and be worthy of Him, and not fall into eternal suffering of death.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often that we spurned God’s eternal love for us. It is often that we turned away from His loving embrace, from His light, as we prefer darkness to the light of God. In the darkness of the pleasures of this world, we find the false guide and the false light, and we spurned God’s love and God’s care for all of us.
Therefore, brethren, let us renew our commitment to the Lord, to be loving children of God, loving one another and loving He who is our Father, promising that we will keep true to His words and His proclamations, casting away all that is evil from our lives and doing good at all times, giving love to our fellow men. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Joel 4 : 12-21
Rise up, o peoples, and come to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, nations. Bring a sickle for the harvest is ripe; come and tread for the winepress is full and the vats overflow, so great is their wickedness!
Multitudes and more multitudes in the Valley of Verdict! The day of YHVH is near in the Valley of Verdict! The sun and the moon become dark, the stars lose their radiance. YHVH roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth are shaken. Indeed YHVH is a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the Israelites.
You will know that I am YHVH, your God, dwelling on Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be a holy place, and foreigners will never pass through there again. On that day the mountains shall drip wine and the hills flow with milk; all the streams of Judah will run with water and a fountain will spring from the House of YHVH, and water the valley of Shittim.
On the other hand, Egypt will be devastated and Edom will become a deserted wasteland because they committed violence against Judah, and shed innocent blood in their country. But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem through all generations. And I shall avenge their blood and not leave it unpunished, for YHVH dwells in Zion.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are urged to be vigilant and ever trusting in God our Lord and Saviour. That we will remain faithful to Him and uphold ever strongly His commandments and laws within our hearts, anchoring ourselves within His love, so that the power of Satan will no longer prevail over us.
Christ had come into the world to save mankind from the hands of evil, and through His own death on the cross and His glorious resurrection, He had snatched us away from the hands of the enemy, and cast away the evil spirits and the demons that resided within each one of us, the spirits of temptation, lust, desire, greed, pride, sloth, and the spirits of other sinfulness. These Christ had cast out of us who believe in Him and who had been baptised and accepted into His Church.
But this does not mean that forever we will be out of danger, and that by the faith we had in Christ when we were saved is enough for us, and we need not do anything anymore. Some may argue that did Christ not say that we are saved by our faith, or citing the example of those who had been saved by faith? Then why do we need to do something even after we are saved?
That is because, brethren, our faith in God is not a dead faith and neither it is constant. A faith that is not supported with concrete actions of love, compassion, kindness, and dedication to God and fellow men is just as good as dead, or at least a dying faith. This kind of faith is not what the Lord wants from each one of us. What He wants from us is that faith which is living and dynamic, which is shown through our love, in our actions, that shows to the Lord our God, that our faith in Him is genuine and enduring, and not just mere words and promises!
After all, brothers and sisters in Christ, as unfaithful and rebellious we and our ancestors were, God did not turn away from His love towards us, and He constantly looked upon us with utmost mercy and compassion. And He who is ever faithful did not lie or offer false promises when He promised salvation, an eternal salvation and freedom from the powers of death and evil to our ancestors.
He made it truly a concrete and undeniable promise, through the coming of Himself, through Jesus His Son, the Word of God made flesh, into this world. That He was willing to come down upon us, to be one like us, to be the teacher of faith and love to us, and finally to die on the cross for our sake, were proof enough of His everlasting faith and love for us. If He had done so, we whom He had chosen to be His children, should also then do the same.
Satan, our former jailer and slave master, is not happy with us being released from our bondage to him and to sin. That is precisely what the death and resurrection of Christ had done for us. The evil one, ever mischievous and evil, does not give up on us, but instead intensified his attacks on us, sending evil spirits and temptations along our way, to turn us from the Lord, and make us betray the covenant we have made and renewed with God.
When we were baptised and accepted into the Church, we had been made clean, from our former dirty state. The waters of baptism cleanses us from the filth of sin within us, and God came to reside within each one of us saved in the Lord. However, as Christ Himself mentioned, that the evil spirit who left someone and then return, finding a clean room inside us, will be bound to come with more vicious evil spirits to destroy us, and to make us even worse than before.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, from today on, we ought to heed the warnings God had given us through Jesus our Lord, that we will not be swayed by the forces and temptations of Satan, and that we will keep strong the fortress of faith that is our heart and our body, that we will never again allow the spirits of wickedness, that is the evil spirits, to ever come again into us and reside within us.
Instead, let us affirm our love and dedication for the Lord our God, through whom we had been made clean and worthy of the eternal glory of heaven. Let Jesus Christ our Lord be the Master of our house, that is our body, heart, and soul, and not Satan the deceiver. Cast him out of our house and welcome instead the loving and compassionate Lord our God. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord is loving and merciful, and He desires nothing from us other than our love and total dedication to Him, and that is what He told Martha, on the love and dedication Mary her sister had for Him. And that is also what He truly desired from the people of Nineveh, that they abandoned their sinful ways and instead took the bold steps towards redemption and salvation.
For many of us, brethren in Christ, are like Martha, who are too busy for the Lord, busy with all the activities that we have, busy with all the things of the world, that we forget about the most important of all, that is loving Christ and giving of ourselves to Him, through our dedication and love. We revel much in the pleasures of the world and gave ourselves in, to the temptations of the devil.
We are so busy and so preoccupied in what we are doing, that we lost sight of the true goal that we have in life, and sadly, many of us are like Martha, whose intention is actually good, in wanting to serve and provide for the Lord, through her service, but became too preoccupied in the rigour of the work, that the work and business take precedence over loving our Lord and God.
We also tend to be like the people of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire, who lived in sin and basked in their sinfulness. They enjoyed all the pleasures of the world and did things abominable in the eyes of the Lord our God. This is what brought the Lord’s wrath upon them, the divine vengeance which He announced to them through Jonah the prophet.
It is easy for us to lose track of the truth and lose sight of the truth, because we have failed to filter out the noise of the world, which threatens to block the Lord from our hearts. We live in this increasingly noisier world, where mankind listen less and less to the heeding of the Lord, and pay more attention to their ego, their desires, and their wants.
The Lord speaks to us, brothers and sisters, inside our hearts, conveying to us His message of love inside our hearts, for each and every one of us. He wants us to understand the importance of love, especially the love for Him, and the love for our fellow mankind. We are truly creatures of love, created by God Himself who is Love. And yet, because we are often entangled within the evils in this world, we tend to love less and hate more, and even if we love, we tend to only love and care for ourselves.
This is why, brethren, we ought to be like the people of Nineveh, because even though they are sinful and had committed things abominable in the sight of the Lord, they repented once they knew the anger of the Lord is upon them, and humbly placed themselves, kneeling and prostrating with shame in front of the throne of God, even their king, showing the genuine nature of their repentance.
This is what made the Lord to spare all of them instead of punishing them for their sins. This is because the Lord truly loves us and does not want to punish us, all because of His eternal love. He will certainly welcome us back with love, if we repent from our sins in full sincerity.
Then, we also ought to be like Mary, the sister of Martha, at an even higher level of dedication to the Lord. This is because even without the threat of punishment or annihilation, she gave her full attention, dedication, and love to Jesus our Lord and gave her full heart to Him. That is what the Lord truly wants from us, our love.
We must not lose sight of our true goal in life, brothers and sisters, that is to reach out for the Lord, and the salvation that He offers to all of us. And we can achieve this through love, through the manifestation of our love in our words, deeds, and actions, daily in our world. In that, we show the extent of love we have for the Lord, that we listen to Him and His will, and like Mary, give our full heart’s attention for Him.
May the Lord who is loving and forgiving continue to watch over us and give us His tender love, readily welcoming us, when we turn our back on sin, and reach out for His infinite mercy. God be with us all always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate an important Marian feast, a day dedicated to the Mother of God, Mary, the lady and our mother. Today, in particular, we celebrate an aspect of her that we often find to be ubiquitous in our faith and devotions, that is the holy rosary, the linked beads in chain, that we use to guide us in our prayer.
What is the rosary and what is its significance in our faith, and how does it affect us in our journey of faith in this world and beyond? The rosary is a weapon, a spiritual weapon in a spiritual warfare between the forces of evil led by the devil, against us, the children of the light, the beloved ones of God. This devotion was introduced by Mary herself, when she appeared to St. Dominic, who was then the first to recommend the devotion of the rosary to the people of God.
We often take the rosary for granted, and instead of taking the devotion seriously, we said the prayers without meaning and said the words faster than even the bullet trains! That is exactly what happened if we do not truly understand the usefulness and the purpose of the holy rosary, which is a potent weapon, a spiritual weapon, in the spiritual warfare constantly fought between us and the devil and his servants.
Then how did this feast of our Lady of the Rosary come about? This feast originated in the late sixteenth century, after the great victory of the forces of the faithful, fighting against the forces of the devil, represented by the Muslim forces of the expansionist Ottoman Turk Empire. This battle is the Battle of Lepanto, which happened on this date, today, in the year 1571.
This great victory marked a great turning point in the history of Christendom, where the faithful are no longer on the defensive, after the enemy was dealt a massive defeat by the power of God. Pope St. Pius V, the Pope at the time, decided to commemorate the great victory by dedicating it to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that the victory over the enemy was made possible.
In the same way therefore, today, through the rosary as our weapon, the spiritual weapon, we would like to celebrate our victory and triumph against the evil one and his forces of darkness, as we, the children of the light, had triumphed against the darkness, much like the victorious Christian vanguards at the Battle of Lepanto more than four centuries ago.
Nevertheless, brethren, even though we have been victorious, as through Mary and her Son Jesus, whose sacrifice on the cross dealt the evil one a complete and thorough defeat, but the devil still has plenty of tools under his sleeves. He continues to marshall his forces of darkness to harass us, especially those who are most vulnerable, those whose faith are wavering and weakened.
The devotion to Mary, the mother of Jesus our Lord and God, through the holy rosary is a potent tool to prevent this from happening, that is to prevent our brethren to fall into the temptation of Satan and his angels, the fallen ones. The rosary, as I mentioned, is a powerful weapon in this constant spiritual warfare raging daily around us, where angels and devils fight for the sake of our soul, for its salvation or damnation.
Through meaningful and devoted praying of the holy rosary, we invoke the protection of the angels sent by Jesus our Lord, through the intercession of His blessed mother Mary, hearing the prayer we have made through the rosary in complete devotion and love. The Lord will certainly not abandon us to the forces of the enemy. He will smite them and cast them away from us, His beloved children.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, the rosary, in which we pray the prayers dedicated to the Lord and His mother Mary, emulate the Marian virtues of obedience and love, which we ought to follow and emulate ourselves. Through her obedience and love, we have Jesus who came into this world, and we have a hope, hope of salvation and eternal life in Him.
This rosary is our spiritual weapon and also our spiritual defender, a breastplate of faith and devotion, protecting us from the threats of the evil one and his forces. Let us therefore, spread the habit of praying the rosary meaningfully and devoutly, to all around us, especially to those among us whose faith is wavering. May the Lord continue to watch over us, and may His blessed mother Mary continue to intercede for us, for our salvation, as we continue to offer her and her Son, our love and devotion through the rose of the holy rosary. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 1 : 26-38
In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth. He was sent to a young virgin, who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the family of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.
The angel came to her and said, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Mary was troubled at these words, wondering what this greeting could mean. But the angel said, “Do not fear, Mary, for God has looked kindly on you. You shall conceive and bear a Son, and you shall call Him Jesus.”
“He will be great, and shall rightly be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the kingdom of David, His ancestor; He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and His reign shall have no end.”
Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the Holy Child to be born of you, shall be called Son of God.”
“Even your relative Elizabeth is expecting a son in her old age, although she was unable to have a child; and she is now in her sixth month. With God nothing is impossible.” Then Mary said, “I am the maid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said.” And the angel left her.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 1 : 46-47, 48-49, 50-51, 52-53, 54-55
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit exults in God my Saviour!
He has looked upon His servant in her lowliness, and people forever will call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, Holy is His Name!
From age to age His mercy extends to those who live in His presence. He has acted with power and done wonders, and scattered the proud with their plans.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up those who are downtrodden. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
He held out His hand to Israel, His servant, for He remembered His mercy, even as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 1 : 12-14
Then the disciples returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olives, which is a fifteen-minute walk away. On entering the city they went to the room upstairs where they were staying.
Present there were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, son of Alpheus; Simon the Zealot and Judas son of James.
All of these together gave themselves to constant prayer. With them were some women and also Mary, the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.
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