God the Creator

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Friday, 6 September 2013 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Colossians 1 : 15-20

He is the image of the unseen God, and for all creation He is the firstborn, for in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible : thrones, rules, authorities, powers… All was made through Him and for Him.

He is before all and all things hold together in Him. And He is the head of the body, that is the Church, for He is the first, the first raised from the dead that He may be the first in everything, for God was pleased to let fullness dwell in Him.

Through Him God willed to reconcile all things to Himself, and through Him, through His blood shed on the cross, God established peace, on earth as in heaven.

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Monday, 2 September 2013 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 95 : 1 and 3, 4-5, 11-12, 13

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

How great is the Lord and worthy of praise! Above all gods He is to be feared. For all other gods are worthless idols, but YHVH is the One who made the heavens.

Let the heavens be glad, the earth rejoice; let the sea and all that fills it resound; let the fields exult and everything in them; let the forest, all the trees, sing for joy.

Let them sing before the Lord who comes to judge the earth. He will rule the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.

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Monday, 26 August 2013 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b

Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!

Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.

The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, this is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!

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Friday, 23 August 2013 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Rose of Lima, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Psalm 145 : 5-6, 7, 8-9a, 9bc-10

Blessed are they whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God, Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and all they contain. The Lord is forever faithful.

He gives justice to the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free.

The Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord straightens the bent. The Lord loves the virtuous, but He brings to ruin the way of the wicked. The Lord protects the stranger.

He sustains the widow and the orphan. The Lord will reign forever, your God, o Zion, from generation to generation. Alleluia!

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Friday, 16 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today Christ told us about the importance and sanctity of marriage, as something not merely a legal thing, nor it is merely a thing of this world, because marriage is a bond between man and woman, united and sealed by God Himself, and no man can divide or break this bond. That is because this bond is holy, and indeed, is one of the Seven Sacraments in the Church, that is the Sacrament of Marriage.

God made man from dust, and that was Adam, the first man. From his own flesh, bone, and blood, God created woman, Eve, the first woman. Because of that, man naturally needs woman, and God gave man to woman and vice versa. When man and woman come together, they become perfect, because in the beginning they share one another’s flesh and blood. God who created this world and all of us, had joined man and woman, in the sacred bond that made them perfect in one another, and allow them to multiply with the gift of children, to fill the earth and be prosperous, as God had commanded man to do after He created him. They are supposed to live in perfect happiness and joy for eternity, with God, in the presence of God forever.

But when mankind disobeyed the Lord and sinned against Him, they were torn away from the Lord. They were torn away because of their disobedience. And because of our sins, we should have deserved death and destruction. We have been corrupted and made unworthy of the Lord. The Lord our God loves us, and He did not want us to suffer destruction because of our faults. That was why He chose to intervene from time to time in order to bring us back to Him.

Through sin and evil, the purity of our relationship with one another had been made impure. We had been infected with the sin of lust, greed, and discord. These had corrupted the original intent the Lord had for us. We lust for pleasure and turn ourselves from the path of righteousness. In our lust and greed, we forgot the holiness and sanctity in which the bond we have between us, specifically the bonds between husband and their wives had been forged, that no man or woman should divide or ever come in between the two whom the Lord had sealed in holy matrimony.

The Lord therefore sent His help to us, to His people, through the leaders and prophets He had sent them throughout the ages past. And finally, He sent His own Son, our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, to be with us and become the source of our salvation, and also our purification and sanctification. Yes, brethren, for the Lord had become one of us, in flesh and blood, that through His incarnation, we are bound to Him in the holy bond much like the holy bond of matrimony between husband and wife as I had mentioned earlier on.

Yes, we belong to Christ and Christ belong to us, and through that same bond He had forged with us, He channeled all of our faults, our sins, and our defilements towards Him, that He may bear all of them, with great faith and courage, during His Passion, His suffering and path to the completion of His mission of salvation. He died on the cross, so that we who are bound to Christ, may also die to ourselves, to our old and sinful selves, and be reborn into a new life, a life of new beginnings, and a life in which holiness can emerge, from the old self of sin.

Through Christ’s resurrection from the dead, we too are all promised and offered the new life in Christ, not just any life, but eternal life in happiness in the presence of God. He has offered us this, and if we accept it, we will be saved. Yes, brethren, our Lord truly loves us and cares for us, that He gave us His only Son, Jesus, not only as our Saviour, but also as our Teacher, the One who reminds all of us of the need to love God and follow His will and His words.

Yes, in the Gospel today, Christ reminds the people the importance and sanctity of marriage, of the holy union between man and woman, that He reiterates the divine and holy nature of such union, that no power in heaven or on earth may disturb or dissolve. However, it is sad indeed that throughout history, too many times the people of God had disobeyed this ordinance, and hence sinned against the Lord and faced condemnation for their adulterous behaviour.

If we ask then, why do so many people commit adultery, by dissolving that holy union and marrying again after divorce? That is because, we do not commit our hundred percent attention and effort into maintaining the health and viability of the holy union, and therefore, when temptation comes, our union, that lacks strong and true love maintaining it, easily dissolves, by the wickedness of our own minds and our hearts, poisoned by lust and our love for worldly pleasures, especially dangerous nowadays, because such temptations are essentially everywhere around us.

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we commemorate the feast of a saint, one who played a great role in the salvation of many. Yes, that is because this saint is none other than St. Stephen of Hungary, which history knew as King Stephen I Arpad, the first King of Hungary, who converted into the faith, and brought his entire people, his entire nation, into God’s holy Church. He is also well known as the Christian King, because of his dedication to the faith and the Church of God, in ensuring that the faith reached all the peoples within the four corners of his kingdom.

The people of Hungary were known once as the Magyars, the pagan and ferocious nomadic barbarians who raided much of central Europe in the ninth and tenth century, a century before the time of St. Stephen’s rule as King. St. Stephen united the people through his rule as king, and he brought his people before the Lord into their salvation. You see, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as the Lord is united to His people, and man in united with his wife, a king and a ruler is also bound to the land and to his people, in the same way as a shepherd is bound to his sheep. He brought Christ to his own nation and opened the door of salvation to his people.

St. Stephen did many works that become the foundation of both his nation of Hungary, and also the Church, whom he greatly strengthened during his reign by ceaseless attempts to bring God to those who still close their hearts against Him. His rule of Hungary as king was filled with justice and benevolence, and he ruled his people with the grace of God and with God’s wisdom. Truly, he is an example to all of us Christians, in his dedication to the faith, to God, and to the people he is bound to in a sacred bond of kingship.

And ultimately, we must not forget that indeed, Christ Himself mentioned about the role of a special group of people, that had been appointed and chosen by God as the shepherds of His people, a special role of complete and total dedication to God and His people. Yes, brethren, it is about the celibacy of our priests and those in the religious life. God had chosen them and taken them away from the world, and taken to be the brides of our Lord.

Yes, that is why our priests and our religious brothers and sisters do not marry, precisely because they are ‘married’ first to the Lord Himself, and secondly, to the people of God, all of us, whom they serve. And if anyone contest why our priests do not marry and seemingly contradict the Lord’s command that man and woman be united as one in sacred bond of matrimony, we can then say that, yes, they are married indeed, in a sacred bond with our God Himself, and with all of us, the sheep of the flock of God, and the priests as our shepherds, bonded to us in a sacred and inviolable bond of love, just as the Lord Himself belongs to us and we belong to the Lord.

They need our prayers, brothers and sisters in Christ, because their works and responsibilities are numerous and they have many room for errors. Remember that they are also humans like us. They need our prayer, our help, and our support. They have given up marriage with another in order to be in union with us and with God, serving a greater purpose. They have given up having families of their own, that they can now be with all of us in one big family of the Church.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, from today on, let us play our respective parts in the Church, to be good and responsible in all our dealings and actions, and to follow the Lord’s will and commandments at all times. Let those who are married, renew their commitments to one another, recalling the promise they made before the Lord, and maintain the holiness of their lives and their union at all times, building up love in their union, that their marriage will be truly blessed. And for our leaders who are ‘bonded’ with us their people, may they also realise the commitment they have to us, and the dedication that they need to put in into their service.

May the Lord bless all of us, all our priests as well today, that we all may remain committed in our own vocations in life, that we will always walk in the ways of the Lord and remain in His love. God be with all of us. Amen.

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Friday, 16 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Matthew 19 : 3-12

Some Pharisees approached Jesus. They wanted to test Him and asked, “Is a man allowed to divorce his wife for any reason he wants?”

Jesus replied, “Have you not read that in the beginning the Creator made them male and female, and He said : ‘Man has now to leave father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one body?’ So, they are no longer two, but one body. Let no one separate what God has joined.”

They asked Him, “Then why did Moses command us to write a bill of dismissal in order to divorce?” Jesus replied, “Moses knew the hardness of your hearts, so he allowed you to divorce your wives; but it was not so in the beginning. Therefore I say to you : whoever divorces his wife, unless it be for prostitution, and marries another, commits adultery.”

The disciples said, “If that is the condition of a married man, it is better not to marry.” Jesus said to them, “Not everybody can accept what you have just said, but only those who have received this gift. There are eunuchs born so from their mother’s womb. Some have been made that way by others. But there are some who have given up the possibility of marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who can accept it, accept it.”

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Thursday, 15 August 2013 : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Corinthians 15 : 20-26

But no, Christ has been raised from the dead and He comes before all those who have fallen asleep. A human being brought death; a human being also brings resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. However, each one in his own time : first Christ, then Christ’s people, when He comes.

Then the end will come, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father, after having destroyed every rule, authority, and power. For He must reign and put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy to be destroyed will be death.

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Tuesday, 13 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Saints Pontian, Pope and Martyr, and Hippolytus, Priest and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Deuteronomy 32 : 3-4a, 7, 8, 9 and 12

For I will proclaim the Name of the Lord and declare the greatness of our God. He is the Rock, and perfect are all His works.

Recall the days of old, think of the years gone by; your father will teach you about them, your elders will enlighten you.

When the Most High divided humankind and gave the nations their inheritance, He set up boundaries for the peoples after the number of the sons of God.

But the Lord keeps for Himself His portion Jacob, His chosen one. The Lord alone led them, without the aid of a foreign god.

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Sunday, 11 August 2013 : 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we are urged through the readings we listened to, that we must be ever ready, ever ready for the coming of Christ our Lord, who will come at the end of time, to judge all things living and dead, in the final judgment, when those who are upright and do the will of God, will be rewarded, and those who are wicked, will meet their due punishment.

Our Lord Jesus who has ascended into heaven at the end of His ministry on earth, will come again at the end of time, as a victorious and conquering King of all Kings, and He will judge all creation, all mankind, for our virtues, our goodness, our faults, and our sins. He had promised us through His disciples, that He will come again and bring us back into His kingdom, to be with Him for eternity, in eternal happiness and true joy.

Yes, as He had promised Abraham and his descendants, He had also promised all of us, who shared Abraham as our father in faith, that He will give His grace and blessings upon all of us. To us had been granted much, and therefore much is also expected from us. That is because, the Lord had made His covenant with all of us, to renew the covenant He had made with Abraham, through the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus on the cross, with which He made a new covenant sealed with His Most Precious Blood.

Our Lord remains ever faithful, ever loving, and ever forgiving in His dealings with all of us, who are His most beloved children. He had sent His Son Jesus to be our Saviour, to break us free from the chains of sin and its slavery. He had redeemed us from Satan with the price of His own Blood. But a covenant requires all of us to also play our part, that is to contribute to the covenant we had made with God through Christ His Son.

How do we then take part in this holy covenant of God? It is not easy, brothers and sisters, because He requires our ultimate obedience and dedication to Him and His laws, His precepts, and all of His love. To put it in simple words, we need to obey the Lord and follow Christ, through whom God had made clear to us His intentions, the plan He had for us and this world. In following Christ, we have to carry our crosses and walk with Him, enduring much opposition, suffering, and persecution, especially from the forces of evil, who do not wish to see us redeemed and steered away from destruction.

To follow Christ means to love one another, to love everyone around us, our brothers and sisters, without exception, and to pour onto them our care and compassion, giving to them our unconditional love, as Christ had once done to us, through His death on the cross. And of course, we must also love the Lord our God, with all our hearts and with all of our strength, that we offer Him our full devotion, our full attention, and our wholesome love, without exception, to put Him first before every other things.

As I had mentioned, much had been given to us, and therefore much is also expected from us in return. God our Lord had entrusted this world and all in it to us when He created our ancestors. He gave us this world that we may be its steward, care for it, and be responsible for it. He had given us gifts and blessings in ourselves, and through the Holy Spirit, we have been strengthened with the fruits of His love. These gifts are within each one of us, our talents, our skills, and our uniqueness, which may be used for myriad purposes and different intentions.

We have to cultivate these gifts and nurture them, that the talents and the skills God had given us will grow, and be made manifest in this world, by our service and dedication to our fellow men, our fellow brothers and sisters, children of the same God, giving to them, to one another, the love, the hope, and the faith we have inside of us. If we share our love, faith, and hope, they will only grow and blossom. We have to practice our faith, brothers and sisters in Christ, and our good works for the sake of our brethren, that our faith may be alive.

Yes, the faith we have in God must be a living and vibrant faith, one nurtured with love, one filled with action based on the teachings of our Lord. If we have this living faith within us, like the faith had by our father Abraham, who followed the Lord with zeal and full trust in His providence, we will be rewarded just as our father Abraham was rewarded for his strong and undimmed faith, for his real, living, and vibrant faith.

Do not be caught unawares, brothers and sisters, when Christ comes again in all His glory, in His Second Coming at the end of time. We do not know when this will happen, and indeed, He will come at the time when we are at our most unprepared state, when we did not expect Him to come at all. He will come silently like a thief and He will then judge us, all of us, whether we have been faithful to Him and His commandments or whether we have turned away from Him and His path.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us heed the call that Christ had made to all of us, to follow Him and remain in His love, by showing Him a constant and vibrant faith, and our wholehearted dedication and devotion, our undivided love and attention for Him, and for all His children, our fellow brethren in God. Be prepared at all times for Him, that we will always be ready when He comes again, and not be found wanting for our faith.

Let us from today, dedicate ourselves and renew our commitment to Him, and to our fellow brothers and sisters, helping one another in our journey towards the Lord our God. We hope that everyone will be able to reach the end of our journeys successfully and that the Lord our God will welcome us and congratulate us for our dedication and our faith in Him, granting us the reward He had promised us through Jesus Christ, His Son. Let us not be the ones rejected by the Lord, because they did not bother to lift a finger, to help those in need, and to give themselves in love to their brethren in need. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 8 August 2013 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Dominic, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are reminded today, of our own weaknesses, of our own vulnerabilities, and the need for all of us to follow the will of our God, and follow the thinking of our God, trusting in Him fully with all our hearts, our minds, and all our beings, instead of trusting our own instincts and human emotions.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Dominic, also known as St. Dominic de Guzman, a well known preacher who lived in the high Middle Ages Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth century Europe. He was the founder of the Dominican religious order, also known as the Order of Preacher. St. Dominic was well known for his strong devotion in the Lord, and his unshaken faith, in which he emphasized on the importance of having a strong and vibrant faith in God, as our armour, and put our trust in the Lord, instead of trusting in the power of men.

St. Dominic worked hard to spread the words of the Gospel, preaching to many people of God who had gone astray from the faith, and those in whom the flames of faith had died down. He had made much impact in strengthening the faith and zeal among the faithful at a time when heresies were commonplace in the Medieval Europe, particularly the Albigensian heresy or the Catharian heresy widespread in the Christendom at the time. Not only that, St. Dominic de Guzman was also well-known for being the one who propagated the devotion to the mother of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, through the Rosary.

St. Dominic and his successors in the Dominican religious order continued the spreading of the holy Rosary, as a potent tool and weapon which we can use, in our fight and constant struggle against the devil, as something that can help us anchor our faith firmly in the Lord, through the inspiration of the faith that His Blessed Mother has, that is the faith of Mary. The Dominican friars, monks, and priests continued until today the works and passions of St. Dominic, bringing more and more lost souls back to the embrace of the Lord who loves them.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important for all of us to continue to have faith in our Lord and in His saving power. Not just any faith, but a strong and immovable faith like that of a rock, faith that will never be shaken by any power of the devil or the temptations of this world. If our faith in the Lord is not strong, the devil can easily sow the seeds of rebellion and distrust in our hearts, and that will make our faith even weaker and less anchored.

That was what happened to the people of Israel during their journey in the desert, when the Lord led them through Moses to walk through the desert of Sinai from Egypt towards the Promised Land of Canaan. Even though the Lord had shown them His power and might through the miracles He had shown them via Moses and Aaron, by the Ten Plagues He had sent to punish their former Egyptian slavemasters, and despite His opening of the Red Sea for them to cross, and finally, even giving them manna, the bread of heaven to eat, and sweet water to drink from rocks, they still rebelled against Him and constantly complained against Him throughout the journey.

They abandoned the Lord immediately after He made them walk through the Red Sea, when Moses went up the Mountain of God and did not come down for forty days, when they decided to take the matter on their own hands, and made a new ‘god’ of gold shaped into a calf, abandoning the Lord their God who had shown them their might, for the pagan idol of gold and the world. They did not have true faith in their heart, nor true love for God, but they merely have amazement, wonder, and even fear for the Lord, for all the things He had done for them, but that is not love or faith.

We must be strong and have our faith firmly rooted in the Lord, that we will not be tempted nor give in to our human weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Ever since our ancestors ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we have been exposed to such weaknesses, negative things such as lust, greed, wrath, anger, pride, and many others. These can derail us from the path towards salvation, that is the path for us to return to our Lord.

What happened to Moses and Peter in the first and the Gospel readings respectively are also examples of what can happen, even to those whose faith are firm and strong in the first place, if we do not keep our faith strong at all times and let it to waver or allow evil to dwell within us and plant his seeds of evil within us. Moses as the leader of the people of Israel and Peter as the leader of all the Apostles, the one to whom God entrusted all His people on earth to.

As the leader of the people, Moses certainly had a great responsibility, and his role as the one who speaks directly to the Lord God made his works even more demanding on him. When the people constantly complained and rebelled against his leadership and the Lord Himself, the strain went too much for him and indeed, at Massah and Meribah, as we heard from the reading today, Moses snapped. In his anger and wrath, he disobeyed the Lord in order to chastise the people. Yes, the Lord in His love still allowed the water to flow through the rocks for His people to drink, but Moses’ disobedience is something that he should not have done. As a result, he was not to enter the Promised Land together with the rebellious people, who had been punished for their lack of faith in the Lord.

Peter, the leader of the disciples of Jesus in his fear that the Lord would suffer and die under the Jewish authorities, rebuked Jesus in that he said that Jesus should not face His death and therefore complete what He was born into this world for. Peter gave in to his fear and uncertainty, and his faith was shaken. But the Lord rebuked Satan who was inside him, and rebuked the one who sowed the seeds of uncertainty in the heart of Peter, and reminded Peter as well, that one ought to put their full trust and attention to the Lord their God and not in the wisdom and power of men.

Yet, despite the apparent weakness of faith of Peter, and his later abandonment of the Lord in his three times denial that he knew Christ, Peter, who was Simon son of John has great faith in his heart, that the Lord who sees all knew about the true faith in Peter. That was why, He named Simon as Peter, which means ‘Rock’ or Cephas in the approximate Aramaic language used by the people of Jesus’ time.

That is because Peter truly is faithful to the Lord, and he truly loved Him, and he showed that in the end by giving up his own life for the sake of the Lord, as the martyr of the faith. He led the people of God in the Church faithfully and dutifully, ensuring that a stable foundation of God’s Church was built, and behold! The Church of God that He established on Peter as foundation remains today as our Church, with our current Pope Francis, as the successor of Peter as the head of the Universal Church.

We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, ought to strengthen our faith and our love for the Lord our God. There are many ways to do this, that our faith will blossom and grow together with our love, both for God and for our fellow men. Pray often, speak to the Lord our God through prayer, that we constantly remain in connection to His will and His words, that we do not easily fall astray of the true path to God.

And following the push by the Dominicans and their founder, St. Dominic, let us pray the rosary often with meaning and devotion, and not just merely chanting the prayers, but that we really mean the prayers in the rosary that we offer to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that she will then deliver our prayers to the throne of her Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, God and King of all the Universe, who will hear us, and succour us at all times.

May the Lord who is faithful and loving be with us always and give us His love and kindness, strengthening us whenever we are weak, and planting the seeds of faith in us, anchoring it on solid rock foundation, that we will withstand whatever assault Satan tries to make, and whatever temptations this world attempt on us, to lead us astray from salvation into damnation. Let us, inspired by the example of St. Dominic, reach out to one another and help one another in our devotion to the Lord, that all of us will be saved together. Amen.