Matthew 6 : 31-34
Do not worry and say : “What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? or; What shall we wear?” The pagans busy themselves with such things, but Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. Set your heart first on the kingdom and justice of God, and all these things will also be given to you.
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
James 4 : 13-15
Listen now, you who speak like this, “Today or tomorrow we will go off to this city and spend a year there; we will do business and make money.” You have no idea what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? No more than a mist which appears for a moment and then disappears.
Instead of this, you should say, “God willing, we will live and do this or that.”
Psalm 90 : 1-17
Lord, You have been our refuge through all generations. Before the mountains were formed, before You made the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity – You are God.
You turn humans back to dust, saying, “Return, o mortals!” A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has passed, or like a watch in the night. You sow them in their time, at dawn they peep out. In the morning they blossom, but the flower fades and withers in the evening.
Your fury consumes us like fire, and we are helpless before Your anger. Our evils lie before You, who scrutinize our hidden sins. Our days pass away in Your wrath; our years are gone in no time. Seventy years to our life or eighty if we are strong, yet most of them are sorrow and trouble; speeding by, they sweep us along.
Who knows the extent of Your anger? Who has seen the end of Your wrath? So make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. How long will You be angry, o Lord? Have mercy on Your servant.
Fill us at daybreak with Your goodness, that we may be glad all our days. Make joy endure as the misery did, and the years in which we were afflicted. Let Your work be seen by Your servants and Your glorious power by their children. May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us; may He prosper the work of our hands.
Psalm 47 : 2-3a, 3b-4, 9, 10-11
Great is the Lord, most worthy of praise in the city of God, His holy mountain. Beautifully elevated, it is the joy of all the earth.
Mount Zion, heavenly mountain, the city of the great King. Here within her lines of defense, God has shown Himself to be a sure fortress.
As we have heard, so have we seen, in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, the city God founded forever.
Let us recall Your unfailing love, o God, inside Your temple. Let Your praise as does Your Name, o God, reach to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is ever victorious.
Jesus healed the evil-possessed man in today’s Gospel reading, and He showed that He has the authority over all, even over all the evil spirits. These evil spirits are actually once holy angels who served the Lord in Heaven. This is why they perfectly know who Jesus is when they see Him, even when He appear in human form. No demon will not tremble before the presence of the Lord, not even Lucifer, the leader of the angelic rebellion against God, who we now know as the great evil, or Satan. It is because of their rebellion against God, and man’s weakness that led to the fall of Adam and Eve to the temptation of the evil one.
Just like the man who was possessed by the evil spirits, all of us also have evil in ourselves, and we are chained and constrained by this evil that also ‘possess’ us the way it possessed the man. But the Lord is truly merciful, and never are we forgotten by Him who love us with all of His heart. God listened to our prayers and pleas for mercy, but especially only if we are truly sorry and repentant from our sinful ways. Only if we humbly ask Him for forgiveness, He will justify us and welcome us back into His loving embrace.
Those who are proud and refuse to reject their sins, and refuse to ask God for His mercy, are those whom God rejects, and to have no part in His inheritance. Pride is the greatest of all sins, as it cause our hearts to be hardened against God, and perpetuate our rebellion from God’s love. Such pride brought down Lucifer, who was the brightest and mightiest of all angels created by God. Such is his beauty that in his vanity he, as told in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, tried to make himself equal to God, and there came his fall. He brought down with him many of the angels of heaven, who followed him in his pride and rebellious ways. These are the evil spirits that possessed the man, legion they were called because they were many.
But Jesus wanted to show us that, not even these evil spirits, mighty as they are, have permanent hold on us. And that not even the greatest sinners are without hope. Why does the evil spirits fear Jesus? Because they know that He, as the Son of God, God Himself, has authority over all, including themselves. It is in Christ that they met their greatest undoing. For ultimately, Christ’s Sacrifice for us on the cross deliver us forever from their hands, and by His act in becoming the bridge between us and God, we have hope of life eternal in Him, while they languish in darkness and hell, for their rebellion against God, which inadvertantly brought mankind down with them.
We humans are weak in flesh, and many are also weak in the Spirit. Nevertheless, just as it was in the past with the heroes, the judges, and the king David himself, if we believe in God, and put our trust in Him, He can grant us strength to persevere and do things that we normally would not be able to do. While these heroes of Israel fought physical warfare against the enemies of Israel who were bound to destroy the people of God, in our present day world, we are involved in spiritual warfare against evil and sin.
Many of our fellow brethren are still under the thrall of evil and chained by the slavery of sin. We, who are already freed by God from the subjugation under evil through baptism in Him, therefore should do our part to help these brethren of ours, to bring them out of darkness, back into the light. Our priests and missionaries are involved in the great mission on the spreading of the Good News of the Lord, but this does not mean that we cannot have a part to play in this mission. We have all been called to the mission when we were baptised, which is to spread the Good News to all peoples, and to baptise them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
It will not be easy to bring God to all peoples, as mentioned in the first reading, that there would be great persecution against those who believe in Christ. Many would have to face even death in defending their faith. This had happened during the early years of the Church, when the pagan Roman Empire tried to crush Christianity through numerous and intense persecutions. But persecution did not end that day, as even in our modern world, we also have a different kind of persecution. Christians today are ridiculed for their faith, especially by those who do not believe in God and His love. Those who, like Lucifer, believed fully in their own greatness and ability, as surpassing those of the Lord, and many believe that they do not need God, and assert that we, who believe in Him, are backward and superstitious.
However, let us not be confrontational, but instead approach them with love. Just like Christ, who with His great love purged the evil spirit out of the possessed man, we can also bring God’s love to those in our world that is spiritually hungry and empty of God’s divine love. Let us embrace them and show that God is Love, and in God only, we can find true peace and fulfillment. Let us pray for one another, that our faith will be strong, and we will be given great courage, to be able to deliver the Good News of our Lord to all peoples. May God bless us all, and bless our holy Church in our mission. Amen.
Psalm 30 : 20, 21, 22, 23, 24
How great is the goodness which You have stored for those who fear You, which You show, for all to see, to those who take refuge in You!
In the shelter of Your presence You hide them from human wiles; You keep them in Your dwelling, safe from the intrigues of wagging tongues.
Blessed be the Lord for His wonderful love! He has strengthened my heart.
I said in my fright : “I have been cut off from Your sight!” Yet when I was crying, You heard : when I called for mercy, You listened.
Love the Lord, all you His saints! The Lord preserves His faithful, but He fully requites the arrogant.
I have reached my first 100th post with the Gospel Reading for the 4th Sunday of the Ordinary Time that I had just published. Thank you very much to all who visit this humble blog.
Pray for me, that I can always continue to write, for the love of God, and all mankind, my brothers and sisters in Christ.
+Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam+
(That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God)
Psalm 70 : 1-2, 3-4a, 5-6ab, 15ab, 17
In You, o Lord, I seek refuge; let me not be disgraced. In Your justice help me and deliver me, turn Your ear to me and save me!
Be my rock of refuge, a stronghold to give me safety, for You are my rock and my fortress. Rescue me, o my God, from the hand of the wicked.
For You, o Lord, have been my hope, my trust, o God, from my youth. I have relied on You from birth : from my mother’s womb You brought me forth. My praise is of You continually.
My lips will proclaim Your intervention and tell of Your salvation all day, little though it is what I can understand. You have taught me from my youth and until now I proclaim Your marvels.
To all those who support gun ownership, why seek to make ‘peace’ by defending oneself with guns and all kinds of killing-capable machines and tools? Let us rather aim for true peace by instead working together to spread love and harmony to all, and to help one another, especially those amongst us who are ostracised, those amongst us who are misguided in their lives.
If we help one another, and if we make ourselves available to others in need, although it may take time, there will be no more need for guns, and no more need to protect oneself, since nobody will be having any intentions on committing violence anymore. Do not fight hatred with hatred, but rather do what the Lord did, to confront hatred, with love and compassion. That is how Christ saved the world, by committing Himself to die on the Cross for us, His Sacrifice that brought about salvation, despite the hatred the world had on Him.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 