God’s promise

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Sunday, 24 August 2014 : 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time, Lay Apostolate Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 22 : 19-23

You will be deposed, strongman. I will hurl you down from where you are. On that day I will summon My servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah. I will clothe him with your robe, I will strengthen him with your girdle, I will give him your authority, and he will be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the people of Judah.

Upon his shoulder I will place the key of the House of David : what he opens, no one shall shut; what he shuts, no one shall open. I will fasten him like a peg in a sure spot, and he will be a seat of honour in the house of his father.

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Friday, 18 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 38 : 1-6, 21-22, 7-8

In those days Hezekiah fell mortally ill and the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, went to him with a message from YHVH, “Put your house in order for you shall die; you shall not live.”

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to YHVH, “Ah YHVH! Remember how I have walked before You in truth and wholeheartedly, and done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then the word of YHVH came to Isaiah, “Go and tell Hezekiah what YHVH, the God of his father David, says : I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. See! I am adding fifteen years to your life and I will save you and this city from the power of the king of Assyria. I will defend it for My sake and for the sake of David My servant.”

Isaiah then said, “Bring a fig cake to rub on the ulcer and let Hezekiah be cured!” Hezekiah asked, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the Lord?” Isaiah answered, “This shall be for you a sign from YHVH, that He will do what He has promised. See! I shall make the shadow descending on the stairway of Ahaz go back ten steps.”

So the sunlight went back the ten steps that it had covered on the stairway.

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Wednesday, 16 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of our Lady of Mount Carmel (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Marian feasts)

Psalm 93 : 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 14-15

They crush Your people, o Lord, they oppress Your inheritance. They murder the widow and the lonely, they massacre the helpless.

“The Lord does not see,” they say, “the God of Jacob does not care.” Remember this, you stupid people, when will you understand, you fools!

He who made the ear, will He not hear? He who formed the eye, will He not see? He who rebukes nations, will He not punish them?

The Lord will not reject His people nor will He forsake His heritage. Justice will return to the just, and the upright will follow in its wake.

Alternative reading (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

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.

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Sunday, 6 July 2014 : 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13cd-14

I will extol You, my God and King; I will bless Your Name forever. I will praise You day after day and exalt Your Name forever.

Compassionate and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in love. The Lord is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

All Your works will give You thanks; all Your saints, o Lord, will praise You. They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your power.

The Lord is true to His promises and lets His mercy show in all He does. The Lord lifts up those who are falling and raises those who are beaten down.

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Thursday, 10 April 2014 : 5th Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 104 : 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

Look to the Lord and be strong; seek His face always. Remember His wonderful works, His miracles and His judgments.

You descendants of His servant Abraham, you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God; His judgments reach the whole world.

He remembers His covenant forever, His promise to a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the promise He swore to Isaac.

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Thursday, 27 March 2014 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters, today we learn again another lesson, as Jesus went around to teach the people of God, that we must not be doubtful in our hearts and even more importantly, we should not be quick to cast baseless accusations, especially if they are made out of poor judgment and idea on our side.

It was truly horrifying to see how the people of God, who had been graced with the presence and witnessing the Lord Himself in action, could ever condemn and criticise Him by saying that what great deeds He had done, was done by the power of the evil one and the other spirits.

They saw the miracles performed by Jesus, and all the things He had done, and yet they refused to believe, and all the teachings that Jesus had made, should all have been very clear to them, showing them the true nature of God’s laws and ways. This is because of their hardened heart, which they kept indignantly even against the love God had shown for them.

The same can be compared to how their ancestors behaved in the desert, the same generation of people who saw the Lord doing great deeds in bringing the Ten plagues to crush the Egyptians and liberate them from their slavery. They also witnessed how God split open the sea to let them pass and pour the waters over their enemies. They received even food from heaven and crystal clear, sweet water from the rocks, and yet they complained and complained.

These people were so stubborn because they did not keep the Lord in their heart but Satan! They were so influenced by the things of the world that instead of thanking God for His very obvious guidance and kindness along the way, they dared to say things such as life was better in Egypt, with food and drinks, even though they were in slavery! What they thought are in the realm of human greed and desire, that nothing God gave them is likely to be ever enough.

The same therefore happened to the people at the time of Jesus, as there were many factions, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and many others, including the common people. These people were obsessed with power and the influence they had on the people, and they were loath to give them up or even share them with someone who is technically an outsider, like Jesus.

Jesus showed them that their stubbornness and hard-heartedness ought to be taught a lesson, that they should not be so stone hearted as if to defy the works of the Lord, putting obstacles in His way, and worse still, blaspheming against God through their indignant attitude, calling the work of God as the work of Satan.

Shall we also be like them? Shall we be indignant and refuse to listen to the Lord because of our own human interests, and greed for power? If we do so, then we will have no part in the salvation offered by the Lord. We have to cast out our pride and our greed, especially for power, that we may lower ourselves and understand what God has given us, in Jesus, His Son, the manifestation of His everlasting love.

May the Lord open our hearts, and help us to understand better His love, that we too may love Him the same way. Let us all devote ourselves more to the Lord, and promise Him that we will stay forever loyal and faithful, no matter what. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 26 March 2014 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Jesus in the fulfillment of the law of old, and He made the old covenant of God complete. He fulfilled God’s promise to Abraham, David, and all His people, including even to Adam and Eve, our first ancestors. Jesus then made a new covenant with all of us, whom He had chosen to be the partakers of that new covenant, which He sealed with His own blood.

Thus, that is the message that Christ brought with Him, as written in the Gospel today, to bring completion to the Law of God, and to teach all the children of God, all the true meaning of God’s Law likely long forgotten by the people, many generations after it has been revealed through Moses, the servant of God.

Over the generations, the true meaning of the Law had been lost, as they were told from mouth to mouth down the generations. Over time, those in charge of protecting the Law changed the law as they saw fit, and they corrupted the true law and turn it into something else. That is why Jesus came, and why He apparently changed the Law, that is because the law itself was no longer the same Law which God had given through Moses.

Jesus came to fulfill the Law, to make it true and pure once again, He explained the truth about the Law and its real purpose, thus bringing the people of God once again to true obedience to God. True obedience to God does not mean blind obedience or extremist attitudes, which in fact blocks the path to salvation, because the people were distracted from truly obeying God, and instead serve mankind’s purposes.

That is how it is important for us not to follow our own wisdom and intelligence in understanding and following our faith. Often this had led to misunderstandings and corruption of the true faith, becoming something that is misshapen and evil instead of something that is good.

Jesus had fulfilled the past covenant, and in its place, is a renewed and upgraded covenant, which He made with all of the human race. This new covenant promised us eternal life and salvation in Jesus if we stay faithful to Him by actively fulfilling our part of that covenant. This new covenant was brought to us through the shedding of His blood, that we are made once again worthy and cleansed of our sins.

This He conveyed to us through His Apostles and disciples, who in turn passed the teachings and the knowledge of the new covenant through the Church over the centuries and millennia, until this very day. Therefore in the Church, there exists a deposit of faith which keeps our faith in God like an anchor, preventing us from corrupting it and causing what had happened to the people of God and the past covenant.

Many people over the centuries had given in to the temptations of the world, the temptations of power and glory, to establish their own invalid and heretical ‘churches’ and gatherings, breaking apart the unity of the Church and bringing many to sin and condemnation by splitting them away from the deposit of faith that is in the Church of God, One and only Church.

They followed their own ways, and interpret God’s message as they like, in their own limited human wisdom and understandings, which resulted in various interpretations and teachings that no longer bring salvation to those who believe in them, just like what had happened to the people of God at the time of Jesus, and their misunderstandings about what the law of God truly means.

Brothers and sisters, therefore, today let us reflect on these readings and how important our faith is to us. May our Lord Jesus Christ continue to guide us, and strengthen our faith and devotion to Him through the Church, that we may keep His new covenant with us at all times, and seek to understand it through the teachings of the Church, that we will not falter or fall away. Be with us, Lord Jesus, and love us all, always. Amen.

 

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Wednesday, 19 March 2014 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 1 : 16, 18-21, 24a

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and from her came Jesus who is called the Christ – the Messiah.

This is how Jesus Christ was born : Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her.

While he was pondering over this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do.

Alternative Reading

 

Luke 2 : 41-51a

Every year the parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, as was customary. And when Jesus was twelve years old, He went up with them, according to the custom of this feast. After the festival was over, they returned, but the boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and His parents did not know it.

They thought He was in the company, and after walking the whole day they looked for Him among their relatives and friends. As they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem searching for Him, and on the third day they found Him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. And all the people were amazed at His understanding and His answers.

His parents were very surprised when they saw Him, and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Your father and I were very worried while searching for You.” Then He said to them, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand this answer.

Jesus went down with them, returning to Nazareth, and He continued to be subject to them.

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Wednesday, 19 March 2014 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Romans 4 : 13, 16-18, 22

If God promised Abraham, or rather his descendants, that the world would belong to him, this was not because of his obeying the Law, but because he was just and a friend of God through faith.

For that reason, faith is the way and all is given by grace; and the promises of Abraham are fulfilled for all his descendants, not only for his children according to the Law, but also for all the others who have believed.

Abraham is the father of all of us, as it is written : I will make you father of many nations. He is our father in the eyes of Him who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence what does not yet exist, for this is the God in whom he believed.

Abraham believed and hoped against all expectation, thus becoming father of many nations, as he had been told : See how many will be your descendants. This was taken into account for him to attain righteousness.

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Wednesday, 19 March 2014 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 7 : 4-5a, 12-14a, 16

But that very night, YHVH’s word came to Nathan, “Go and tell My servant David, this is what YHVH says : When the time comes for you to rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your son after you, the one born of you and I will make his reign secure.”

“He shall build a house for My Name and I will firmly establish his kingship forever. I will be a father to him and he shall be my son. Your house and your reign shall last forever before Me, and your throne shall be forever firm.”