Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 16 : 1, 5-6, 8b and 15
Hear a just cause, o Lord, listen to my complaint. Give heed to my prayer for there is no deceit on my lips.
Hold firm my steps upon Your path, that my feet may not stumble. I call on You, You will answer me, o God; incline Your ear and hear my word.
Under the shadow of Your wings hide me. As for me, righteous in Your sight, I shall see Your face and, awakening, gaze my fill on Your likeness.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 108 : 21-22, 26-27, 30-31
But as for me, o God my Lord, for Your Name’s sake, act on my behalf, deliver me, in the goodness of Your love. For I am poor and needy, my heart is stricken within me.
Help me, o Lord my God, and save me for the sake of Your love. Let them know that this is Your hand, that it is You, Lord, who do this.
To the Lord, I will give my thanks; I will praise Him in the great assembly. He stands at the right hand of the needy, to save them from those who condemn them.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Be prepared for anything, for the Lord’s plans are not our plans, and His plans for us is not for us to know. That is the key message of today’s readings, particularly the Gospel. We cannot be complacent in our lives as well as in our faith. We must always be ever ready and be ever consistent in our lives, to uphold justice and righteousness at all times in our lives.
We may be quite fortunate in our lives, to be able to live comfortably, with all the things that we need and we desire being available to us at all times. We need not fear about what happens in life, because all had been taken care of, and we have many people who likes us. Such a perfect life indeed, and how many of us would certainly desire to reach that state as well.
Yet, if you had noticed, that in our world today, one of the greatest vices troubling all of us is the failure for us to feel enough, that is to feel that we have had our share and be satisfied. Instead, many of us never feel enough in our lives and in our daily lives. We often desire for more and more things, and tries to aim for higher and higher. Literally, many of us consider that there can be no limits to personal demands.
That is why, we tend to be like the rich man, who worked hard day and night, for the sake of his possessions, and accumulated much wealth in pride and arrogance. And when he is enjoying his lifestyle, the Lord came knocking at the most unexpected time, and all that the rich man had accumulated became nothing. And worse, that man will most likely descend into hell, and suffers eternal suffering there.
Why so? That is because, he has first not done what the Lord wants him, and indeed all of us, to do, which is to love and care for one another, as per His commandments. Although this was not explicitly stated, but given the situation, where the man seems to be highly preoccupied with his money and possessions, and therefore is likely to be ignorant of others around him, fully occupied with the effort to gather more and more money.
Once again, brethren, I want to reiterate that, being wealthy or having money is not a bad thing to do. Jesus did not condemn money nor the effort done to make them. What He condemned is the attitude which accompanies the process, that is if we forget everything else and became enamoured over money and possessions. As I have often mentioned, that money is good and beneficial, and it is not intrinsically evil. What is evil and what causes evil is the improper way in which we gain money, and in the way we use them.
What we can do, brothers and sisters in Christ, and indeed, what we should do, is that we have to build up not only our ‘banking account’ on earth, but also at the same time, we must build up our heavenly ‘bank account’. Someone who is rich on earth is not necessarily rich in heaven, and neither is someone poor on earth poor in heaven and vice versa.
Building up our savings in heaven is not easy, but all our effort will go a long way, in ensuring our salvation and eternal happiness in God. What we need to do is to follow what the Lord wants from us, that is to love, and love tenderly. That way, we are building up our account in heaven. We cannot forget to do so, even if we are busy with worldly things. Build a wealth that lasts and everlasting, not the temporal wealth and pleasures of the world.
May God continue to bless us with His grace and continue to love us dearly, and may we too remain in God’s loving embrace. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 12 : 13-21
Someone in the crowd spoke to Jesus, “Master, tell my brother to share with me the family inheritance.”
He replied, “My friend, who has appointed Me as your judge or your attorney?” Then Jesus said to the people, “Be on your guard and avoid every kind of greed, for even though you have many possessions, it is not that which gives you life.”
And Jesus continued with this story, “There was a rich man, and his land had produced a good harvest. He thought, ‘What shall I do, for I am short of room to store my harvest? Alright, I know what I shall do : I will pull down my barns and I will build bigger ones, to store all this grain, which is my wealth.’”
“‘Then I will say to myself : My friend, you have a lot of good things put by for many years. Rest, eat, drink and enjoy yourself.’ But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be taken from you. Tell Me who shall get all you have put aside?’ This is the lot of the one who stores up riches for himself and is not wealthy in the eyes of God.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Romans 4 : 20-25
Abraham did not doubt nor did he distrust the promise of God, and by being strong in faith, he gave glory to God : he was convinced that He who had given the promise had power to fulfill it.
This was taken into account for him to attain righteousness. This was taken into account : these words of Scripture are not only for Him. But for us, too, because we believe in Him who was raised Jesus, our Lord, from among the dead, He who was delivered for our sins and raised to life for us to receive true goodness.
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
Malachi 3 : 13-20a
You say very harsh things about Me, says YHVH, and yet you say : “What harsh things did we say against You. You say : ‘It is useless to serve God. There is no benefit in observing His commandments or in leading an austere life for His sake. Happy are the shameless! Those who do evil succeed in everything; though they provoke God, they remain unharmed.”
Those were the very words of those who fear YHVH. YHVH listened and heard what they said. He ordered at once that the names of those who respect Him and reverence His Name be written in a record.
And He declared, “They will be Mine on the day I have already set. Then I shall care for them as a father cares for his obedient son. And you will see the different fates of the good and the bad, those who obey God and those who disobey Him.”
“The day already comes, flaming as a furnace. On that day all the proud and evildoers will be burned like straw in the fire. They will be left without branches or roots. On the other hand the sun of justice will shine upon you who respect My Name and bring health in its rays.”
Liturgical Colour : White
1 Timothy 1 : 1-2, 12-14
From Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus by a command of God our Saviour and of Christ Jesus our hope, to Timothy, my true son in the faith. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.
I give thanks to Christ Jesus, our Lord, who is my strength, who has considered me trustworthy and appointed me to His service, although I had been a blasphemer, a persecutor and a rabid enemy.
However He took mercy on me because I did not know what I was doing when I opposed the faith; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, together with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 14 : 25-33
One day, when large crowds were walking along with Jesus, He turned and said to them, “If you come to Me, unwilling to sacrifice your love for your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not follow Me, carrying his own cross, cannot be My disciple.”
“Do you build a house without first sitting down to count the cost, to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, if you, have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone will make fun of you : ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'”
“And when a king wages war against another king, does he go to fight without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand can stand against the twenty thousand of his opponent? And if not, while the other is still a long way off, he sends messengers for peace talks. In the same way, none of you may become My disciple, if he does not give up everything he has.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 89 : 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17
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.
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. May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us; may He prosper the work of our hands.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 