grace of God

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Wednesday, 11 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (our Lady of Lourdes)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great feast day of Mary, the mother of our Lord and God Jesus Christ, who had appeared to her people, that is all of us, through the intermediary of St. Bernadette Soubirous just over a hundred and fifty years ago, in the quiet village and area of Lourdes in southern France. Today is the feast of our Lady of Lourdes, also known as the day of universal prayer for the sick and those afflicted with diseases both of body and soul.

We heard in the Gospel today of the creation of mankind, good and wonderful and perfect, filled with all the goodness of God, and made in the image of God. All of us were destined for a life filled with bliss and great happiness. Sickness and death were never meant for us, for these are the things of darkness, and we are the children of the Light, that is God.

Yet, it was because of our disobedience that we have sinned before the Lord and before all men, and therefore, in our disobedience and lack of faith, we brought the sickness unto ourselves, and sickness as well as corruption become a part of us. And that is what our Lord wants us to overcome and be freed from. He came into the world and through His teachings and works, He made whole a people that had been claimed by the darkness.

In the psalms, we heard about the praise upon Judith, the brave and courageous daughter of Israel and a holy woman, who despite of the great threat that faced her people, in the great force of the Babylonians under the leadership of the mighty general Holofernes, she went forth by herself to the camp of the enemy and in full faith of the Lord’s providence, she gained a great victory, triumph and salvation for her people by slaying the general when he was drunk with wine in his sleep.

Thus a great disaster was averted for the people of God, a people that had been subjected to the might and power of the conquering nation, expecting nothing else other than annihilation and slavery. It was because of the faith of one woman, who put her trust in the Lord, that salvation came for the people of God, and God heard the sincere prayers of the woman, Judith, which she made before she ventured into the enemy’s camp.

In the Gospel today, we hear something similar, and of an even greater significance for us all, as we heard about the Wedding at Cana, a story that we are surely all familiar with. In that wedding, the wedding couple who are the hosts of the wedding went into great trouble for their wine supply had run out. This is a great taboo in the Jewish society, and had the guests and the steward knew about it, the couple would be shamed and reviled for the rest of their lives.

That is when we know that Mary knew about the problem which the couple had, and she performed something that would set a great precedent. She requested for her Son to help the couple and get them out of trouble. Indeed, Jesus seemingly refused this when He remarked to her that it was not His time just yet. But, what Mary told the servants would be indeed amazing, as she said that whatever He would tell them, they have to listen to Him.

And indeed, Jesus performed His very first miracle right there and then. He turned the water into wine, and the reputation of the wedding couple was saved. But what is the true significance of this, brothers and sisters? It is that our beloved mother and the mother of our Lord Jesus, that is Mary, never forgets us when we are in trouble. Just as she was very observant of the problem faced by the couple, she too from heaven can see our troubles and the obstacles that lay in our path.

Mary is the greatest of all saints, not just because of her piety and her faithful life, which she spent in total and complete dedication to the will of God, mirroring what Judith had done even to a much greater scale, but she is also the mother of our Lord and God, Jesus Christ our Saviour and King. And she sits the closest to her Son’s throne in heaven, at His right hand, giving Him advice, prayers and petitions from all of us.

And she is also our mother, for remember that before His death on the cross, Jesus entrusted His own mother to His disciple John, just as He entrusted John to her. In this manner, He therefore entrusted all of us to the care of Mary, His mother. And that is how significant this feast day is for us. As we know with the other famous Marian apparitions, Mary appeared to many people, calling for them to repent and change from their sinful ways. She asked the people to devote themselves more and more to her Son, our Lord.

And in Lourdes, it was no different, for Mary also mentioned to St. Bernadette Soubirous, the need for the world to be converted for the sake of Christ, that everyone may receive the grace of salvation and liberation from their sins. And through her intercession for our sake, many had received miraculous healing at the Lourdes site ever since the apparition.

The water of the spring at Lourdes appeared since the time when Mary appeared to St. Bernadette, and those who bathed and immersed themselves in the water had been healed from their afflictions. This is why today we also pray for the sake of all those who are sick, as a reminder of this great grace of God. But we have to remember that, it is not that the water has any magical properties, or that Mary is the one who performed the miracle for us.

Rather, just like at the wedding at Cana, she is our intercessor, bringing our prayers directly to her Son, Jesus our Lord. Through her prayers, we are all made whole again by the grace of her Son, Jesus, who performed the healing and the miracle for us. What is the key? None other than our faith and our effort in living up to that faith. It is our faith in the power of our Lord, and the effort we have done to seek Him, which healed us from our afflictions, both of the body, and also of the soul, that is sin.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, on this great feast day of our Lady of Lourdes, let us all renew our commitment to our loving God, and let us all be ever more devoted to His mother, Mary, who is also our mother, and who like a mother is always concerned about us and daily pray for our sake, bringing our petitions and plight before her Son in heaven. Mary, our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us sinners that your Son may bring us to a new life everlasting freed from the afflictions of our body and soul. Amen.

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Wednesday, 11 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of our Lady of Lourdes, World Day of the Sick (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (our Lady of Lourdes)

Psalm 103 : 1-2a, 27-28, 29bc-30

Bless the Lord, my soul! Clothed in majesty and splendour; o Lord, my God, how great You are! You are wrapped in light as with a garment.

They all look to You for their food in due time. You give it to them, and they gather it up; You open Your hand, they are filled with good things.

You take away their breath, they expire and return to dust. When You send forth Your Spirit, they are created, and the face of the earth is renewed.

Alternative reading (Mass of our Lady of Lourdes)

Judith 13 : 18bcde, 19

My daughter, may the Most High God bless you more than all women on earth. And blessed be the Lord God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has led you to behead the leader of our enemies.

Never will people forget the confidence you have shown; they will always remember the power of God.

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Tuesday, 10 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we continue the theme of the readings as we heard yesterday, of the Lord creating the whole world and the entire material universe as we know it now. He made all things good and perfect, all free from the taints of imperfections and evil in the beginning. Then indeed, we may be asking, how come then is it that there is so much evil things in the world now? How come is it that there is so much hatred, violence, jealousy and greed around us?

The answer lies in what mankind had committed in disobedience against the Lord, the sins which they have done in the presence of the Lord and men alike. Sin is a sickness of the soul, a blemish in the otherwise perfect and immaculate creations of God, especially for mankind, the greatest of all God’s creations. That is why there is so much evil in the world, so much sadness, sorrow and conflict that strike us all on daily basis.

And that was why God sent His Son Jesus into the world, in order to bring about the true purification of all mankind from the taints of sin. And today’s readings indeed share the same theme, that is cleansing and purification. However, we can see clearly in the Gospel today, the conflict that existed between Jesus our Lord and the Pharisees in how they approach this.

As I have often mentioned, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are notorious for having adopted an excessively strict and unforgiving stance on the interpretation and application of the Law. As a result, they gave a great burden for the people of God to bear. There are many laws, rules and regulations which the people to obey, from things that are truly important to trivial matters and things such as the cleansing of the hands before meals, just as the one mentioned in the Gospel today.

The hereditary laws and customs of the Jewish people stipulated that each person should undergo ritual cleansing, washing and purification regularly, and this includes the ritual washing before meals, where each person are supposed to wash up to and including their elbows. Indeed, such is the complicated nature of the laws, to the point that obeying them and following them required a great deal of effort, and it is likely also that many would lose the true and real intention behind why they even observed those laws in the first place.

And that was why Jesus criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law so much, because they are focused so much on the external cleansing and the purity of their exteriors, that they completely forgot about their insides, that is their heart and soul. It is useless if we are concerned only about the cleansing of our bodies and the exterior, ignoring the correct alignment of our heart, that is our interior.

Why is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ? Christ had mentioned in another passage that to be concerned about which food that is worthy or unworthy, clean or unclean does not make sense, for that which brings about sin and corruption comes not from the outside but rather from the inside. External dirt and filth while unappealing do not bring about the corruption of our beings, but the corruption that is within us will eventually corrupt our bodies and externals as well.

Already this can be seen in how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law reacted to the teachings of Jesus. They professed to be faithful to the Lord and liked to show off their piety by public display through prayers and other actions in the public places, and yet they were so judgmental to sinners and all those who genuinely needed God’s help that you truly would not believe at all that they belonged to the Lord in the first place.

They also rejected Jesus and His teachings and they spat upon His actions, which were clearly the actions of God made real in this world, the manifestation of God’s love and mercy. Instead, they were so blinded by their pride and their hubris, that these eventually led to their eventual downfall. Just as they have rejected the Lord, so will the Lord reject them.

Today, we also celebrate the feast day of St. Scholastica, a holy virgin and saint of God. St. Scholastica by tradition was the twin sister of St. Benedict of Nursia, another great and renowned saint well known for his holiness and dedication to the Lord. Both St. Scholastica and St. Benedict were devoted servants of the Lord who made monastic lifestyle an appealing way of life to the people of God.

Monastic lifestyle is for those who have decided to give all of their lives in complete and total dedication to the Lord. They withdrew from the world and from all forms of worldliness and instead, dedicate themselves in a life of prayer. As such, they commit themselves to a life of contemplation, of looking into themselves and the emptying of oneself of personal ego, but seeking the cultivation of individuals filled with the love of God.

In that way, rather than seeking the purification of the externals first, we focus on the purification of our interiors first, that is to shun all forms of temptations of sin, the lies and sweet words of Satan designed to bring about our downfall. That is what the Lord wants from us, that we all genuinely reject sin and all forms of wickedness and instead follow Him with all of our heart.

May all of us be awakened and see in Christ and all He had done, the abundance of love and mercy which God wants to shower us with, if only that we can listen to Him and learn to practice the faith we have by action and real dedication from the heart. Let us not lose our focus as the Pharisees had lost theirs and let us all be truly faithful, not just in external appearances, but truly love God from the deepest depth of our hearts. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 9 February 2015 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today in the readings from the Scriptures we see how God had done His marvellous and wondrous works in this world, beginning from the very beginning of time up to the present and as He will continue to do so in the future. And He did these all through His Word, the Word that made all things be and which made all things present, that is Jesus, the Divine Word incarnate into Man.

He who made all things real had resolved to come and save all those He had created. This is because ever since we mankind disobeyed the Lord and chose to follow the words of Satan instead of the words of our Lord, sin and evil, that are imperfections entered into our world and make things wicked as it is now. Remember that our Lord in the Book of Genesis had created the world, all good and all perfect, and no evil could be found within the world when it was created.

It was the pride of Satan, the desire and greed of men and all other evils that brought about the imperfections that ruined the perfect goodness that was this world. Hence, ever since, evil and wickedness found their way into the world, and if we see violence, hatred, prejudice, greed and other terrible things in this world, all of them stemmed from our sinfulness and disobedience against God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, but despite what our ancestors had done to ruin and mar the beauty and the purity of creation, our Lord still loved all of us without exception, and although He hates our sins very greatly, but He loves all of us, the sinners, and He has no other wish than our freedom from the clutches of sin and from the chains of death. That was why He gave us His full love and dedication through Jesus, His Son.

Jesus laboured and worked to bring about the healing and reconciliation of mankind with Himself, so that by His works, He might reunite a people who had been scattered throughout this darkened world. His coming is like light shattering the darkness which had engulfed us for a very long time, and His light is like a guide which shows us the way out of the darkness and into the salvation which He promised to all those who keep their faith in Him.

Therefore, why do we all hear of the story of how God created the universe and all the things living and unliving today? That is because it is in our Lord’s desire to make us anew and to return us to the same state as when we were first created. He wants us to be made clean once more and freed from the illness and darkness which had covered us all body and soul, which tainted us and prevented us from embracing our Lord in complete love.

Sin is the disease of our soul, and as long as sin and darkness are in our hearts and as long as they taint our soul, our bodies will not be free, and death will continue to bind us. Thus, Jesus came to deliver us from the bonds of sin, from the chains of death. He freed us by His own sacrifice on the cross, and by showing us the selfless love which He had shown us by that sacrifice, so that we may be awakened from our dark slumber and begin to find our way towards our loving God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, from now on, let us all take concrete steps to change ourselves and our way of life, so that we may be relieved from that burden of sin which has plagued us since times immemorial, and so that by accepting fully the love which Christ our Lord has for us, that we may be made worthy and righteous once again, just as what the Lord intended for us, before sin came and corrupted us to the darkness.

May Almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins and help guide us on our way, so that the inheritance He had intended for us, that is to live with Him eternally in perfect bliss and happiness may become a reality for us. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 8 February 2015 : Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sexagesima Sunday and Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we continue to progress on towards the celebration of the most important parts of our Faith, that is the suffering, Passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today is Sexagesima Sunday, or literally meaning ‘sixty’ as a reminder for us that we are within about sixty days from the coming of Easter.

And on this day we heard about the nature of our lives, of our dwelling in this world, and the answer to all of our difficulties, plight and sorrows. As the first reading, taken from the Book of Job had mentioned, the suffering of this world, the pain and sorrow we all experienced, are like what Job had once experienced when Satan tested and tempted him against the Lord.

If we read the entirety of the Book of Job from the beginning to the end, we would realise that the suffering of mankind was never, ever the intention of our Lord. Suffering is in fact the result of the works of Satan and all of his allies, the forces of darkness in this world, and also more importantly, because of our disobedience against the will of God, that is sin.

Job’s friends accused Job of having sinned and committed wickedness before God. But meanwhile Job continued to complain and lamented for his sufferings, part of which we heard in our readings today, he continued to remain faithful to the Lord and never did once he cursed the Lord or blamed Him for what had happened to him. God showed Job that there are much that he did not understand, and He gave His answer to all of Job’s complaints, and for his continued faith despite his ramblings, he received great rewards surpassing what he had lost and what he had suffered from.

Thus, God wants to succour us and help us, and that was what God intends with us. The psalm today speaks of the healing which we can find in God, and it is this healing which our Lord Jesus Christ had brought with Him as He entered into our world to save it and to save all of us, His beloved people and children. The Gospel today reinforced this, by showing how Christ is concerned with all of His people, from the greatest to the least, and was concerned about spreading the truth He brought into the world to all the peoples.

He worked to heal the people of their afflictions, of the diseases that scourged their bodies, just as Job once was covered with boils and scabs that itched, and far above all these, was the healing which our Lord wrought upon our souls. What is this sickness of our souls? It is none other than sin. Sin is the scourge upon all of us, and it is a great barrier that prevents us from reuniting and being in complete unity and reconciliation with our Lord.

But we truly have no need for fear, as the Lord Himself had spared nothing else but Himself, and incarnate through His own Son, He made Himself the salvation and deliverance for us all mankind. For He is the Word of God, the Divine Word who is God and always is with God since before the beginning of time, and who was incarnate in the flesh to become like one of us, born a Man.

And through Jesus therefore, the word of God became real and concrete in this world, and instead of speaking through messengers and prophets, by the coming of Jesus into the world, God Himself speaks directly to us all, by what Jesus had taught us, and which His Apostles and disciples, and through them the Church, had preserved and passed down upon us.

In the readings for the Sexagesima Sunday, we hear of the parable of Jesus, that is the teaching of Jesus using stories and real experiences to make it easier for people to understand, the translation of the word of God into the words of men. Through what Jesus taught the people, what we know as the parable of the sower, the word of God has the power to bring us from the darkness of this world and from the suffering of the world into eternal happiness and joy with God.

However, as the parable shows us, that the word of God is like seeds planted by the Lord, who is the Sower, and the fate of those seeds depend on what kind of treatment or soil that they land on. This means that from our side, we must put in effort and work to ensure that the word of God can fall on fertile soil, and hence grow to bear rich fruits, that will lead us to our eternal reward, just as God once rewarded Job for his faith.

There will be many obstacles, brothers and sisters in Christ, as the parable shows us, and surely as our own experiences should have told us, that to be truly faithful and devoted to the Lord, and to follow Him in all of our ways is not going to be easy. Temptations of the world, the pressure from our peers and friends, and from the world itself to conform to the ways of the world or be rejected will be great, and it is on our part that we need to put in our effort to resist those challenges and temptations.

Today we celebrate the feast of two saints, St. Jerome Emiliani and St. Josephine Bakhita, two people who had very different life stories, and yet their experiences and examples will show us that what God had done unto us, by His coming into the world to offer us His generous mercy and love, is truly unmatched and unprecedented in the history of this world.

St. Jerome Emiliani was once a civil servant who worked in the government sector a few hundred years ago in what is today Italy. He eventually left behind everything to join the sacred priesthood and dedicated himself completely to the Lord and to his fellow men. St. Jerome Emiliani was renowned especially for his great love and care for orphans and all the children who were destitute and filled with problems in their lives.

St. Jerome Emiliani therefore helped to establish institutions and places where orphans and many other people who had been ostracised and rejected could stay as their new homes, and he himself with other priests and servants of God ministered to them and cared for them. He also established houses to accommodate former prostitutes who had repented from their sins.

Meanwhile, St. Josephine Bakhita was born in what is now Sudan just a century and half ago, and when she was young, she had to taste the bitter pill of war and violence, as well as the experience of slavery and subjugation by others, forced to accept the religion of heathens by her captors. She was sold as a slave and she was treated very badly, often tortured and not given proper food and place to live in.

By the grace of God, she was freed from her slavery when she was purchased from her previous owners by a Christian diplomat who came into the region and then entrusted St. Josephine Bakhita with the care of his family and children. A court thereafter ruled that St. Josephine Bakhita had not been legally a slave as where she was at, the state had ruled out slavery since before her birth, and thus she was then a freedman.

She was then baptised as a Christian and accepted into the Church by the future Pope St. Pius X, who was then the Patriarch of Venice, as she lived in the region where he had jurisdiction in. St. Josephine Bakhita thereafter joined the Canossian sisters, where she had lived for a while prior to her freedom, and from then on she lived a life of holy contemplation and filled with prayers and dedication to God. Great is her reward at the end of her earthly life.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue to prepare for the celebration of Holy Week and Easter, as well as we prepare for the season of Lent that precedes the former, which is soon to come, let us all take all these lessons and words into our hearts. St. Jerome Emiliani cared for the least of the people, the orphans and the rejected, just as Christ Himself gave Himself to the service of all those who have not been loved and those persecuted by others.

Let us all allow God to come into our lives, and through the planting of His words in our hearts, let us all be changed and transformed to become true and faithful children of our Lord, in all our words and deeds. Like St. Josephine Bakhita, the slaves turned freedman and then into a faithful servant and devoted woman, by allowing God to come into our lives, we allow ourselves to be freed from the slavery of sin and detaching ourselves from the things of this world.

May Almighty God bless us all, guide us all back to Him and in Him may we find satisfaction, succour and enlightenment, that we may all rejoice in Him in His everlasting glory, as we receive the great rewards for our faith, and may all of us be healed from the earthly and worldly afflictions. Amen.

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Saturday, 7 February 2015 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we discuss in the readings of the Holy Scriptures, of the nature of our Lord and God as our Shepherd and loving Guide, who cares for all of us, as His beloved children and people. He wants us all to be reunited with Him, and that was why He sent us Jesus His Son, to be the Deliverer and Saviour of us all, to bring us from all evils and liberate us all from all forms of sins.

God did not desire our destruction, but instead He wants us all to be saved from our own destructive attitudes, our rebelliousness and disobedience against His will which directly leads us into sin, and from sin into death, as sin is an obstacle for us to be reunited with our Lord, and without the Lord our God, our Shepherd, we are truly nothing. We cannot survive without the love of our Shepherd, just as sheep cannot survive and prosper without their shepherds.

We have lived for a very long time in the darkness, and we have lost our way in the darkness of this world, and without a guide, we are condemned to an eternity in darkness and suffering, in a state of hopelessness and complete separation from the love of our God. All these are because of our sins, the disobediences we have committed before the Lord and men alike.

But as I have mentioned, the Lord loves us very, very much, and just as the shepherd loves his sheep and cares for all of them without exception, thus the same applies to our Lord, who does not want even a single one of His sheep, that is all of us, to be lost from Him. We can liken this to a shepherd who does not wish his sheep to be lost to the wolves, to be scattered and without a leader to guide them and show them the way to a good life.

Thus this was why if we look at the Gospel passage today, even though our Lord Jesus and His disciples were very tired, particularly our Lord Himself, after ministering without cease on many occasions to the multitudes of the people of God, He still pushed Himself forth and taught more people who were looking for Him for guidance and the way for them to go in their life.

That is because He truly has concern and love for us. He is genuinely worried about us, for what is at stake is nothing other than the eternal fate of us all, and if He did nothing to save us, then all of us would have been lost, body and soul, to the eternal suffering and despair in hellfire. This is the fate that He does not want us all to have, and that was why, He became our Shepherd, to guide us all along the right path and show us all the path towards salvation in Him.

And just as a shepherd is willing to die and give up his life for his sheep, thus our Lord Jesus, our Shepherd is also willing to lay down His life for our sake. He laid down His life to protect us, and indeed to deliver us from the darkness of this world, to pay the price for our sins. Shepherds are willing to put their own lives at risk just so that their sheep may be safe from the depredations of wolves and all others that seek their destruction and harm. And indeed, our Lord is no different.

So for such a great love and care which our Lord had shown us all, even to the point of bearing the consequences of our sins and to even bear enormous suffering and to die for us, have we shown Him the same kind of unconditional and genuine love which we ought to show Him? Most often, we have shown Him contempt and indifference, and we even reject the love He had given us freely.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all appreciate the love which our Lord and Shepherd had shown us, and let us reciprocate it by loving Him back and following Him and the path which He had shown to all of us. Let us follow Him with all of our heart and let us no longer be disobedient but follow Him all the way to the end, where He will reward us with rich rewards and eternal life in bliss. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 3 February 2015 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, and St. Ansgar, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear about the healing which Jesus performed to the woman who had bleeding in her for twelve years, and also the resurrection of the dead daughter of a synagogue official. And both of them have a great significance for us, as they were both saved and healed because of their faith.

The woman was healed from her bleeding because she believed that Jesus had the power to free her from her afflictions, while the daughter of the official was healed because her father also showed the same faith in the power and authority of Jesus. What Jesus told the woman is important, as He said that the woman’s faith had saved her. This showed that we must have faith in the Lord in order for us to achieve salvation.

However, people tend to interpret this differently, thinking and assuming that faith alone is sufficient for us to attain salvation and liberation from all of our afflictions. Some were misled by the confusion to think that we just need to have faith and to believe in the Lord, and then all of our problem will be gone, and all of our difficulties will cease. But this is a wrong idea, an erroneous thinking and a heresy planted in our minds by Satan.

Our Lord Himself, as the first reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews had testified, is the founder of the Faith we have now, not just because He preached what He had preached, and not just because of all the words and things which He had mentioned and taught to His disciples, but even more importantly, Jesus Himself practiced and made true what He had taught and preached in His own actions.

He persevered and suffered grievously for all of our sins, and He bore that cross that is our sins, holding onto it as He ascended the hills of Calvary, and every single wounds He received is our sins that He patiently and lovingly bore upon Himself. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? Our Lord loves us all very much, and He wants us all to be saved. He had faith in us all being able to overcome sin, but without action, everything would come to naught.

And that was why, He showed us all the example through His own action, that faith is never complete without action and deed to prove that faith, and without action based on that faith, the faith is essentially dead. The woman with bleeding believed in Jesus, but had she not taken the action to come through the numerous crowd and try her best to touch the cloak of Jesus, she would not have been healed.

It was also the same for the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official. Had Jairus not make the effort to come down and seek the Lord Jesus, he would not have received the reward for his faith, even though he was indeed faithful to the Lord. Thus, our faith requires effort, a conscious effort and work, which is our faith made alive and real.

Indeed, we cannot profess that we are truly faithful to the Lord, if we had not done anything to show that we are indeed faithful. Therefore, let us all from now on, change our ways and be truly faithful, just as today we celebrate the feast of two saints of the Church, namely St. Blaise and St. Ansgar, the faithful servants of God, whose examples hopefully may inspire us all.

St. Blaise was renowned as the patron saint of throat diseases, and we know of him now primarily because of the custom of the blessing of the throat, also known as St. Blaise’s blessing, with two crossed candles on our throats. St. Blaise was once a physician that cured and healed diseases, but he then settled on in the greater service of God and His people and instead he became the physician of souls.

The works of St. Blaise in calling the people of God to repentance and to a holy lifestyle is a constant reminder to all of us, that we are all always afflicted with the disease of the soul, that is sin, and we have to seek remedy for this affliction, that is by seeking the Lord our God with faith, and by doing what He had commanded us to do, as doing good deeds for others around us is a panacea and medicine against the sickness of sin.

Meanwhile, St. Ansgar showed us that we have much to do as the fellow servants of God, in doing good for one another and in calling many people from the darkness of the world into the Light. St. Ansgar was truly experienced in this as he lived during the early Medieval era Europe, in the midst of the people still gripped by pagan worship and pagan gods, and he was indeed sent to those people to bring the Light of Christ upon them.

St. Ansgar tirelessly worked to bring the Good News and the truth of Christ to them. Amidst all the difficulties and challenges, he managed to convert countless souls and gained them for the Lord, for their own benefit as well. And this should inspire us all to take up the same cross, the same mission to bring more and more people to the salvation in the Lord.

May our Almighty God be with us all, guide us all in our ways that we may always be upright in His eyes and at the end of the days, may we all find salvation and justification in Him, the One who rewards all His faithful with the abundance of graces. God bless us all. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Feast of the Holy Family (II Classis) – Sunday, 11 January 2015 : Epistle

Liturgical Colour : White

Lectio Epistolae Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Colossenses – Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Colossians

Colossians 3 : 12-17

Fratres : Induite vos sicut electi Dei, sancti et dilecti, viscera misericordiae, benignitatem, humilitatem, modestiam, patientiam : supportantes invicem, et donantes vobismetipsis, si quis adversus aliquem habet querelam : sicut et Dominus donavit vobis, ita et vos.

Super omnia autem haec caritatem habete, quod est vinculum perfectionis : et pax Christi exsultet in cordibus vestris, in qua et vocati estis in uno corpore : et grati estote. Verbum Christi habitet in vobis abundanter, in omni sapientia, docentes et commonentes vosmetipsos psalmis, hymnis et canticis spiritualibus, in gratia cantantes in cordibus vestris Deo.

Omne, quodcumque facitis in verbo aut in opere, omnia in Nomine Domini Jesu Christi, gratias agentes Deo et Patri per ipsum.

 

English translation

Brethren, put you on the elect of God, holy and beloved, the bowels of mercy, benignity, humility, modesty, patience, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if any have a complaint against another, even as the Lord had forgiven you, so you also.

But above all these things, have charity, which is the bond of perfection : and let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts, wherein you are also called in one body, and all of you be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God.

All whatsoever you do in word or in work, all things you do, do it in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks to God and the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

Homily and Reflection :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/26/sunday-28-december-2014-feast-of-the-holy-family-of-jesus-mary-and-joseph-and-feast-of-the-holy-innocents-martyrs-homily-and-scripture-reflections/

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Friday, 9 January 2015 : Friday after the Epiphany (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded of the purpose of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ into this world. He came not just for nothing or just to save the righteous ones, but even more importantly, from the story of the healing of the leper, we should know that Jesus came into the world in order to save the weak, the sinners, the wicked and all those who have been lost to Him.

Remember that Jesus Himself said to the Pharisees to rebuke them? He said that He came into the world not to save the righteous nor the healthy, but to save those who need His help, those who are separated from His love, and all those who are far away from His grace. He came as a doctor to heal the illness of the sick, and for our case, this illness and sickness is sin, the taint and corruption on our body and soul that prevented us from receiving the grace of God.

In short, Jesus desires for us to be forgiven from our sins, to be cleansed from our iniquities and sins, and to be made whole again, so that no one will be lost in the end. All those who are lost will be brought back together again, so that in the grace of God they may be saved. That is the meaning and intention of God’s love, which He freely offers to all those who seek Him and who are willing to listen to His urgings and calls.

But all this cannot happen without our part to play, and we need to do something on our part ourselves. God offers us His salvation and grace freely, but if we are not responsive and unreceptive to His offers, then it will be useless for us. We will not be part of God’s salvation. We must be receptive and also take the initiative to allow the work of God to take place in ourselves, so that God’s salvation may come to work for us.

Jesus Himself said that if we need anything, we only have to ask and it shall be given to us, and we just have to knock at the door, and the door will be opened for us. That is the truth, and God is generous with His love. The problem is of course that many of us for various reasons refuse to do these, and therefore shutting ourselves out from the richness of God’s grace.

Many of us are too proud to ask for God’s help, or to lower ourselves to seek God’s mercy and forgiveness, and that is why many of us are still lost in the darkness of this world, and many of us continue to sin because we are too proud and haughty, thinking too highly of ourselves to humbly beg for the forgiveness for our sins. And on the other hand, many of us are also too afraid to ask for God’s help because we fear His punishment, His anger and His wrath, and hence, again we continue to live in sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if any of us are among these two groups of people, then we should indeed reflect, on the love of God, which He had shown through Jesus and through His loving sacrifice on the cross, the torture and sufferings He went through for our sake. We should open wide the doors of our heart to allow the Lord to come into us and to transform us from being the creatures of evil and sin into the people of the Light.

Therefore, let us all show love in our actions, loving one another and caring for each other, forgiving one another of the faults and mistakes we have done to each other. We have to live out our faith with real action, and we have to open up ourselves to the Lord, not to enclose ourselves within our pride and fear. Do not let pride prevent us from seeking out to the Lord and seeking His forgiveness for our sins. And of course, we should not allow our fear to come in the way of our seeking of the love of God.

May our Almighty and loving God be with us always, that we may not lose our way as we find our way towards Him and His salvation. May all of us grow stronger in faith and love, so that in all things we say, do and act, we may have the love of God in us. Let us throw far, far away all forms of pride and fear from our hearts and embrace God with love. God bless us all. Amen.

First Reading :

Friday, 9 January 2015 : Friday after the Epiphany (First Reading)


Psalm :

Friday, 9 January 2015 : Friday after the Epiphany (Psalm)


Gospel Reading :
https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2015/01/08/friday-9-january-2015-friday-after-the-epiphany-gospel-reading/

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Tuesday, 30 December 2014 : Sixth Day within the Octave of Christmas (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 2 : 36-40

There was also a prophetess named Anna, daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. After leaving her father’s home, she had been seven years with her husband, and since then she had been continually about the Temple, serving God as a widow night and day in fasting and prayer. She was now eighty-four. Coming up at that time, she gave praise to God, and spoke of the Child to all who looked forward to the deliverance of Jerusalem.

When the parents had fulfilled all that was required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to their town, Nazareth in Galilee. There the Child grew in stature and strength, and was filled with wisdom : the grace of God was upon Him.

Homily and Reflection :
https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/29/tuesday-30-december-2014-sixth-day-within-the-octave-of-christmas-homily-and-scripture-reflections/