great solemnity

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Sirach 27 : 30 – Sirach 28 : 7

Grudge and wrath, these also are abominations in which sinful people excel. He who demands revenge will suffer the vengeance of the Lord Who keeps a strict account of his sins. Forgive the mistakes of your neighbour and you may ask that your sins be forgiven.

If a man bears resentment against another, how can he ask God for healing? If he has no compassion on others, how can he pray for forgiveness for his sins? As long as he, mere flesh, is resentful, who will obtain his pardon? Remember your end and give up hatred; keep in mind your final corruption in the grave and keep the commandments.

Remember the commandments and do not bear grudges against your neighbour. Remember the Covenant with the Most High and overlook the offence.

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we heard a very important message from the Scriptures, which lay at the very centre and heart of our Christian faith, that is love, compassion, forgiveness and kindness. On this day we remember God’s such great love for us that He is willing to forgive us all our sins, even as great and many as our sins are, provided that we are willing to repent and turn away from those sins.

God has remembered His people, even when they have betrayed Him, abandoned Him and left Him behind for other, false gods and idols. As shown in our first reading today, taken from the prophet Ezekiel, was a remark of just how God loved His people so much even when they have sinned and fallen. At the time of the prophet Ezekiel, the nation and kingdom of Israel and Judah have both fallen, and its people humiliated and brought into exile in far-off lands, all because of their constant refusal to obey God or listen to Him.

But through His prophet Ezekiel, God expressed great sorrow at this, showed metaphorically with how He would darken the sun, the moon and the star, and veil everything in darkness. All of these attribute to mourning attitude, and God rightfully did so, because a people whom He loved, had been lost to Him and suffered as a consequence of their own disobedience and delinquency. Had God not loved or cared about His people, we would never have heard such sorrowful expression from Him.

That is why He wants all of us to be reconciled to Him, as rebellious and delinquent children to be reconciled to their father, so God is our loving Father Who desires above all else, our redemption and liberation from the tyranny of sin. We have been enslaved by sin, and through sin we have been brought low and we ought to have been crushed and destroyed. Yet, this is not what the Lord wanted to happen to us.

For we all must remember that God created us all with a reason, and that reason is love. God creates us all because He wants to share His love with us, and it was because of that love which allowed Him to forgive us when we come humbly before Him, honestly and genuinely seeking His mercy and forgiveness. The Lord reaches out to us as a loving Father, Who wants us to recognised our errors and the mistakes of our ways.

It was this great love God has showered us with, from the very beginning which gave us that ‘gift’ of love which we spurned through sin. And thus because of our sins, we became indebted to God, the debts of our sins, all the evil and wicked things we have done to God Who loved us so much. St. Paul spoke of this in his Epistle to the Romans, our second reading today, when he exhorted us not to be in debt to anything, but to the debt of love. Essentially, he exhorted all of us the faithful to abandon our sinful ways and to avoid evil and wickedness.

And he also reminded all of us of the Law and Commandments of God, which are essentially about love, and to live righteously and justly, free from the shackles of sin. But in this world, there are indeed plenty of temptations that can lead us astray and prevent us from finding our way to God. And to this extent, God did all He could to give us chance after chance, opportunity one after another, calling us through His messengers and servants, to turn us into His righteous path once more.

He has also laid it out clearly in our Gospel passage today, as He mentioned how the Church and the community of the faithful had very important role to play in all of these. The Lord Himself said that all of us the faithful has the responsibility and obligation to help, seek and assist our brethren who have erred and fallen into the wrong path in life. He said that if our brother or sister in faith erred and walked down the wrong path, then we ought to persuade him or her, to abandon the path of sin and return to the faith in God.

But as mentioned, although the Lord has generously extended His love, mercy and compassion to sinners and all those who have abandoned Him, but it all depends on our acceptance and willingness to cooperate and receive that offer of mercy. If we are stubborn in refusing God’s mercy and forgiveness, and are unwilling to abandon our path of sin, our attachments to the wickedness of this world and to the temptations of Satan, then it is by our own conscious choice that we reject God and His salvation.

The Lord gave great authority to His Church, in the hands of St. Peter, His Vicar as the first Pope and his successors, and together with his brother bishops, the authority to bind or loosen the bonds between mankind and the kingdom of Heaven. Through this authority, and by the conferral of the Sacrament of Baptism and other Sacraments of Initiation such as the Confirmation and Eucharist, the Church has called many to the Lord, and many had indeed responded to the call, received the faith and be united in the Church, as we are.

And to those who constantly and persistently refused to repent and be converted to the truth, the Church has also been given the power to loosen, which is most evident in the practice of ‘excommunication’ that had unfortunately been imposed on some of those who persistently refused to turn to the faith. But all these were done, by casting them out from the Communion of the Church, with the intention that this is temporary, and as a ‘wake-up call’ to encourage and persuade the offender to return to the Lord, repent and change his or her ways.

Thus it is also a constant reminder that we must not take God’s love for granted, His patience and compassion for us. Many of us Christians tend to take our faith lightly and even lived in ways contrary to our faith, and doing so means that we choose to disobey God and sin against Him despite of our faith. What is faith if we are not faithful? And many of us yet still live our faith in a very lukewarm manner, treating it as merely a formality and even as a chore. And that is the sad reality of the state of our Christian faith these days.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday therefore, through the readings of the Scriptures we have just heard today, all of us are called to do a deep self-introspection in our lives, looking at how each and every one of us can turn away from sin and from our wicked past and embrace instead the path of God’s love. And this is not easy, as following God’s path often requires us to make self-sacrifices, sacrifices of time and energy, and a lot of effort that often can be thankless and difficult.

Yet, as members of the Church, as Christians, this is what we are expected to do, to be bearers of the true faith, and to show love in all and every one of our actions in life. This is why we are called to show the ‘debt’ of love instead of having the ‘debt’ of sin. Let us all love each other, forgive one another our trespasses and faults, just as we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins, as we often say it in the Lord’s Prayer or Pater Noster we pray.

Let us be thankful to God, our loving Father for His constant love and providence, for His enduring compassion and His persistent mercy showed towards us. Let us all, in these difficult moments and times, show the love of God, our loving Father, through our actions and interactions with one another, that more and more people may come to know of the love of God, be touched by His love, and grow to have faith in Him just as we have believed in Him.

Let us bring forth the light of God’s hope and providence to this darkened world, giving hope and strength to our brethren who are suffering amidst all the effects of the continued global pandemic, economic instability and the collapse of many sectors of our world economy, the loss of many jobs and the loss of many sources of income for countless people all around the world. Let us share one another’s burden and bring some consolation, hope and love to each other, that through everything we do, we become true disciples and witnesses of Christ’s love in our world today.

May the Lord be with us always, and may He strengthen us all to be His faithful disciples, to love with all of our hearts and strength, loving Him and loving our fellow brothers and sisters, all brethren in the same Lord, helping and reminding each other to be faithful at all times by our actions and deeds. Let us never take God’s love for granted anymore and appreciate the love that He grant us each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us always, in our every endeavours, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 18 : 15-20

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “If your brother has sinned against you, go and point out the fault to him, when the two of you are alone; and if he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen to you, take with you one or two others, so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”

“And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard him as a pagan, or a tax collector. I say to you : whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound.”

“In like manner, I say to you, if, on earth, two of you agree in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by My heavenly Father; for where two or there are gathered in My Name, I am there, among them.”

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 13 : 8-10

Do not be in debt to anyone. Let this be the only debt of one to another : Love. The one who loves his or her neighbour fulfils the Law. For the commandments : Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not covet, and whatever else, are summarised in this one : You will love your neighbour as yourself.

Love cannot do the neighbour any harm; so love fulfils the whole Law.

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to YHVH, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before YHVH, our Maker. He is our God, and we, His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would, that today, you heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezekiel 33 : 7-9

The skies will darken and the stars become dim; I will veil the sun with a cloud and the moon shall not give its light. Because of you, I will darken all the lights in the sky and cover the earth in darkness, word of YHVH.

Many nations will grieve when I spread the news of your fall, even people you do not know.

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Sunday, 30 August 2020 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are reminded that being Christians, and indeed, faithful Christians is not going to be easy for us. On the contrary, to be a faithful Christian, we must always be prepared to endure rejection and even persecution for our faith. We must not expect that becoming Christian is the path for good life and happiness to be enjoyed right here in this world, without the need to suffer.

In our first reading today, we heard the anguish and sorrow, the emotions and indeed the stresses faced by the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet sent to the kingdom of Judah during the last days of the kingdom, just before it was to be destroyed and conquered by the forces of the Babylonians. Jeremiah was sent to a people who had largely abandoned God and ignored His Law and commandments, disobeyed His precepts and ways, ignoring and persecuting His prophets and messengers.

And among them all, the works of the prophet Jeremiah was particularly difficult as he had to contend alone against not just the people and their king who hardened their hearts and minds against God, but also against the many false prophets and leaders who used the opportunity to twist the minds of the people and the king further, by saying that the Babylonians would be destroyed and defeated, while some of them said that by depending on the power of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, Judah would be saved.

Against all these, the prophet Jeremiah stood alone and defenceless, speaking the words of God to the people, until he was labelled and deemed as a doomsayer or even a traitor to the nation and the people for speaking of the coming destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, for speaking out how the kingdom and its cities would the destroyed and the people brought into exile just as how the Lord said it would, due to the sins and disobedience of the people who refused to believe in God.

Jeremiah alone spoke of all these and he faced most bitter persecution, challenges and trials for doing so. He was reviled, hated and made to suffer, even had his life threatened on many occasions by his many enemies who wanted him to be dead. He was in the most difficult spot all the time and as we heard in our first reading passage today, it was no wonder that Jeremiah at times was tempted to forget God and abandon his mission and calling as prophet and messenger to the people of Judah.

This is then related to what we heard in our Gospel today, we heard from St. Peter the Apostle, who had just proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God, and thus entrusted with the leadership of the Church and the keys of the kingdom of Heaven as we heard in our last Sunday’s Gospel. In today’s occurrence however, when the Lord Jesus then foretold of His upcoming suffering, persecution and eventually death on the Cross, St. Peter rebuked the Lord and disagreed with Him.

St. Peter said how this could not happen to Him, and He could not and should not meet such an ignominious fate, to die in such a way at the hands of their enemies. For the context, at that time, many if not most of the Jews believed that the Messiah promised by the Lord through His prophets would be a great King like king David, the Messiah’s predecessor, and they thought that the Messiah would lead them to freedom and defeat those who have subjugated and conquered them, such as the Romans.

By that time, the Jewish people had lived for six centuries after the time of the prophet Jeremiah as conquered nation and people, passing on from the hands of one ruler and overlord to another, from the Babylonians to the Persians, then to the Greek Empire of Alexander the Great and his successors, the Ptolemaic kings of Egypt and the Seleucid kings of Asia and Mesopotamia, and then short while of independence under the Maccabees or the Hasmonean kingdom, before once again subjugated by the foreign rulers such as the Herodian dynasty and their overlords, the Romans.

It was therefore not surprising that many among the Jews, including the Apostles and many of the followers of Christ who viewed Him as the coming King Who would lead them to victory in the battle against the Romans and made them all independent once again, and become a great kingdom again just as in the days of David and Solomon, when the kingdom of Israel was mighty, great and respected all over the land.

This was where then the Lord Jesus immediately rebuked St. Peter back and pointed out the true culprit behind all of these, that is none other than Satan, our great enemy, the tempter and the one who is always very hard at work in trying to crush us, defeat us, mislead us and bring us to our damnation. He has tempted the prophet Jeremiah as I mentioned earlier, persuading him to abandon his efforts and ministry, and forget about God. Fortunately, Jeremiah had a strong faith in God, and his love for Him helped him to endure through the devil’s temptations and pressures.

St. Peter had faith in the Lord, and that faith allowed him to publicly proclaim the Lord and His truth before others. It took genuine faith and real courage to speak up in such a way, especially when it could be considered a great sin and blasphemy by the Jewish authorities and shunned by others in the community at the time. St. Peter was therefore, just like the prophet Jeremiah, speaking the truth of God, even though that truth might not be popular or acceptable in the community.

But that was just the beginning for him and the other Apostles, as they would encounter more and more occasions when they would need to stand up to their faith and to remain faithful even though they had to face trials and tribulations. Although they were faithful, but they too were humans, just as the prophet Jeremiah and the other prophets were. They might also experience sorrow, fear, uncertainty and worry over themselves, just as they encounter all those terrible oppositions and persecutions.

What is important here is, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that we must not give in to the temptations of the devil. We must be strong and we must dedicate ourselves to the Lord, just as the Lord Himself showed us. For you see, the Lord Himself had been tempted by the devil when He was fasting and spending forty days in the desert. And although Satan tried his very best to tempt the Son of God, he failed to do so, because the Lord Jesus was firm in His commitment and conviction, and He showed us that through faith, the devil can be defeated.

And on the very last moment, He was tempted a final time in His agony in the Gardens of Gethsemane, when just before He was about to be arrested, betrayed, condemned to death, suffer and die a most painful and humiliating death, Jesus in His humanity, felt anguish and the fear that is also common to all of us. In His agony, it was so much that as He prayed to His Father, His sweat dropped onto the ground as if they were blood.

A hint of this is when the Lord said, ‘Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me.’, as a brief reference to just how terrible an anguish it must have been, for Him to bear the combined weight and burden of all of mankind’s sins. But the Lord remained firm even so, in His obedience to His Father’s will, with the words, ‘But let it be according to Your will, not Mine. Let Your will be done!’ And this is what each and every one of us as Christians are called to follow, the very examples of our Lord Himself, which His Apostles also followed.

In our second reading today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans nicely summarised all of these into these, ‘Do not let yourself be shaped by the world around you, but be transformed, by the renewal of your spirit.’ Through these words, St. Paul reminds and calls all of us Christians to dare to be different from the norms of the world and to stand up for our faith, to proclaim the truth of God even when the truth is not something that is favourable, preferred or desired by the society at large.

But we cannot do this alone, brothers and sisters in Christ. In order for us to be able to stand faithfully for our faith, we need God’s support and strength, and we must always be attuned to Him and commit ourselves to Him. As humans, it is likely that we will encounter fear, uncertainties, worries and concerns, when things start to go bad, when we face trials and challenges, and the devil knows this very, very well. He will use whatever is within his disposal in order to tempt us, persuade us, and even coerce us to abandon our struggle and our journey of faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why as Christians we must be prayerful people, so that the Lord, our loving Father will always help us find the way, for it is through prayer, genuine, deep prayer in our hearts that we can understand God’s will and His plans for us. It is often that we are blinded by our own fears, deafened by our own uncertainties and doubts, that we cannot see, hear and perceive God showing us and telling us that He is with us, and therefore, we have no need to fear at all.

And we must also be a charitable people, people living our lives with faith and filled with genuine love for one another. When we love God, as well as loving each other, even when we are difficult times, then the devil has no room in our hearts. Satan loves only himself, and he hates genuine love, selfless love, sacrificial love, the kind of love that Christ has shown us on the Cross. If we fill ourselves with love, brothers and sisters in Christ, then naturally, we will draw closer to God and we will not allow the devil to have any of his means with us.

When we hate, we allow Satan to enter into our hearts, after which he will sow even more seeds of fear, distrust, anger, jealousy, greed, pride and many others. The Lord told us, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” And throughout the history of the Church, even persecutors and enemies of the Church have repented and became Christians, when they saw how the Christian martyrs acted with love, forgave them and had such great faith in God. Not few of these persecutors-turned-converts became martyrs themselves.

Now, brothers and sister in Christ, today therefore we are all challenged by God, to embrace the fact that becoming His followers do not necessarily mean glory and joy in this life we have in this world. On the contrary, challenges and trials will likely come our way as we have likely suffered and endured these earlier as well. But are we willing to take up our crosses in life with Christ, and carry them with faith, hope and love? These are the important questions that we need to ask ourselves as we go forward in life.

Let us all be ever more prayerful, dedicating special time constantly to speak with God, to be more attuned to His will and to follow His path. Let us all be more loving and compassionate towards one another, that by our love, others may truly know that we belong to God, and so will Satan, our great enemy. Let us place our faith in God and fear no more. May the Lord bless us all and each of our endeavours, good works and actions, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 August 2020 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 16 : 21-27

At that time, from that day, Jesus began to make it clear to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem; that He would suffer many things from the Jewish authorities, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law; and that He would be killed and be raised on the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to reproach Him, “Never, Lord! No, this must never happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle in My path. You are thinking not as God does, but as people do.”

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If you want to follow Me, deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow Me. For whoever chooses to save his life will lose it, but the one who loses his life, for My sake, will find it. What will one gain by winning the whole world, if he destroys his soul? Or what can a person give, in exchange for his life?”

“Know, that the Son of Man will come, in the glory of His Father with the holy Angels, and He will reward each one according to his deeds.”

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Sunday, 30 August 2020 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 12 : 1-2

I beg you, dearly beloved, by the mercy of God, to give yourselves, as a living and holy sacrifice, pleasing to God; that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.

Do not let yourselves be shaped by the world where you live, but, rather, be transformed, through the renewal of your mind. You must discern the will of God : what is good, what pleases, what is perfect.

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Sunday, 30 August 2020 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 62 : 2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

O God, You are my God, it is You I seek; for You, my body longs and my soul thirsts, as a dry and weary land without water.

Thus have I gazed upon You in the Sanctuary, to see Your power and Your glory. Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You.

I will praise You as long as I live, lift up my hands and call on Your Name. As with the richest food, my soul will feast; my mouth will praise You with joyful lips.

For You have been my help; I sing in the shadow of Your wings. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.