great solemnity

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Sunday, 24 November 2019 : Thirty-Fourth and Last Sunday of Ordinary Time, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 23 : 35-43

At that time, the people stood by, watching. As for the rulers, they jeered at Jesus, saying to one another, “Let the Man Who saved others now save Himself, for He is the Messiah, the Chosen One of God!”

The soldiers also mocked Him and, when they drew near to offer Him bitter wine, they said, “So You are the King of the Jews? Free Yourself!” Above Jesus there was an inscription in Greek, Latin and Hebrew, which read, “This is the King of the Jews.”

One of the criminals hanging with Jesus insulted Him, “So You are the Messiah? Save Yourself, and us as well!” But the other rebuked him, saying, Have you no fear of God, you who received the same sentence as He did? For us it is just : this is payment for what we have done. But this Man has done nothing wrong.”

And he said, “Jesus, remember me, when You come into Your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “Truly, you will be with Me today in paradise.”

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Sunday, 24 November 2019 : Thirty-Fourth and Last Sunday of Ordinary Time, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Colossians 1 : 12-20

Constantly give thanks to the Father Who has empowered us to receive our share in the inheritance of the saints in His kingdom of light. He rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son. In Him we are redeemed and forgiven.

He is the Image of the unseen God, and for all creation He is the Firstborn, for in Him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible : thrones, rulers, authorities, powers… All was made through Him and for Him. He is before all and all things hold together in Him.

And He is the Head of the Body, that is the Church, for He is the first, the first raised from the dead that He may be the first in everything, for God was pleased to let fullness dwell in Him. Through Him God willed to reconcile all things to Himself, and through Him, through His Blood shed on the cross, God establishes peace, on earth as in heaven.

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Sunday, 24 November 2019 : Thirty-Fourth and Last Sunday of Ordinary Time, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 121 : 1-2, 4-5

I rejoiced with those who said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” And now we have set foot within your gates, o Jerusalem!

There the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, the assembly of Israel, to give thanks to the Lord’s Name. There stands the courts of justice, the offices of the house of David.

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Sunday, 24 November 2019 : Thirty-Fourth and Last Sunday of Ordinary Time, Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 5 : 1-3

All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “We are your bone and flesh. In the past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led Israel. And YHVH said to you, ‘You shall be the shepherd of My people Israel and you shall be commander over Israel.'”

Before YHVH, King David made an agreement with the elders of Israel who came to him at Hebron, and they anointed him king of Israel.

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Sunday, 17 November 2019 : Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of the Poor (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all finally at the thirty-third and last of the Ordinary Sundays in the year, as we approach the end of this current liturgical year. Next Sunday we shall be celebrating the great Solemnity of Jesus Christ the King, the final cap to this current liturgical year. As we reach this stage in time, we heard of the constant reminders through the Scripture of what is to come and what we should expect in our journey of faith as one of the many disciples of the Lord.

As we approach the end of this liturgical year, the readings remind us of the reality of what God Himself has promised to us and which we also believe firmly as we always repeat through every time we recite the Creed, that He will come again in glory at the appointed time, and as He comes again, He will gather us all to Himself and will judge all the peoples, all the nations for their own deeds and actions, be it good or be it bad and evil.

We do not know when is the exact moment that this will happen, but it is perfectly certain that His coming will be a surprise to everyone, at a time when everyone least expect it. It is perfectly certain that the Lord will come as He has promised. But in the meanwhile, as we look forward to His coming, and as we expect Him to gather us all into His eternal and glorious kingdom, we have to live our lives according to how He has taught us, through the way that He has shown us.

The Lord presented to His disciples in our Gospel passage today, and therefore through to us all, the reality of being a follower of His. To be a disciple of the Lord means that we have to be prepared for the trials and challenges that will likely be in our path, as we will encounter all sorts of difficulties, even as the Lord said, false prophets and guides who will try to lead us astray from the faith in God.

What the Lord had said, has actually happened throughout the long history of the Church. There had been many moments when the faithful had to endure bitter suffering and persecutions, from the Romans, the pagans, the enemies of the Church, from the worldly authorities and governments, and from many others who sought the destruction of the Church and the faith. That was how the innumerable martyrs of the Church came to be, all those who have suffered and died for the Lord.

Yet, they suffered with courage and conviction, faith and commitment to God. They went through all sorts of difficulties, torture and pain, encountering all sorts of painful deaths, because they refused to give up their faith in God. They remained true to their faith even amidst great pressure and persecution, even opposition from their own friends and families. They were faithful to the very end.

This is what the Lord Himself had said to His disciples as He prepared them all for the eventual suffering and persecution they had to encounter. Just as the world has persecuted their Lord and Master, His disciples and followers would also suffer as He had suffered. But He also then reassured them that they would not be alone, as God would be with them, suffering with them, carrying His Cross with them. He would guide them through those difficult moments and strengthen them.

That was probably how many of the holy martyrs were able to persevere through those difficult moments, and how they endured all the bitterness of the world. That was because they put their faith and trust in God, knowing that He was with them through all the way. The Lord encouraged and strengthened them through His Holy Spirit, that they remained true to their dedication even through the darkest moments.

That is why He called on His disciples to remain strong and to put their trust in Him, that no matter what, He will guide them and show them the way. And He said this because He wanted them all to do His works and to be the witnesses of His truth at all times, even at the most difficult moments, so that they would not worry about themselves or about what they would do, because no matter what, God would be with them.

That is, brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of what we have to do with our lives as Christians. We are all called to be witnesses for Christ, for His truth and for the Gospel of His salvation. We are all called to glorify Him by our lives and be the bearers of His truth to the nations, for He has given us this Great Commission, that we go to all the nations, bearing His truth and baptise all the peoples in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Then, in the second reading passage today, taken from the Epistle written by St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Thessalonica, we heard of how St. Paul mentioned that he and his fellow disciples worked hard for the sake of the faithful, doing all that they could to serve the people and living their lives to the best of their abilities. They did their work and laboured as an example to the rest of the faithful.

And why is that so? That is because at that time, there were those who believed that the Lord’s coming was imminent, and that therefore they needed nothing else than to wait for His coming and be idle, for they have already been saved after all. But that was not what the Lord wanted them to do, for as I have just mentioned, He sent us all into the world, to bear witness to His truth, His resurrection and to His salvation for all mankind.

How do we then bear witness to God’s truth and love? It is by doing what He has Himself done, in reaching out to our fellow men, showing our own love, care and concern for others around us, in particular those among us who have few or even none to care for them and love them. It is indeed most fitting that on this Sunday, the thirty-third one in Ordinary Time, which has recently been declared as the World Day of the Poor, we remember the poor in our midst, those who have little or none to pass the day by, and also all those who have been treated unjustly and even without basic human dignity in our society.

As this current liturgical year comes to an end, it is perhaps time for us to look upon the year that has just passed, and discern how our lives will proceed from now on, even as we look back and take note of what we have done in this past one year cycle in serving God and His people, what we have failed to do or have not yet done, and how we can proceed from now on, as we enter the new liturgical year cycle, and from then on and on again, in living the lives as true Christian disciples.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all called to reflect on what we can do as Christians, to bear true witness to Christ and show our faith by our words and actions in life. We should love one another and share our joys and blessings if we have more of these to those who have little or none, so that all those who see us, know that we truly belong to God, because not just that we have done what God Himself had done, in seeking the last, the lost and the least among us.

We have to remember what the Lord had said, that whatever we do to the least of our brothers, we are doing it to the Lord Himself. Therefore, if we hurt or make those who are poor and needy to suffer even more, then our reckoning before God will indeed be truly terrible, while if we reach out to them in love as we should, then God too will reach out to us with the same if not even greater love. This is how the world knows that we are His disciples, when we love one another, just as He loves us, and even more so, towards those who have known little or no love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we live in a Christ-like manner, by reaching out to one another with love, especially to the poor and the needy, we will likely go against the norms and customs of this world. Indeed, as mentioned earlier, there will inevitably be frictions and inconveniences, troubles and trials ahead in our journey. But should we let all these trials and challenges to deter us, or should we rather make these as the reasons why we want to be even more determined to do what we should as Christians?

Let us all be true Christians in our lives, brothers and sisters in Christ, that our every actions, words and deeds truly breathe the very essence of our Christian beliefs, that everyone may know the Lord through us and see His love and compassion, His mercy and salvation, His truth and glory through our lives and actions. May the Lord continue to bless us all, and guide us all, His Church and His people in our journey of faith, day by day, to the end of time. Amen.

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Sunday, 17 November 2019 : Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of the Poor (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 21 : 5-19

At that time, while some people were talking about the Temple, remarking that it was adorned with fine stonework and rich gifts, Jesus said to them, “The days will come when there shall not be left one stone upon another of all that you now admire; all will be torn down.”

And they asked Him, “Master, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” Jesus then said, “Take care not to be deceived, for many will come claiming My title and saying, ‘I am He, the Messiah; the time is at hand!’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and troubled times, do not be frightened; for all these things must happen first, even though the end is not so soon.”

And Jesus said, “Nations will fight each other and kingdom will oppose kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues; in many places strange and terrifying signs from heaven will be seen. Before all these things happen, people will lay their hands on you and persecute you; you will be delivered to the synagogues and put in prison, and for my sake you will be brought before kings and governors. This will be your opportunity to bear witness.”

“So keep this in mind : do not worry in advance about what to say, for I will give you words and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and some of you will be put to death. But even though, because of My Name, you will be hated by everyone, not a hair of your head will perish. By your patient endurance you will save your souls.”

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Sunday, 17 November 2019 : Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of the Poor (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Thessalonians 3 : 7-12

You know how you ought to follow our example : we worked while we were with you. Day and night we laboured and toiled so as not to be a burden to any of you. We had the right to act otherwise, but we wanted to give you an example.

Besides, while we were with you, we said clearly : If anyone is not willing to work, neither should that one eat. However we heard that some among you live in idleness – busybodies, doing no work. In the Name of Christ Jesus our Lord we command these people to work and earn their own living.

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Sunday, 17 November 2019 : Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of the Poor (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 97 : 5-6, 7-8, 9

With melody of the lyre and with music of the harp. With trumpet blast and sound of the horn, rejoice before the King, the Lord!

Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all its peoples. Let rivers clap their hands, hills and mountains sing with joy.

Before the Lord, for He comes to rule the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.

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Sunday, 17 November 2019 : Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of the Poor (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Malachi 3 : 19-20a

The day already comes, flaming as a furnace. On that day all the proud and evildoers will be burnt 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.

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Sunday, 10 November 2019 : Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday as we get closer to the end of the current liturgical year, we heard about the readings focusing on the theme of the resurrection into new life, as we began today with the first reading from the Second Book of the Maccabees on seven brothers and their mother who were persecuted by the Seleucid Greeks under king Antiochus and then in the Gospel we heard of the encounter and exchange between the Lord Jesus and a group of Sadducees.

Let us all first understand the context of the readings today, in which we heard of the persecution of the faithful Jews by the Seleucid king Antiochus who wanted to impose Greek customs and religious traditions on the whole of his Empire. At that time, the tyranny and heavy-handedness of the king made many of the population to rise up in revolt, led by the priest Mattathias and his family, who would be known as the Maccabeans.

As we can see, the persecution of the Jews who remained faithful to the laws and commandments of God was truly terrible, as exemplified by the persecution of the seven brothers and their mother. They were tortured, made to suffer and then executed one by one, beginning from the eldest son to the youngest son because they all refused to abandon their faith in God and embrace the king’s order to embrace the pagan Greek practices.

All of them defended their faith and stood by their dedication to God without hesitation, right up to the last and the youngest son who was persuaded by the king to abandon his faith for the sake of being considered the friend of the king and receiving many worldly privileges of power, wealth and glory that were abounding through the king and his influence. But none of those were able to move the heart of the youngest son who remained even more adamant on his faith.

We can see very clearly how courageous all of them, the seven sons and their mother in their readiness to face bitter suffering and painful death in the defence of their faith. They would not have had such courage when faced with all the forces of the world levelled against them, had they not have faith in God and in His promises of an everlasting of true joy, happiness and wonders in Him despite all the trials and challenges that they had to face in life.

They turned away from the comforts and the false happiness of the world, and chose to focus on the Lord and follow the path He has shown them. Their perseverance and their enduring faith in the Lord’s providence and the Covenant which He had made with them allowed them to endure all the terrible persecutions and trials. They sought the promise of the world that is to come and not put their focus on the happiness in the world that they were in at present.

And this is where our story from the first reading is connected and is parallel to the story from our Gospel today, as the Sadducees confronted the Lord and asked Him regarding the resurrection from the dead. The Sadducees were a powerful group at the time of the Lord Jesus, as one of the two main influence groups alongside the Pharisees. Unlike the Pharisees who were concerned and focused on the matters of spirituality, religion and the Law to a great excess, the Sadducees were their polar opposites.

The Sadducees were kind of the secular and worldly party of the Jewish people, all those who were influential and powerful in the community and with ties to the government, with probably many of them also belonging to the supporters of king Herod and his descendants, the rulers of Judea and Galilee. The Sadducees were those who looked at the world in a secular and non-religious manner, in opposition to the Pharisees and also to Jesus and His disciples, as the Lord spoke often in favour of leaving behind material goods of the world in the seeking of the divine.

The Sadducees used a story to test the Lord with regards to the matter of the resurrection because they did not believe in either the resurrection or the afterlife. They neither believed in the Angels or in any spiritual matters, as they were focused on purely materialistic and worldly matters in their sight and understanding of the world. They wanted to test and even discredit the Lord using the story of a woman who had seven husbands and asking Him whose wife she was in the afterlife.

Understanding the context of the Jewish law, if a man who was married to a woman died without having a child, one of his brothers had to take the woman to be his own wife, and a son born of the union between the deceased man’s brother and his wife would be legally considered as the son of the deceased for the matter of inheritance and preserving the deceased man’s memory and legacy. It was this part of the Law which the Sadducees made use of in trying to test the Lord.

But the Lord chided and rebuked the Sadducees for failing to understand the Law properly and for their worldly view and perspective of things by which they focused on such trivialities and misunderstood what the most important things in life are. When they asked the Lord whose wife the woman was among all the seven brothers who all married her, they failed to understand that marriage is not about something human only but even more importantly is a union blessed by the divine in imitation of God’s love.

In the case of the Sadducees, they thought of the woman being a wife as a commodity and possession, in the manner that was common in the world at that time. During that time, the status of women in the society was quite low, and they were often considered as the possessions of their family, parents or husbands. In that context, the Sadducees took am understanding of matter with a purely worldly mentality and sentiment, worrying more about who the woman would belong to rather than the matter of the resurrection itself.

And why is that so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because the Sadducees were too afraid to leave the life as they knew it. They were too attached to the world that they refused to think of what would come after the end of their earthly existence. That was why they focused on living their lives at the moment to the fullest, seeking worldly pleasures and satisfactions, and in doing so, they ended up falling into the temptations that brought them further and further away from God.

Essentially, what we heard about the seven brothers in our first reading today is contrary to what we have heard from the attitudes of the Sadducees. The seven brothers put their faith in God first and foremost before anything else, willing to suffer and even die for the sake of defending their faith and in remaining committed to Him. They would not betray their faith and their God for the sake of worldly happiness and status. On the other hand, the Sadducees acted and believed in a manner diametrically opposite, as they focused on the world and perhaps had no God in their heart at all.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of these then come to us, as we all can follow the path that either of these two groups of people showed us. God has given us the freedom to choose the path of our lives, and so, do we want to follow the path of the Sadducees, focusing on the world, enjoying everything and forgetting about God, just as what the Greek king tried to persuade the seven brothers to do, or do we want to be faithful like the seven brothers in the Book of Maccabees?

And as we can already see from what those seven brothers endured and suffered from, to be true disciples and followers of the Lord, as our Lord Himself said, we must be ready to carry our crosses in life with Him, to suffer with Him and from time to time, to be ridiculed, mocked, humiliated, rejected and even persecuted for what we believe. That is part of the commitment that we ought to have as those who truly believe in God and want to walk in His ways.

Let us all therefore truly be faithful to God at all times and in everything we say and do in our lives. Let us all draw ever closer to Him and let us all dedicate ourselves with ever greater zeal and love for God, through every actions and efforts we take in this life we have in this world. Let us all be courageous in loving God, and resist the many temptations of false pleasures and joys of this world so that our lives may truly be Christian-like and inspirational that through us and our good examples of faith may bring ever more souls to redemption and salvation in God.

May the Lord inflame in us the strong and living flame of passion and love for Him and His ways, that we may truly desire to seek our true treasure and inheritance in God, and not ended up being distracted by the many comforts in life that may seem to be satisfactory and pleasurable, and yet does not last forever. May God guide us all to Him, and embrace us all with the fullness of His love. Amen.