Great Sunday

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Sunday, 11 September 2016 : 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Exodus 32 : 7-11, 13-14

Then YHVH said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a molten calf; they have bowed down before it and sacrificed to it and said : ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.'”

And YHVH said to Moses, “I see that these people are a stiff-necked people. Now just leave Me that My anger may blaze against them. I will destroy them, but of you I will make a great nation.” But Moses calmed the anger of YHVH, his God, and said, “Why, o YHVH, should Your anger burst against Your people whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with a mighty hand?”

“Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the promise You Yourself swore : I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land I spoke about I will give to them as an everlasting inheritance.”

YHVH then changed His mind and would not yet harm His people.

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Sunday, 4 September 2016 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday’s Scripture readings all speak with harmony and clarity, telling all of us to be prepared, to be ready and not be complacent, in view of the things that are to come our way, and in view of our own mortality. This is what the Lord wants all of us to know, that we may be aware of our own shortcomings and vulnerabilities, so that we may be ready and be worthy of what God will give us at the end of our days.

It is very often that in this world, people are afraid or unwilling or even sometimes violently against speaking and talking about matters pertaining to death. We are reluctant and we often found talking about the end of our earthly lives unnerving and repulsive. Yet, that is the very reality of our existence, which we need to acknowledge and understand, or else, we will fall into the trap of Satan, which is using all that it could in this world to deter us from our salvation.

We mankind were not created to suffer death and suffering its consequences. That was not the intention of the Lord, our loving God Who created us out of His perfect love for all of His creations. And we all enjoy the greatest favours of the Lord and receive the greatest forms of His love, for we are all special, having been crafted and made in His very own Image. We are all the reflections of God’s Image, and yet, we have also diverged from Him, because of our sins.

Sin is the thing that have sundered us from the perfect love of God. Sin is what makes us all suffer death, for sin is the sting of death, according to St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth. Because we have sinned, beginning with the disobedience of the first man and woman, eating the fruits from the forbidden tree of knowledge, having been deceived by Satan, we have been made unworthy of God’s grace and the life eternal He had bestowed us with.

But God’s love for us is so great that He does not wish us to perish and to be separated forever from Him, for sin leads to damnation, and damnation brings harm and destruction to the eternal soul. All those sinners who refused to repent from their sins and change their ways, all these have been condemned in death, and in death they will suffer for eternity in hell. And hell is the just reward of all those who have not obeyed the Lord and walked the path of wickedness in this world.

We may think that we fear death because of what we heard of hell and the extent of sufferings that we will suffer there, but this is in fact not the reason why we truly fear death. That is because now we as Christians know that we have hope in the one and only exit from this dark fate of ours, that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. God had sent us His only beloved Son, that through Him all of us may come to believe in Him, repent from our sinful ways and be redeemed.

If we truly believe in Christ, in His teachings, do all the things that He had commanded us to do, and repent from all our sinful ways, committing ourselves to a genuine change in life, then surely we do not need to fear, for then death is no longer a punishment, but in fact it becomes a liberation, as the moment when our earthly life ends and then our new life with the Lord begins.

And because of that we truly have no need to fear death, but only if we have been faithful and have walked faithfully in the path of our Lord. If we have not repented from our sins and continued in our wickedness, then the Lord Himself will reject us, not because He does not love us, but because sin has no place in His presence, and He hates all those sins that we have committed and which He had seen and witnessed.

We fear death because we are all often too attached to the many tempting things in this world, be it money, possessions we have, privileges we obtained, or the relationships and other things we often covet and desire in this world. And all of these attachments are the things that prevented us from being able to truly overcome that fear of death.

We fear death because we are afraid of losing these, and Satan played along with our fears, by seemingly trying to help us to preserve our lives and prolong our earthly existence, to the point that even some if not many among us become obsessed with the maintenance of our lives. And this world is rightly feeding into our desires for such, by inundating us with messages and influences of materialism and hedonism.

How many of us are obsessed with our beauty and appearances? How many of us spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars or more on cosmetics and clothing apparels, trying to make ourselves look youthful and presentable? Of course, it does not mean that we should appear dishevelled and untidy among others, but it means that we should not let our desire to retain our favourable appearances or other worldly desires to control us in that manner.

Similarly, we also tend to want to store up more things for ourselves, working hard and earning more money that we may stockpile them in preparation for the years to come. There is nothing wrong with this, and in fact, we need to do these in order to survive, and also to provide for our own families, to care for each of our spouses and children alike. But it is the obsession with work and money which is not what we should have in us.

We mankind tend to plan for many things, hoping that things will turn up the way we want them to be. Unfortunately, more often than not, this is not the case. We have to understand that often we are not in control of many things in our life. And as I have mentioned that the central theme of today’s Scripture passages is the impermanence of our life, and that we are mortal. We do not control how long our lives will last. God, the Master of all life, alone knows when our earthly existence will end.

That is why we must always be well prepared. We cannot ignore death as a mere fleeting event or something that will come about far in the future. Rather than fearing it or ignoring it, we must use whatever time we have now to rectify the wrongs and mistakes which we have done, and accumulate for ourselves the treasures and wealth in the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians we are all called to be active and to be participative in our faith, that we show our faith through our loving actions to our brethren. This is the way for us to seek the Lord, by caring and showing concern to our brethren in need around us, and by the giving of ourselves to help them. It is not by building up earthly glories and wealth that we are considered rich by the Lord, but instead, we are rich in the eyes of the Lord and are found worthy, when we are able to love one another, and when we have that genuine faith for Him.

The time is coming, brethren, when God will decide to call us back to Him. Do not assume that we have much time. Start from this very moment and reflect on our own past lives. Have we been faithful to God? Have we been doing enough to ensure that we are worthy of our Lord’s salvation when He judges us at the end of time? This is our choice to make, brethren, and we should make our stand from this very moment onwards.

Let us all therefore seek to renew our relationships with God, and renew our efforts to commit ourselves anew to Him, not just through mere words alone, but also through concrete actions. Let us not be so focused or obsessed on what we have in this world that we forget what we can do in order to help others in need, but instead use what we have in this world in order to share our blessings and joy with one another, that all will have enough, and all will be able to share the joy in God, and receive salvation in Him together as one. May God help us and bless us in this. Amen.

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Sunday, 4 September 2016 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Luke 14 : 25-33

At that time, one day, when large crowds were walking along with Jesus, He turned and said to them, “If you come to Me, unwilling to sacrifice your love for your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, and indeed yourself, you cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not follow Me, carrying his own cross, cannot be My disciple.”

“Do you build a house without first sitting down to count the cost, to see whether you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, if you, have laid the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone will make fun of you : ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.'”

“And when a king wages war against another king, does he go to fight without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand can stand against the twenty thousand of his opponent? And if not, while the other is still a long way off, he sends messengers for peace talks. In the same way, none of you may become My disciple, if he does not give up everything he has.”

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Sunday, 4 September 2016 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Philemon 9b-10, 12-17

The one talking is Paul, the old man, now prisoner for Christ. And my request is on behalf of Onesimus, whose father I have become while I was in prison.

In returning him to you, I am sending you my own heart. I would have liked to keep him at my side, to serve me on your behalf while I am in prison for the Gospel, but I did not want to do anything without your agreement, nor impose a good deed upon you without your free consent.

Perhaps Onesimus has been parted from you for a while so that you may have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but better than a slave. For he is a very dear brother to me, and he will be even dearer to you. And so, because of our friendship, receive him as if he were I myself.

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Sunday, 4 September 2016 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 89 : 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17

You turn humans back to dust, saying, “Return, o mortals!” A thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has passed, or like a watch in the night.

You sow them in their time, at dawn they peep out. In the morning they blossom, but the flower fades and withers in the evening.

So make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. How long will You be angry, o Lord? Have mercy on Your servant.

Fill us at daybreak with Your goodness, that we may be glad all our days. May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us; may He prosper the work of our hands.

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Sunday, 4 September 2016 : 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Wisdom 9 : 13-18 (Greek Septuagint version – Wisdom 9 : 13-18b)

Indeed, who can know the intentions of God? Who can discern the plan of the Lord? For human reasoning is timid, our notions misleading; a perishable body is a burden for the soul and our tent of clay weighs down the active mind.

We are barely able to know about the things of earth and it is a struggle to understand what is close to us, who then may hope to understand heavenly things?

Who has ever known Your will unless you first gave him Wisdom and sent down Your Holy Spirit to him? In this way You directed the human race on the right path; they learnt what pleases You and were saved by Wisdom.

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Sunday, 28 August 2016 : 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are called to remember what God had said to us through His words in the Sacred Scriptures, beginning from our first reading which was taken from the Book of the prophet Sirach. What the prophet Sirach mentioned was the very important concept of our life which all of us should take on deep into ourselves and embrace with vigour and zeal.

The greater the power you have, the humbler you should become. And through humility and our faith, we shall be blessed and be glorified by God. For the Lord treasures not the power and might of the world, and neither did He value the wealth and the riches of this earth which we have obtained for ourselves. For all these things cannot last, and even fire, water and moth will be able to destroy them in a mere short moment.

And that is where this day’s wonderful Scripture passages are directing us to, that is to understand that while it is easy for us to succumb to our pride and our desire to have power, influence and authority, fame, glory and renown in this world, it is much more difficult to let all these go and resist the temptations of the flesh and of the pleasures and wonders of this world.

As Jesus mentioned in His parable today about the wedding guests in wedding parties and the position of honour, we have to reflect on our own lives and experiences. It is natural for us all to desire fame, position, honour, glory and all the other things which we mankind have craved and wanted, as ever since desire and greed entered into our hearts, we have been enslaved to those desires and greed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, ever since Adam and Eve our ancestors desired knowledge of good and evil, eating the fruits from the forbidden tree of knowledge, we have fallen into this trap set upon us by Satan, who was loathe to see us brought into joy and happiness with God while he himself, out of his pride, was cast out of heaven and cursed to remain forever in the darkness and despair of hell.

We always tend to seek for better places for ourselves, for better positions, for better incentives and to gather more of the things that bring pleasure to us. And it does not help that this world is doing exactly what encourages us to live through this hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle. From ages to ages, we have seen rich people, kings, nobles, lords and other people with privilege who desired for more of what they had, and this had led them into oppressing the poor and the weak, or to confront each other, desiring one another’s possessions.

Wars and conflicts had arisen because of people’s greed and insatiable desires. That is the reality of how things often work in this world. And mankind often would not have enough even if they had achieved or attained what they wanted. Sooner or later, they would crave for more and desire for more, unless they make the conscious effort in order to rein those desires and practice to resist the lures of worldly pleasures.

Perhaps, the great saint whose feast we celebrate today can help us to shed some light on what we can do, and indeed what we need to do, based on his own life experiences, in order for us to be able to find our way to reach out to the salvation in our God. He is St. Augustine of Hippo, also known as St. Augustine the Great, one of the Four Original Doctors of the Church, and an important pillar of Christendom.

St. Augustine however was not always as great or holy as he is now known to be. Many of his great works and writings reflect the greatness of his mind and intellect, as well as his great faith and devotion to the Lord. Yet, in his youth, which many were not aware of, he was a great sinner who lived in wickedness and debauchery, far from the reach of the Lord’s salvation and grace.

He was born into a rich and influential family, and his father was an important official and administrator in the government of the Roman Empire at that time, and he was also a pagan like his father was, though his mother, St. Monica, whose feast we have just celebrated yesterday, was a devout Christian. St. Augustine received the best of educations and privileges, enriched with learnings from the philosophers and intellectuals of the Greek and the Roman world.

And it was then that St. Augustine fell into a life of hedonism, materialism and desire. He fell into the lure of the Manichaean heretical teachings after having been influenced by his friends and peers, a wicked and confused teaching that was a mix and match of elements from different ways of thought and cultures that intermingled at the time.

For a while, the hedonistic and materialistic practices of Manichaeanism and his peers influences on him satisfied his needs, desires and wants. Being a philosopher that he was, he also craved for more knowledge and for more satisfaction in this world, and yet even after many years, he still felt that something in him was lacking and incomplete, and he went on to search for that longing to complete himself, and that was where and when he found the Lord.

His mother, St. Monica, had always hoped and tried fervently in order to bring him back to the Lord, to receive Him as his Lord and Saviour, and to turn away from all of his sinful ways. Despite him having disappointed her many times, as St. Augustine in his youth led a very debauched way of life, moving from one relationship to another, and even having a child out of marriage, she did not give up.

Eventually, St. Monica’s persistence and prayers, as well as St. Augustine’s own growing dissatisfaction with the Manichaean beliefs, his then lifestyle and work as a teacher of philosophy and rhetorics, and finally his meeting and interaction with another great saint and Doctor of the Church, St. Ambrose of Milan brought him to convert to the Faith.

It was in God that St. Augustine found his true fulfilment and satisfaction, all of which the world could not give. For God gives His people and His faithful ones the richness of His love, one that cannot be destroyed by fire, or by water or by any other earthly forces. And unlike banks and institutions we often place our money and possessions in, entrusting to these our living and our goods, which when they collapse and perish, our goods also perish with them, God is the only One Who is truly trustworthy.

From this lesson we learn of St. Augustine of Hippo, his life and experience, there are a few things that we can benefit and learn from even as we live our lives now in this world. First of all, while God is loving and forgiving, it is really up to us to make the difference in our lives. God calls all sinners and wicked people to return to Him, and yet, if we are the ones who refuse His offer of mercy, then there will be no way open for us to reach the salvation of God.

Secondly, it was told that in one occasion, God appeared to St. Augustine in a vision as he walked along a coastline as a young boy, who used a seashell to pour the seawater into a small hole he made on the beach. St. Augustine was then very fascinated at the Bible, as he was very much into reading the Scriptures after he converted to the Faith. He wanted to understand and comprehend the nature of God and His mysteries, and God appeared to him in that vision to clarify things with him.

St. Augustine asked the boy about why he was doing such a meaningless task, as such a feat of emptying the sea into that small hole was indeed an impossible thing to do. Then the small boy, God, told St. Augustine that what he was doing in trying to understand and comprehend the mysteries of God was equally meaningless and useless, as God was too great and far beyond our understanding to be understood by our simple minds.

This is a reminder for us that, no matter how great we are in this world, we are still nothing compared to God, and truly, we are nothing without God. We may boast all we like about what we have, about our power, wealth, fame, glory, family and many other things we are used to boasting for, but in the end, none of these will matter in the end.

This is precisely what the Lord told us about in His parable, that the first would be last, and the last would be first. That means, those who pride themselves in their worldly greatness, boasting their wealth, fame and glory would be last and considered last when the Lord comes to judge all the people. Why is this so? That is because, when we boast of ourselves, we close our hearts to others, including God. Rather, as St. Paul made it clear in his Epistle to the Corinthians, let all those who boast, boast of the Lord.

When we are so focused on ourselves, that is when we tend to ignore others who need our presence and our help. We become ignorant of those in need and therefore not only that we do not do as what our Lord wanted from us, but we also end up even causing pain and suffering, either intentionally or unintentionally and thus leading us into sin.

But third and last of all, the example of St. Augustine of Hippo also showed us that sin does not have the last say over us. Even he was a great sinner in his youth, and later on changed his life so profoundly and completely that probably no one would have recognised him in his later life, a great sinner turned to be a great saint. God did not hate us the sinners, but He does hate our sins.

Therefore, brethren, what are we waiting for? Are we waiting until it is too late for us to change our ways and be redeemed? Are we still too engrossed with ourselves, our deeds and our achievements in this world? Let us all take this opportunity to reflect and to think deeply about our actions and their impacts on ourselves and others around us. Have we been truly faithful to God? Have our actions been done in accordance with what God wanted from us?

May we be able to find our way to the Lord by deepening our relationship with Him, and may God also be our guide in this journey, that walking in the footsteps of St. Augustine of Hippo, we too may be turned from being creatures of sin and darkness, into the worthy and loving children of God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 28 August 2016 : 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green


Luke 14 : 1, 7-14

At that time, one Sabbath Jesus had gone to eat a meal in the house of a leading Pharisee, and He was carefully watched.

Jesus then told a parable to the guests, for He had noticed how they tried to take the places of honour. And He said, “When you are invited to a wedding party, do not choose the best seat. It may happen that someone more important than you had been invited; and your host, who invited both of you, will come and say to you, ‘Please give this person your place.’ What shame is yours when you take the lowest seat!”

“Whenever you are invited, go rather to the lowest seat, so that your host may come and say to you, ‘Friend, you must come up higher.’ And this will be a great honour for you in the presence of all the other guests. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised.”

Jesus also addressed the man who had invited Him, and said, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends, or your brothers and relatives, or your wealthy neighbours. For surely they will also invite you in return, and you will be repaid. When you give a feast, invite instead the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Fortunate are you then, because they cannot repay you; you will be repaid at the resurrection of the upright.”

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Sunday, 28 August 2016 : 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Hebrews 12 : 18-19, 22-24a

What you have come to is nothing known to the senses : nor heat of a blazing fire, darkness and gloom and storms, blasts of trumpets or such a voice that the people pleaded that no further word be spoken.

But you came near to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem with its innumerable Angels. You have come to the solemn feast, the assembly of the firstborn of God, whose names are written in heaven. There is God, Judge of all, with the spirits of the upright brought to perfection.

There is Jesus, the Mediator of the new Covenant.

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Sunday, 28 August 2016 : 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 67 : 4-5ac, 6-7ab, 10-11

But let the righteous be glad and exult before God; let them sing to God and shout for joy. Sing to God, sing praises to His Name; the Lord is His Name. Rejoice in His presence.

Father of orphans and protector of widows – such is our God in His holy dwelling. He gives shelter to the homeless, sets the prisoners free.

Then You gave a rain of blessings to comfort Your weary children. Your people found a dwelling and in Your mercy, o God, You provided for the needy.