holy martyrs

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Tuesday, 3 November 2015 : 31st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Martin de Porres, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the Lord Jesus who told His disciples and the people, the story about a master of the house who conducted a great feast and invited many people to come for the feast. And yet, all those who had been invited by the master refused to come, when his servant went to them and asked them to come for the feast.

Why is this so? If we noticed, all those who have been invited had their own reasons why they could not make it or why they did not want or could not go for the feast. One mentioned how he has business to attend to, and another has a son who is getting married, and surely the others also had various other reasons that they used as excuses to avoid having to come to the party organised by that master of the house.

In this parable, Jesus revealed to us all, the nature of our wickedness and our failures to follow the commandments of the Lord, as shown through the story of the master and the disobedient and unwilling guests. The master of the house is clearly representing the Lord our God, and the servant whom the master sent to the guests represents the prophets and messengers whom God had sent to His people.

And the guests represent all of God’s people, those whom He has called to His eternal banquet, the banquet of joy and happiness, that is the reunion between us and our Lord. And He has freely given His invitation for us to come and join Him in the joy of His blessings, and yet, it was also many of us who rejected Him and His offer, and in many cases, we even ridiculed those whom He had sent to remind us and call us to Himself.

What is the reason behind our indignant and haughty attitude? What is the cause of this wicked act and lack of gratitude? It is our preoccupation and inability to resist the many temptations that the devil placed on our path in order to block our way as we move towards Him and to our salvation. Instead, he gave us many goods and tempting things to distract us and he hoped that instead of looking towards God, we would look towards him instead.

And thus, that was just like how so many of the invited guests refused to come to the master’s banquet because of their own occupations and busy schedules. Let us all ask ourselves, is it not the same with our own attitudes? Is it not just like how we often reject the Lord and abandon Him for other pursuits such as to satisfy our own greed and desires?

Is it not just as how we often neglect our faith life and prayer life in the name of following our heart’s wishes and wants? We often forget about the Lord our God and only look for Him when we are in trouble or in difficulty. Yes, that is our nature, that in good times we are so preoccupied with ourselves and satisfying ourselves, and then when difficult times come, we hurry to seek the Lord and beg for His help, and when He apparently does not answer us, we often become angry at Him and even curse at Him.

This is our bad tendency and our bad habit. And if we do not change from this habit, we will fall into eternal damnation. Those invited guests who refused to come for the feast truly have no place in the master’s banquet, and their places will be given to another, just as the master asked his servants to gather others to come for the feast instead, even the poor and the destitute.

This is a lesson for us, not to be proud or be too filled with our own ego. We must not think of ourselves as privileged and worthy just because of our own achievements and good things we have in this world. On the contrary, we have to be humble and we have to realise how many debts we had that God had forgiven. He has forgiven us our faults and sins, and He is willing to welcome us back into His embrace, if we are willing to make a difference to ourselves and change.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, perhaps all of us ought to look at the examples shown by St. Martin de Porres, the saint whose feast we are celebrating today. He is a religious and a dedicated servant of God, born in what is today Peru in South America. He lived through a time of difficulty, a time of rampant prejudice and injustice, as someone born in the land that was a colony of the Spanish Empire, he encountered many prejudices and injustice, and once was barred from being able to devote himself fully to the religious life.

But he did not give up, and rather than succumbing to prejudice or even hatred, he continued on to do his works and devotions to many people, especially the poor and the less fortunate. He ministered to the sick and dying, and he devoted himself to those who have little or none, unloved and abandoned. Despite all fhe difficulties and challenges that he encountered, we can see now how much honour and glory he now receives and is a part of in the Lord’s kingdom.

Therefore, brethren, shall we not do the same as well? Shall we not also commit ourselves to good and selfless deeds for the benefit of others? If we show care and love for all those who are around us, then truly we shall receive the everlasting reward of our God. Shall we all consider this and thus do our best to resist our own temptations and the pleasures of this world that we may receive greater joy in the world that is to come?

Let us all walk in the footsteps of St. Martin de Porres and dedicate ourselves more and more to those who are less fortunate around us, and let us all willingly and joyfully go to the banquet that the Lord has prepared for us, and go in to that banquet worthily, donning the vestment of purity, chastity and love, that having shared in His eternal joy, we may forever enjoy His grace and blessings. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 2 November 2015 : Feast of All Souls, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Black or Purple

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate All Souls’ Day, when we commemorate and pray for the souls of all our brethren who have departed from this world ahead of us. We pray for the sake of their souls so that by the grace and the mercy of God, they may be found worthy of God’s everlasting kingdom. We pray that the souls in purgatory may be rid of their sins, and gain entry soon to the kingdom of heaven.

Today is not a day of sorrow and gloom, but a day of hope. For on this day, although we are reminded ever of our humanity and mortality, that all of us, without exception will succumb to death, but this death is not an everlasting death. It is because one Man had shown us the way, that death does not have the final say, for God has given us Jesus our Lord, to bring us from death into eternal life by His resurrection from the dead.

That means death is not an eternal separation, but a temporary one, where now we cannot see those who have departed physically in this world, but in the world to come, we shall see each other again and live a life filled with true joy in the presence of God for eternity. This is the hope brought about by our Lord’s resurrection, through which He has dealt death an ultimate defeat.

If yesterday, on the feast of All Saints, I spoke of a Universal Church that does not consist just of us all the faithful still living on earth, the Church Militant, but also consisting of the hole men and women deemed worthy of heaven, the saints of God, who are the Church Triumphant, and then also the souls of the faithful dead who are the Church Suffering, the souls in holy purgatory.

If you wonder, brethren, why ‘suffering’? This is because when someone reaches the end of his or her earthly and mortal life, there are three possible paths for them to go to from there. The first one, is the most difficult one to achieve, that is the path of the saints. This path is taken by those who lives have been filled with much piety, good deeds, faith and genuine love for God and for their fellow men. As a result, although they too are sinners, God deems that their venial sins have been completely overcome and absolved by their good deeds.

God blessed them and welcomed them into the glory of heaven. And the Church officially recognised some of them as saints, those who have been deemed worthy of heaven after their death. Then, there exists another path, which many had taken, that is the path of hell and eternal damnation. This is meant for all those who have been wicked in their lives, having committed mortal sins such as murder, disrespect for life and for the Lord, disrespecting the Church and its teachings, and other serious errors, from which they refused to repent.

These souls are lost from us and from the Lord forever, as these souls directly go into hell and without any hope for escape or redemption. They were unrepentant and therefore in His wrath, God also rejected them just as they have first rejected Him. Today, on this All Souls’ Day, these are not the souls whom we are praying for, for there is truly no benefit to pray for those who have been marked as eternally lost from us and condemned.

Of course, the fact is that we do not know who belong to this category, for it is only God, the true Judge of all, have the final decision of who is to receive eternal damnation and hell, and who to be given an opportunity or to receive the glory of eternal heaven. So we should not directly condemn so and so as evil, or deserving of hell, since all of us are sinners, and each and everyone of us are at the same risk.

Then, we come to the group in the middle, those who were not outrightly evil and wicked, so as to deserve hell and eternal damnation, and those who were also not sufficiently upright and holy so as to deserve eternal life and heaven right away, which ends up in the place called purgatory. It is in the teaching of the Church that the souls of the faithful dead, who have kept their lives mostly in line with the faith and in obedience to the Lord, but still having sufficient amount of venial sins have to spend some time in this place for the purification of their souls.

Why is this so, brethren? That is because we have to realise that while God loves us all and cares for all of us, but with us there still lies the obstacles of sin. Sin is an obstacle and a barrier that prevents us from our full and complete reconciliation with our Lord. It was because of sin, caused by disobedience, that had separated our ancestors from the grace and the blessings which God had intended to be ours for eternity.

God is good and perfect, and so good and holy such that no sin, even the smallest amount of sin should be ever present in His presence. A sinner that stands in the presence of God shall be subjected to the wrath of God and be destroyed immediately. Then, one may then ask, how about the saints then? Were they not once sinners too when they still walked on this earth?

Yes, indeed, they were once sinners too, but on the account of their great merits and their faith to God, their numerous good actions and deeds had been judged to be sufficient to atone completely for the sake of their sins. This means that all of the multitudes of their sins have been considered as being paid completely in full by their merits, as they placed their complete trust in the Lord Jesus.

What Jesus our Lord did when He gave up His life for us on the cross, was that He took up all of the original sins and the wickedness that had tainted all of us, and offering Himself as the perfect offering and sacrifice for our sins, He had liberated us all from the darkness and the sins that afflicted us all. He gave us all a new hope of salvation, for He conquered death, the ultimate consequence of sin.

This means that while once we looked at death and eternal death as our fate, and hell is our destination, but with our Lord’s intervention, He has lifted us all up and gave us a chance to enter the glorious heaven and be recipients of the original graces and blessings intended for us. But of course, as mentioned earlier, there are those who rejected this offer, and indeed, hell is their reward.

Today, on this Feast of All Souls’ Day, the ones whom we are concerned with are those souls in purgatory, who are spending their time separated temporarily from their Lord and delayed in their entry into the glorious heaven because of their residual sins. They are suffering the flames of suffering in purgatory, not because they are unworthy or wicked, but rather because they need to suffer for a while the consequences of the sins that they had remaining in them before they can enter into the presence of God, purified and cleansed.

Through our genuine and sincere prayers for these souls in purgatory, we are able to help them to reduce their time spent in purgatory, and by asking God for His mercy and for His love for these souls, we hope that the souls of our beloved brethren currently will be able to enjoy soon the glories and the joys of heaven, in the presence of our loving God, who is just and merciful.

And remember, just as we pray for them, they are also praying for us. The souls in purgatory still remember all of us, and just as they have lived their earthly lives committing good deeds and sins, they realised how their sins have made them to suffer temporarily, and those sins prevented them from directly enjoying the blessings of God in heaven. Thus, they are praying for us, that we will realise our own sins, and repent so that we will not suffer the same suffering they encountered in purgatory.

May Almighty God therefore hear our prayers, and together with the saints, and the souls in purgatory, let us all pray together as one whole Universal Church, that more and more people will be brought closer to salvation, that all of us may escape the threat of hell, and be brought ever closer to heaven, the destination that we are all looking forward to. May God receive the souls of the faithful departed and give them the everlasting joy of heaven. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 November 2015 : Thirty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time, Solemnity of All Saints (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is a major solemnity and feast day of the Church, where together with all of the entire Church, with all the faithful living here now on earth, we rejoice together for all the holy ones whom God had chosen and called from among us, to be those considered worthy to receive the glory of heaven. They are the saints, the holy men and women whom by the virtues of their lives and their actions have been found and deemed worthy by the Church.

Sainthood truly does not determine whether one goes to heaven or hell, or whether one is worthy of it. Despite the large number of saints we have today, thousands of them if not more, but if only the saints are worthy of heaven, then we have to remember that there have been countless billions and tens of billions of people who lived throughout history. Have the rest all went to hell and be condemned? The answer is no.

There are many countless other men and women whom by their lives’ virtues, their works and deeds are truly worthy of heaven, and their names have been written securely in the Book of Life for the day of judgment. It is just that the Church did not proclaim them officially as saints, as sainthood is in fact just an official recognition of one’s deeds, because of their outstanding and extraordinary quality, would become a great source of inspiration to others who look up to them as role models and examples.

Yes, the saints are our role models, and we ought to follow in their footsteps. After all, they have lived their lives to the fullest, and by close and exhausting scrutiny of these, the Church had found them to be exemplary and by the wisdom of God and the authority God has given His Church, It declares that so and so man or woman truly deserve and is without doubt, already a denizen and a dweller of heaven, enjoying the eternal grace of God.

Yet there are those who thought that we Christians are no different from the pagans because we apparently worshipped the saints and prayed to them. I have to admit that this is one area where even many members of the Church are still not properly instructed or educated in, and many are not aware of who saints truly are, and how they can help us.

Jesus did say that if we believe in the Lord and keep our faith in Him, we will be called the children of God, and St. Paul and the Church also taught us that if we die and leave behind our earthly life in justice and righteousness, we shall share in the glory and in the fullness of God’s grace, and having all of our sins shed away from us, we shall be glorious and mighty as we share together the divinity of Christ. However, this does not make us gods in our own right.

Rightfully therefore, the saints themselves are glorious and honoured not because they have ascended in might by their own power, and neither do they have any power on their own separate from the power and authority of God. They share forever God’s glory in heaven, and they shall not know any more fear, death or darkness, for God is with them, and they are with God.

Rather, what we have to know is that the saints are our intercessors, those who help us deliver our prayer to the Lord. Then, indeed, one may ask, why not we ourselves then ask for our own behalf, and why must we ask someone else to pray for us? Then, in order to answer this, we just have to look throughout the Holy Scriptures, how many people at different times and periods, asked for each other for prayers and intercessions.

Do you remember what did Jesus tell the people about gathering in prayer? He told them and His disciples that when two or more are gathered in His Name, He shall be present there and He shall listen to their prayers. Thus, shall it indeed not be more beneficial for us to have even more people praying for our sake? The saints, having ascended to the presence of God, now sees with the sight of God, and surely, having been sinners themselves, they also understood how grievous our sins are, all of us still living in this world.

And having shared the glory and joy of the Lord, they also now share the love of God, and having been righteous as they were, surely in their love both for God and for their fellow men, they are also greatly concerned about us who are still living and struggling in this world against wickedness, evil and all forms of sins. If we are not careful about this, and continue to dwell in the darkness, then we risk falling into the trap of eternal damnation and hell from which there can be no escape.

As mentioned, the saints are not ‘gods’ in that they do not use or project their own might and power unlike those so-called pagan gods of old, where the people worshipped them as beings that could deliver them from trouble, provide them with something, dealing with things magical and supernatural, changing the world and the elements. No, the saints are not like these, and if we have had this misconception, then it is important that we now know the difference.

Those who pray to the saints and ask them for deliverance, or hoping that they can deliver them from trouble, or asking for favours from them in worldly things are misguided and mistaken in their understanding about the saints, who they are and how they work to help us in our way towards salvation. That is exactly who they are, our friends and our peers who had gone ahead of us, and now that they are close to God, they are our best allies and those whose prayers are most dear to God.

Remember what happened at the wedding held at Cana? That was where Jesus performed His very first miracle, turning the water into wine, and in the process, helped save the bride and the bridegroom and their families from great shame. Jesus was initially reluctant to help them, as He felt that it was not yet His time to reveal Himself by such work of miracles and power. Yet, it was through Mary, His mother and her persuasion of Jesus, that He allowed Himself to reveal to the people a portion of the truth of who He is.

Mary, the mother of our Lord, is the greatest, most honoured and most esteemed of all the saints, and in heaven, she is the closest one to the throne of God, her own beloved Son. Just as she had pleaded with her Son to help the couple at the wedding held at Cana, and He heard her, surely if we ask her to intercede for our sake and pray for us, He will be more willing to hear us and show His mercy to us.

The same applies for all the other saints as well, whom we ask daily to intercede for us on our behalf, that God will help us on our way, so that in times of challenge and difficulty, during times of persecution and extreme suffering, and in times when our bodies and even our minds are assailed by temptations of the devil and by his wicked tempters, God may send to us His angels and other forms of guidance to help prevent us from falling into sin and darkness.

In all these, we have to realise that we as the Church of God are not alone in this world and in the constant battle, the spiritual battle of our souls. Those who have departed from us are not gone from us, and they are still with us, unless they themselves have given themselves to be lost, namely those who have been thrown into hell and eternal damnation.

In fact, we know three Churches, the three aspects and parts of the Church Universal, that is the Church Militant, all of us living and still fighting against the devil and his works, and who are still constantly having a daily struggle in this world to uphold our faith and defend it against the wickedness of evil. And then, there are the saints and martyrs, who are the Church Triumphant, those who have gone before us and have been deemed as righteous and worthy of heaven. They are still there, with us and praying for us.

But we must not forget, just as tomorrow we shall celebrate All Souls’ Day, that there is the third part of the Church Universal, namely the Church Suffering, the good souls in purgatory awaiting for their entry into the glory of heaven. They are suffering the residual consequences of their sins, and as they suffer, they also want us all still living in this world to overcome our own sins and to get rid of them so that we will not suffer like they now do.

I will elaborate in greater detail on this in tomorrow’s homily, but in the end of the day, as we gather together to rejoice with all of the people of God, with all the saints and martyrs, with the angels and with all of creation, let us realise how good God is, and how much love He is showing and pouring down upon us. Let us ask the good saints, principally the mother of our Lord, Mary, to pray for us, all sinners and unworthy to be in the presence of God, so that God may awaken in us the courage and power to live our lives filled with faith and total devotion.

May Almighty God be with us, and may He guide us on our path, and help us so that we will have the courage to overcome our pride, our desires and all the things that have blocked our path towards the Lord. Let us not be overcome by evil and by our own shortcomings, but let us be ever more faithful and be more committed to the Lord our God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 17 October 2015 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the words of the Holy Scriptures, speaking to us about the grace and blessings that shall await all those who keep and maintain their faith in God, and the curses and the condemnations that await all those who have veered away from the path towards the Lord and towards salvation.

The example of Abraham, our forefather in faith was used, in his obedience and exemplary actions and life, which were filled with the obedience and the trust which he showed to God, the complete faith and trust that he had shown, which made his descendants to become truly blessed by God’s grace. This is done so to inspire all of us to strive for righteousness and justice, and therefore become eligible to enjoy forever God’s love and grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us have been called to a new life of repentance, of redemption and of forgiveness. All of us have been called out of the pit of darkness, misery and wickedness, and we are all called into the life filled with God’s justice and grace, which can become a reality only if all of us gather together and work together to achieve that goal of salvation in God.

Those who have not been faithful to God, who refused to listen to the word of God, and those who have gone astray in their lives, walking in their own paths in disobedience to the Law of God, will receive the wrath and anger of God, and God shall reject them, just as they themselves had rejected Him first. God is merely reciprocating the hatred and the unwillingness of those who have not given their love to Him. Yet, if these people were to repent and change their ways, God will readily show His infinite mercy and love to them.

God is ever loving and merciful, but this does not mean that He readily tolerates our sins and wickedness. He loves each and every one of us personally and as His beloved children and creation, but He does not love our sins and our wrongdoings. He hates all forms of sins and injustice, all forms of malice and wickedness, all forms of evil and all the darkness that lie in our actions.

If we persist in retaining all those sins and darkness, then certainly all of us will be condemned and prevented from reaching salvation in the Lord. This is because those sins and wicked things in our words and actions are barriers and obstacles that stop us from finding our way to the Lord. Those sins are what preventing us from receiving the fullness of God’s grace and blessings, and they kept us away from the light, remaining in the darkness and the abyss.

This is why, we ought to reflect on our own actions and deeds, and we should think about what we have done in this life, so that we may realise the current state of our being, whether we stand in righteousness and grace of God, or whether we are in danger of falling into the condemnation of eternal hell. Thus, we ought to heed the example of a holy man and saint whose feast day we celebrate on this day.

Today is the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, the second bishop and leader of the faithful in Antioch, a great city of Christendom in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was counted among the birthplaces of Christianity, as the place where the faithful were first called as Christianoi, or Christians. It was the place where the Church was established by St. Peter the Apostle, the Vicar of Christ, who later went on to establish the Church in Rome.

St. Ignatius of Antioch was his successor as the second Bishop of Antioch, and he helped to continue the establishment of the Church in Antioch and beyond, caring for the spiritual and overall well-being of his flock, giving them examples to follow and exhorting them to be always faithful to God and His ways, and resist the temptations of worldly goods and human greed.

Eventually, St. Ignatius of Antioch shared in the suffering of Christ our Lord, when he and the other Christians were persecuted under the orders of the civil authorities of the Roman Empire. The Emperor and the officials of the Roman state opposed the Christians and their teachings of truth, and they attempted to snuff out the light of the Church at its young stage of growth.

Nevertheless, St. Ignatius of Antioch remained resolute and committed to the evangelisation and spreading of God’s Good News of the Gospel, and he suffered death and martyrdom knowing that the works he had begun would be carried on by those who came after him, and his martyrdom served as an inspiration for countless others to also pick up their crosses and follow the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us on this day reflect once again on our own lives. We have a clear choice on whether to obey the Lord and His ways, walking in His righteousness and justice, and practicing His will and commandments in all of our words and actions, or whether we want to follow he devil and all of his errors and lies.

Let us all take concrete actions in our lives, so that in all the things we do and say, we will show a renewed effort of loving and serving the Lord our God, with all of our hearts’ strength. May the Lord have mercy on us all, forgive us all our sins, and bring us into everlasting life. Amen.

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Saturday, 17 October 2015 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Luke 12 : 8-12

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “I tell you, whoever acknowledges Me before people, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But the one who denies Me before others will be denied before the angels of God.”

“There will be pardon for the one who criticises the Son of Man, but there will be no pardon for the one who slanders the Holy Spirit. When you are brought before the synagogues, and before governors and rulers, do not worry about how you will defend yourself, or what to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you have to say.”

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Saturday, 17 October 2015 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 104 : 6-7, 8-9, 42-43

You descendants of His servant Abraham, you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God; His judgments reach the whole world.

He remembers His covenant forever, His promise to a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the promise He swore to Isaac.

For He remembered His promise to Abraham, His servant. So He led forth His people with joy, His chosen ones with singing.

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Saturday, 17 October 2015 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Romans 4 : 13, 16-18

If God promised Abraham, or rather his descendants, that the world would belong to him, this was not because of his obeying the Law, but because he was just and a friend of God through faith.

For that reason, faith is the way and all is given by grace; and the promises of Abraham are fulfilled for all his descendants, not only for his children according to the Law, but also for all the others who have believed. Abraham is the father of all of us, as it is written : I will make you father of many nations. He is our father in the eyes of Him who gives life to the dead, and calls into existence what does not yet exist, for this is the God in whom he believed.

Abraham believed and hoped against all expectation, thus becoming father of many nations, as he had been told : See how many will be your descendants.

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Friday, 9 October 2015 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the Lord speaking to us in the Holy Scriptures. God spoke to us about what will happen at the time when He comes again in glory to judge His people and to bring them together once again as one people. On that day, He shall glorify the just and bless those who are righteous, and condemning those who are wicked and who have failed to do as the Lord had taught us to do.

In this, our Lord would like to remind us of the consequences of sin and what will happen to us if we walk on the path of sin and darkness. Those who have done evil shall fear the coming of the day of judgment because it is then that they will be judged for their deeds, and they will be held accountable for everything that they have done, be it good or evil in nature. Indeed, everyone shall be held accountable for all of their actions, and it is in these that we shall find salvation or condemnation.

But we have no need to fear or be excessively worried, for our Lord indeed gave us a chance, by the sending of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our Saviour. Through Him, God gave us a chance and a method of deliverance from the evils that had troubled us all these while. Yes, the evil spirits and the wickedness that dwell in us has caused us so much trouble and made us to do so many bad things in the sight of God.

And yet, the Gospel today is a reminder for us not to be complacent and ignorant of the problems that we may encounter on our way. There is a lesson in the readings today about someone who had been released from the bonds of the evil spirits and then later on became worse due to those evil spirits returning back with an even greater force. This is a lesson on the nature of our faith in the Lord, which should be enduring and be filled with commitment to the Lord.

This means that our faith should be maintained and kept alive and strong. We have to remember that the devil and his fellow fallen angels are always out and about trying to bring about our downfall. And if we do not keep our spiritual defence strong, then the warnings of our Lord will come true for us. This means that we must keep our spiritual and prayer life strong to defend ourselves from the assaults of the evil one.

We must be wary and be vigilant, not to reopen the doors to allow Satan to come again into our hearts. Because at baptism all of us have renounced Satan and cast him out with the help of the power of our Lord, who sanctified the waters of baptism that washed us and made us clean, clean from the taints of sin, and from the tyranny and the hold of the evil spirits.

But this does not mean that we can be idle or be ignorant of all things after that. Our faith does not require us just to believe as some would have it, but instead, it requires an active participation and contributions through good works and deeds, which means that we are actively practicing our faith. We cannot be merely providing lip service of our faith to God, as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had often done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be inspired by the examples of two saints, whose feast we celebrate on this day, so that we may make ourselves righteous, just and worthy in the sight and in the presence of our Lord. St. Denis, Bishop of Paris, martyr and holy servant of God, was the bishop of what is now Paris, the largest city in France, at that time was the capital of Roman Gaul.

St. Denis was renowned for his great faith and for his great service to the Church, protecting many of the faithful under his care and ministering to them, even during the difficult times of the persecutions under the Roman Emperors who were dead set in destroying the Church and persecuting the faithful. The Roman Emperor Decius was in particular very adamant and passionate in his persecution of Christians.

It was told that eventually he and many other Christians at the time were arrested, tortured and forced to choose between recanting their faith, rejecting their Lord and Master, or die a most painful death. Yet, St. Denis and his faithful flock stayed strong in their faith, and they resisted the efforts of their tortures most admirably. Eventually he was put to death by beheading, separating his head from his body.

Yet, miraculously, even though he had been beheaded, St. Denis continued to live and walk by the grace of God, and holding his own separated head, he continued to preach the truth of Christ, terrifying all those who had persecuted him and the other Christians, and not few of them eventually believed and were converted as well to the truth of Christ.

Then, today we also celebrate the memory of St. John Leonardi, known also as San Giovanni Leonardi, an Italian priest who ministered to the faithful during a time about four centuries ago. He was a founder of a religious order, and was renowned especially for his personal holiness and devotion, both to the Lord and to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord and Saviour.

St. John Leonardi through his works and devoted service to the people of God brought about a reversal of the heresy known as the Protestant ‘reformation’. This massive heretical movement had brought about many millions of souls to be lost from the Church and many faced eternal damnation, if not for the works of St. John Leonardi and many other faithful servants of God in what would be known as the Counter-Reformation.

The brave examples of the two saints we celebrate today should be an inspiration to all of us, that if we are truly faithful and devoted to the Lord, we shall show it not just by mere words and profession of faith, but with concrete and real actions, in defending that faith, standing up for the Lord and for our brethren oppressed for their faith, and for loving one another just as our Lord had instructed us.

Let us all therefore renew our faith to the Lord, and commit ourselves to greater devotion to the Lord and His ways. Let us open wide the doors of our hearts to His love and grace, and close the door tight against the devil and his fellow fallen angels. Do not let the evil spirits to come into us again and claim us for damnation. May the Lord protect all of us His people and bless us and our works forever. Amen.

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Friday, 9 October 2015 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Gospel Reading)

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

Luke 11 : 15-26

At that time, some of the people said, “He drives out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons.” Others wanted to put Him to the test, by asking Him for a heavenly sign.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them, “Every nation divided by civil war is on the road to ruin, and will fall. If Satan also is divided, his empire is coming to an end. How can you say that I drive out demons by calling upon Beelzebul? If I drive them out by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive out demons? They will be your judges, then.”

“But if I drive out demons by the finger of God; would not this mean that the kingdom of God, has come upon you? As long as a man, strong and well armed, guards his house, his goods are safe. But when a stronger man attacks and overcomes him, the challenger takes away all the weapons he relied on, and disposes of his spoils.”

“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me, scatters. When the evil spirit goes out of a person, it wanders through dry lands, looking for a resting place; and finding none, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.'”

“When it comes, it finds the house swept and everything in order. Then it goes to fetch seven other spirits, even worse than itself. They move in and settle there, so that the last state of that person is worse than the first.”

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Friday, 9 October 2015 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Denis, Bishop and Companions, Martyrs, and St. John Leonardi, Priest (Psalm)

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

Psalm 9 : 2-3, 6 and 16, 8-9

Let my heart give thanks to the Lord, I yearn to proclaim Your marvellous deeds, and rejoice and exult in You, and sing praise to Your Name, o Most High.

You have turned back the nations; You have destroyed the wicked; You have blotted out their names forever. The pagans have sunk into the pit they have dug, their own feet ensnared by the trap they laid.

But the Lord reigns forever, having set up His throne for judgment. He will judge the nations with justice and govern the peoples in righteousness.