holy martyrs

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Saturday, 19 September 2015 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Januarius, Bishop and Martyr (First Reading)

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

1 Timothy 6 : 13-16

Now, in the presence of God who gives life to all things, and of Jesus Christ who expressed before Pontius Pilate the authentic profession of faith : preserve the revealed message to all. Keep yourself pure and blameless until the glorious coming of Christ Jesus, our Lord, which God will bring about at the proper time, He, the magnificent Sovereign, King of kings, and Lord of lords.

To Him, alone immortal, who lives in unapproachable light and whom no one has ever seen or can see, to Him be honour and power forever and ever. Amen!

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Thursday, 13 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Pontian, Pope, and St. Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard first in the first reading from the Book of Joshua, the continuation of the narration of the story of Israel’s passage from Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan after their Exodus. Moses who led them through the desert for forty years because of the disobedience and rebellion of many among the Israelites, had passed away, and now had been replaced as leader by Joshua.

The people of Israel had reached the vicinity of the River Jordan, which separated the Land of Promise and the other lands. And in a repeat of what He had shown to the people at the Red Sea, God made His people to cross the river Jordan on dry ground, opening the river before them and halting its flow so that they might pass unhindered and enter into the Promised Land of Canaan, which was to be their inheritance.

In the Gospel however, we heard about Jesus who spoke of a parable to His disciples and to the people, teaching them a story about a servant who had owed a large debt to his master, and he was supposed to be punished. But when the servant begged for mercy and forgiveness, the master’s heart was touched and moved, and he forgave the servant all of his debts.

But the servant did not follow the example of his master, and he confronted another servant who owed him a small amount of debt, a mere fraction of what the former owed his master and which he had been forgiven from. The master who knew what the wicked servant had done was very angry, and he did not let the wickedness to go unpunished. The punishment for the old debts were reinstated and the wicked servant went to his suffering without mercy.

How are these two readings related? They may seem to be distinct and unrelated, but in fact they are really very related in meaning, in reality as well as in symbolism. For we all have to understand that what we witnessed today in the Book of Joshua was the final part of the long journey of Israel through the desert, where they wandered for over forty years as mentioned.

They wandered so many years in the desert because of their disobedience, since they refused to listen to the Lord, and feared men more than God, and they did not put their full trust in the Lord, even though again and again, many times they had witnessed first hand the glory and power of God. They were too stubborn in their heart to appreciate the love and care with which God had taken care of them.

But God is at the same time also merciful and loving, just as He is filled with hatred and righteous anger towards all sorts of sin and wickedness. He shows mercy to all those who repented and those who committed themselves to change their way and follow Him. But those who were unrepentant and refused to listen to Him, He will cast away from His presence into the utter darkness and eternal suffering.

God is the master in the parable, and we are the servants whom the master has command over. The debts are our sins and wickedness, which have become our undoing. The debts bring with them punishment and justice, that is death, and we should have deserved death because we have sinned and disobeyed our Lord, the Master and Lord of all life.

But God heard our pleas and prayers, and He forgives us our sins, just as He had sent down to us His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that through Him, our sins may be destroyed and we may be freed from them. He has granted us pardon just as the master had pardoned the wicked servant from his debts. Now what matters is that, we have to heed the clear lesson from Jesus’s teaching and discourse on this matter.

We have to listen to the word of God, His teachings and His ways, and then practice it ourselves in our own actions and in how we live our lives in this world. The wicked servant did not imitate his master in his mercy and love, and instead, he oppressed others in his own ego and pride. As a result, he was punished severely for his wrongdoings. Thus, we too should not follow his ways, and rather, submit ourselves to the way of the Lord, loving one another and forgiving each other our sins.

Today we celebrate the feast of Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus, who were at that time the rival Pope to St. Pontian, elected by rival camps in the Church, at a time when division could be ill-afforded, as the Roman Empire was stepping up its great and terrible persecution of both the Church and the faithful. The two camps bickered at who should have been the legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and much harm was done to the Church.

But by the grace of God, the two men were reconciled with each other, and the misunderstandings that happened and came between them were dispelled. As a result, the unity of the Church was restored completely. Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus were arrested by the authorities and were sentenced to death in the mines of Sardinia.

They were both martyred there, and before he went off to his death, Pope St. Pontian voluntarily relinquished the leadership of the Church, to allow others to step in and rebuild the community he left behind when he went to his martyrdom. And the forgiveness and reconciliation which Pope St. Pontian and St. Hippolytus showed each other should be an inspiration for all of us, as the driving force behind our own conversion to the truth and reconciliation with our Lord and God.

Remember when the people of Israel passed through the River Jordan? It was there too that Jesus our Lord was baptised by St. John the Baptist. This is also a symbolic meaning, of how when we were baptised, we pass just as the Israelites through the waters of baptism, from a barren land, the desert, into the promised land of milk and honey, and so we are brought from our past state of sin into a renewed life filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit.

May Almighty God be with us always, and fill our hearts with the desire to seek Him and to find His mercy, that He may forgive our sins and trespasses, and make us worthy again of His love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 13 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Pontian, Pope, and St. Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Matthew 18 : 21 – Matthew 19 : 1

At that time, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive the offences of my brother or sister? Seven times?” Jesus answered, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

“This story throws light on the kingdom of Heaven : A king decided to settle the accounts of his servants. Among the first was one who owed him ten thousand pieces of gold. As the man could not repay the debt, the king commanded that he be sold as a slave with his wife, his children and all his goods, as repayment.”

“The servant threw himself at the feet of the king and said, ‘Give me time, and I will pay you back everything.’ The king took pity on him, and not only set him free, but even cancelled his debt. When this servant left the king’s presence, he met one of his companions, who owed him a hundred pieces of silver.”

“He grabbed him by the neck and almost choked him, shouting, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ His companion threw himself at his feet and begged him, ‘Give me time, and I will pay everything.’ The other did not agree, but sent him to prison until he had paid all his debt.”

“Now his fellow servants saw what had happened. They were extremely upset, and so they went and reported everything to their lord. Then the lord summoned his servant and said, ‘Wicked servant, I forgave you all that you owed when you begged me to do so. Were you not bound to have pity on your companion, as I had pity on you?'”

“The Lord was now angry, so he handed his servant over to be punished, until he had paid his whole debt.” Jesus added, “So will My heavenly Father do with you, unless you sincerely forgive your brothers and sisters.”

When Jesus had finished this teaching, He left Galilee and arrived at the border of Judea, on the other side of the Jordan River.

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Thursday, 13 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Pontian, Pope, and St. Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 113A : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Alleluia! When Israel came out of Egypt, the family of Jacob from a people of foreign language. Judah became His sanctuary, Israel His possession.

At His sight the sea fled and the Jordan retreated; the mountains skipped like rams, the hills frolicked like lambs.

Why is it, sea, that you flee? Jordan, that you turn back? Mountains, that you skip like rams? Hills, that you frolic like lambs?

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Thursday, 13 August 2015 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Pontian, Pope, and St. Hippolytus, Priest, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Joshua 3 : 7-10a, 11, 13-17

Then YHVH said to Joshua : “Today I will begin to make you great in the eyes of Israel and they shall know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Give this order to the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant : As soon as you come to the banks of the Jordan, stand still in the river.”

And Joshua said to the Israelites : “Come nearer and listen to the words of YHVH, our God. Do you want a sign that YHVH, the living God, is in your midst? See, the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth is going to cross the Jordan before you.”

“When the priests who carry the Ark of the Lord of all the earth put their feet into the water of the Jordan, the water coming from upstream shall stop flowing and stand in one single mass.”

When the people set out from their camp to cross the Jordan, the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant went before them. There was much water in the Jordan, for it was overflowing its banks at this time of the barley harvest. Nevertheless, when those who carried the Ark went down to the river and their feet touched the edge of the water, the water from upstream stopped flowing.

The water stood still, forming something like a dam very far from that place, near Adam, the neighbouring city of Zarethan. The water flowing down to the Dead Sea was completely cut off, and so the people could cross opposite Jericho. The priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant remained in the middle of the river which dried up, until all the Israelites had crossed the Jordan.

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Monday, 10 August 2015 : Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God who has given us all so many good things, so many wonderful things that He had planted in us, as seeds that will germinate in due time, if we cultivate them and they will prosper. He has sowed many things in us, and He has given us the seeds of faith, the seeds of hope and the seeds of love.

All these are within us, inside our hearts, and await our action and work to awaken them. As Jesus said in the Gospel today, that the seed, that is the grain of wheat, if it does not die, then it remains alone and meaningless. Only when the grain of wheat falls onto the ground, then life can spring out from it and a new plant can grow from the seed.

This means that, by using the life of Christ as a comparison, we must take action and live our lives with faith and real action based on that faith in order that we may have the seeds inside us to bear much good fruits. If we do not do anything or do things that are contrary to what our Lord had taught us, then the seeds of faith, hope and love in us will not germinate and grow.

Jesus was faithful to the mission which He was entrusted with by His Father, that is to bring about salvation to all mankind, by teaching them the truth about the Lord and how to live their lives in accordance with the Law of God. And He was faithful to the very end, as He needed to endure all the sufferings and the punishments intended for our sins and wickedness, so that all of us may have a new hope of life.

He took up all of our iniquities and all the sufferings which should have been ours upon Himself, and bearing that great and heavy cross, He walked on and ascended patiently towards Calvary, faithful to the mission for which He came into this world and ultimately because of the great and boundless love which He has for all of us, and the pity and mercy which He has shown us, because He pitied our state, lost in the darkness of this world and not knowing which way to go to.

And He showed us all an example, on how to live our lives so that we too may share in the promises which He had given us and our ancestors, by leading an example Himself, showing that unless we take up our crosses and join Him, then we would have no part in the life and salvation which He will give all of His faithful. And just as He had died on the cross and rose again on the third day from the dead, we too must do the same.

This means that we should die to ourselves, to the temptations and desires of the flesh which have caused us to sin, and to throw far away all forms of worldliness and all sorts of selfish attitudes which remain in us. We should die to our desires, to the allures of the flesh and worldly pleasures, so that by sharing the death of Christ, we mah also share in His glorious resurrection, and be found worthy to receive the gift of eternal life He had promised all of us.

On this day, we celebrate together the feast of St. Lawrence the Deacon, who was also a great martyr of the Church and defender of the Faith. St. Lawrence was a deacon of the Church of Rome, appointed as such by Pope St. Sixtus II, whose feast we had just celebrated a few days ago. St. Lawrence was a hardworking servant of God, who gave his all in service to God and to His people.

St. Lawrence continued to remain faithful and committed to the tasks placed before Him. He ministered to the people of God, especially to the faithful ones during the persecution of the faithful and the Church by the Emperor Valerian. He ministered to the people of God, caring for them and kept a great and well-ordered system of distribution of goods to the faithful people of God.

And when he was arrested together with many other members of the Church, he remained true to his faith in God, and remained resolute and strong in his devotion to God until the end. He embraced the challenges and sufferings he was to face openly, and without fear, for he knows that, it is only by dying to his fears and placing his complete and full trust in the Lord that he will be saved and brought to the eternal glory promised by the Lord.

We can learn from his examples, in how we live our lives. We should follow his example in showing love to one another, caring for the poor and the less fortunate, and by loving those who are unloved and rejected, and then by also having a complete and full trust in the Lord, placing our trust in Him alone, and knowing that all who remain faithful to the Lord will not be disappointed.

May Almighty God be with us all always, and may St. Lawrence intercede for our sake always, that we may be helped on our path towards redemption and eternal life, that we may be righteous and just, and be found worthy at the end of our days. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 10 August 2015 : Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

John 12 : 24-26

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. Those who love their life destroy it, and those who despise their life in this world keep it for everlasting life.”

“Whoever wants to serve Me, let him follow Me; and wherever I am, there shall My servant be also. If anyone serves Me, the Father will honour him.”

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Monday, 10 August 2015 : Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 111 : 1-2, 5-6, 7-8, 9

Alleluia! Blessed is the one who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commands. His children will be powerful on earth; the upright’s offspring will be blessed.

It will be well with him who lends freely, who leads a life of justice and honesty. For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered and loved forever.

He has no fear of evil news, for his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is confident, he needs not fear, he shall prevail over his foes at the end.

He gives generously to the poor, his merits will last forever and his head will be raised in honour.

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Monday, 10 August 2015 : Feast of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Corinthians 9 : 6-10

Remember : the one who sows meagrely will reap meagrely, and there shall be generous harvests for the one who sows generously. Each of you should give as you decided personally, and not reluctantly as if obliged. God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to fill you with every good thing, so that you have enough of everything at all times, and may give abundantly for any good work. Scripture says : He distributed, he gave to the poor, his good works last forever.

God who provides the sower with seed will also provide him with the bread he eats. He will multiply the seed for you and also increase the interests of your good works.

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Sunday, 9 August 2015 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we have heard the words of the Scripture readings which all told us about one aspect of God, that is how He cares for all of His beloved ones, and He showed them all that care, by providing them with what they need, first of all food, the food that perishes, the earthly sources of food that fill up our stomach, and then, more importantly, He provides us with the true Food that lasts forever.

In the first reading we heard how the prophet Elijah was desperate and suffering from torment, which if we understand the background of the story from the previous chapters, was because of the intense persecution which the wicked king Ahab of Israel and his wife, queen Jezebel had initiated against the faithful ones and especially against Elijah, after he had shown the power of God against the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal on Mount Carmel in Israel.

The armies and forces of the king were sent to capture and torture Elijah, and he was fleeing from all these. Rejected by his own king, by his own people, and with people crying and seeking for his blood, we can indeed see why Elijah was desperate and truly suffering from all the challenges he was facing then. But what is important is, we have to take note what God did with Elijah.

God gave Elijah food and drink to strengthen him and his body, and sent His angels to serve him. The nourishment empowered him and gave him the strength to go on for the journey he was to embark on, to the Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, to meet God and to find out what His will was for the people of Israel. This is together with another occasion in which God also sent ravens to feed Elijah during his time running from the authorities, to give him strength against all the difficult challenges.

And if we link this to how God showed His great love to the people of Israel during their time in the desert, then we will surely be able to understand how much God had loved us, that He provided everything we need for us. When the people of Israel were thirsty in the desert, He gave them crystal clear and sweet water that gushed out from the rocks itself to drink, and when they were hungry, the Lord gave them manna, the bread of angels from heaven to eat, as well as large birds to be their food.

And we know how Jesus fed the multitudes of five thousand men, not counting the women and children present then, and on another occasion, He also fed more than four thousand men and the accompanying women and children as well. He knew that they were hungry after following Him for days and not having any food with them, and He fed them, giving them what they need to sustain their body.

All these should have awakened us to the fact that God truly cares for us all, regardless of our sins and rebelliousness which had torn us apart from His grace and love. He who created us with love, continues to love us from time to time, again and again, and He would not let us go hungry or thirsty, and He would not let us go on unloved and without His grace wherever possible.

He gave us everything we need, and most important of all, which we should remember, is that He gave us all life. Life is a gift from God to us, that when His Spirit entered our bodies made from dust and the earth, His Spirit dwelled in us and life entered our bodies and we are alive. But many of us have seemed to forget about this fact, and we showed no gratitude at all to the Lord who had given us all that we need in life.

Hence, all of us really need to think of how we have lived our lives so far, and see whether we have been grateful for the love and all the blessings our Lord had given us. But then, we also have to look beyond mere worldly sustenance and the fulfillment of what our bodies require. And in this, we have to reflect on what our Lord Jesus had done, and what He had taught us.

When Jesus was in the desert, as He was fasting for forty days and forty nights in preparation for His ministry after His baptism at the Jordan, Satan tempted Him to turn the stones into bread to satisfy His hunger after fasting for such a long period of time. But Jesus rebuked Satan by saying that men do not live on bread alone, but on every words that came from the mouth of God.

This is truly significant, for we have to see it in terms of who Jesus really is. Jesus, if we look at the first chapter of the Gospel of St. John, is the Divine Word incarnate, He who is God, who was God, and who will ever be God, the Word that created all of creations including all of us, and the Word which came down from heaven by the will of God, that with the Holy Spirit, He assumed the flesh of man, and was born of the Virgin Mary.

He is truly Man, but at the same time, He is also truly and fully God. He has two natures, God and Man, distinct but completely and perfectly in harmony and united in Jesus Christ, Word of God made Man. And if we remember the passage from the Gospel today, how He referred to the ancestors of the people to whom He was speaking to, and how those people ate the manna but still died, this will help us to understand indeed.

Jesus referred to Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread, and all who have share in Him, His Body and also His Blood, shall have eternal life and not die. Remember that Jesus rebuked Satan by saying that men do not live on bread alone but on every words that came from the mouth of God? Jesus is the Word, and all who share in Him, have life in them.

For those who ate of the bread of the world, including manna, the bread of heaven, all these satisfied only the needs of the flesh, which our Lord indeed had blessed us and provided for us whatever we need. But, more importantly, all of us are longing to be satisfied spiritually, in our hearts, minds and souls, that we may be made satisfied by whatever we receive from the Lord.

And this satisfaction comes from Christ alone, and when Christ gave us freely His Body and His Blood to be shared and to be received as part of us, we have essentially receive the spiritual and bodily nourishment for ourselves, and if we allow God to dwell in us, by receiving Him worthily, His Body and His Blood and Presence which is in the Eucharist, then we shall shine and be justified, and if our actions reflect what we have believed in, then we shall be saved.

Again, we see how God loves us so much, that He wants to make us complete, nourish us and make us whole again. For we have been tainted since sin entered into us, by the disobedience and rebellion which we have committed against Him from generation to generation. And only through God that we can be completely reconciled to Himself, and that was what Jesus had done.

That when we are all still sinners and unworthy, God had allowed Himself to take up the burden of the sins which we have committed, and placed upon His own shoulders the price and punishments for our sins, ever since the days of our first ancestors until today, and in the many years and time to come. He placed all of them on Himself, so that, by offering the perfect sacrifice of love, He may reconcile all of us to God, and be given a new chance at redemption and eternal life with God.

And those who share in His Body and His Blood, which He shed from the cross for us, will therefore receive the effects of God’s saving works, and thus also will be liberated from the bonds of sin, the wickedness of this world that had been holding us back all these while. Therefore, today, let us all pray for the grace that we may be ever strengthened in our faith and in our devotion to God, so that we can worthily receive our Lord and Master into ourselves, and as He dwell in us, He may bring us closer to life eternal.

May Almighty God be upon all of us, and give us all of His graces and blessings. And may He help us to overcome the weakness of our desires, so that we may be able to focus our own attention to seek out the true gift and goodness which came from God alone. May He bless us now and forever and give us His light to shine on our path to find Him. Amen.