holy men

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Thursday, 17 March 2022 : 2nd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Patrick, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Jeremiah 17 : 5-10

This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH! He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness.”

“Blessed is the man who puts his trust in YHVH and whose confidence is in Him! He is like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots towards the stream. He has no fear when the heat comes, his leaves are always green; the year of drought is no problem and he can always bear fruit.”

“Most deceitful is the heart. What is there within man, who can understand him? I, YHVH, search the heart and penetrate the mind. I reward each one according to his ways and the fruit of his deeds.”

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Tuesday, 8 March 2022 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to the words of the Scriptures today, we are all called to pray more and to spend more time in quality moments with God, which we can achieve through that prayerful time and silence, as we come to Him with a contrite and loving heart, remembering His most generous love and compassionate mercy, all that He had done for us, all these while. The Lord has shown us His great willingness to welcome us back to His embrace and to love us once again, and we are all called to remember this love and mercy at all times.

In our Gospel passage today, the Lord has shown us all the model prayer that He Himself had made, in praying to His heavenly Father, the model prayer that we all definitely know too well. The Lord’s Prayer, also known as Pater Noster or Our Father, after the very first words in that prayer is a model for all of our Christian prayers, in how we make our prayers and how we can make sure that those prayers help us in deepening our relationship with God, as they should have. Prayer is the way for us to communicate with God, to speak with God our loving Father, and to listen to His speaking in our hearts and minds.

The Lord is indeed Our Father, the One Who created us all out of love, and through Christ, His Son, Who has willingly embraced our humanity and taken up the existence in the flesh, we who share in His humanity has now therefore shared in having the Lord our God as our loving Father. And if God is our Father, then why do we hesitate to communicate with Him and spend quality time with Him? Through what He Himself had done, the Lord reminded us that we have to spend time in prayer to the Lord and pray in the right manner, and with the right disposition in our heart and mind.

First of all, prayer must first be about giving thanks to God, thanking Him for all the wonderful things that we have received, no matter how all they might have been. And least of all, we have to give Him thanks for the continued gift of life that He has blessed us with. We have to thank Him for all the opportunities that He had provided us with, all the people whom He had blessed us with, our families, friends and other loved ones. We have to thank Him for everything He blessed us with despite us having often betrayed Him for false idols in life.

Then, prayer is also about listening to God and not just wanting or even demanding God to listen to us. It is about opening our hearts, minds and our senses to allow for genuine communication between us and God. If we only want God to listen to us and we are not willing to listen to Him, then it is not a communication at all. Our prayer has instead become a litany of demands that we make to the Lord and we are forcing our will on God. How can this be, as we are only a mere creation, daring to make demands on our Lord, Master and Creator?

And then, prayer is also the means by which we also seek the Lord’s forgiveness and mercy, as we ask Him to forgive us the multitudes of our sins. It is by God’s grace alone that we can be forgiven, and we who are sinners are in need of God’s forgiveness, that we may be reconciled to Him. The Lord will forgive us our sins, as long as we have ourselves learnt to forgive each others’ sins and faults to one another, just as mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer. We humble ourselves as sinners, all needing that much needed reconciliation with God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to cultivate in us the habit of good and true prayer, prayer that is genuine from our hearts and not prayer that is merely recited without meaning or understanding. This season of Lent is a time for us to reflect deeply on ourselves and our path in life. We have to remember that we have with us now the opportunities for us to return to the Lord and reclaim our positions of honour, filled with the grace of God through our reconciliation with Him. This season of Lent is the perfect time for us to redirect our focus and attention once again at God.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. John of God, a holy servant of God, who dedicated his life to the works of God. He was a young man who became a soldier and later on, disillusioned with the betrayal he experienced and all other matters, he eventually followed the path of God, committed to serve the people of God. And based on his earlier experiences, his journeys in places like Africa and among enslaved Christians and other less fortunate people, he became inspired to work among the poor and the less fortunate, dedicating himself to the service of God.

St. John of God founded the religious order known as the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God with the emphasis and charism in caring and reaching out towards the sick, the poor and the less fortunate in the community. He dedicated his life to serve the Lord and His people and many people flocked to follow his examples and his order flourished in numbers and their works. The Lord has guided St. John of God who responded passionately to His call. And he did this to the very end, even at his own expense, when he eventually died of pneumonia after rescuing a drowning person in a cold river. He did not hesitate to jump into the river to save that person.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in St. John of God we have seen a great role model for all of us, a role model that can and should inspire us in this season of Lent, as a model of virtue and faith, and of selflessness and charity, care and compassion for our fellow brothers and sisters. This is what we have been called to do this Lenten season, to draw ever closer to God through prayer and also through our charitable actions, our giving and love in almsgiving, in loving others more, in sharing more of our blessings with those who have less or none.

Let us all make great use of this ample opportunity during this blessed season of Lent to come ever closer to God. Let us all be inspired by the great examples of our predecessors, to walk in the path of Our Lord and His saints. Let us all make this Lent a truly meaningful and good one for all of us, that we may each and all come to God’s presence, and be worthy of God and His love and grace. Amen.

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Tuesday, 8 March 2022 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 6 : 7-15

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “When you pray, do not use a lot of words, as the pagans do; for they believe that, the more they say, the more chance they have of being heard. Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need, even before you ask Him.”

“This, then, is how you should pray : Our Father in heaven, holy be Your Name, Your kingdom, come, Your will, be done on earth, as in heaven. Give us today, our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we forgive those who are in debt to us.”

“Do not bring us to the test, but deliver us from the evil one. If you forgive others their wrongdoings, your Father in heaven will also forgive yours. If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive you.”

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Tuesday, 8 March 2022 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 33 : 4-5, 6-7, 16-17, 18-19

Oh, let us magnify YHVH; together, let us glorify His Name! I sought YHVH, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, YHVH hears and saves them from distress.

The eyes of YHVH are fixed on the righteous; His ears are inclined to their cries. But His face is set against the wicked, to destroy their memory from the earth.

YHVH hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles. YHVH is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught.

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Tuesday, 8 March 2022 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 55 : 10-11

As the rain and snow come down from the heavens and do not return till they have watered the earth, making it yield seed for the sower and food for others to eat, so is My Word that goes forth out of My mouth : It will not return to Me idle, but It shall accomplish My will, the purpose for which It has been sent.

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Friday, 4 March 2022 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures and as we embark on this journey of the Lenten season, all of us are called to remember why we observe this season of Lent, with plenty of fasting, abstinence and almsgiving. We are reminded that all that we have done, we did them not for ourselves or for our own satisfaction and convenience. All of these we have done because we desire to seek the Lord and to be forgiven from our many sins and faults, to be reconciled fully with our most loving and compassionate God.

In our first reading today, we heard from the prophet Isaiah, the words of the Lord chastising His people in the kingdom of Judah, where Isaiah was ministering in. The Lord chastised His people because they had not truly been faithful to Him, and those who professed to be faithful, did not truly follow Him in the way that they should have, as they merely paid lip service through their actions. It was mentioned how they fasted and yet at the same time, they oppressed the weak and the poor, bringing sorrow and hardships to others, all for their own personal benefits and glory.

This was what the Lord chastised His people for, which was their attitude that did not reflect true faith and commitment in the Lord and His path. He told them that they could not profess to believe in Him and yet, acted in ways contrary to what they have believed in. Otherwise, they would be hypocrites and lacking in true faith. They have to be truly faithful and not just doing things and obeying the rules and laws just for the sake of obeying them. If they fasted and yet, they bickered and oppressed others who were less fortunate, then whatever virtues and good things they have gained would have been nulled by the wickedness they committed.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord speaking to the disciples of St. John the Baptist who came to Him asking why His disciples did not fast the same way that they and the Pharisees had fasted. Contextually, we have to understand that the disciples of St. John and especially the Pharisees had followed a very strict interpretation of the Jewish laws and customs, and which particularly for the Pharisees, they took great emphasis and care in enforcing that fast and how the fast were to be done, and criticised all others who did not fast the way that they had done it.

This was where the Pharisees had ended up losing sight on the true intention and meaning of fasting, of why fasting was done in the first place. For as the Lord Himself had said in our first reading today, if we fasted and then yet, we oppressed, persecuted and made others’ life difficult, through how the Pharisees had criticised and persecuted the Lord, His disciples and the other people, then what they had done were not in accordance with God, His teachings and truth. They did not fast as how the Lord wanted them to fast.

For their fasting ended up serving their own desires, in wanting to be recognised and praised for their own piety, in their faith and virtues. They sought that glory and worldly fame, attention, influence and other things, that they ended up forgetting why they ought to have fasted, which was in fact contrary to what they had done. Fasting was meant to curb all those desires instead of embracing them, and fasting was meant to bring one closer to God and help one to focus on God rather than to end up focusing more on oneself and their own’s selfish desires.

That is why, today as we remember these words from the Scriptures, all of us are yet again reminded that in our Lenten practices and observances, we must not do them blindly and without understanding their true significance and importance. It means that we should not just fasted and abstained from meat like for example on this day, being a Friday, on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and any other Fridays, but we have to have an interior conversion and change of heart and mind. For fasting and abstinence must not just be an end on themselves, but they must lead to a genuine conversion and change of heart.

It means that we have to grow ever more in our faith in the Lord, and be sincere in our desire to follow the Lord. We must not merely pay lip service in our faith, and this Lent should be a great opportunity for us to embrace the Lord and His mercy and love. This Lenten season should be a time for us to grow more in humility and in our relationship with God rather than for us to show off our faith with pride or worse still, for us to compare with one another who is being more worthy and holier in our ways before the Lord.

Today we should be inspired instead by the good examples set by our predecessors, especially that of St. Casimir, whose feast we are celebrating today. St. Casimir was a prince of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania in the late Middle Ages, the second son of the King of Poland-Lithuania. Even in his youth, he was renowned for his great piety and faith in God, in his many charitable and generous actions for the poor and the sick, as he dedicated himself to the care of the less privileged. He also dedicated himself to a life of virtue and holiness, not indulging in the excesses of worldly living as what many of the royalty and nobles at that time often enjoyed.

Through his faith, life and dedication, St. Casimir, faithful servant of God has shown us all how we can also be faithful to the Lord in our own actions. Are we then willing and able to commit ourselves to the Lord in the same way, brothers and sisters in Christ? Can we be more humble in life, recognising our sinfulness and our vulnerabilities and weaknesses, and at the same time also growing ever more generous in loving and giving to others, in the manner that St. Casimir and many others of our holy predecessors had done?

Let us all make great use of this blessed time of Lent for us to reorientate our lives back towards the Lord, to return to Him and to embrace Him with genuine love once again. Let us all turn towards Him with faith, and commit ourselves to a new life of virtue and faith, renewed with zeal and courage, to take up our crosses in life and following the Lord, walking in the path that He has shown us all. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us, and may He empower us all to be able to serve Him at all times, through our lives and examples. Amen.

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Friday, 4 March 2022 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 9 : 14-15

At that time, the disciples of John came to Jesus with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not Your disciples?”

Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then, they will fast.”

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Friday, 4 March 2022 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 50 : 3-4, 5-6a, 18-19

Have mercy on me, o God, in Your love. In Your great compassion blot out my sin. Wash me thoroughly of my guilt; cleanse me of evil.

For I acknowledge my wrongdoings and have my sins ever in mind. Against You alone, have I sinned.

You take no pleasure in sacrifice; were I to give a burnt offering, You would not delight in it. O God, my sacrifice is a broken spirit; a contrite heart, You will not despise.

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Friday, 4 March 2022 : Friday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 58 : 1-9a

Cry out aloud for all you are worth; raise your voice like a trumpet blast; tell My people of their offences, Jacob’s family of their sins. Is it true that they seek Me day after day, longing to know My ways, as a people that does what is right and has not forsaken the word of its God?

They want to know the just laws and not to drift away from their God. “Why are we fasting?,” they complain, “and You do not even see it? We are doing penance and You never notice it.” Look, on your fast days you push your trade and you oppress your labourers. Yes, you fast but end up quarrelling, striking each other with wicked blows. Fasting as you do will not make your voice heard on high.

Is that the kind of fast that pleases Me, just a day to humble oneself? Is fasting merely bowing down one’s head, and making use of sackcloth and ashes? Would you call that fasting, a day acceptable to YHVH? See the fast that pleases Me : breaking the fetters of injustice and unfastening the thongs of the yoke, setting the oppressed free and breaking every yoke.

Fast by sharing your food with the hungry, bring to your house the homeless, clothe the one you see naked and do not turn away from your own kin. Then will your light break forth as the dawn and your healing come in a flash. Your righteousness will be your vanguard, the glory of YHVH your rearguard. Then you will call and YHVH will answer, you will cry and He will say, I am here.

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Wednesday, 23 February 2022 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures all of us are called to do what we can to contribute to the works of the Lord, the mission and the actions that we have been called to do as the followers and the disciples of Our Lord and Saviour. As Christians we have to do whatever we can to do the will of God and to support one another in doing so, and not to do things for only our own personal glory and achievements, satisfaction or pleasure.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. James the Apostle in which the Apostle spoke of the futility of many people who make plans and ambitious aims, concerted efforts and other things to advance their own often selfish and greedy goals in life. All those things that man have often done to preserve themselves, their gains and self-interests are ultimately meaningless because no matter how many things we accumulate and gather in life, we will never bring them forth beyond this life.

That is why, St. James told all of us the faithful people of God that we should not immerse ourselves in worldly desires and all the corrupt and wicked things that are present in our world today. We have to do our best to resist the temptations to sin, or else we may end up falling away further and further from the path of God. Many of our predecessors had fallen in such a manner, and unless we heed the words of the Apostle St. James, we may end up suffering the same fate as well, forgetting God and His ways as we got distracted by the many temptations of this world.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Lord Jesus speaking to His disciples when the latter tried to stop a person performing works and miracles in the Name of the Lord, just because they did not belong to their group. The disciples must have seen the man as a rival to their work and influence, and unwittingly, without them knowing it, they actually had done exactly what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Lord had often done, in trying to stop the Lord and His disciples in their works of carrying out the will of God.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were also thinking that they were doing the work of God as they opposed the Lord and His disciples, thinking that they alone had obeyed and followed the Lord in the right manner. As such, they ended up obstructing and made it difficult for the Lord to perform His works, and that was the unfortunate result when man allowed their worldly desires, their greed and ego, their ambition, jealousy and others to cloud their judgment and lead them down the path of disobedience and sin.

The Lord therefore had reminded His disciples and thus, also all of us that we cannot allow those things from distracting and misleading us any further in life. We have to resist the temptations of worldly ambitions and thinking that we do things for our own benefits and glory. The disciples must have thought of that as they went to the Lord asking Him to prohibit the other man from doing his works in His Name. But the Lord immediately reminded them that as long as he works in His Name and for His glory, that is all that matters.

Now, all of us as Christians are called to reflect on these things, keeping in mind how we are going to live our lives from now on. We are called to refocus our attention towards the Lord and model ourselves on our great and holy predecessors, whose examples should inspire us to follow in their footsteps in being faithful to God. Today, we celebrate one of those great saints, namely that of St. Polycarp, a holy bishop and servant of God, and devout martyr of the faith and the Church.

St. Polycarp was one of the early Church fathers and successor to the Apostles, who was a contemporary of the disciples of the Twelve Apostles, and might have encountered and corresponded with some of the Apostles, especially that of St. John the Apostle. He collaborated with the other leaders of the Church and helped the Church in the place under his responsibility to grow and prosper, even through the times of great hardships and occasional persecutions from the Roman state.

He continued to work hard and devote his time, effort and attention to the people entrusted to him, even until a very advanced age, and it was at that time, when he was already eighty-six years old, that he was martyred in the defence of his faith, likely during the time of one of the persecutions against Christians. He had proclaimed the Christian truth and faith with great courage throughout his life, and to the very end, he showed that not even suffering and death could stop him from doing so, for the greater glory of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do whatever we can to follow in the footsteps of St. Polycarp and our many other holy predecessors, in putting God as the focus and emphasis of their lives, in making their lives worthy of Him through their actions and commitment. Let us all not be distracted and tempted any further by worldly temptations from now on, and instead be good role models for one another and assist each other in our respective journey of faith towards the Lord, now and always. Amen.