holy Popes

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Thursday, 18 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. John I, Pope and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded yet again that as Christians, our principal and main responsibility lies in the need to love and serve the Lord with all of our heart, mind, body and soul. This is the essence of us being Christians, not in all other things, which all truly have their roots in the love which we ought to show the Lord our God.

And why is this so? That is because, without love, we are not Christians, and without the love which we ought to serve the Lord with, then we truly have not known love. Because if we have remembered and known just how much God has loved us, then we should also show the same love for Him, first of all, and then show the same love to our fellow brethren.

Yet, many of us mankind have forgotten this fact, and we have rejected God and His love, for the love of other things, all the distractions out there which have turned us and our attentions away from God. We have become detached from Him, and ended up being concerned only about ourselves, only about our needs and desires, and not about what truly matters, that is serving the Lord with all of our heart.

This was what happened, at the time of the early Church, as recounted to us through our first reading today taken from the Acts of the Apostles. At that time, the tension between the two factions in the Church had reached a breaking point, between the faction of the Pharisees and the faction of the Hellenists. The Pharisees were those who were similar with the Pharisees at the time of Jesus, being composed of the Pharisees who came to believe in Jesus, who wanted to keep the purity of the Jewish faith and traditions, wishing to impose on all the believers the rigour of the entire Jewish laws according to the laws of Moses.

Meanwhile, the Hellenists were those who favoured relaxing and bypassing the requirements of the Jewish laws and customs, in order to make the faith more practical and favourable to the non-Jewish people, the Greeks and the Romans, all of whom found that certain practices of the Jewish tradition such as circumcision and food prohibition to be repulsive and difficult to be followed, as these came into direct conflict with their own customs and cultural traditions.

As such, such a division in the Church was truly a tragic event, at the time when the Church should have been united against all those who sought to destroy it in its infancy. But the Church fathers and the Apostles ruled against those who would distract the Church from its primary mission, that is the salvation of souls and the repentance of all sinners.

To that extent, they agreed and ruled that all Christians should henceforth be freed from the obligation to obey the entirety of the Jewish laws and customs, most of which were in fact human creation and not originating from God, as means and historical practices meant to preserve the Jewish customs and culture. And they ruled that as long as all the Christians lived in accordance to what the Lord Jesus had taught them, that should be sufficient.

That is because as Christians, all of us truly have to remember that our primary and indeed sole obligation is to love the Lord our God, with all of our might, and with all of our strength. And when we love Him and obey Him, we will definitely also love our brethren, just as we have been loved by God and loving Him back. We will show the same love that we showed Him to our fellow men.

We should follow the example of our holy predecessors, the holy saints and martyrs, in how they devoted their whole lives to the Lord and to their fellow men. Pope St. John I, the holy Bishop of Rome and leader of the Universal Church during its early years is one of such examples. He was a devoted man, a pious and holy servant of God, dedicated to his calling and vocation as the leader of the Church.

He lived during a difficult time, as political and worldly conflict threatened the Church in Rome, due to the conflict between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogothic Kingdom, who then ruled over Rome. The Ostrogoths were Arians, heretical followers of Christianity, while the Empire was following the Orthodox and true Christian faith. Pope St. John I lived and reigned through the turbulent times, and tried his best to bridge the differences between the two powers.

However, he was caught in the entanglement of the conflict, and was imprisoned by the Ostrogoths, under the false charges of sedition and supposed plotting with the enemy against the king. He was arrested, incarcerated and made to suffer, but yet he never gave up the faith. He continued to persevere through the challenges, and even unto martyrdom, as he met his end in prison, he kept the faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on strive to serve the Lord with greater zeal and conviction, and devote ourselves to Him ever more willingly. Let us all love one another as well, just as we have been loved by God, and just as we have loved Him with all of our hearts. Let us all be true Christians inspired by the examples of our brethren who have preceded us. Pope St. John I, holy Pope and martyr, pray for us sinners. Amen.

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Thursday, 18 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. John I, Pope and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
John 15 : 9-11

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Remain in My love! You will remain in My love if you keep My commandments, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.

I have told you all this, that My own joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete.”

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Thursday, 18 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. John I, Pope and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 95 : 1-2a, 2b-3, 10

Sing to the Lord a new song, sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless His Name.

Proclaim His salvation day after day. Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns!” He will judge the peoples with justice.

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Thursday, 18 May 2017 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. John I, Pope and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Acts 15 : 7-21

As the discussions became heated, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that from the beginning God chose me among you so that non-Jews could hear the Good News from me and believe. God, Who can read hearts, put Himself on their side by giving the Holy Spirit to them just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them and cleansed their hearts through faith.”

“So why do you want to put God to the test? Why do you lay on the disciples a burden that neither our ancestors nor we ourselves were able to carry? We believe, indeed, that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are.”

The whole assembly kept silent as they listened to Paul and Barnabas tell of all the miraculous signs and wonders that God had done through them among the non-Jews. After they had finished, James spoke up, “Listen to me, brothers. Symeon has just explained how God first showed His care by taking a people for Himself from non-Jewish nations.”

“And the words of the prophets agree with this, for Scripture says, ‘After this I will return and rebuild the booth of David which has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins and set it up again. Then the rest of humanity will look for the Lord, and all the nations will be consecrated to My Name. So says the Lord, Who does today what He decided from the beginning.'”

“Because of this, I think that we should not make difficulties for those non-Jews who are turning to God. Let us just tell them not to eat food that is unclean from having been offered to idols; to keep themselves from prohibited marriages; and not to eat the flesh of animals that have been strangled, or any blood. For from the earliest times Moses has been taught in every place, and every Sabbath his laws are recalled.”

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded of the new covenant which God had made with us all, His people, that is with all of mankind. And He had made all of these through the mediation of Christ, Who is the Mediator of the new covenant, by which all of us are to receive salvation and grace, because Christ Himself had done the amazing and unimaginable deed of laying down His own life for the sake of our salvation.

Through Him, God had placed into our hearts the truth about Himself, what He had revealed to the whole world about His salvation. He had sent us His Holy Spirit, through Whom the truth is placed into our hearts, so that all of us who have believed in Him, and received the Holy Spirit will understand fully what it means for us to follow the Lord our God, and to walk in His ways.

However, this is also where we need to take note how in the Gospel passage today, it was mentioned that Jesus called His disciples, the primary twelve members among them in particular. They are known as the Twelve Apostles, whose names we are certainly quite familiar with. They were called by Jesus, together with the other Apostles and disciples, to be His witnesses and helpers in the good works He was bringing into the world for our salvation.

Through this, we can see how God needs our help to continue His good works in this world, as the works He has started are certainly not yet complete. All these works are still ongoing, and there are even more things to be done. There are many people who have yet to witness and experience the truth of the Lord, and there are many others who have yet to receive the Good News unlike us.

The works of the Apostles, who preached and witnessed for the Lord are still ongoing, as we are the ones who are now called to be the modern day disciples and witnesses of our God and of our faith in Him. Through us God will make His truth known to all, that He establishes a new covenant with us, and by that we are altogether saved. It is up to us then to lead others, our brethren, to walk on this path towards God’s salvation and grace.

And how do we do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? The saints Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian whose feasts we are celebrating today, had shown many others what it meant to be a disciple of Christ, and what are to be expected from us if we are to take His side and defend our faith in Him. They lived during times of great difficulty for the faith, when being a Christian meant that one could be prosecuted and arrested by the state, and persecution of the Church and the faithful were rampant.

Pope St. Fabian was the leader of the Universal Church and the faithful both across the Roman Empire and all Christendom, as well as in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor at the time, the Emperor Decius was particularly hostile against Christians and their faith, and he ordered a distinctively brutal persecution against them.

As the leader of the flock of God, Pope St. Fabian did not fear the threat of persecution and suffering. Instead, he continued to minister courageously to the people of God, going from places to places and minister to those who need help. Eventually he was arrested and tortured, and as an example to all the other Christians, the Emperor Decius sentenced the faithful saint to death, and thus, in doing what he had been called to do, Pope St. Fabian met his end in glorious martyrdom.

Then, St. Sebastian was a soldier in the employ of the Roman Emperor, told to be a courageous man whose skill earned him a place in the contingent of the Imperial guardsmen. The Emperor at that time, Diocletian was also renowned infamously for his brutal persecution of the Christian faith and the faithful. All the Roman soldiers were ordered to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, who was then treated as a living god, and those who refused to do so were persecuted.

St. Sebastian courageously refused to offer sacrifices to the Emperor as ordered, because he stood by faithfully to his Christian faith. He refused to obey the Emperor’s orders even though he fully knew that doing so would bring about the wrath of the Emperor and would almost certainly mean his death. He did not want to compromise his faith and kept strongly to the faith which he had in the Lord.

And thus, by his courage, he was tortured and put to death, after a long and miraculous process where we were told that he was shot with arrows but did not die because of the Lord’s intervention, before finally he was martyred with a sword. Through their examples, Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian had shown us all that being a Christian require commitment and courage, and real action instead of inaction.

We, as the modern day successors of the Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ should be role models for our brethren, and become genuine and real witnesses for Him, even though persecution, challenges and difficulties may come in our way to hinder us and stop us from doing whatever it is that we want to do for this purpose. Let us all pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that God will give us the courage and strength to do so.

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the holy saints and martyrs who had gone before us, and who have left behind their illustrious examples for us to follow. Let us all follow in the footsteps of Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian in their total commitment to the Lord and their courageous faith. And finally, let us all continue to pray for the unity of all Christians that all those who believe in God may come together and be reunited in the Church of Christ under the leadership of His Vicar, our Pope. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Mark 3 : 13-19

At that time, Jesus went up into the hill country, and called those He wanted and they came to Him. He appointed twelve to be with Him, and He called them ‘Apostles’. He wanted to send them out to preach, and He gave them authority to drive out demons.

These are the Twelve : Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, which means ‘men of thunder’; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 84 : 8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Show us, o Lord, Your unfailing love and grant us Your saving help. Yet Your salvation is near to those who fear You, and Your Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Hebrews 8 : 6-13

Now, however, Jesus enjoys a much higher ministry in being the Mediator of a better covenant, founded on better promises. If all had been perfect in the first covenant, there would have been no need for another one. Yet God sees defects when He says : The days are coming – it is the word of the Lord – when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not keep My covenant, and so I Myself have forsaken them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come : I will put My law into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people.

None of them will have to teach one another or say to each other : Know the Lord, for they will know Me from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and no longer remember their wrongs. Here we are being told of a new covenant; which means that the first one had become obsolete, and what is obsolete and ageing is soon to disappear.

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Saturday, 31 December 2016 : Seventh Day within Octave of Christmas, Memorial of Pope St. Silvester I, Pope (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this last day of the Gregorian Calendar year, and therefore as we approach the coming of the New Year, let us also remember that we are still in the midst of the Christmas season, and we ought to look back at our past year and see in what way have we been faithful to the Lord our God, Who out of His love for us, have come into the world to save us from certain destruction because of our sins.

He has come into the world at Christmas, firstly about two millennia ago, when He was born in Bethlehem, as St. John put it at the beginning of his Gospel, which is our Gospel passage, that He is the Word of God, Who is God and Who is with God ever since the beginning of time. And the Lord has endeavoured out of His love, to bring forth the Word into the world by His will, and assume the flesh of Man. And thus that was how He entered the world, and that was how He became the One through Whom God saved us by His death on the cross.

But as we come to the end of the Christmas season, and as we approach the beginning of another new year, each and every one of us must remember that Christmas is not just about the Lord and Saviour Who had once come into the world. Rather, it is also about the Lord Who has promised us that He will come again at the time of His choosing, and at that time, He shall deliver all of His beloved people, those who are faithful to Him, from the darkness and into the light of His eternal life.

And in the first reading today, St. John the Apostle and Evangelist reminded us all that the hour will come, and we should not assume that we have a lot of time to prepare ourselves for the eventual coming of the Lord. Rather, we should assume that it is indeed the final hour, and every single moment of our lives is a blessing for us, and we should thank Him for all the opportunities we have been given.

And he also warned us that there will be false prophets who had come, and who will come into this world, the antichrists, the agents of the devil and his fallen angels, designed and tasked to confuse us and lead us into the false paths, that we lose our way and fall into temptation, and instead of joining the Lord in His grace, we fall into the eternal damnation of hell with Satan and his angels.

That is why, today, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us should commit ourselves to the Lord anew and strengthen our faith in Him so that we will not falter amidst the challenges and the temptations of this world. We should devote some time today and from now onwards to think about what are we going to do to prepare ourselves to welcome the Lord when He comes again for us. Are we going to wait and do nothing? Or are we going to take charge of our lives and do what He had asked us to do?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us also look upon the example of Pope St. Silvester I, the saint whose feast day we celebrate today. As the Pope and leader of the Universal Church at his time, he lived during a time of a great change in the. Church and in the world. He reigned as Pope following the reign of Pope St. Miltiades, during whose time the Edict of Milan was proclaimed by the Roman Emperor Constantine, ending centuries long persecution of the Christian faith and the Church.

At that time, the Church was divided between many factions, with many believing in the false teachings and tenets of Arius, who claimed that Jesus our Lord was mere Man and not both God and Man. Arius and many other false prophets deceived many in the Church, and they became heretics who misled others to follow their own path and false ways.

That was why at that time, Pope St. Silvester I and his contemporaries persuaded the Emperor Constantine, who was favourable to the Christian faith and teachings, to convene the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in the year 325 AD in order to address the issues of these apostates and false teachings, and thus to prevent the false teachings from further dividing the Church and misleading the faithful.

And it was in that Ecumenical Council that the false teachings of Arius and the other heretics were formally condemned, and the same Creed of faith which has been passed down to us from the Apostles and the Church fathers, the Nicene Creed was formulated. And this is also closely linked to the great Solemnity that we are going to celebrate tomorrow, namely that of the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God.

If the teachings of Arius had been true, that Jesus was merely a creature of the Lord, a mere Man and not Divine, then Mary would indeed be just a mere mother of man, just like any other women and mothers. But no, Pope St. Silvester I and the faithful bishops and leaders of the Church stood by the true faith, believing in the Lord Who is both God and Man at the same time, possessing two distinct natures which are nevertheless inseparable from each other.

Brethren, what we have heard today with regards to Pope St. Silvester and his life should inspire us all as Christians that we should not take our faith for granted. There are many of those who desire our downfall, and by many means they will do their best to prevent us from reaching the goal of our salvation, either by persuasion, temptation, or even by force and persecution.

We should prepare ourselves for the eventual coming of our Lord, that we make use of this opportunity which has been granted to us, in order to be righteous and just in all of our deeds, so that the Lord will find us worthy when He comes into this world, and all of us will receive grace and everlasting life from Him. Let us all begin a New Year from tomorrow onwards with a new, courageous and determined hearts and minds, desiring to give of ourselves fully to the Lord.

May the Lord help us and guide us, and may He ever strengthen our resolve to live fully in accordance with His will and grace. God bless us all, and may He bless our year ahead with good things and many blessings. Amen.

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Saturday, 31 December 2016 : Seventh Day within Octave of Christmas, Memorial of Pope St. Silvester I, Pope (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
John 1 : 1-18

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God; He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing came to be. Whatever has come to be, found life in Him; life, which for human beings, was also light, light that shines in darkness, light that darkness could not overcome.

A man came, sent by God; his name was John. He came to bear witness, as a witness to introduce the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but a witness to introduce the Light; for the Light was coming into the world, the true Light that enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and through Him the world was made, the very world that did not know Him.

He came to His own, yet His own people did not receive Him; but to all who received Him, He empowers to become children of God, for they believe in His Name. These are born, but not by seed, or carnal desire, nor by the will of man : they are born of God.

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father : fullness of truth and loving-kindness. John bore witness to Him openly, saying, “This is the One Who comes after me, but He is already ahead of me, for He was before me.”

From His fullness we have all received, favour upon favour. For God had given us the Law through Moses, but Truth and Loving-kindness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God-the-only-Son made Him known : the One, Who is in and with the Father.