holy priests

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Tuesday, 5 April 2022 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Vincent Ferrer, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 8 : 21-30

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “I am going away, and though you look for Me, you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” The Jews wondered, “Why does He say that we cannot come where He is going? Will He kill Himself?”

But Jesus said, “You are from below and I am from above; you are of this world and I am not of this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. And you shall die in your sins, unless you believe that I am He.” They asked Him, “Who are You?”; and Jesus said, “Just what I have told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the One Who sent Me is truthful and everything I learnt from Him; I proclaim to the world.”

They did not understand that Jesus was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing of Myself, but I say just what the Father taught Me. He Who sent Me is with Me and has not left Me alone; because I always do what pleases Him.”

As Jesus spoke like this, many believed in Him.

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Tuesday, 5 April 2022 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Vincent Ferrer, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 101 : 2-3, 16-18, 19-21

O Lord, hear my prayer; let my cry for help come to You. Do not hide Your face from me when I am in trouble. Turn Your ear to me; make haste to answer me when I call.

O Lord, the nations will revere Your Name, and the kings of the earth Your glory, when the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in all His splendour. For He will answer the prayer of the needy and will not despise their plea.

Let this be written for future ages, “The Lord will be praised by a people He will form.” From His holy height in heaven, the Lord has looked on the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.

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Tuesday, 5 April 2022 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Vincent Ferrer, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Numbers 21 : 4-9

From Mount Hor they set out by the Red Sea road to go around the land of Edom. The people were discouraged by the journey and began to complain against God and Moses, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is neither bread nor water here and we are disgusted with this tasteless manna.”

YHVH then sent fiery serpents against them. They bit the people and many of the Israelites died. Then the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, speaking against YHVH and against you. Plead with YHVH to take the serpents away.”

Moses pleaded for the people and YHVH said to him, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a standard; whoever has been bitten and then looks at it shall live.” So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a standard. Whenever a man was bitten, he looked towards the bronze serpent and he lived.

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Monday, 31 January 2022 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this day as we listened to the words of the Scripture we are all reminded of the Lord’s providence for His people, to His faithful ones, how He has always watched over those who are faithful to Him, provided for them and how He will not abandon them in their time of greatest need. The Lord will reach out to us and lead us to the ultimate victory through Him.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Samuel, we heard how Absalom, the son of David, rebelled against his own father and attempted to seize his kingdom for himself. Absalom was a cunning and proud man, as he likely saw himself as the one who was to succeed his father as King of Israel, and he began plotting his rise to power. He managed to gain significant support and eventually began his rebellion, forcing his father, David, the rightful king to flee Jerusalem with some of his trusted advisors and servants.

That time, we heard of the moment when David was at his lowest, beset by all the troubles caused by Absalom and his rebellion, and many of his advisors and servants abandoning him, and even as we heard, a man named Shimei from Saul’s clan used the opportunity to curse David and speak all sorts of ill things and misfortunes to him, thinking that the reign of David, the one who took over the throne of Israel from the family of Saul finally encountered his end. Nonetheless, as we heard, David remained faithful to God to the very end.

David trusted in the Lord and when one of his men, Abishai wanted to attack Shimei, he forbid Abishai from doing so, and he entrusted his fate completely to the Lord. David did not waver in his commitment and dedication to the Lord, and despite the challenges and hardships that he had to endure, in the end, he remained true and committed to God. King David believed that there is nothing impossible for God, and as long as he is faithful to the Lord, he has nothing to fear about. God shall be by his side just as He had done for all his life until that time.

In our Gospel passage today we heard of the account of the moment when the Lord Jesus cast our many evil spirits and demons from a possessed man in the wilderness in the region of the Gerasenes, which was the region beyond the Jordan River on the other side from Jerusalem and Judea. That man had suffered for a long time and had been ostracised from the community due to his affliction and condition, and he had wandered off in the wilderness until that time when the Lord Jesus were passing by with His disciples.

The evil spirits, aptly named Legion for their great numbers, who had tormented the man, recognised the Lord and asked Him what He wanted to do with them. Certainly the Lord would not have let those wicked spirits have their way and torment the man any longer. He ordered them all to go out from the man and freed him from their dominion and power. The man was healed and was completely restored, and while the local populace was terrified of what they had just witnessed and what happened, the man believed in God and wanted to follow Him. The Lord told the man to go back to his community and tell everyone all that he had experienced.

Today, as we listened to these words of the Scripture we are all reminded how God has always provided for us in our time and hour of need, and we have to believe in Him wholeheartedly, if we are to follow Him and remain faithful to Him. In Him alone is our true hope and happiness, and if we can trust Him this way, then we will be able to weather through any difficulties, trials and challenges that may come throughout our lives. We should not allow fear and doubt to come in between us and God, and we should believe in Him the way that King David had done, and knowing how He cared for each one of us as He had done with the possessed man.

Today, we all celebrate the feast of St. John Bosco, one of the famous saints of the Church known and remembered for his works and dedication to youths. Having experienced a difficult youth time himself, and how having inadequate education due to the poverty of his family, he was inspired to be a priest and from then on, to reach out to struggling juveniles and youths, establishing the Oratory in Turin, catering for the needs of those who need guidance and help, caring for the needs of orphans and those who were struggling with life.

He was committed to his work and made great impacts despite the challenges and opposition that he often had to face in his ministry, as there were members of both laity and the clergy opposed to his efforts due to various reasons. But St. John Bosco persevered nonetheless, gathering many others who shared his ideals and desire to serve the people of God, eventually leading to the foundation of the Order of the Salesians of Don Bosco, one of the great religious orders lasting till this very day.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all turn towards the Lord with faith and commit ourselves thoroughly to His cause from now on. Let us be inspired by the faith shown by our holy predecessors, King David, St. John Bosco and innumerable other holy men and women, all of our role models in faith. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us in our journey through life, and may He empower us to live ever more faithfully in His embrace and love. Amen.

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Monday, 31 January 2022 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 5 : 1-20

At that time, Jesus and His disciples arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gerasenes. No sooner did Jesus leave the boat than He was met by a man with evil spirits, who had come from the tombs. The man lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him, even with a chain.

He had often been bound with fetters and chains; but he would pull the chains apart and smash the fetters; and no one had the strength to control him. Night and day he stayed among the tombs on the hillsides, and was continually screaming, and beating himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell at His feet, and cried with a loud voice, “What do You want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? For God’s sake, I beg You, do not torment me!” He said this, because Jesus had commanded, “Evil spirit, come out of the man!”

When Jesus asked the evil spirit, “What is your name?” It replied, “Legion is my name, for we are many.” And it kept begging Jesus, not to send them out of that region. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside, and the evil spirits begged Him, “Send us to the pigs, and let us go into them.”

So Jesus let them go. The evil spirits came out of the man and went into the pigs; and immediately, the herd rushed down the cliff; and all were drowned in the lake. The herdsmen fled, and reported this in the town and in the countryside. So all the people came to see what had happened.

They came to Jesus, and saw the man freed of the evil spirits, sitting there, clothed and in his right mind; the same man who had been possessed by the legion. They were afraid. And when those who had seen it, told what had happened to the man and to the pigs, the people begged Jesus to leave their neighbourhood.

When Jesus was getting into the boat, the man, who had been possessed, begged to stay with Him. Jesus would not let him, and said, “Go home to your people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

So he went throughout the country of Decapolis, telling everyone how much Jesus had done for him; and all the people were astonished.

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Monday, 31 January 2022 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 3 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7

O YHVH, how great in number are my foes! How numerous are they who rise against me! How many are they who say of my soul : “There is no help for him in God!”

But You are my Shield, o YHVH, my Glory; You lift up my head. Aloud I cry to YHVH, and from His holy hill He answers me.

If I lie down to sleep, again I awake, for YHVH supports me; no fear of the thousands standing against me.

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Monday, 31 January 2022 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 15 : 13-14, 30 and 2 Samuel 16 : 5-13a

A messenger came to report to David that the Israelites were siding with Absalom. Then David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, “Let us flee, for we cannot resist Absalom. Go quickly, lest he come hurriedly and overtake us. Surely he will put the city to the sword if he can bring disaster upon us.”

David himself went up the Mount of Olives, weeping. He was barefooted and had his head covered, and all the people who were with him had their heads covered and wept as they went. When king David came to Bahurim, a man from the clan of Saul’s family named Shimei, son of Gera, came out cursing him. He threw stones at David and his officers although the king’s men and warriors flanked the king on the right and left.

As he yelled curses, Shimei said, “Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man! YHVH has brought down on your head all the blood of the family of Saul. You became king in his place, but God has now placed the kingdom in the hands of your son Absalom. Ruin has come upon you because you are a wicked man.”

Then Abishai, son of Zeruiah, said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go and cut his head off.” But the king said, “Why should I listen to you, sons of Zeruiah? If YHVH has ordered him to curse me, who shall ask him why he acts like this?”

Then David said to Abishai and his officers, “If my own son wants to kill me, how much more this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse me if YHVH has ordered him to do so. Perhaps YHVH will look on my affliction and turn to good things the curses heaped on me today.”

So David and his men went on their way while Shimei, following on the hillside opposite him.

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Friday, 28 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures all of us are called to remember the words that we have heard, so that we may remember to sow the seeds of faith in our hearts and provide them the best condition possible for our faith to grow and blossom. Then, at the same time we also ought to be guarding ourselves against the snares of sin and evil, so we will not end up falling further and deeper into the trap of sin.

In our first reading today, we heard from the second Book of the prophet Samuel of the continuation of the account of the reign and deeds of King David of Israel that we have been hearing for the past two weeks or so. We heard of the time when King David had been secure in his kingdom and had been blessed by God with much prosperity and happiness. However, David was swayed by the beauty of one named Bathsheba, the wife of one of his army captains named Uriah, known as the Hittite. David began to desire for Bathsheba and was infatuated with her when he saw her bathing in one occasion.

That led to an affair between David and Bathsheba, which resulted in her having a child that was David’s. Afraid that his affair would be found out by Uriah and others, David was desperate in trying to trick him into sleeping with his wife so as to hide the fact of the sin that he has committed before God and others. Uriah however was a righteous man and he did not do as David intended, and as such, David with the help of the cunning advisors he had, sent Uriah to the thickest midst of the battle against the Ammonites and ended up leading to Uriah’s death.

But God knew all that each one of us had done including that which David had done, no matter how hard he might have tried to hide it. Even the righteous and faithful David could fall into the traps of sin, and the snares of evil and wickedness indeed reached far and wide as those past examples have shown us thus far. Unless we are vigilant in our defence and preparedness against the forces of sin and evil, we may end up finding ourselves in the wrong side during the Day of Judgment because our sins and wickedness become stumbling block on our path towards salvation in God.

Today, in our Gospel passage, all of us heard the Lord speaking to His disciples using a parable, namely the parable of the sower and the mustard seed. Through those parables, the Lord wanted to explain clearly in the context of what the people understood, how building the kingdom of God requires effort and hard work, and our faith is not one that can just be easily lived in idleness and passive attitude. Instead, all of us as Christians are called to live our lives with vigour and great zeal, spending the time and effort to follow the Lord in all of our actions and deeds, in our words and interactions.

That means each and every one of us have to be active in nurturing our faith, doing whatever we can in every small and little things in life, in following the teachings of the Lord, obeying His will and Law, living in the way that His commandments had shown us, and doing whatever we can to be exemplary in our contributions as Christians, in being role models for one another. It is important that we do so, just as the mustard seeds require the right condition and nurturing to be able to grow to the great size it will attain when mature, and how the sower will earn a lot of returns if he took great care of the fields.

Today we all celebrate the feast of a truly great saint, whose renown throughout all Christendom remained even to this very day. St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the greatest minds of the Church, a most faithful and ardent servant of the Lord dedicated to the glory of God. St. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican friar and priest who was remembered for his amazing treatises and works in theology and philosophy, Church law and other things, especially in his works in the Summa Theologiae, his most famous work of all.

St. Thomas Aquinas spent a lot of years in immersing himself in his works, gaining much insight over various areas of Christian philosophy and theology, while learning the great experiences from the past philosophers in improving his own understanding of the Divine. He was known later as the Angelic Doctor or Doctor Angelicum and is recognised as a great Doctor of the Church, a very important persona in the history of Christendom in the West, who still inspired many even to this day.

Through the great faith and dedication showed by St. Thomas Aquinas, we are called to remember our own need and obligation to follow the Lord wholeheartedly, and to do whatever we can in order to serve the Lord by our actions and deeds, even in the smallest things. We are all called to remain true to our faith and resist the many temptations to sin present in our world today. We have to remind ourselves how sin can even twist the most righteous of peoples like David, and therefore strive to remain committed to Him at all times.

May the Lord be with us always and may He empower each and every one of us to resist the temptations of sin and to be righteous and just in all our lives. May God bless our every endeavours and good works, and may He bless us always with His truth and love, that we may always walk faithfully in the path of His servants, especially that of St. Thomas Aquinas whose memory we remember today, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 28 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 4 : 26-34

At that time, Jesus also said, “In the kingdom of God it is like this : a man scatters seed upon the soil. Whether he is asleep or awake, be it day or night, the seed sprouts and grows, he knows not how. The soil produces of itself : first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. And when it is ripe for harvesting, they take the sickle for the cutting : the time for the harvest has come.”

Jesus also said, “What is the kingdom of God like? To what shall we compare it? It is like a mustard seed which, when sown, is the smallest of all the seeds scattered upon the soil. But once sown, it grows up and becomes the largest of the plants in the garden, and even grows branches so big, that the birds of the air can take shelter in its shade.”

Jesus used many such stories, in order to proclaim the word to them in a way that they would be able to understand. He would not teach them without parables; but privately to His disciples He explained everything.

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Friday, 28 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 50 : 3-4, 5-6a, 6bc-7, 10-11

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.

What is evil in Your sight, I have done. You are right when You pass sentence; and blameless in Your judgement. For I have been guilt-ridden from birth; a sinner from my mother’s womb.

Fill me with joy and gladness; let the bones You have crushed rejoice. Turn Your face away from my sins and blot out all my offences.