holy religious

by

Wednesday, 12 August 2026 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we listened to the passages from the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of our duty as Christians and therefore as God’s people to follow the Lord and to obey His will and His laws, to be righteous and good just as He is good, and to be exemplary in our conduct and actions. For if we do not act as we have been called to act, and if we disobey God, then it is by our own disobedience and therefore sins that we will be judged. That is why we have been constantly reminded so that we will not easily give in to the many worldly temptations all around us, and continue to be resolute in our desire and effort to live our lives worthily in the manner that God has called on all of us to do each day and at every moments.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel we heard of the great vision of Ezekiel witnessing God’s glory upon His Throne of Angels, surrounded by the mighty Seraphim and Cherubim. What the prophet Ezekiel described of what he had seen was likely the best that he could do to describe within the limitations of the human expressions and perceptions of the great and infinite glory of God that he had seen, and through this, both Ezekiel and the people to whom he was sent were all reminded of the One Who had revealed all the truth they received, the One Who had always been with them and providing and protecting them throughout all of history, the One and only True God worthy of worship and adoration.

The prophet Ezekiel saw what happened when the glory of God departed from the Temple and the city, where bloodshed and destruction would happen, a premonition of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple of God by the Babylonians, as seen by Ezekiel who was then in exile in Babylon. Through the vision, God showed how His grace and presence among the people would leave the city and the House He had chosen and dwelled in, all because of the wickedness and evil of the people who refused to change their sinful ways. The prophet Ezekiel’s message is parallel to what the Lord Jesus Himself told His disciples in our Gospel passage today. In that occasion, the Lord said that if someone had erred, then it is the duty, obligation and responsibility for that one’s fellow brothers and sisters in faith to correct and guide the one who erred back to the truth. And therefore, this is a reminder that each and every one of us have this responsibility to be faithful to God and to be examples for one another, and help lead each other down the right path.

However, God also said in that same occasion, that if the attempt to regain the faith in the one who erred fails, and the person stubbornly refused to change his ways, then that person ought to face condemnation for his or her own conscious refusal to obey the Lord and follow His ways. This is also what happened to the people of Israel and Judah, after they continued to disobey God and refused to listen to the many prophets and messengers God had sent to them. They were conquered, crushed and humiliated by their enemies, suffering for their own sins. This is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are reminded today through these Scripture passages that disobedience against God leads to sin, and sin lead us to suffering and separation from God.

And thus we should strive to be faithful at all times and we should do our best to resist the temptations to walk the path of sin, to live ever more worthily in accordance to what the Lord Himself has shown and taught us all to do in our daily living. Today, we celebrate the feast of a holy woman and servant of God whose examples can inspire us in our own journey of faith in this life we have today. St. Jane Frances de Chantal was born into a noble family in what is now France, and was a woman of high standing and reputation, who married another noble, Baron de Chantal who was killed early on, which left St. Jane Frances de Chantal as a widow at a young age with several children.

St. Jane Frances de Chantal took good care of her family, while at the same time establishing a new order for women who had been rejected because of them being in poor health or by being advanced in age by the order religious orders. The sanctity and great examples showed by St. Jane Frances de Chantal who dedicated herself to the cause of the Lord, inspired many others to follow her and her good examples, in serving God and in doing His commandments and Law. Many came to be convinced to be followers of Christ, and many still came to join the order that St. Jane Frances de Chantal had established, and performed so many wonderful things to the people of God. She also showed us all what it truly means for us to be faithful as Christians, in doing God’s will at all times, and in following God’s commandments and Law, living a life truly holy and worthy of God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have been reminded today of Who it is that we have lived for, the One we all ought to honour, adore and worship, the One and only True God, let us all therefore strive to live our lives in accordance to what He Himself has shown and taught us to do, in focusing our lives and our attention once again on the Lord our God, just as St. Jane Frances de Chantal and many others among our holy and worthy predecessors had done, the innumerable saints and other holy men and women of God. Each and every one of us should always be well-attuned to the Lord and to His ways, and be ever ready to help one another to live lives that are truly faithful to God in all things and at all circumstances.

May our most loving Lord and God continue therefore to guide us and to show us all His most generous love in all things, as He continues to lead us all down the path that He has called on each one of us to walk, and with the unique missions and vocations that He has entrusted to every single one of us. Let us all continue to persevere in faith and do our best so that our lives may truly be the worthy beacons of our faith in God, showing to everyone what being truly Christians is all about, that more and more people may also come to believe in God through us as well. May God bless our every good endeavours and efforts to glorify His Name, now and always. Amen.

by

Wednesday, 12 August 2026 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Matthew 18 : 15-20

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “If your brother has sinned against you, go and point out the fault to him, when the two of you are alone; and if he listens to you, you have won back your brother. If he does not listen to you, take with you one or two others, so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses.”

“And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard him as a pagan, or a tax collector. I say to you : whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound.”

“In like manner, I say to you, if, on earth, two of you agree in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by My heavenly Father; for where two or there are gathered in My Name, I am there, among them.”

by

Wednesday, 12 August 2026 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Psalm 112 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Alleluia! Praise, o servants of YHVH, praise the Name of YHVH! Blessed be the Name of YHVH now and forever!

From eastern lands to the western islands, may the Name of YHVH be praised! YHVH is exalted over the nations; His glory above the heavens.

Who is like YHVH our God, Who sits enthroned on high, but also bends down to see on earth as in heaven?

by

Wednesday, 12 August 2026 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Ezekiel 9 : 1-7 and Ezekiel 10 : 18-22

Then He shouted loudly in my ears saying, “The punishment of the city is near; see, each one of these has in his hand his instrument of destruction.” And six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each one with his instrument of destruction. With them was a man clothed in linen, with writing material at his side. They came; and stopped near the altar of bronze.

Then the Glory of the God of Israel rose from the Cherubim, where It rested; and went to the threshold of the House. YHVH called to the man clothed in linen; who had the material for writing at his side; and He said to him, “Pass through the centre of the city, through Jerusalem, and trace a cross on the forehead of the men who sigh and groan, because of all the abominations committed in it.”

I heard Him say to the others, “Now you may pass through the city, after him, and strike. Your eyes shall not look with pity; show no mercy! Do away with them all – old men, young men, virgins, children and women – but do not touch anyone marked with a cross.”

And, as they were told to begin with the Sanctuary, they struck the elders who were in front of the Temple. YHVH said to them, “Let the courts be filled with the slain and the Temple be defiled with their blood : Go out!” They went and slew the people in the city.

The glory of YHVH went from above the threshold of the House and went, to rest on the Cherubim. Then the Cherubim left, opening their wings and rising above the earth in my sight; and the wheels went with them. They halted at the east gate of the House of YHVH; and the Glory of the God of Israel was over them.

These were the living creatures I had seen under the God of Israel on the banks of the river Chebar. I recognised them as Cherubim. Each had four faces, each had four wings; and they had what seemed like human hands under their wings. As for the appearance of their faces, they were the faces I had seen by the river Chebar, the same likeness. Each one went straight ahead.

by

Thursday, 23 July 2026 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, we heard the reminder of how much God has loved us and how much He had done for all of us, throughout all the time. God has always shown us His patient care and love, and He was always ever patient although we have often disregarded His love, disobeyed Him and being wayward and wicked in our way of life. The Lord wants us to listen to Him, hearken to His words and to follow His path that we may not end up falling into the wrong paths, and be trapped by the whims of our desires and sin, which can lead us down the path towards ruin and destruction.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah in which the Lord spoke of the great and wonderful things which He had done for them, and all the love He had shown them throughout the ages, and yet at the same time, of how those same people had rejected Him and refused His love, in worshipping pagan idols and gods, offering sacrifices to them and by doing what were wicked in the eyes of the Lord. They had not been faithful to God and disregarded His reminders and calls, persecuting the prophets who had been sent to them in order to remind them to be faithful to God and to be reconciled with Him, and still God continued to patiently love them and care for them nonetheless.

Today we are then presented with the words of the Lord speaking to the disciples regarding the matter why He always preferred to speak in parables, as the disciples were wondering why He did so. The Lord told all of them that He revealed the secrets and truths of the kingdom of Heaven to them, while those who have not committed themselves to Him and refused to believe in Him would not understand or appreciate those words of truth that He has spoken to them. The ones who were willing to listen to the Lord would receive the revelation and the truth, by their faith and the guidance, the wisdom and the Holy Spirit that the Lord would grant them to help them find their way towards Him.

All these are therefore reminders for us, that we should not harden our hearts and minds against the Lord, especially viewing how in the past, many of our predecessors had faltered and fallen off unto the path of sin precisely because they shut themselves off from the Lord, were proud and haughty, and unwilling to listen to the Lord calling in their hearts and minds, for them to seek His truth and to repent from their wayward paths. They often trusted in their own abilities, intellects and strengths rather than to trust in God and in His providence, all of which had been given freely by God to guide all people to Himself. And therefore if we do not heed this examples and lessons, we ourselves may fall as well.

As such, that is why by learning that how many had fallen in the past in the path towards redemption in God, we are reminded that we ourselves should not fall into that same path and traps, of temptations and worldly attachments that can easily lead us astray in our journey towards the Lord. That is why we are called to live our lives from now on with greater and more genuine faith, dedicating ourselves to the service of God and glorifying Him by our lives and actions, in how we carry ourselves in our daily living and actions. And today, we should reflect upon the great examples and inspiration that had been shown by one of our predecessors, namely that of St. Bridget of Sweden.

Today, our Church celebrates the feast of this great woman and servant of God, St. Bridget of Sweden, honoured as one of the great Patron Saints of Europe. She was born into a rich landowning family in medieval era Sweden, and was then married at a relatively young age to a Swedish nobleman, having six of her own children surviving their infancy years. One of them is another Swedish saint, namely St. Catherine of Sweden. This, coupled with the facts and evidences of the holy and devout life carried out by St. Bridget of Sweden in her devotion as a mother, a wife and as a daughter of God, all of these showed us all how St. Bridget is truly a great role model for all of us in all of our lives, in what we all ourselves can do to glorify the Lord by our lives.

St. Bridget lived a truly holy life, and when her husband passed away and she was widowed, she dedicated herself thoroughly to God by becoming a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, comprised of all the laity who sought to emulate the examples and charism of St. Francis of Assisi and his Franciscan Order in dedicating themselves to God and to His people, which St. Bridget carried out most faithfully in her life of prayer and service to those who were poor and sick. In addition, St. Bridget also initiated the idea and started the religious congregation known as the Order of the Most Holy Saviour, or as the Bridgettines after their founder. This order gathered men and women into communities dedicated to serving the Lord and His people, committing themselves to the good of all of God’s beloved.

St. Bridget was also known for her many mystical experiences and visions, which she recorded down, as well as for her pilgrimage to  Rome, Jerusalem and Bethlehem which were well recorded and known, and in Rome she was in particular honoured and respected for her great piety and holy life, for her commitment and faith in the Lord. She inspired many others through her life and good examples, and she also committed to help and inspire the much needed reforms of the Church. Through her lifelong commitment and devotion to God, many of us should be inspired and strengthened in our own faith in God, so that we may truly know how we should live our lives worthily in the path that God has shown us all.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard of the inspiring examples and the life story of St. Bridget of Sweden, let us all therefore strive to be good and worthy disciples of the Lord in all that we say and do, and that in every parts of our lives, we will always continue to glorify God and be the good role models and inspirations for one another, helping everyone around us to come ever closer to God as we should be doing, to manifest God’s truth and Good News tangibly in our own faithful and good lives. Our lives should be truly holy and faithful, filled with virtues and good deeds at all times. May we all continue to dedicate and commit ourselves to God and His path, as how St. Bridget of Sweden and many other holy men and women had done. Amen.

by

Thursday, 23 July 2026 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Matthew 13 : 10-17

At that time, the disciples of Jesus came to Him and said, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Jesus answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but not to these people. For the one who has will be given more; and he will have in abundance. But the one who does not have will be deprived of even what he has. That is why I speak to them in parables; because they look and do not see; they hear; but they do not listen or understand.”

“In them, the words of the prophet Isaiah are fulfilled : However much you hear, you do not understand; however much you see, you do not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull. Their ears hardly hear and their eyes dare not see. If they were to see with their eyes, hear with their ears and understand with their heart, they would turn back, and I would heal them.”

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For I tell you, many prophets and righteous people have longed to see the things you see, but they did not see them; and to hear the things you hear, but they did not hear them.”

by

Thursday, 23 July 2026 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Psalm 35 : 6-7ab, 8-9, 10-11

Your love, o God, reaches the heavens; Your faithfulness, to the clouds. Your justice is like the mighty mountains; Your judgement, like the unfathomable deep.

How precious, o God, is Your constant love! Mortals take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. In Your house they find rich food and they drink from Your spring of delight.

For with You is the fountain of life, in Your light we see light. Bestow on Your faithful, Your love; and give salvation to the upright of heart.

by

Thursday, 23 July 2026 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Jeremiah 2 : 1-3, 7-8, 12-13

A word of YHVH came to me, “Go and shout this in the hearing of Jerusalem. This is YHVH’s word : I remember your kindness as a youth, the love of your bridal days, when you followed Me in the wilderness, through a land not sown. Israel was holy to YHVH, the first fruits of His harvest. All who ate of it had to pay and misfortune fell on them – it is YHVH Who speaks.”

“I brought you to a fertile land to eat of the choicest fruit. As soon as you came you defiled My land and dishonoured My heritage! The priests did not ask, ‘Where is YHVH?’ The masters of My teaching did not know Me; the pastors of My people betrayed Me; the prophets followed worthless idols and spoke in the name of Baal.”

“Be aghast at that, o heavens! Shudder, be utterly appalled – it is YHVH Who speaks – for My people have done two evils : they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, to dig for themselves leaking cisterns that hold no water!”

by

Friday, 22 May 2026 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Rita of Cascia, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, all of us are reminded that each one of us have been called by the Lord to follow Him and to do His will, to wherever that He will lead us to, just as He had done with the Apostles, the many saints and martyrs of the Church, our holy predecessors. Each and every one of us as Christians are expected to live our lives worthily of the Lord and to continue carrying out our activities in accordance with God’s will, doing whatever we can to serve Him and glorify Him at every possible opportunities. We should heed the Lord’s call and love Him as much as we should, just as how He Himself has loved us so much first, that He gave Himself for us that through His loving sacrifice for us, we may all be saved.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Acts of the Apostles regarding a conversation between Festus, the Governor and Procurator of Judea with King Agrippa, the Herodian ruler of the region, about St. Paul the Apostle, his works and ministry and how the Jewish authorities, members of the Sanhedrin had been accusing him of wrongdoing, and how St. Paul appealed to the Emperor for his case. Through what we have heard here, we are reminded of how God moved things and spared St. Paul from the hands of his enemies in Jerusalem, who no doubt would have wanted him destroyed. Instead, as the Lord Himself had told St. Paul earlier on, that He was sending him to Rome, to the last stop of his long missionary works, where he would evangelise and proclaim the Good News of God at the very heart and centre of the Roman Empire itself.

St. Paul could have chosen to stay away from trouble and from all the hardships facing him, just as the past few weekdays’ Scripture passages from the Acts of the Apostles could show us. St. Paul willingly embraced God’s calling and mission, embarking on this last missionary journey through Jerusalem, and then on to Rome, in which St. Paul would go on to do more great works at evangelisation, stopping by the island of Malta along the way where he laid the foundation of the faith there, and many more. Through the hard work of St. Paul and other early Christian missionaries, the Church grew rapidly amidst the many challenges and hardships that it had to face, persecutions and oppressions that many among the Christian faithful had to endure. Their faith remained strong and firm as the Lord guided and strengthened them, and empowered them through the Holy Spirit.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the calling of St. Peter the Apostle, and the mission which God entrusted to him as He reaffirmed him as the leader and shepherd of His entire flock, the Church. That happened at the shores of the Lake of Galilee, where after the Lord’s Resurrection, He went and met with His disciples just as He has promised them. And in this private moment mentioned in the Gospel passage today, the Lord asked St. Peter, not once but three times, ‘Peter, do you love Me?’, which St. Peter replied fervently and lovingly with, ‘Lord, You know that I love You.’ And the Lord told St. Peter to take care of His sheep, the flock of His beloved people, to feed them and to take good care of them, as a reminder of the mission which He had entrusted to him earlier as His Vicar, as the leader of the whole entire Church.

And why the Lord asked St. Peter three times? It is symbolic as a response to what St. Peter had done earlier on at the beginning of the Lord’s Passion, where as we all know that St. Peter denied knowing the Lord and denied Him a total of not just once but three times. St. Peter was likely driven by fear, the fear for suffering and for being persecuted and hence, in his moment of folly, he abandoned and denied the Lord back then. But the Lord, through this threefold questioning of St. Peter was showing that He loved him, forgave him from his past mistakes and lack of faith, and entrusted to him anew what He has entrusted to him, the guardianship and leadership over His whole entire Church. St. Peter was also told of the kind of suffering and martyrdom that he would have to endure for the sake of the Lord, and to the very end, St. Peter would remain firmly faithful to his calling and mission.

Today all of us are reminded that as Christians all of us are called from the world, from among the ordinary people to become extraordinary in the Lord. Often we are reluctant to follow the Lord or to do as He has commanded us to do because we thought that we are incapable of doing all the things like our predecessors had done. But as we all have seen and discussed, the Lord’s own disciples are those who have come from ordinary background, and were people who were imperfect and even weak in their faith at first. St. Paul himself was a great persecutor and enemy of the earliest Christians, and had a part in the sufferings and martyrdom of many among the faithful. St. Peter as we knew, abandoned and denied the Lord three times. Yet, all of them had a change of heart and mind, and committed themselves thoroughly to the Lord for the rest of their lives.

Today, all of us should also then be inspired by the examples of St. Rita of Cascia whose feast we are celebrating today. St. Rita of Cascia was an Italian saint and Augustinian nun, a holy and devout religious sister who had dedicated her life to the service and the glory of God. She was married at a very young age by her family and despite her desires to enter a convent even from an early age, she remained as a good and faithful wife to her husband, who was quick-tempered and immoral in nature. She was remembered for her efforts in trying to change her husband’s ways, in the marriage that lasted for eighteen years until her husband and sons passed away. It was known that her husband’s family was involved in the then bitter interfamilial struggles and conflicts, and when her husband was murdered, St. Rita of Cascia tried to dissuade her sons from seeking revenge for their father’s death. She also forgave her husband’s murderers and enemies.

And when the sons of St. Rita of Cascia were in danger of committing sins in the pursuit of vengeance, she voluntarily asked the Lord to take them away so that they would not fall into the path of sin and damnation. Miraculously, God listened to her prayers, and her sons were taken away from her, as they passed away from dysentery, before they could commit murder and mortal sins that could harm and endanger their eternal souls. Afterwards, St. Rita of Cascia entered the monastery of St. Mary Magdalene in Cascia, in which she devoted the rest of her life to a work of prayer and piety, and managed to bring the two feuding families together in fulfilling the conditions that were imposed to her before she was to join the monastery community, devoting her life henceforth only to the glorification of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all hence be inspired by the examples and the role models showed to us by St. Rita of Cascia in her virtues and righteousness, patience and love, and many others of our holy predecessors, like that of St. Peter the Apostle whose faith and undying love for the Lord was proclaimed earlier, and also those of the other Apostles, saints and holy martyrs of the Church. Let us be inspired by their good examples so that all of us may turn towards the Lord once again and commit ourselves to His path, doing whatever we can to do His will and to love Him at all times. May the Risen Lord, Our Saviour Jesus Christ continue to be with us and guide us all, and bless us all in our every good works, now and always. Amen.

by

Friday, 22 May 2026 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Rita of Cascia, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 21 : 15-19

At that time, after Jesus and His disciples had finished breakfast, He said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” And Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.”

A second time Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” And Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Look after My sheep.” And a third time He said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?”

Peter was saddened because Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” and he said, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.” Jesus then said, “Feed My sheep! Truly, I say to you, when you were young, you put on your belt and walked where you liked. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will put a belt around you, and lead you where you do not wish to go.”

Jesus said this to make known the kind of death by which Peter was to glorify God. And He added, “Follow Me.”