Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious or Holy Virgins)
Psalm 129 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-7a
Out of the depths I cry to You, o YHVH, o YHVH, hear my voice! Let Your ears pay attention to the voice of my supplication.
If You should mark our evil, o YHVH, who could stand? But with You, is forgiveness, and for that You are revered.
I waited for YHVH, my soul waits; and I put my hope in His word. My soul expects YHVH more than watchmen, the dawn. O Israel, hope in YHVH.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious or Holy Virgins)
Romans 3 : 21-30a
But, now it has been revealed, altogether apart from the Law, as it was already foretold in the Law and the prophets : God makes us righteous by means of faith in Jesus Christ, and this is applied to all who believe, without distinction of persons.
Because all have sinned and all fall short of the glory of God; and all are graciously forgiven and made righteous, through the redemption effected in Christ Jesus. For God has given Him to be the Victim, Whose Blood obtains us forgiveness, through faith.
So God shows us, how He makes us righteous. Past sins are forgiven, which God overlooked till now. For, now, He wants to reveal His way of righteousness : how He is just, and how He makes us righteous, through faith in Jesus. Then, what becomes of our pride? It is excluded. How? Not through the Law and its observances, but through another Law, which is faith. For we hold, that people are in God’s grace, by faith, and not because of all the things ordered by the Law.
Otherwise, God would be the God of the Jews; but is He not God of pagan nations as well? Of course He is, for there is only one God.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded that all of us as part of the one Church of God, with Christ our Lord as the Head of the Church, all of us are called to follow the path and the ways which God Himself has shown and led us through. As Christians, all of us should align to what God has taught us to do, in His Law and commandments, being faithful and committed as ever to proclaim His truth and Good News to the world. That is what all of us are reminded today, and what we should always do our best in doing, in aligning ourselves to God’s will, obeying Him in all things and becoming good role models and inspirations to everyone around us in how we live our lives faithfully as God’s disciples and followers, at all times.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful people of God in the city and region of Colossae in Asia Minor, in which the Apostle spoke to the faithful there regarding the nature of the Saviour Jesus Christ Whom St. Paul and the other Christian missionaries had been speaking and preaching about to them, and he highlighted how Jesus was not just merely a Man or a mere Prophet, or any ordinary Person, as He is none other than the Image of the Unseen God, the Firstborn of all Creation and all things, Begotten and not made, because He has existed before all ages and all time, as the Son and Word of God that had become incarnate in the flesh, becoming one like us as the Son of Man.
St. Paul introduced to the faithful in Colossae and therefore also all of us as Christians today, reminding to us the important details of what the Lord had done for our sake in sending unto us all His only Begotten Son, to be our Saviour, and in all that He had done as the One Who had established God’s Church in this world as the tangible unity of all the believers of the Lord, gathering us all together to Himself so that by this renewed unity and communion, all of us may become united in the One Church of God, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, through which all of us shall receive the assurance of salvation and eternal life which the Lord Himself has promised and reassured to us all.
Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist, we heard of the Lord’s famous parable on the wine and the wineskin, and the old and new pieces of cloth. In that parable we heard how the Lord elaborated about how an old wineskin should not be used to store new wine and vice versa, that new wineskin be used to store old wine. In the same manner therefore, the new cloth should not be used to patch an old piece of cloth and vice versa, that an old cloth should not be used to patch a new piece of cloth. This parable may seem rather peculiar, but if we look at the deeper meaning and intention of this parable, it is actually quite clear what the Lord intended by sharing this parable.
He intended for all of us to keep in mind that if we want to follow Him, then we have to change our ways and actions in life. We cannot claim to believe in the Lord or be good and faithful Christians if we still continue to carry on our sinful, wicked and worldly way of life. That is why as Christians we have to centre our lives and existence in the Lord and make sure that everything that we say and do, in our every interactions, we should always strive to do them in the manner that have been expected of us as Christians. If we still continue to live in the manner of the world, then the incompatibility of the path of worldliness and that of the Lord’s path will likely cause frictions and problems for us. And if we do not act on this, we may end up walking down the wrong path forward in life.
That is how the parable of the new wineskin and the wine, and the old and new cloth came to use here, to remind us all that if we truly want to follow the Lord faithfully then we should strive to change our ways and to follow Him firmly and faithfully at all times. We should not allow ourselves to be swayed and pulled by the many coercions, temptations and pressures present all around us, which often seek to make and even force us to conform to the ways that the world often find to be acceptable, and yet, is not compatible with the ways of the Lord. That is why we should really discern carefully our path forward in life and do our very best so that we may always walk and progress forth ever more faithfully in the Lord’s path, in accordance to His will and guidance, at all times.
Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of the renowned St. Teresa of Kolkata, also known much better by the name of Mother Teresa, the founder of the Missionaries of Charity, a religious order and congregation that is well-known for their efforts and works in caring for the needy and the poor, the sick and the dying, and especially in giving dignified treatment for those who were suffering and dying, showing them the love of God manifested and shown through the actions of St. Teresa of Kolkata and her fellow sisters and other collaborators in the Missionaries of Charity. She was born in Albania as Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to a Catholic Albanian family in the year 1910, and since young she has been fascinated and inspired to be a missionary in distant lands. This eventually led to her joining the Sisters of Loreto congregation and went to India to continue her formation.
St. Teresa of Kolkata became involved in the education of young children in Kolkata, India during her many years in the congreagtion of the Sisters of Loreto, and eventually becoming the headmistress of the mission school there. However, she was continually disturbed by the great and abject poverty which many of the people in Kolkata and other parts of India suffered from. Through this calling that she embraced wholeheartedly, she eventually decided to leave her profession as a Sister of Loreto and role in the school, founding a new congregation, the Missionaries of Charity dedicated to the care and attention towards the poor, the needy and those who were sick and dying. She gathered many other like-minded women who sought to serve the needs of the people, giving care and compassionate love for those who needed them.
She gave dignity to those who have been abandoned, neglected and ostracised, caring for them in the poorest and most despicable conditions, in the slums and in the streets. She was well-known for her outreach to everyone who were poor and suffering regardless of their religious beliefs and background. She opened and operated hospices and houses like the famous Nirmala Hriday of Kolkata, where the poor and the dying can be cared with love and given the dignity due to them as human beings. Throughout the rest of her life, St. Teresa of Kolkata continued to do her best to serve the Lord and His people, following Him to whichever path that He wanted her to go, and famously mentioning at the time when she was given the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts, that she was just ‘an instrument in the hands of the Lord.’
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be inspired by the great humility and commitment which St. Teresa of Kolkata has shown us all, so that we too may live our lives worthily in the manner that God has called us to do in our own respective responsibilities and vocations, in doing our best to serve the Lord through each and every good efforts and works that we are doing in every circumstances and opportunities that we have been given, to do our best to glorify the Lord in all things, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Luke 5 : 33-39
At that time, some people asked Jesus, “The disciples of John fast often and say long prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why is it, that Your disciples eat and drink?”
Then Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them. But later, the Bridegroom will be taken from them; and they will fast in those days.”
Jesus also told them this parable : “No one tears a piece from a new coat to put it on an old one; otherwise the new coat will be torn, and the piece taken from the new coat will not match the old coat. No one puts new wine into old wine skins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and be spilt, and the skins will be destroyed as well.”
“But new wine must be put into fresh skins. Yet, no one who has tasted old wine is eager to drink new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Psalm 99 : 2, 3, 4, 5
Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God; He created us and we are His people, the sheep of His fold.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving, His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His Name.
For the Lord is good; His love lasts forever and His faithfulness through all generations.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Colossians 1 : 15-20
He is the image of the unseen God, and for all creation, He is the Firstborn, for, in Him, all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible : thrones, rulers, authorities, powers… All was made through Him and for Him. He is before all and all things hold together, in Him.
And He is the Head of the Body, that is the Church, for He is the first, the first raised from the dead, that He may be the first in everything, for God was pleased to let fullness dwell in Him. Through Him, God willed to reconcile all things to Himself, and through Him, through His Blood shed on the cross, God established peace, on earth as in heaven.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are reminded that we should continue to be faithful to the Lord as we have been reminded these past few weekdays, with reassurances and reminders that God is always faithful and committed to the Covenant that He has made with each and every one of us, His beloved people. He will not abandon any of us to the darkness and destruction, and we are all always precious to Him and beloved by Him in all things and at all circumstances. We have to put our faith and trust in the Lord and be good examples of faith and commitment to Him, our Lord and Master, so that many more people may also come to believe in Him as well.
In our first reading today, we heard of the conclusion of the exhortation and reminders which Moses gave in a speech to the people of Israel, as some sorts of a farewell speech towards the end of the Israelites’ forty years of journey through the desert towards their Promised Land of Canaan. Moses had already spent those forty years guiding, leading and shepherding the people of God and including the time that he spent earlier on in Egypt in liberating God’s people from the hands of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh. And throughout all those challenging years, Moses had to face a lot of hardships and grievances, from all the stubborn attitudes of the Israelites and their constant rebelliousness and disobedience against God, their constant complaints and refusals to obey God’s Law, and even to personal betrayals such as those by his own siblings, Aaron and Miriam, who openly contested the leadership of the Israelites with him before God.
Moses had remained firm in his conviction and commitment to lead the people of God, and even though he himself also committed mistakes that prevented him from entering the Promised Land of Canaan, but he lived to see the moment when the people of God finally was about to enter to the lands promised to them. And it was at that very time and moment that Moses made this speech before the whole assembly of the Israelites, telling and reminding them to keep in mind everything that God had done for their sake, with all of His love and kindness, compassion and mercy, and all that God had done in protecting them from their enemies and providing them with all their needs. That is what we heard being mentioned by Moses in our first reading passage today.
God had cleared the path for His beloved ones, and prepared everything just as He has planned it, and the people of Israel should indeed appreciate and be thankful of the great blessings and graces which they had indeed received from God, and which they had often taken for granted. Like the Israelites, who had been instructed to pass on their knowledge of God and everything that God had done for them to their next generations, so that even with the passage of time, God’s works and deeds might still be known, hence, this is also something which we ourselves ought to be doing in our own lives today. We should be good role models and inspirations for everyone around us so that in everything that we say and do, we will inspire many more to believe in God as well.
Then, from our Gospel passage today, we heard of the story from the Gospel according to St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist reminding each and every one of us that we should be truly faithful to the Lord and be truly committed to His paths and ways in each and every things that we do in life. All of us as Christians have been called to have a genuine faith and strong relationship with God beyond what is superficial and mere formality. This is highlighted by the Lord when He first mentioned how all of His disciples and followers ought to be like the little children in their faith and trust in Him, and this is significant because if we truly understand what the Lord meant, it means that He was calling on all of them to have a faith that is truly genuine and heartfelt, and not one that is conditional and burdened by our many desires and temptations.
The faith of a child is truly pure, brothers and sisters in Christ. When a child believes in something, he or she truly believes from all of his or her heart. This is exactly what the Lord wants us all to do, that we ought to have genuine faith and true, enduring love for God, with all of our strength, with all of our hearts and with all of our might, or else our faith is one that is merely superficial and meaningless. Therefore, unless we have this strong, enduring and vibrant faith in God, it will be difficult for us to continue to follow the Lord faithfully and in a genuine manner. Unfortunately for many of us, our faith are often intermingled with all sorts of veiled interests and desires, as we have allowed these worldly corruptions to affect us and distort our faith in the Lord.
Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, who was born in France in the late sixteenth century, and eventually married Baron de Chantal, from whom she got her surname, becoming a dedicated wife and mother of the household, caring for her husband and for her father-in-law, while at the same time also spent a lot of time and effort in caring for her neighbours and those who were needy in her community and surroundings. When her husband was killed in a hunting incident almost a decade after their marriage, St. Jane Frances de Chantal continued to dedicate herself to her family and caring for her children. Eventually, she felt the calling to religious life, and despite rejections and discouraging remarks due to her widow status and age, she kept on persevering.
Eventually, she founded the Congregation of the Visitation, gathering together women of similar conditions as hers, those who have been rejected by the other religious orders on grounds of health and age. They all were unlike most other religious orders for women that tended to remain sequestered in cloisters and monasteries, but they openly went out to the public spaces and the community to minister to the people of God, which is their charism and calling. The great generosity and sanctity shown by St. Jane Frances de Chantal inspired many people both from within her congregation and from outside, showing the kind of faith, love and dedication that each and every one of us as Christians ought to have for the Lord.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard of the life examples of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, and having also discerned what we have just discussed from today’s Scripture readings, let us therefore develop a strong, genuine and vibrant faith in the Lord, doing all that we can so that in everything that we say and do, we will always be ready to proclaim the Lord and His Good News to all, through even the smallest things that we do daily in our lives. May our actions, words and deeds truly show our Christian faith, and that we may always be genuine in our belief in the Lord, in all circumstances and in all things. May God bless our every good works, efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Matthew 18 : 1-5, 10, 12-14
At that time, the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child, set the child in the midst of the disciples, and said, “I assure you, that, unless you change, and become like little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble, like this child, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, and whoever receives such a child, in My Name, receives Me.”
“See that you do not despise any of these little ones; for I tell you, their Angels in heaven continually see the face of My heavenly Father. What do you think of this? If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside, and go to look for the stray one? And I tell you, when he finally finds it, he is more pleased about it, than about the ninety-nine that did not go astray.”
“It is the same with your Father in heaven. Your Father in heaven does not want even one of these little ones to perish.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Deuteronomy 32 : 3-4a, 7, 8, 9 and 12
For I will proclaim the Name of the Lord and declare the greatness of our God. He is the Rock, and perfect are all His works, just are all His ways.
Recall the days of old, think of the years gone by; your father will teach you about them, your elders will enlighten you.
When the Most High divided humankind and gave the nations their inheritance, He set up boundaries for the people after the number of the sons of God.
But the Lord keeps for Himself His portion Jacob, His chosen one. The Lord alone led them, without the aid of a foreign god.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Deuteronomy 31 : 1-8
When Moses finished telling all Israel these words, he said, “I am now a hundred and twenty years old and I can no longer deal with anything – Remember that YHVH told me that I shall not cross the Jordan River. Now Joshua shall be at your head, as YHVH has said. He, your God, will go before you to destroy these nations before you, and you will drive them away.”
“YHVH shall deal with these cities as He dealt with Sihon and Og, the Amorite kings, and their land, which He destroyed. So when He has given these nations over to you, you shall do the same, according to what I have commanded you. Be valiant and strong, do not fear or tremble before them for YHVH, your God, is with you; He will not leave you or abandon you.”
After this, Moses called Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel : “Be valiant and strong, you shall go with this people into the land which YHVH swore to their ancestors He would give them and you shall give it to them as their possession. YHVH shall go before you. He shall be with you; He shall not leave you or abandon you. Do not fear, then, or be discouraged.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 