holy religious

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Monday, 22 May 2017 : 6th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Rita of Cascia, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 16 : 11-15

So we put out to sea from Troas and sailed straight across to Samothrace Island, and the next day to Neapolis. From there we went inland to Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. We spent some days in that city.

On the sabbath we went outside the city gate to the bank of the river where we thought the Jews would gather to pray. We sat down and began speaking to the women who were gathering there. One of them was a God-fearing woman named Lydia from Thyatira City, a dealer in purple cloth.

As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. After she had been baptised together with her household, she invited us to her house, “If you think I am faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us to accept her invitation.

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Friday, 7 April 2017 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard all the insults and accusations which the Jewish people and the opponents of Jesus were hurling against Him because He has revealed Himself to be the Son of God and the Messiah for all the world. They refused to believe in Him and wanted to stone Him for what they considered to be blasphemy against God.

Even though they had seen all that Jesus had done before them, by His healing of the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, making people who were deaf to be able to hear again, and those who were mute to be able to speak again, and even raising people from the dead as what He had done with the son of the widow from Naim and also with the daughter of Jairus, the synagogue official, they still refused to believe.

Why is this so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because they have hardened their hearts and minds against the Lord, not allowing Him to enter into their hearts and minds. They have put their trust in their own human judgment and intellect, thinking that they alone have the knowledge of truth, and when One came into the picture, challenging all that they used to believe, they refused to listen to the truth.

And therefore, it comes to the danger of our human pride and ego, which is the most harmful of all kinds of sins and temptations, as it is pride that brought many people to fall into sin, and it is our ego and pride which made us stubborn and adamant in our refusal to admit and repent from our sins, as the Israelites had themselves once done. And it is what all of us Christians must avoid and remove from ourselves, especially during this time of Lent.

It is pride that had prevented us from humbling ourselves and from realising that all of us are poor sinners. It is pride that had closed the doors of mercy before us, not so much that God had abandoned us or that He had not forgiven us, but instead, we ourselves in our pride and ego had refused God’s offer of mercy and forgiveness, and by our sins due to that pride, we have distanced ourselves away further from God and His merciful love.

Let us today reflect on the life of the saint, whose holy life we are commemorating today, the life of St. John Baptist de la Salle, the founder of the order of the Brothers of the Christian Schools or the Lasallians. St. John Baptist de la Salle was a French priest who was remembered for his dedication to the poorest, the least, the last and the lost among the community, those who have no one else to turn to, those who have been abandoned and unloved.

To that extent, St. John Baptist de la Salle left behind his prestigious post as the canon to the Cathedral of Rheims, a post with great prestige and privilege at that time, and chose to serve the people of God, calling together like minded people and assemble together what would become the Brotherhood of the Christian Schools, providing genuine Catholic education to the people who have once been uneducated and had no access at all to what had once been the privilege of the rich and the elite.

St. John Baptist de la Salle showed all of us the way to reach out to the Lord and to His mercy, by following what he had once done to the least and the poorest among his brethren. He eschewed pride and human ambitions, human glory and fame, renown and prestige, for true faith in God by doing what he could in order to help his fellow brethren, by showing them love, care and compassion.

It is what we all as Christians ought to be doing as well, that each one of us are not Christians just by name, or only on paper, but also through real deeds and works. Let us all make use of this opportunity that God has given us in order to strengthen our faith by devoting ourselves ever more to the works of mercy and love, committing ourselves to help our brethren, in the same manner as what St. John Baptist de la Salle and the other saints had done.

May the Lord be with us all, and may He bless us all in our works. May He remain with us and help us on our way, that we may find our way to Him and be saved in Him. Amen.

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Friday, 7 April 2017 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
John 10 : 31-42

At that time, the Jews then picked up stones to throw at Jesus; so He said, “I have openly done many good works among you, which the Father gave Me to do. For which of these do you stone Me?”

The Jews answered, “We are not stoning You for doing a good work, but for insulting God; You are only a Man, and You make Yourself God.” Then Jesus replied, “Is this not written in your law : I said, you are gods? So those who received this word of God were called gods, and the Scripture is always true.”

“What then should be said of the One anointed, and sent into the world, by the Father? Am I insulting God when I say, ‘I am the Son of God?’ If I am not doing the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, even if you have no faith in Me, believe because of the works I do; and know that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”

Again they tried to arrest Him, but Jesus escaped from their hands. He went away again to the other side of the Jordan, to the place where John had baptised, and there He stayed. Many people came to Jesus, and said, “John worked no miracles, but he spoke about You, and everything he said was true.” And many became believers in that place.

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Friday, 7 April 2017 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 17 : 2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 7

I love You, o Lord, my Strength, the Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, my Deliverer and my God.

He is the Rock in Whom I take refuge. He is my Shield, my powerful Saviour, my Stronghold. I call on the Lord, Who is worthy of praise : He saves me from my enemies!

A deadly flood surrounded me, devillish torrents rushed at me; caught by the cords of the grave, I was brought to the snares of death.

But I called upon the Lord in my distress, I cried to my God for help; and from His Temple He heard my voice, my cry of grief reached His ears.

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Friday, 7 April 2017 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Jeremiah 20 : 10-13

I hear many people whispering, “Terror is all around! Denounce him! Yes, denounce him!” All my friends watch me to see if I will slip : “Perhaps he can be deceived,” they say; “then we can get the better of him and have our revenge.”

But YHVH, a mighty Warrior, is with me. My persecutors will stumble and not prevail; that failure will be their shame and their disgrace will never be forgotten. YHVH, God of hosts, You test the just and probe the heart and mind.

Let me see Your revenge on them, for to You I have entrusted my cause. Sing to YHVH! Praise YHVH and say : He has rescued the poor from the clutches of the wicked!

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Wednesday, 8 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened from the Scriptures the reading from the Book of the prophet Jonah as our first reading. In that passage we heard how Jonah was sent to the city of Nineveh, then the capital of the great Assyrian Empire, the conqueror of the northern kingdom of Israel and also of many other nations, to proclaim God’s sentence of destruction upon that city and all those who lived in it, because God was angry at their sins and wickedness.

Jonah proclaimed the decree of the Lord in the streets of Nineveh, and many people heard it, and they believed in him. Even the Assyrian king also believed in him, and immediately ordered all of his servants and subordinates to proclaim a great fast and penitential actions throughout the entire city. The whole population, from the king to his nobles and to the lowest of all the people mourned and humbled themselves before God.

They wore sackcloth and stopped all of their merrymaking, the sign of their regret and penance for their sins and wickedness. They hoped that God would change His mind and not destroy them as He had intended. And indeed, God saw what they had done, and God saw the sincerity of their actions, and He held back the punishment that He had intended upon them and did not punish them. The whole city of Nineveh and its entire population was spared from annihilation.

In this all of us have received the assurance from God Himself, that He will not punish those who have desired to seek forgiveness from Him for their sins and mistakes, and He will reconcile all those who have repented from their sins, and welcome them back into His grace and love. God loves each and every one of us, brothers and sisters in Christ, for He is our loving Father and Creator. Will He not forgive us our sins if we sincerely seek Him to forgive us those sins?

This is then contrasted in the Gospel passage today with the occasion when Jesus rebuked the people of Israel to whom He had been sent to, because they had hardened their hearts against the Lord and had not believed in Him when He had performed before them many miraculous signs and wonders, as shown in how they tested Him and doubted Him, asking Him for heavenly signs.

We must be wondering if they were blind or ignorant, considering that if we read through the Gospels, they have witnessed so many good deeds and miracles that Jesus had performed among them, with the sick, healing the blind and the deaf, opening their eyes and ears, making mute people talk, casting out demons and evil spirits from the possessed, even making dead people to return to life. All these things are deeds that no man can do, and which only God is able to do, and yet, despite the undeniable facts, they refused to believe.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, first of all, refused to believe in Jesus despite being arguably the ones who witnessed the most of the miracles which Jesus had performed in this world. They in fact even persecuted Him and accused Him of wrongdoing just because He went to people like the tax collectors and prostitutes, who they deemed as sinful people, as those who were unclean and wicked, unworthy of God’s salvation.

But they failed to see that these people desired to be saved, and they humbled themselves before God, admitting to all their sinfulness and openly rebuking themselves from their sins, just as Zaccheus the tax collector had done before Jesus and the people who were with them. And they repented in the same manner as the people of Nineveh had done, and as a result, they received the forgiveness from God, and they were indeed ahead of the Pharisees and the rest of the people on their way towards the salvation in God.

Those who would not repent, who refused the offer of God’s mercy, doubted His truth and questioned His authority will not be forgiven from their sins. For the fundamental truth and reality remains that while God is rich in His mercy and generous in His love, but there will be no mercy, forgiveness and love if we His people reject His offer of mercy and love.

A genuine repentance is required, that we should all turn away from our sins. This is the message which the Church keeps on reminding us throughout this penitential season of Lent, a time of forgiveness, a time for repentance, and a time to turn ourselves away from our sins and to return wholeheartedly to the Lord our God. It is a time for us to reject our sinful past and embrace a new future in the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we should also follow in the examples of the holy saint, St. John of God, a holy religious whose life was an inspiration for many, so that we may know how we can be better Christians, and through this time of Lent, we may be converted to the way of the Lord and abandon our ways of sin. St. John of God was once an orphan, who turned into a soldier in the military and would later on turn to become a selfless carer of many people who were sick both physically and spiritually.

St. John of God was born into a poor family and lost his family at a young age. Orphaned at that young age, he joined the military and became a soldier fighting in wars common at that time. But he was disillusioned with the life that he had, both as a soldier and later on as he was discharged from the military after he had been wrongly accused of a crime that he did not commit.

Eventually he was converted to the faith after having listened to the sermon of St. John of Avila, calling all the people of God to give up on their sinful ways of life, chastising themselves and repenting genuinely before God seeking for forgiveness, and that was what he actually did at that time. In time to come, he was wholly transformed by the experience, and he became committed to serve the poor and the needy, living a thoroughly loving and charitable Christian life.

He would spend the rest of his life ministering to the sick, the poor and those who were destitute and without hope, and inspiring many others to follow in his own examples, and eventually leading to the formation of the Order of Hospitallers or Brother Hospitallers, committed to serving the people of God in their needs, both physically and spiritually. Many good deeds have been borne out of the works of these pious and devout people, who followed in the footsteps of their founder, St. John of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in the similar way, our lives can also be transformed in the similar manner as how St. John of God had been transformed in his life. All of us are indeed sinners, as all saints were once also. However, saints are made when those sinners acknowledged just how sinful they were, and made the conscious decision and effort to reject those sins and to turn away from those sins, completely back towards the Lord.

Therefore, let us all spend this season of Lent in penance and repentance, turning away from our sins, and doing what is good for others and for God. Let us show mercy and love in all of our actions, and do our best to change our sinfulness into righteousness. Let us open our hearts to welcome God and His mercy, and not be stubborn as the Pharisees and the people at Jesus’ time had been, but repent, as the people of Nineveh had, and then, God will judge us to be righteous and give us the reward of eternal life. May God be with us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 8 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Luke 11 : 29-32

At that time, as the crowd increased, Jesus began to speak in this way, “People of the present time are troubled people. They ask for a sign, but no sign will be given to them except the sign of Jonah. As Jonah became a sign for the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be a Sign for this generation.”

“The Queen of the South will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and here there is greater than Solomon. The people of Nineveh will rise up on Judgment Day with the people of these times and accuse them, for Jonah’s preaching made them turn from their sins, and here there is greater than Jonah.”

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Wednesday, 8 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 50 : 3-4, 12-13, 18-19

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

Create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit. Do not cast me out of Your presence nor take Your Holy Spirit from me.

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

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Wednesday, 8 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Jonah 3 : 1-10

The word of YHVH came to Jonah a second time : “Go to Nineveh, the great city, announce to them the message I give you.”

In obedience to the word of YHVH, Jonah went to Nineveh. It was a very large city, and it took three days just to cross it. So Jonah walked a single day’s journey and began proclaiming, “Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

The people of the city believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. Upon hearing the news, the king of Nineveh got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes.

He issued a proclamation throughout Nineveh : “By the decree of the king and his nobles, no people or beasts, herd or flock, will taste anything; neither will they eat nor drink. But let people and beasts be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call aloud to God, turn from his evil ways and violence. Who knows? God may yet relent, turn from His fierce anger and spare us.”

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, He had compassion and did not carry out the destruction He had threatened upon them.

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Friday, 17 February 2017 : 6th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we all heard the proclamations of the Scripture reminding us not to follow in the footsteps of the proud, the arrogant and the haughty ones. In the first reading we heard about the story of the Tower of Babel, which was the place where God scattered all of His people because of their pride and arrogance.

In that passage, we heard about how mankind after the time of Noah had grown powerful, great and filled with many great things and riches of the world. Everyone spoke the same language since they were descended from Noah and his family, and all the people gathered together, having ambition in their hearts to surpass even the glory of God, plotting to build a great tower which height would reach out to heaven itself.

It was their pride that had become their undoing, as it had for Satan, who fell from his haughtiness, and became an example for all others who thought that they could become like God, or to be even greater than God. He wanted to surpass God and the other Angels, such was the pride and ambition in his heart, who had been created with great and unsurpassed beauty and might among the Angels of God, as Lucifer.

But Lucifer rebelled against God, and disobeyed Him. And he was defeated, and was humiliated and cast out of heaven. Such was his fate because of his pride, and such was therefore also the fate of those others who followed in his footsteps, the people who tried to build up the great tower of Babel. They were scattered and confused in their language, as a reminder that no matter how great, mighty and powerful we are, our power and might are nothing if we are not with God.

It is what the Lord wanted us all to remember, even as we now continue to live our respective lives here on earth. He Himself has come into this world in order to show us the way. Many kings and lords of this world were powerful, proud of their power, intellect, achievements and greatness, but He, Who is the King of all kings, and Lord of all lords, came into this world humbly, not flaunting to others His might and power, even though His power is true power, and His might is real might.

He came into this world to humbly work the works that His Father has entrusted to Him to do, that is the salvation of this world. He bore the burden of the cross for our sake, His people, that by all of His sacrifice, He might save us all from the hopelessness and despair because of our sins, and from all the sufferings caused by our disobedience against God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we should also heed what our Lord Jesus had said in the Gospel today. He said that it is better for someone to lose one’s life and lose other things for the sake of the Lord, rather than for someone to try to save his or her life, and at the cost of his or her own soul. It is a kind reminder by our Lord that to be His disciple, we often will need to make sacrifices, and also to endure rejection and opposition from others.

Are we as Christians ready to take up the challenges and the crosses of our life together with Jesus? Are we ready to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, be humble and be meek in all things, and not to be proud, arrogant or haughty just because of our human achievements, power and greatness? It is important that we should resist the temptations of our flesh, through which the devil is constantly trying to pull us into sin.

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the seven Holy Founders of the Servite order. These seven men were people of exceptional piety and devotion to the Lord, and each of them were committed to serve God’s people, and for that reason, they established the congregation of the Servites. They led others into a life of poverty, simplicity and humility before God.

Many people were inspired to follow in their footsteps, to let go of their pride and their human ambitions, and instead endeavour to follow the Lord and be humble in all of their deeds. Let us all seek to be humble and to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. Let us all spend our whole lives and all the things that we do, glorifying the Lord by our deeds.

May the Lord bless us all and all of our endeavours and works. May He remain with us always, and keep us all in His loving grace. May God be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen.