holy saints of God

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Thursday, 2 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the exchanges between Jesus and a teacher of the Law who asked Him about the most important commandment in the Law. And Jesus gave him the perfect answer, a summary of what the commandments and Law of God is truly about, that is love. For the Law of God is about love, and the love of God has been given to us.

The teachers of the Law, the Pharisees and the scribes at the time of Jesus were renowned for their very strict interpretation and imposition of the Law and the commandments of God, where they punished those who did not obey the laws and ostracised them from the society. They harshly ensured that the people obeyed the laws and ensured that they observed the strict sabbath law.

But Jesus pointed out to them a reality and a fact, how in this pursuit to fulfil the needs of the Law, they have ended up forgetting the true purpose of the Law. They ended up making the laws as mere formality and procedure, and less of understanding its true intent, that is love, and love which is ought to be present in our relationship with one another, and ultimately between us and our God.

God gave us the Law, the commandments and His precepts so that we may learn to love one another, and to love Him with all of our heart, mind and soul. He did not give us the laws and the commandments to unnecessarily burden us with the yoke of laws and rules. Yet, we mankind have often misused and misrepresented God’s good laws and rules to serve our own purposes.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law enforced those rules and laws, because they liked themselves to be seen doing all those rules and obeying the set of laws they have set for themselves, for the purpose of being praised and adored for their deeds. They were serving not God or the people of God, but instead only themselves.

Thus, Jesus often rebuked them and showed His anger on them. It is because not only that they had placed such a burden on the people who had been entrusted under their care, but they also misled the people into believing that God is a fearsome and angry God Who will punish all those who did not fulfil the obligations which had been placed on them. In the end, they followed God not because they loved Him, but because they feared Him.

Therefore, all of us are reminded by St. Paul in his letter to St. Timothy, that we as Christians who believe in God should get rid of all things that have been keeping us away from God and His ways. All of us should find ways to devote ourselves to God through understanding more of the measures which He has taken in order to bring us closer to Him and to save us from certain destruction.

Let us all also keep in mind the examples of the two holy servants of God, St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, whose feast we are commemorating on this day, that we may imitate their examples and follow them in their footsteps to become better disciples of our Lord. They were faithful and committed to God, and they endured suffering and martyrdom for the sake of their faith in God.

St. Marcellinus and St. Peter lived during the early years of the fourth century after the birth of Christ our Lord. They were told to be a priest and an exorcist living during the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who was renowned for his particularly intense persecution of Christians throughout the Empire. They were martyred for their faith, as they refused to stop preaching the faith in God, and they also refused to abandon their faith for the comfort of the pagan gods.

They served the people of God with devotion and zeal, and they cared for the poor and the sick among the faithful, and casting out demons and evil spirits. They loved the people of God in the manner which God had taught us all to do, and they loved others and especially God, their Lord and Master, with all of their hearts, minds and soul, even unto death, refusing to let go of their Lord.

In all these, we should all learn from the examples of these holy saints and servants of God who have given their all to love the Lord their God and to love their fellow men. Let us all devote ourselves anew to God, and renew the faith which all of us have for Him, and do our best in order to serve Him and obey Him with love, and not with just mere formality or for the sake of doing it, as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done.

May God see the love which we have for Him, and may our ways, actions and deeds be found to be worthy and good for our salvation. May God bless us all and strengthen our resolve to be ever more faithful to Him day after day. Amen.

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Thursday, 2 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)

Mark 12 : 28b-34

At that time, a teacher of the Law came up and asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is : Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God, is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And after this comes a second commandment : You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these two.”

The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master; You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”

Jesus approved this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.

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Thursday, 2 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)

Psalm 24 : 4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14

Teach me Your ways, o Lord; make known to me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and instruct me, for You are my God, my Saviour.

Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners His way. He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.

The ways of the Lord are love and faithfulness for those who keep His covenant and precepts. The Lord gives advice to those who revere Him and makes His covenant known to them.

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Thursday, 2 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Marcellinus and St. Peter, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyr)

2 Timothy 2 : 8-15

Remember Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, Jesus, Son of David, as preached in my Gospel. For this Gospel I labour and even wear chains like an evildoer, but the word of God is not chained. And so I bear everything for the sake of the chosen people, that they, too, may obtain the salvation given to us in Christ Jesus and share eternal glory.

This statement is true : If we have died with Him, we shall also live with Him; if we endure with Him, we shall reign with Him; if we deny Him, He will also deny us; if we are unfaithful, He remains faithful for He cannot deny Himself.

Remind your people of these things and urge them in the presence of God not to fight over words, which does no good, but only ruins those who listen. Be for God an active and proved minister, a blameless worker correctly handling the word of truth.

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Wednesday, 1 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the exchanges between Jesus and the Sadducees, an influential and powerful group in the Jewish society at the time, namely those who practiced and believed in pragmatism and rejecting spirituality and matters beyond what can be deduced with human reasoning, one of the greatest of which is the matter of the resurrection from the dead.

The Sadducees did not believe in spirits, in Angels, in all things that are beyond this world. That is why they were particularly unhappy and angry at what Jesus had been telling the people about the matters of the life after death, the afterlife, and the promise of the eternal life after the death of the physical body. That is why they confronted Him and tried to discredit Him and brought Him into trouble by asking Him a difficult question to trap Him in His own words.

But Jesus gave them a perfect answer and rebuke, when they asked about whose wife would the woman attached to seven brothers be in heaven. Jesus rebuked them for their naivety and failure to look beyond matters of this world. These thought of things that are not important, thinking of woman as mere property and marriage as a mere formality.

They could not comprehend all these because they were thinking in worldly terms. They thought of living at the moment, living for the world that is now, and they even tend to fear of what is to come when people die. That is because firstly they did not believe in life after death, and death is feared as the end of everything. But they were very wrong indeed.

Indeed, all of us Christians have that core faith and belief in God, that we believe in the life of the world to come. That is placed prominently at the very end of our Creed, the Nicene and the Apostles’ Creed, which we recite with faith at every celebrations of the Holy Mass on Sundays. And we also believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, Who suffered, died on the cross and rose again gloriously at the Resurrection.

The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is the hope for all of us Christians, and indeed, for all mankind, for through His own resurrection, all of us have been given an undeniable and solid proof of life beyond death, of our eventual triumph over death, and that death does not have the final say over us. We feared death because we saw it as an end, but in fact, death is not the end, rather the beginning of something new.

Today therefore, as in our first reading, as what St. Paul had written to St. Timothy, all of us are urged to stand up for our faith and live with devotion to our God. We must not fear and be afraid just because our faith and beliefs are against that of the world, or if the world persecutes us because we believe in God and His ways. This is how it is supposed to be, and what we must do as those who follow the Lord and His ways.

Today, we commemorate the feast of St. Justin the Martyr, a renowned servant of God whose life can indeed be inspiration for all of us. St. Justin was known especially for his many writings and works, particularly regarding the nature of God, on the nature of the Incarnation of the Logos, the Divine Word of God, Who became Man for our sake, Jesus Christ.

St. Justin explained many of the tenets and aspects of the faith through his many works, and thanks to him, many people grew firmer in their faith and many others were converted from their pagan ways. St. Justin did not fear the opposition of the world and openly preached his faith among the many communities of the faithful at that time. But the world did not remain quiet, and in the end, they persecuted the faithful, including St. Justin, who endured martyrdom for his faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, St. Justin was courageous in his faith and devoted his whole life to serve the Lord, even amidst persecution and challenges laid in his path by the world and the Roman authorities. But, because of his hard works and his devotion to the faith, he has led many others into salvation, by his inspiring examples, which helped to call many more people to remain faithful to God and His ways.

Shall we all therefore also follow his examples and live our faith and our lives with zeal and devotion? We should not be afraid of the world’s rejection, but rather, we should grow ever bolder and stronger in standing up for our faith and our beliefs, against the ways of this world that are against the Lord’s ways.

Let us all hold firm in our beliefs, in what Jesus had taught us all through His Church, that we may not be swayed by the falsehoods of the world. In the Risen Lord, His resurrection has given us the sure hope and the certainty of the future for us if we believe in Him and keep our faith in Him alive. May God help us to remain firmly faithful to Him at all times. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 1 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 12 : 18-27

At that time, the Sadducees also came to Jesus. Since they claim that there is no resurrection, they questioned Him in this way, “Master, in the Scriptures Moses gave us this law : if anyone dies and leaves a wife but no children, his brother must take the woman, and with her have a baby, who will be considered the child of his deceased brother.”

“Now, there were seven brothers. The first married a wife, but he died without leaving any children. The second took the wife, and he also died leaving no children. The same thing happened to the third. In fact, all seven brothers died, leaving no children. Last of all the woman died. Now, in the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife? For all seven brothers had her as wife.”

Jesus replied, “Is this not the reason you are mistaken, that you do not understand the Scriptures or the power of God? When they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry, but are like Angels in heaven. Now, about the resurrection of the dead, have you never had thoughts about the burning bush in the book of Moses?”

“God said to Moses : ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’ He is the God not of the dead but of the living. You are totally wrong.”

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Wednesday, 1 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 122 : 1-2a, 2bcd

To You I lift up my eyes, to You Whose throne is in heaven. As the eyes of the servants look to the hand of their master.

As the eyes of maids look to the hand of their mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till He shows us His mercy.

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Wednesday, 1 June 2016 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Timothy 1 : 1-3, 6-12

From Paul, Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of His promise of eternal life in Christ Jesus, to my dear son Timothy. May grace, mercy and peace be with you from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

I give thanks to God Whom I serve with a clear conscience the way my ancestors did, as I remember you constantly, day and night, in my prayers. For this reason I invite you to fan into a flame the gift of God you received through the laying on of my hands. For God did not confer on us a Spirit of bashfulness, but of strength, love and good judgment.

Do not be ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of seeing me in chains. On the contrary, do your share in labouring for the Gospel with the strength of God. He saved us and called us – a calling which proceeds from His holiness. This did not depend on our merits, but on His generosity and His own initiative.

This calling given to us from all time in Christ Jesus has just been manifested with the glorious appearance of Christ Jesus, our Lord, Who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light in His Gospel. Of this message I was made herald, Apostle and teacher.

For its sake I now suffer this trial, but I am not ashamed, for I know in Whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is capable of taking care of all I have entrusted to Him until that day.

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Friday, 27 May 2016 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, listening at the passage which we heard from the Gospel today, surely many of us would feel kind of unsettled and fearful at what Jesus has said and done. After all, we heard how Jesus our Lord cursed the fig tree without fruits, and made it to dry up and die. And then, Jesus also showed His wrath on the merchants and money changers who set up stalls in the Temple grounds, chasing them out with whip and lashes.

In this passage therefore, we see the side of our Lord which we tend to forget or ignore, and an aspect which we tend to overlook when we think about God. We always tend to see God as a loving, kind, merciful and compassionate God, but then they forget that He is also a vengeful and angry God against those who have been unfaithful. He exacts judgment against those who disobeyed Him and refused to listen to Him.

We live in a world where many have forgotten about the consequences of sin, and therefore, as a result, we tend to become desensitised to sin, and we often ignore the consequences of our sins, to the point that we may just sin without even being worried about it, or being affected by it. And the main reason for this, is the lack of that understanding and the seriousness which we ought to have when we refer to sin and all the fruits of wickedness in our actions.

Indeed, it is just like the barren fig tree. We are the fig trees, and if we are without fruits, barren and dry, then we have truly not deserved the good graces and blessings of God. Instead, curses and destruction is our only share. And if we think that Jesus was being unreasonable because it was not the fig season, then we should understand how this is related to what Jesus spoke in another parable.

Jesus told us that the kingdom of God is coming to us in the manner like that of a thief, unexpected and sudden, without prior warning and without any signs to let us know that it is coming. It is just as Jesus came by suddenly to the fig tree, outside the fig season, and finding the tree to be barren and without any fruits. And thus it received only curses and not blessings, and it perished.

Thus, the same fate awaits all of us, if we do not learn from what the Scriptures are trying to tell us. And that is if we live like the merchants and the sellers, the money changers and all who filled up the sacred Temple grounds with their unholy transactions and dirty money. And as a result, they earned the wrath of God, Who whipped them and lashed at them, chasing them out of the Temple of God, the Holy residence of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must really devote ourselves to the Lord, in all things and commit ourselves to His ways, through our sincere devotion, and by all the loving acts which we should show to one another, caring for our brethren in need, and giving them the love which they ought to receive and which we ought to give. And in this manner, perhaps we should follow in the footsteps of the saint whose feast we are celebrating today, namely St. Augustine of Canterbury.

St. Augustine of Canterbury was one of the first bishops of the region known as England. His works there was instrumental in reestablishing the Christian faith and the Church in England. He was a religious monk from Rome, who was tasked by the then reigning Pope, Pope St. Gregory the Great to be the evangeliser of England and all of its neighbouring countries.

England had been Christianised by the preceding Roman era, when the Roman Empire still controlled the region. But with the invasion by the barbarian Saxons and Jutes, the Angles and others, Christian faith has largely died out in that country. As a result, there was a great need to reinvigorate the Church and reestablish the Church structure and hierarchy in England.

St. Augustine of Canterbury thus went forth to a region of unknown challenges, where he laboured hard for the sake of the faith, and he had to endure persecutions from the pagans and rejection from those who refused to accept the truth of God. But he persevered on, and showed them care, concern and love. And in teaching the people about the truths and wonders of God, St. Augustine showed them the path to God, and his actions bore many wonderful fruits, including the conversion of the king of the place where he ministered in, and many people who came to be baptised afterwards.

By his works, many people have been saved from the certainty of damnation and death, and these are truly the rich fruits of faith which St. Augustine had produced, and by which he was made justified and right in the presence of God. And that is why he is now counted among the holy saints of God. Brothers and sisters in Christ, we too can follow in his footsteps and be like him.

Let us all therefore renew our efforts to live our lives faithfully and renew our commitment to God, that we may give our all to the Lord and glorify Him through our actions. May He continue to bless us and keep us forever in His grace. Amen.

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Friday, 27 May 2016 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)

Mark 11 : 11-25

At that time, Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple. And after He had looked all around, as it was already late, He went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

The next day, when they were leaving Bethany, He felt hungry. In the distance He noticed a fig tree covered with leaves, so He went to see if He could find anything on it. When He reached it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. Then Jesus said to the fig tree, ‘May no one ever eat your fruit!” And His disciples heard these words.

When they reached Jerusalem, Jesus went to the Temple, and began to drive away all the people He saw buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the stools of those who sold pigeons. And He would not let anyone carry anything through the Temple area.

Jesus then taught the people, “Does not God say in the Scriptures : My house will be called a House of Prayer for all the nations? But you have turned into a den of thieves.” The chief priests and the teachers of the Law heard of this, and they tried to find a way to destroy Him. They were afraid of Him, because all the people were astonished by His teaching. When evening came, Jesus left the city.

Early next morning, as they walked along the road, the disciples saw the fig tree withered to its roots. Peter then said to Him, “Master, look! The fig tree You cursed has withered.” And Jesus replied, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and have no doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will happen, it will be done for you.”

“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it shall be done for you. And when you stand to pray, if you have anything against anyone, forgive.”