holy saints of God

by

Wednesday, 28 November 2018 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Revelations 15 : 1-4

Then I saw another great and marvellous sign in the heavens : seven Angels brought seven plagues which are the last, for with these the wrath of God will end. There was a sea of crystal mingled with fire, and the conquerors of the beast, of its name and the mark of its name stood by it.

They had been given the celestial harps and they sang the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb : Great and marvellous are Your works, o Lord, God and Master of the universe. Justice and truth guide Your steps, o King of the nations.

Lord, who will not give honour and glory to Your Name? For You alone are holy. All the nations will come and bow before You, for they have now seen Your judgments.

by

Tuesday, 27 November 2018 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Revelations 14 : 14-19

Then I had this vision, I saw a white cloud and the One sitting on it like a Son of Man, wearing a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. An Angel came out of the sanctuary, calling loudly to the One sitting on the cloud, “Put in Your sickle and reap, for harvest time has come and the harvest of the earth is ripe.”

He Who was sitting on the cloud swung His sickle at the earth and reaped the harvest. Then another Angel, who also had a sharp sickle, came out of the heavenly sanctuary. Still another Angel, the one who has charge of the altar fire, emerged and shouted to the first who held the sharp sickle, “Swing your sharp sickle and reap the bunches of the vine of the earth for they are fully ripe.”

So the Angel swung his sickle and gathered in the vintage, throwing all the grapes into the great winepress of the anger of God.

by

Monday, 26 November 2018 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Revelations 14 : 1-3, 4b-5

I was given another vision : The Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, surrounded by one hundred and forty-four thousand people, who had His Name, and His Father’s Name, written on their foreheads. A sound reverberated in heaven, like the sound of the roaring of waves, or deafening thunder; it was like a chorus of singers, accompanied by their harps.

They sing a new song before the Throne, in the presence of the four living creatures and the elders, a song, which no one can learn, except the hundred and forty-four thousand, who have been taken from the earth.

These are given, to follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They are the first taken from humankind, who are already of God and the Lamb. No deceit has been found in them; they are faultless.

by

Thursday, 22 November 2018 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we continue to approach the end of the current liturgical cycle, we listen to more and more apocalyptic readings from the Scriptures that speak about the coming of the end times, from the revelations of St. John the Apostle, to the accounts of the Gospel recounting the moment when the Lord Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of all the things that would happen to that city.

First of all, the first reading today from the Book of the Revelations of St. John we heard about a vision that St. John received of the heavenly kingdom, in which, a Throne was surrounded by multitudes of Angels and elders, and a Scroll was laid on the Throne, which no one was worthy of opening. Within that scroll lies the truth of God and the salvation of all mankind. And in the end, only the Lamb of God, Who has sacrificed Himself, was worthy to open the scroll.

All of the elders and the Angels worshipped the Lamb Who came to take His rightful place at the Throne, and proclaimed His glory and majesty, by all the things and deeds He had done, through His loving and selfless sacrifice on the Cross. He is a King, Who has come into the world in order to save His beloved people, but the same people whom He wanted to save, many of them refused to believe in Him, rejected His message of truth, and in the end, put Him to death on the cross.

The reading from this Book of the Revelations, coupled with what we heard on the lamentations of the Lord for the heinous things that in therefore present us with the realities of our faith, that there would be persecutions and challenges awaiting all those who are speaking the truth and bearing what the Lord Jesus Himself has brought into this world, that is, the message of His salvation for us all.

The lamentations which Jesus made over the city of Jerusalem are linked to what the people of Israel had done to the prophets and messengers of God throughout history, in how they rejected God’s truth and revelations, persecuted the prophets and messengers of God, exiling them and even killing them for speaking the truth. The people hardened their hearts and minds, and refused to believe in the message of truth.

This presents to us how persecution and martyrdom have been part of our faith for countless years, how the faithful had to endure various challenges and difficulties in order to remain true to their faith. Throughout the history of the Church, innumerable martyrs have been made due to the persecution of Christians by various groups and authorities, including St. Cecilia, whose feast day we are celebrating today.

St. Cecilia is one of the most famous of the saints and the martyrs of the Roman persecution era, as the patron saint of musicians. St. Cecilia was a devout Christian and made a vow of virginity to the Lord. But despite that, her parents forced her to marry Valerian, a pagan nobleman. She continued to devote herself to the Lord nonetheless, and managed to persuade her husband to let her remain chaste and virgin, and showed him the proof of what she said, and an Angel appeared to her husband.

In the end, even her husband became a believer and was baptised as a Christian. But that was a particularly difficult time to live as a Christian, when Christians throughout the Empire were going through a particularly brutal and vicious persecution. That is why St. Cecilia and her family went through martyrdom for remaining faithful to the Lord despite the sufferings they had to go through.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are called to reflect on our own Christian living. Have we been probably too complacent or too lax in how we live up our lives in faith? Have we been true witnesses of the Lord in how we conduct our actions and in how we lived our lives? What we heard from the Scripture passages today and from the life of St. Cecilia should inspire us to be more active in living our faith, in devoting our time, effort and attention to the Lord.

May the Lord bless us all, and may He continue to remind us to be faithful to Him, each and every single moments of our life. May God be with us all, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

by

Thursday, 22 November 2018 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Luke 19 : 41-44

At that time, when Jesus had come in sight of the city of Jerusalem, He wept over it, and said, “If only today you knew the ways of peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. Yet days will come upon you, when your enemies will surround you with barricades, and shut you in, and press on you from every side.”

“And they will dash you to the ground and your children with you, and not leave stone upon stone within you, for you did not recognise the time and the visitation of your God.”

by

Thursday, 22 November 2018 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b

Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!

Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.

The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, this is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!

by

Thursday, 22 November 2018 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Revelations 5 : 1-10

Then I saw in the right hand of Him Who was seated on the throne a scroll written on both sides, sealed with seven seals. A mighty Angel exclaimed in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open this and break the seals?”

But no one in heaven or on earth or in the netherworld was found able to open the book and read it. I wept much when I saw that no one was found worthy to open the book and read it. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Shoot of David, has conquered; He will open the book of the seven seals.”

And I saw next to the throne with its four living creatures and the twenty-four elders a Lamb standing, although It had been slain. I saw Him with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out to all the earth. The Lamb moved forward and took the book from the right hand of Him Who was seated on the throne.

When He took it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders bowed before the Lamb. They all held in their hands harps and golden cups full of incense which are the prayers of the holy ones. This is the new song they sang : “You are worthy to take the book and open its seals, for You were slain and by Your Blood You purchased for God people of every race, language and nation; and You made them a kingdom and priests for our God and they shall reign over the land.”

by

Friday, 16 November 2018 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Holy Virgins)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded by the Scripture passages we listened to, of the coming of the time of reckoning for us all, the moment when the Lord will judge us based on our lives and what we have done in them and what we also have not done in the same lives He has granted to each and every one of us, at the time of judgment, both the particular judgment and the last judgment.

In today’s Gospel passage, the Lord warned His disciples that there would be important decisions to be made in life, where there would be consequences when the wrong choices were made. And this could happen any time, and the time would not be of our own choosing, but the Lord’s good time. He mentioned various historical examples, beginning with Noah, and then to Lot and his wife, and then finally to the moment of the end times.

At the time of Noah, the people lived wickedly and refused to obey God in their actions and ways. They lived in sin and continued to rebel against God, and all were wicked save for Noah and his family, who alone kept faithfully the devotion to God. Noah was asked to build a great Ark by God, to save the creatures of the Lord including his own family.

At the same time, if any one of the people of Noah’s time were willing to repent their ways and believe in God’s premonitions made through Noah, they could have also joined him in the Ark, and be saved. Instead, they refused the opportunity and probably mocked Noah for following God’s commands in building such a huge Ark. This was because they did not see the truth and reality from God. As a result, they all perished in the Great Flood.

Then, for the case of Lot and his family, he lived for a time in the city of Sodom, which together with Gomorrah were populated with people who were wicked and sinful in nature. When two Angels came into their midst disguised as two men, the people of the town came to Lot demanding him to pass to them the two men for them to fornicate with.

As a result of their refusal to repent and continued desire to sin, they were destroyed by a rain of fire and brimstone from heaven. Lot and his family were rescued by the Angels to escape the great destruction and catastrophe. Yet, Lot’s wife as mentioned in the Gospel passage today, fell into temptation, and she turned back to look at Sodom, despite the warning from the Angels not to do so, and thus she also perished, becoming a pillar of salt.

In all of these, God wants each and every one of us to know the reality of His love and mercy, which He gives freely to be taken up by us. If we are willing to be forgiven, then we will be forgiven, and only if we are willing to make the effort to receive God’s mercy through repentance and sincere efforts to make ourselves a better person and avoid sinning any further. And we should not wait, as our time can be up any time, and if it is too late for us to change direction, we can only regret.

Today, we celebrate the feast of two saints, whose lives are truly exemplary. And we should model our lives based on their examples. St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude are great and holy women who were truly devoted to the mission entrusted to them. They exhibited great examples of faith that each and every one of us should also emulate in our own lives.

St. Margaret of Scotland was the queen of Scotland remembered for her great piety and generous charitable acts, ruling justly with her husband, the king of Scotland, caring for both the physical and spiritual well-being of the people of Scotland over whom she was queen. She helped to reform the Scottish church and bring everything in line with the way and form of the universal Church, establishing churches and paths for pilgrims, and caring for the poor and the needy in her kingdom.

Meanwhile, St. Gertrude, also known as St. Gertrude the Great was a renowned mystic who devoted her whole life to God after a life-changing experience. She received many more visions throughout her life, and she was noted for her great spirituality and piety. St. Gertrude’s holiness inspired many others to follow in her examples in faith, and her particular devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus was a precursor to the now popular devotion.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, let us all model ourselves upon the examples of the holy men and women, saints of God. Let us all turn our hearts and minds to the Lord, and redirect our efforts to serve Him with true faith and dedication. May the Lord bless us always and may He empower us to live faithfully in His presence. Amen.

by

Friday, 16 November 2018 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Holy Virgins)

Luke 17 : 26-37

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be on the day the Son of Man comes. In those days people ate and drank and got married; but on the day Noah entered the Ark, the flood came and destroyed them all.”

“So it was in the days of Lot : people ate and drank, and bought and sold, and planted and built; but on the day Lot left Sodom, God made fire and sulfur rain down from heaven, which destroyed them all. So will it be on the day the Son of Man is revealed.”

“On that day, if you are on the rooftop, do not go down into the house to get your belongings; and if you happen to be in the fields, do not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to save his life will lose himself, but whoever gives his life will be born again.”

“I tell you, though two men are sharing the same bed, it might happen that one will be taken, and the other left; though two women are grinding corn together, one might be taken and the other left.” Then they asked Jesus, “Where will this take place, Lord?” And He answered, “Where the body is, there too will the vultures gather.”

by

Friday, 16 November 2018 : 32nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Margaret of Scotland and St. Gertrude, Virgin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Holy Virgins)

Psalm 118 : 1, 2, 10, 11, 17, 18

Blessed are they whose ways are upright, who follow the law of the Lord.

Blessed are they who treasure His word and seek Him with all their heart.

I seek You with my whole heart; let me not stray from Your commands.

In my heart I have kept Your word, that I may not sin against my Lord.

Be kind to Your servant, that I may live to follow Your word.

Open my eyes that I may see the marvellous truths in Your law.