holy saints of God

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded of the new covenant which God had made with us all, His people, that is with all of mankind. And He had made all of these through the mediation of Christ, Who is the Mediator of the new covenant, by which all of us are to receive salvation and grace, because Christ Himself had done the amazing and unimaginable deed of laying down His own life for the sake of our salvation.

Through Him, God had placed into our hearts the truth about Himself, what He had revealed to the whole world about His salvation. He had sent us His Holy Spirit, through Whom the truth is placed into our hearts, so that all of us who have believed in Him, and received the Holy Spirit will understand fully what it means for us to follow the Lord our God, and to walk in His ways.

However, this is also where we need to take note how in the Gospel passage today, it was mentioned that Jesus called His disciples, the primary twelve members among them in particular. They are known as the Twelve Apostles, whose names we are certainly quite familiar with. They were called by Jesus, together with the other Apostles and disciples, to be His witnesses and helpers in the good works He was bringing into the world for our salvation.

Through this, we can see how God needs our help to continue His good works in this world, as the works He has started are certainly not yet complete. All these works are still ongoing, and there are even more things to be done. There are many people who have yet to witness and experience the truth of the Lord, and there are many others who have yet to receive the Good News unlike us.

The works of the Apostles, who preached and witnessed for the Lord are still ongoing, as we are the ones who are now called to be the modern day disciples and witnesses of our God and of our faith in Him. Through us God will make His truth known to all, that He establishes a new covenant with us, and by that we are altogether saved. It is up to us then to lead others, our brethren, to walk on this path towards God’s salvation and grace.

And how do we do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? The saints Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian whose feasts we are celebrating today, had shown many others what it meant to be a disciple of Christ, and what are to be expected from us if we are to take His side and defend our faith in Him. They lived during times of great difficulty for the faith, when being a Christian meant that one could be prosecuted and arrested by the state, and persecution of the Church and the faithful were rampant.

Pope St. Fabian was the leader of the Universal Church and the faithful both across the Roman Empire and all Christendom, as well as in the city of Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire. The Roman Emperor at the time, the Emperor Decius was particularly hostile against Christians and their faith, and he ordered a distinctively brutal persecution against them.

As the leader of the flock of God, Pope St. Fabian did not fear the threat of persecution and suffering. Instead, he continued to minister courageously to the people of God, going from places to places and minister to those who need help. Eventually he was arrested and tortured, and as an example to all the other Christians, the Emperor Decius sentenced the faithful saint to death, and thus, in doing what he had been called to do, Pope St. Fabian met his end in glorious martyrdom.

Then, St. Sebastian was a soldier in the employ of the Roman Emperor, told to be a courageous man whose skill earned him a place in the contingent of the Imperial guardsmen. The Emperor at that time, Diocletian was also renowned infamously for his brutal persecution of the Christian faith and the faithful. All the Roman soldiers were ordered to offer sacrifices to the Emperor, who was then treated as a living god, and those who refused to do so were persecuted.

St. Sebastian courageously refused to offer sacrifices to the Emperor as ordered, because he stood by faithfully to his Christian faith. He refused to obey the Emperor’s orders even though he fully knew that doing so would bring about the wrath of the Emperor and would almost certainly mean his death. He did not want to compromise his faith and kept strongly to the faith which he had in the Lord.

And thus, by his courage, he was tortured and put to death, after a long and miraculous process where we were told that he was shot with arrows but did not die because of the Lord’s intervention, before finally he was martyred with a sword. Through their examples, Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian had shown us all that being a Christian require commitment and courage, and real action instead of inaction.

We, as the modern day successors of the Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ should be role models for our brethren, and become genuine and real witnesses for Him, even though persecution, challenges and difficulties may come in our way to hinder us and stop us from doing whatever it is that we want to do for this purpose. Let us all pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that God will give us the courage and strength to do so.

Let us all follow in the footsteps of the holy saints and martyrs who had gone before us, and who have left behind their illustrious examples for us to follow. Let us all follow in the footsteps of Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian in their total commitment to the Lord and their courageous faith. And finally, let us all continue to pray for the unity of all Christians that all those who believe in God may come together and be reunited in the Church of Christ under the leadership of His Vicar, our Pope. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Mark 3 : 13-19

At that time, Jesus went up into the hill country, and called those He wanted and they came to Him. He appointed twelve to be with Him, and He called them ‘Apostles’. He wanted to send them out to preach, and He gave them authority to drive out demons.

These are the Twelve : Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, which means ‘men of thunder’; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alpheus, Thaddeus, Simon the Canaanean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 84 : 8 and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Show us, o Lord, Your unfailing love and grant us Your saving help. Yet Your salvation is near to those who fear You, and Your Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Friday, 20 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Hebrews 8 : 6-13

Now, however, Jesus enjoys a much higher ministry in being the Mediator of a better covenant, founded on better promises. If all had been perfect in the first covenant, there would have been no need for another one. Yet God sees defects when He says : The days are coming – it is the word of the Lord – when I will draw up a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand and led them out of Egypt. They did not keep My covenant, and so I Myself have forsaken them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the people of Israel in the days to come : I will put My law into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be My people.

None of them will have to teach one another or say to each other : Know the Lord, for they will know Me from the least to the greatest. I will forgive their sins and no longer remember their wrongs. Here we are being told of a new covenant; which means that the first one had become obsolete, and what is obsolete and ageing is soon to disappear.

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Tuesday, 17 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture passages we heard first of all from the Epistle to the Hebrews, which urged everyone to remember God’s promise and covenant, which He had made with His people out of His love for them. We are all reminded of God’s faith in us, and we are all called to place our trust and hope in Him.

He has sworn by Himself, to assure us that He will deliver us from our sins and from our troubles. He Himself has assured us that He will deliver us and free us from the chains and bondage to sin. We have nothing to fear but to trust completely in Him, because while the world and its words are untrustworthy, and while mankind are untrustworthy in our dealings, but God alone can be completely trusted, for He is honest and just, and having sworn by Himself, He cannot deny Himself.

But it is rather us mankind who had not been faithful as I have mentioned, because we always try to find excuses and other alternatives, instead of obeying God. We ended up trusting in our own human instincts and judgments, rather than obeying and listening to the Lord our God. That was why in the Gospel passage today, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were rebuked by Jesus, as He had also done in various other occasions throughout the Gospels, because of their refusal to believe in what He had to tell them, that their ways were wrong.

They were the guardians of the laws of God as passed down to them from the time of Moses, down through many generations. But throughout those times, the essence of the Law became lost, and people became servants to the laws of God, not knowing what they were all about. Instead of obeying the Law because it was right to serve and please the Lord with their obedience, many of them enforced the laws and follow them for the sake of doing it.

For example, on the well known issue of the day of the Sabbath and its observance among the Israelites. The Sabbath was instituted by the Lord at the time when Israel went out from Egypt and were travelling through the desert towards the Promised Land. It was meant as a holy day dedicated to the Lord, as a day when all the people of Israel should focus themselves and their whole attention to the Lord.

And why was that so? That is because those Israelites have not been faithful to God in many occasions, they grumbled and disobeyed His laws and commandments as soon as after God had liberated and brought them out from the land of Egypt. God wanted to save them from their rebelliousness, and He wanted to discipline them by the means of those laws, but never had He intended for them to be oppressed by those measures.

Unfortunately that was what the Pharisees did, burdening the people with the many observances and obligations to the Law, by one count approximately six hundred and thirteen of them in total, and yet, many of these were human made laws that did not bring about greater understanding of the true meaning of God’s Law, which in fact was about God’s love for us all, so that He gave us those guiding oaths to help us in our path.

That was why Jesus told them all about how the king David in the past broke the law of the Sabbath because he and his soldiers, his followers were hungry. He ate the bread that were supposed to be offered for the Lord, as a form of sustenance to support them after their long journey. And the high priest then, Abiathar, allowed them to do so, even though that was supposedly against the Law.

It is because the Law was indeed meant to help mankind and to assist them on their path towards salvation, and not to oppress them. As Jesus mentioned, it was the Law which was made for man, and not man for the Law. It was because of love that God had given His instructions to mankind, in order to save them and to liberate them from the wrong paths they were following.

That is why, in all things, as Christians, all of us ought to remember that first of all, God wants each and every one of us to be saved. He wants us all to live and not to perish. We must not close the path towards salvation to those who are in need of it, by looking down on sinners and by refusing to welcome them back when they come to seek God’s forgiveness and grace. Let us remember that we ourselves are sinners and are in need of God’s mercy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today reflect on the examples and the life of St. Anthony the Abbot, the famous saint and religious who was known also as St. Anthony the Great, a renowned monk and religious from the Roman era Egypt known to be the father of monasticism and one of the first to commit himself in a contemplative life filled with prayer and devotion to God.

St. Anthony left behind everything in his former life, and he spent the rest of his life in contemplative prayer and commitment to God. He lived in the wilderness, much as St. John the Baptist had done in the past, shunning the comforts of life and leaving behind all worldly concerns. He also ministered to the people by helping the poor and the communities nearby where he lived, and called them to a life of holiness and devotion to God.

The devil often tempted St. Anthony, and it was told that he even tried hard to undermine all of St. Anthony’s works, and attacked him in various occasions, and yet St. Anthony persevered through all of them via a life committed to God in devotion and prayer. He overcame the devil by the power of prayer and piety, committing his whole being to God. From all of his examples, we truly should be inspired by his dedication and discipline in his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we all live in a world filled with many temptations, many of which are trying to keep us away from attaining God’s salvation. The devil is always at work, trying to undermine our progress and by pulling us away with his lies and falsehoods. This is where we need to be careful, that we should not fall into his traps. We must learn to resist the temptations of this world and commit ourselves in the same way as the holy saints, including that of St. Anthony, had done.

May the Lord help us in all of our endeavours, so that through all of our good and committed works, we may put the Lord as the focus of all our actions, and indeed, as the focus of our lives. May the Lord bless us and keep us, and may He strengthen in our hearts, the faith which we ought to have for Him, and help us to be faithful to God, just as He Himself had been truly faithful to us. Let us all help one another on our path to the Lord, and keep ourselves worthy of Him at all times. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 17 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Mark 2 : 23-28

At that time, one Sabbath Jesus was walking through grainfields. As His disciples walked along with Him, they began to pick the heads of grain and crush them in their hands. Then the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! They are doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath!”

And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did in his time of need, when he and his men were very hungry? He went into the house of God, when Abiathar was High Priest, and ate the bread of offering, which only the priests are allowed to eat, and he also gave some to the men who were with him.”

Then Jesus said to them, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Master even of the Sabbath.”

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Tuesday, 17 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 110 : 1-2, 4-5, 9 and 10c

Alleluia! I thank the Lord with all my heart in the council of the just, in the assembly. The works of the Lord are great and pondered by all who delight in them.

He lets us remember His wondrous deeds; the Lord is merciful and kind. Always mindful of His covenant, He provides food for those who fear Him.

He has sent His people deliverances and made with them a covenant forever. His holy Name is to be revered! To Him belongs everlasting praise.

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Tuesday, 17 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Hebrews 6 : 10-20

God is not unjust and will not forget everything you have done for love of His Name; you have helped and still help the believers. We desire each of you to have, until the end, the same zeal for reaching what you have hoped for. Do not grow careless but imitate those who, by their faith and determination, inherit the promise.

Remember God’s promise to Abraham, God wanted to confirm it with an oath and, as no one is higher than God, He swore by Himself : I shall bless you and give you many descendants. By just patiently waiting, Abraham obtained the promise.

People are used to swearing by someone higher than themselves and their oath affirms everything that could be denied. So God committed Himself with an oath in order to convince those who were to wait for His promise that He would never change His mind.

Thus we have two certainties in which it is impossible that God be proved false : promise and oath. That is enough to encourage us strongly when we leave everything to hold to the hope set before us. This hope is like a steadfast anchor of the soul, secure and firm, thrust beyond the curtain of the Temple into the sanctuary itself, where Jesus has entered ahead of us – Jesus, High Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.

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Friday, 13 January 2017 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the matter of the forgiveness of sins, as Jesus our Lord healed the paralytic man, telling him that He has forgiven him his sins, but the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law refused to believe that He was capable of forgiveness of sins, as to them, only God could forgive sins, and they did not believe that He is truly God.

This was precisely pointed out in the first reading today from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, how two different types of people heard and received the Good News of the Gospel, but they acted differently, and thus different outcomes were recorded. In one group, the people who heard the Gospel believed in the message of the Lord, and they welcomed the truth of God in their hearts, and therefore they were saved.

However, in the other group, they refused to believe, and therefore the Word had no place in their hearts. They closed their hearts against the truth of God, and in their stubbornness, they had brought about their own downfall. God had freely offered His mercy, love and forgiveness, but if those people refused to accept them, then they would not be forgiven their sins and trespasses.

That was why the paralytic man was healed from his afflictions, because of his faith in God, Who made His good works true through Jesus His Son. He had sent His Son into the world in order to save it, and thus through Jesus, He had brought about His healing and forgiveness into the world. The paralytic man had been made whole in body and spirit, healed from his sickness and also forgiven from his sins.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law on the other hand, even though they were perfectly fine in the body, not afflicted by human diseases and weaknesses, but in their hearts, their sins remained. Sin is the disease of the soul, which gnaws away at our very being, and corrupting us from the inside out. This is why Jesus often rebuked them, at their impurities of their interior beings, while they insisted on outward appearances and exterior piety.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ask ourselves, are we open to receive God’s mercy and forgiveness? Or are we more like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who in their pride and greed refused to believe in the truth that Jesus our Lord had taught to all of them. They refused to acknowledge their sinfulness and wicked ways, and they adamantly refused to change their ways.

That is the attitude of those who have condemned themselves to an eternity of sufferings. Rather, as Christians, all of us should learn to be more like Christ, our Lord, following Him in His humility and obedience to the will of the Father. We should erase from our hearts all sorts of human pride and all the things that prevent us from finding the grace and forgiveness in God. And most importantly, we should be concerned for each other, helping one another to reject false ways and adhere to the true faith in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us should also follow the examples of today’s saint, St. Hilary of Poitiers. St. Hilary of Poitiers lived during the waning years of the Roman Empire, with the Christian community troubled by the heresy of Arianism, which had gained much traction amongst the people. The false teachings of Arius had misled many into the wrong paths, and there were many who adamantly refused to see the truth in the orthodox and true faith.

St. Hilary of Poitiers worked hard among the people, through his preaching and outreach to them, telling them the truth about God, and dispelling the falsehoods and the lies of Arianism and the other heresies of the faith. He devoted his time to bring the people who had been lost in the darkness that they may find their way back to the light of God, and to those who were still adamant against repentance, he rebuked them and cast them out from the Church.

He did not have it easy as he worked among the people to bring them back to the Church, as it was often that he faced rejection and ridicule, and he was even persecuted and people plotted against him. He had to endure humiliation and even exile in his life. As Christians, we should follow his good examples, and be inspired by his dedication to the Lord, and be like him in his desire to bring his brethren in faith back to the true way towards the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be good and faithful Christians like St. Hilary of Poitiers, devoting our life to the Lord, believing in Him and placing our complete trust in Him. Let us not be blinded by our pride and let us not be distracted by our human desires, but instead, let us do our best to help one another to remain true to our Lord and to His truth. May the Lord bless all of our endeavours. Amen.

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Friday, 13 January 2017 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops)
Mark 2 : 1-12

At that time, after some days, Jesus returned to Capernaum. As the news spread that He was in the house, so many people gathered, that there was no longer room even outside the door. While Jesus was preaching the Word to them, some people brought a paralysed man to Him.

The four men who carried him could not get near Jesus because of the crowd, so they opened the roof above the room where Jesus was and, through the hole, lowered the man on his mat. When Jesus saw the faith of these people, He said to the paralytic, “My son, your sins are forgiven.”

Now some teachers of the Law, who were sitting there, wondered within themselves, “How can He speak like this, insulting God? Who can forgive sins except God?”

At once Jesus knew in His Spirit what they were thinking, and asked, “Why do you wonder? Is it easier to say to this paralysed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Rise, take up your mat and walk?’ But now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

And He said to the paralytic, “Stand up, take up your mat and go home.” The man rose and, in the sight of all those people, he took up his mat and went out. All of them were astonished and praised God, saying, “Never have we seen anything like this!”