Holy Scriptures

by

Sunday, 11 September 2016 : 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Exodus 32 : 7-11, 13-14

Then YHVH said to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a molten calf; they have bowed down before it and sacrificed to it and said : ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.'”

And YHVH said to Moses, “I see that these people are a stiff-necked people. Now just leave Me that My anger may blaze against them. I will destroy them, but of you I will make a great nation.” But Moses calmed the anger of YHVH, his God, and said, “Why, o YHVH, should Your anger burst against Your people whom You brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with a mighty hand?”

“Remember Your servants, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the promise You Yourself swore : I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land I spoke about I will give to them as an everlasting inheritance.”

YHVH then changed His mind and would not yet harm His people.

by

Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it may be a bit difficult for us to understand the message and the meaning from the various readings and passages we heard today from the Sacred Scriptures, but they all really spoke to us, just as the Church had selected those particular passages for today, that we all as Christians ought to be true to our faith, and to be completely and thoroughly committed to our Lord without aberration.

In the first reading, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and to the faithful in Corinth spoke about being in Communion with God and what was the significance of such a privilege which had been accorded to all those who have accepted the Lord through holy baptism, and as members of God’s one and only Church, the vessel through which all those who profess their faith in God would be saved.

But at that time, pressure that existed against the faithful and the Church was truly great, as especially those who held public offices and wanted to continue their lives and careers as per normal found it difficult to balance and cooperate between their secular and worldly life as well as career with their Faith and belief in God. Many of them therefore compromised with their faith and belief in God in order to achieve what they wanted.

One of the examples mentioned by St. Paul was the sharing of the faithful of the offerings and food which had been made as sacrifices and offerings to demons and the pagan idols and gods. It was profane for members of the Church to participate in such actions, as that showed that they were willing to compromise on their faith, agreeing to worship the false gods and idols in return for acknowledgement and worldly opportunities.

Even considering the difficult conditions they were in, there were many among them who continued to commit wickedness and unworthy actions and deeds even after they have become a member of the Church and were counted among the faithful ones. In doing so, they have committed scandal in front of God and His people, and such actions were contra-productive in bringing about the salvation of God to the world.

These are the same people whom God Himself mentioned in the Gospel passage we heard today, when He rebuked all those with weak or nonexistent faith, those who built their houses on weak foundation that will topple and fall should a powerful wind or wave sweep over them. They did not have a genuine and strong faith and dedication to the Lord, and temptations or pressures from the world could easily take over them.

But the Lord was not asking us to rebel openly against the world and bring troubles upon ourselves. He was not asking us to go out into the open fields and places to proclaim openly our faith for all to see and hear. Indeed our goal is to preach to them the Good News with zeal and sincerity of faith, but it must be done with the patience and the courage which all of us should have in our faith.

We should look at the examples of our holy and devoted predecessors. These are the holy martyrs and saints, all those who often do not desire and indeed did not compromise their faith and the ways of the Lord they followed in order to satisfy or appease the world and its demands and wishes. Let us all seek to be true and devoted disciples and followers of our Lord as they had done, and commit ourselves day after day doing the good works of God. May God help us in our endeavours. Amen.

by

Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Luke 6 : 43-49

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “No healthy tree bears bad fruit, no poor tree bears good fruit. And each tree is known by the fruit it bears : you do not gather figs from thorns, or grapes from brambles. Similarly the good person draws good things from the good stored in his heart, and an evil person draws evil things from the evil stored in his heart. For the mouth speaks from the fullness of the heart.”

“Why do you call Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what the one is like, who comes to Me, and listens to My words, and acts accordingly. That person is like the builder who dug deep, and laid the foundations of his house on rock. The river overflowed, and the stream dashed against the house, but could not carry it off because the house had been well built.”

“But the one who listens and does not act, is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. The flood burst against it, and the house fell at once : and what a terrible disaster that was!”

by

Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Psalm 115 : 12-13, 17-18

The Lord remembers us and will bless us; He will bless the family of Israel; He will bless the family of Aaron; He will bless those who fear the Lord, both the small and the great.

It is not the dead who praise the Lord, for they have gone down to silence; but it is we, the living, who bless the Lord, from now on and forever.

by

Saturday, 10 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
1 Corinthians 10 : 14-22

Therefore, dear friends, shun the cult of idols. I address you as intelligent persons; judge what I say. The cup of blessings that we bless, is it not a communion with the Blood of Christ? And the bread we break, is it not a communion with the Body of Christ? The bread is one, and so we, though many, form one body, sharing the one bread.

Consider the Israelites. For them, to eat of the victim is to come into communion with its altar. What does all that mean? That the meat is really consecrated to the idol, or that the idol is a being. However, when the pagans offer a sacrifice, the sacrifice goes to the demons, not to God.

I do not want you to come into fellowship with demons. You cannot drink at the same time from the cup of the Lord and from the cup of demons. You cannot share in the table of the Lord and in the table of the demons. Do we want, perhaps, to provoke the jealousy of the Lord? Could we be stronger than He?

by

Friday, 9 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are called to put our attention into two things, that is firstly, we have to remember the mission which God had entrusted to us all through His Apostles, as St. Paul succinctly placed in what he wrote in his Epistle, that we all are servants and preachers of the Gospel, the Good News of God. We are the evangelisers of this new and current time and age.

We serve the Lord by preaching the Good News which He has brought upon this world, by being witnesses of His death and resurrection. We are God’s servants, and thus we should speak, act and do things in accordance with what He has revealed to us and taught us, or else, others will not come to believe in us if we ourselves do not act in accordance with God’s ways.

And that is in tandem with the second thing that we heard in today’s Gospel, that is about how Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their hypocrisy and lack of genuine faith, using the well known parable of the plank and the eyes. They were rebuked as those who wanted to remove the sins in others while they themselves committed great sins and yet they turned a blind eye to these.

In order to understand this, we have to understand what it was like at the time of Jesus. The Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and scribes, the elders and the priestly class and caste are among the elites and the highly respected and influential members of the community, and also rightly feared for their influence and oppression of all forms of dissent against their authority.

They considered themselves pious and great in faith, as guardians of God’s laws and commandments. They treasured their customs and traditions, valuing highly their appearances and showy prayers in public as signs of their faith. And yet, in all these, they did not glorify God, and neither did they honour Him as He should have been honoured. They thought only of themselves and their human needs and desires.

And in that, they did not just oppress others around them but they also misled and misguided them to the wrong path. Instead of bringing the people closer to God, they have closed the path off to many, and including themselves as well. That is a reminder for us not to be like them and not to act as they have acted. We must instead be true to our faith and be committed in all things, that whatever we do, we do not for ourselves, but for the greater glory of God.

Perhaps the example of today’s saint, St. Peter Claver can be a source of inspiration and example for us all to follow from today on. St. Peter Claver was a Spanish Jesuit priest who went forth to the New World, what is today called the American continent. He went specifically to the Spanish colony in what is now Latin or South America, ministering to the people there, preaching among those who have yet to accept the Lord as their Saviour.

It was told that many people listened to his sermons and preachings, and as many as three hundred thousand people converted to the Faith and gave themselves to be baptised through his works, and that he baptised them all by himself throughout his forty years of working among them. He was hardworking and dedicated to his mission, that is to save the souls of those who still lived in the darkness and in ignorance of the Lord and His saving works.

St. Peter Claver did not allow himself to succumb to the same temptations facing the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Despite of his privileged position as a priest and as a Spanish, which accorded to him immense benefits and privileges as both a member of the clergy and as a European versus all the natives and the pagans living in the New World, he lived simply and even when given privileges, he chose to live among the slaves, to whom he had dedicated his life’s works to.

The examples of St. Peter Claver should serve as a reminder to us all, brothers and sisters in Christ, that as the disciples and servants of our Lord, we must live according to what He has commanded us to be, that is to love and to give ourselves in love to one another, just as St. Peter Claver had done. And he also gave himself to the poorest, the weakest, those who were oppressed and who were at a disadvantage.

Let us all therefore vow to make ourselves better disciples of the Lord, by following in the footsteps of our holy predecessors, the saints and servants of God, and not fall into the temptations of this world. May God help us to love each other ever more sincerely with each passing day. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Friday, 9 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Luke 6 : 39-42

At that time, Jesus offered this example, “Can a blind person lead another blind person? Surely both will fall into a ditch. A disciple is not above the master; but when fully trained, he will be like the master. So why do you pay attention to the speck in your brother’s eye, while you have a log in your eye, and are not conscious of it?”

“How can you say to your neighbour, ‘Friend, let me take this speck out of your eye,’ when you cannot remove the log in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the log from your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to remove the speck from your neighbour’s eye.”

by

Friday, 9 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
Psalm 83 : 3, 4, 5-6, 12

My soul years, pines, for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Even the sparrow finds a home and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, at Your altars, o Lord of hosts, my King and my God!

Happy are those who live in Your house, continually singing Your praise! Happy the pilgrims whom You strengthen, to make the ascent to You.

For the Lord God is a sun and a shield; He bestows favour and glory. The Lord withholds no good thing from those who walk in uprightness.

by

Friday, 9 September 2016 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Peter Claver, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests)
1 Corinthians 9 : 16-19, 22b-27

Because I cannot boast of announcing the Gospel : I am bound to do it. Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! If I preached voluntarily, I could expect my reward, but I have been trusted this office against my will. How can I, then, deserve a reward?

In announcing the Gospel, I will do it freely without making use of the rights given to me by the Gospel. So, feeling free with everybody, I have become everybody’s slave in order to gain a greater number.

So I made myself all things to all people in order to save, by all possible means, some of them. This I do for the Gospel, so that I too have a share of it. Have you not learnt anything from the stadium? Many run, but only one gets the prize. Run, therefore, intending to win it, as athletes who impose upon themselves a rigorous discipline. Yet for them the wreath is of laurels which wither, while for us, it does not wither.

So, then, I run knowing where I go. I box but not aimlessly in the air. I punish my body and control it, lest after preaching to others, I myself should be rejected.

by

Thursday, 8 September 2016 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when we all celebrate together the birthday of the Mother of our Lord, who was born of her parents, St. Joachim and St. Anne, and destined from the moment of her conception, immaculate and free from the taints of sin, to be the bearer of God’s salvation.

On this day, we celebrate together the birth of the one who would eventually become the Ark of the New Covenant, the bearer of the Messiah and the Saviour of the world. Today is a significant event, for the birth of Mary heralded the beginning of the time of grace, as God’s long awaited plan of salvation for His people was being fulfilled through her.

And as we listened to the message of the Sacred Scriptures, surely all of us would wonder why then the Lord would bother to go through so much trouble just in order to deal with us His people. We must be wondering why would He go through all these to help us and to bring us out from the darkness and into the light of His salvation. But that is exactly the wonder of the mysteries that God had revealed to us, that is His love.

God loves us all so much, so much so that in His love, He certainly would not want to see us suffer and perish in the darkness together with Satan and his allies who He had condemned into the eternal damnation. For us, there is still hope if we are able to commit ourselves to change our ways and to repent from all those sins and the things that kept us separated from God.

But in order to establish firmly the covenant and promise which He had made with us mankind, His beloved people, He has given us the perfect gift in His own Son, the Divine Word Incarnate, the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord. And as promised by Himself to us through His prophets and servants, He would Himself come and dwell among us, to be one with us, that we may be His people, and He may be our God.

If at the ancient times, God descended among His people in pillars of cloud and fire, then God has since then decided to dwell among us, to be with us His beloved ones, and what way is better than for He Himself to come down upon us and dwell among us as one of us? He took up our flesh through the intermediary of His mother Mary, that as He share in our flesh and existence, so will He share with us His glory and the eternal life He has promised us.

And through Mary, His mother and along with her, He has shown us the examples of how we ought to live our lives that we may be considered and be counted among His faithful and righteous ones. She is a role model for us all in how she had been faithful to the mission which has been entrusted to her. Mary since her birth has been a devoted servant of the Lord, pious and righteous in all her ways.

But most importantly, even though there were uncertainties and doubts in her heart, she gave her all and devote herself completely to the care and love for her Son, Jesus our Lord. She persevered through all the challenges, protecting and guiding her Son through His life. And having followed Him through her life, following Him even through the moments of His Passion, looking at His suffering at the hands of His tormentors and enemies, and eventually witnessing His death on the cross, certainly what she had done was not merely something ordinary.

Having stood by faithfully and committed herself completely to the Lord, and by being righteous, upright and just in all of her actions and deeds in life, Mary is indeed the best role model for all of us the people who are faithful to God and members of His Church. By following her, we will be able to find the best path to reach out to the Lord our God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rejoice and celebrate today in commemoration of the birth of the mother of our Lord, Mary, the Mother of God, let us all also take some time to reflect on our own actions in life, and see in what way we can emulate and follow in the footsteps of Mary. May the Lord help us in this endeavour, and guide us that we may find our way to reach Him and the salvation which He has promised us all. God bless us all. Amen.