Holy Week Homily

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Friday, 15 April 2022 : Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we mark the important occasion of Good Friday, on which day we remember the Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, as we are surely all familiar with, as He brought His Cross from Jerusalem right up to the hill of Calvary, was nailed on the Cross, raised up and eventually died. Through His death, the Lord has brought us all the salvation and the eternal life that He has promised to each and every one of us. This day we remember that act of supreme love which Our Lord had done for us, remembering His own words, that there is no greater love than for one to lay down his life for a friend.

This Good Friday celebration reminds us of all that God had done for us, out of His persistent and enduring love for each one of us sinners. He loved us all so much that He has given us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Who suffered and died for our sake. This same Christ brought His Cross and placed it firmly on His shoulders, taking upon Himself all of our faults and sins, enduring on our behalf all the sufferings and punishments due for those sins, so that by His sufferings, His wounds, He might become for us a source of sure hope and consolation, bringing upon us redemption and a new life blessed by God, to be reunited with God, our most loving Father and Creator.

His suffering and death has been long foretold before by the prophets, most prominently by Isaiah, as we heard in our first reading today. Through the Servant prophesied by Isaiah, God would bring about the salvation of all mankind. Yet, He would have to endure the worst treatments and the greatest humiliations in order to accomplish His mission. He would be broken and crushed, and all of the sufferings intended for us would be placed squarely on His shoulders. Those were all the things that Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, had willingly accepted upon Himself, in fulfilment of the prophecies made about Him.

And in continuation of yesterday’s discourse from the Mass of Holy Thursday, the Institution of the Holy Eucharist and the Last Supper, I have shared earlier how today’s events cannot be separated from all the events that were commemorated yesterday. I mentioned how the Last Supper is the New Passover and the hallmark of the New Covenant which Our Lord has made and established with us, modelled upon the original Passover which happened in the land of Egypt, when the Lord saved the Israelites from the tyranny of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh.

At the Last Supper, the Lord made a fundamental change to the celebration of the Passover, which while was still essentially similar, He placed Himself as the centre and the focus of the commemoration, and the absence of the usual young, unblemished lamb that were slain and sacrificed, to be shared by everyone. And that is because in the new Passover and the new Covenant, Christ Himself is the Lamb, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. This is important because at the Last Supper, the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist, transforming the bread and wine fully into the essence, substance and reality of His own Precious Body and Blood.

He shared His Precious Body and Blood in the bread He blessed and broke, and in the wine He blessed and shared with the disciples, and through them, He has passed the same Eucharist to us. At every celebration of the Holy Mass, as the priests prayed the prayer of consecration, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the bread and wine the priests offered on our behalf at the Mass, are also transformed into the same Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord. Yet, at the same time, it is not that a new sacrifice is offered each time the Holy Mass is celebrated, but rather, the same sacrifice of Our Lord that spans the period from the Last Supper to Calvary is brought into our midst, the same loving sacrifice of Our Lord that we remember and celebrate today.

And as I mentioned yesterday night, the Last Supper in fact happened earlier than the typical Passover which happened on the Sabbath. It was mentioned at the end of the Gospel today that after the Lord had died, it was the preparation day for the Sabbath, and He could not be properly buried yet as there was not enough time before the Sabbath began on sunset on the same day of the Lord’s death on the Cross. If we remember what happened on the original Passover, the Lord instructed that the young, unblemished lamb were to be prepared and then slaughtered the day before the Passover. This very day is the day when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered. When the Lord said from His Cross towards the very end, ‘It is accomplished’, it is a reference to the completion of the offering of the Lord’s sacrifice for the atonement of our sins.

Hence, Good Friday is indeed a commemoration of the moment when Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Sinless One and the Lamb of God was slain for us, much as how the Passover lamb was slain and its blood used to mark the houses of the faithful. In the same way, by His death, the offering and sacrifice began at the Last Supper and completed on Good Friday, Our Lord has broken His Body and shed His Blood for us, that on His Cross, the offering and gift of the Eucharist that we all share as Christians, was made complete and perfect. That is why we believe in the doctrine of transubstantiation, that the bread and wine have been fully transformed in essence and reality to the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself.

That is why the Holy Mass itself is the recreation of the events at Calvary, the Lord offering His own Body and Blood, the perfect and worthy Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb slain for our sake. At the Holy Mass we have the unbloodied representation of the same bloody sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary, on our Altars the same sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ, Our Lord, Saviour and High Priest on the Altar of His Cross. That is what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews had spoken about, that Christ is the one true High Priest Who has offered the perfect sacrifice, with Himself as the sacrificial victim as the Lamb of God. That is why the Mass is truly the pinnacle of our worship, the worship of God Who has come down into our midst to dwell with us, and Who has willingly embraced suffering and death for our sake.

For the only sacrificial offering worthy of the redemption of all mankind is Christ Himself, Who as the perfect and unblemished, immaculate Son of God and Son of Man, has offered Himself as the means for us to be reconciled with God. Through His Cross, He has reestablished the connection and path between us and God, a connection that had once been broken by our disobedience and sins. He has shown us the power of God’s love, mercy and compassion. That is why today, even as the whole creation mourns the death of the Son of God, it is a ‘Good’ Friday because this day we who once have no hope of redemption have seen the light of God and the path out of the darkness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we commemorate our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, we are all called to remember that through our baptism, we have shared in the death that Christ has gone through, by dying to our sins and our past way of life. Let us all look upon the Lord crucified today and see in Him, our hope and our salvation, and be fearful no more. Christ our Lord has conquered by His Cross, and by His sacrifice which we now commemorate, He has reunited us all to God. Let us all be thankful to all that He had done for our sake, and commit ourselves to Him anew.

Let us all pick up our crosses and follow Him, as He Himself said that no one can become His disciples unless they pick up their crosses and walk with Him. This is what we need to do from now on. Let this Good Friday commemoration is not just a-once a year event and then is quickly forgotten again once the Holy Week is over. As Christians we are all called to be good role models, inspirations and examples for one another, in how we live our lives and in all of our actions. Are we able to do this, brothers and sisters? Are we ready and capable of committing ourselves to be the faithful witnesses of Our Crucified Christ?

May our Lord Jesus, Who was crucified and died for us all out of His boundless love for each one of us, continue to watch over us as we journey in this world. May all of us remain strong in our faith, commitment and dedication to Our Lord, even as we encounter many challenges and trials in our path. May all of us persevere in faith in the same way that Our Lord has persevered through even the worst of sufferings, pain and humiliation that through Him we may have the hope and joy of eternal life, free forever from the bondage and tyranny of sin and evil, from death and damnation in hell. May God bless us all in the remaining Easter Triduum celebrations and henceforth, that we will always grow ever closer to Him, now and always. Amen.

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Thursday, 14 April 2022 : Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this night celebration of the Holy Mass, the whole Church celebrates together the Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the commemoration of the Last Supper during which time the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist, and told His disciples to commemorate it in His memory. This night is very important as it was the moment when the Lord began the journey of His Passion that ended only on the glorious Resurrection at Easter. Hence, that is why we celebrate them together in the Easter Triduum beginning tonight right up to Easter Sunday of Our Lord’s Resurrection.

This night we remember that night when the Lord had His Last Supper with His disciples when He broke the bread with them and shared to them the bread which He spoke to them is His Body, given to them freely, and also shared the cup of wine that He had blessed, the wine that has turned into His Most Precious Blood. It was at the Last Supper that the Lord revealed what He was going to do in order to bring about the salvation of the whole world, by His Passion, His suffering, death on the Cross and resurrection, through which He would lead us into the new life of true happiness and joy.

In our first reading today, we heard of the account from the Book of Exodus recounting to us of the pivotal moment in the history of the salvation of God’s people, when God was finally about to lead His people, the Israelites out from their enslavement in Egypt. Up to that moment, God had sent nine great plagues against Egypt and its people because of their stubborn refusal to let the Israelites go free after enslaving them and treating them badly without dignity and respect for them, after exploiting them and trying to eliminate them as a people and nation. The Lord was about to bring one last, greatest plague that would free the people at last.

And that plague was the death of all the firstborn sons of the Egyptians, every one of them in the land of Egypt except for the ones whom God would mark and then ‘passed over’. Thus, God gave Moses and Aaron the very specific instructions on what they were to do, in preparing for the very first Passover, the original Passover in the land of Egypt. In particular, the people of Israel were told to prepare and set aside a young, unblemished lamb for sacrifice and to be consumed together as family or group of families together on the night of the Passover.

How is this significant for us, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is significant because what happened at the original Passover is exactly what was taking place at the Last Supper as well. The Lord was telling His disciples with the message when He asked them to get ready the place for the Last Supper with the words asking where they would have their Passover meal. Therefore, the Last Supper was indeed the same Passover that the descendants of the Israelites have always commemorated every year. However, we should notice that there is something very different in the Last Supper versus the usual Passover celebrations.

And that is the lack of the centrepiece of the Passover meal, which is the sacrificed lamb. Why is that so? That is because Christ Himself, is the Lamb Who was to be sacrificed and offered to God, and He is the centrepiece of the Passover at the Last Supper, representing the new Passover and the New Covenant that He was to establish with everything that took place between the Last Supper and His death on the Cross. For first of all, we must understand that the Last Supper did not actually end on the Last Supper on that night itself, but in fact continued on right up to the last moments of the Lord on the Cross.

Remember that Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist at the Last Supper? The bread that He blessed and broke, and shared with the disciples had turned into His own Most Precious Body, not just in symbolic manner but in real substance and nature, and while it may still appear as bread and taste as bread, but that bread has fundamentally been changed into the very essence of God and His Presence, His own Body, to be broken, shared and given up to us. The same happened to the wine as well, which had become the Most Precious Blood, in all substance and nature, shed and poured down to us to share and drink.

Christ, Our Lord and Saviour is the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrificial Lamb Who had allowed Himself to be led to the slaughter, to be the One to both offer and complete the worthy sacrifice for the sake of all of us. That just as how the ancient Passover led the people of God free from their slavery in Egypt, thus, through Christ’s new Passover, the Holy Eucharist, He is bringing all of us mankind, His beloved children, to the freedom from the slavery under sin and death. The Lord is bringing us into the joy of eternal life that He has always intended for us to enjoy, which had been denied to us due to our own disobedience and sins.

And by His Blood we have been marked much as the people of Israel had been saved by the mark of the lamb’s blood on the lintels of their doors, marking them as the houses of the righteous that the Angels of Death passed over and did not harm. That is yet another way how the ancient Passover and the New Passover are so symbolically similar to each other. Therefore, by the Blood of the Lamb of God, we have been marked as His own, and as those who are deserving of life and not death and destruction. Just as the Israelites had been passed over from death, we too share in the new life that God has brought us.

Then, why did I mention that the Last Supper was not yet completed on that very night? That is because if we pay attention carefully, the Last Supper actually took place before the date of the actual Passover, which happened on the day of the Sabbath, after the Lord’s death on Good Friday. If we see the chronology of events carefully, we will see that the day that the Lord died on the Cross marked the day before the Passover day, the day when the Passover lamb was slaughtered and sacrificed, had its blood poured so that on the day of the Passover, the blood of the lamb saved the people from destruction and death.

Hence, in the same manner, by the Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, poured forth from His Cross, as He laid dying between the heaven and the earth, the slain Lamb of God, all of us are marked for salvation and eternal life, all of us who believe in Him and put our faith in Him receive from Him the assurance of true joy and happiness with Him and through Him. The offering and sacrifice begun on the Last Supper is completed on the Cross at Good Friday, which was marked by the Lord’s own words on the Cross, ‘It is accomplished.’

That is why, at every celebration of the Holy Mass, we are actually commemorating again the very same sacrifice and offering made by the Lord on His Cross at Calvary. At every Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priests, by the faculty and authority granted to them by the Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, received by them through the Apostles, those same Apostles to whom the Lord entrusted the Eucharist, changed the bread and wine into the essence, substance and reality of Our Lord’s own Most Precious Body and Blood. They may still retain the appearance of bread and wine, but in truth, they are no longer just bread and wine.

And that is the centre of our faith, brothers and sisters in Christ, that in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, we believe that in the Holy Mass, the bread and wine has been completely transformed barring their appearance, into the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself, the Holy Eucharist. That is why today we celebrate the Institution of this great Sacrament, by which God made Himself available for us. And we remember Him, our Bread of Life, Who have shared with us this same Precious Body and Blood, that as He Himself said, that whoever partake of Him, shall have eternal life.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we remember the Last Supper in today’s Mass, we also prepare ourselves for the events surrounding Our Lord’s crucifixion and death which we shall celebrate tomorrow on Good Friday. The two events cannot be separated from each other, and tonight, as we enter into the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we should really appreciate the importance of the Eucharist even more if we have not yet done so, realising that the Eucharist is the pinnacle of our worship and also the same sacrifice of Our Lord that began on the Last Supper and continuing all throughout the events of Good Friday up to the Lord’s death on the Cross. On the Altar, are the same Precious Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, that had been slain and sacrificed for us.

These were all the things that God had done for us, with such love that He willingly braved even the worst of sufferings and death for our sake. And as we heard in the Gospel passage today, He has shown us true humility of humbling Himself and wearing the clothes of a slave, to wipe the feet of His own disciples, an act performed only by slaves. He made Himself like a slave, just like how He has humbly accepted His Cross, to be treated worse that a slave, as a criminal and to be humiliated and rejected, all so that by His obedience, He may save us from our sins and from the certainty of death.

He told His disciples to do the same as He had done, to love one another and to serve each other with love to the best of our abilities. This is our Christian calling, to be the true disciples of Christ in all things, but in particular in reaching out to our fellow brothers and sisters with genuine love and care, in putting others and their needs before ourselves and our selfish desires. We are all called to remember this, how the Lord has done all for our sake and how He even humbled Himself for our sake. He died for us out of love and to save us from the depth of darkness. Are we able to emulate that same love in us too, brothers and sisters?

As we enter into this celebration of the Easter Triduum, let us all immerse ourselves deeply in the events surrounding Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death, and strive to love Him ever more and to live our lives ever more in accordance with His truth. Let us focus our attention on Him and spend good and precious quality time with Him as we commemorate these important events in the history of our salvation. May God, our most loving Lord and Creator, be with us in our journey of faith and help us to make our Easter Triduum journey a most blessed and fruitful one. Amen.

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Thursday, 14 April 2022 : Holy Thursday, Chrism Mass (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we celebrate and gather together in the occasion of this Chrism Mass, all of us are called to remember the gift of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit that He has given to each and every one of us through the laying of hands and through anointing with the sacred oils which are going to be blessed today for the various uses they have in the many aspects of the Church and its liturgies. Holy oils have been used for a very long time and in our Christian usage, they have a lot of symbolic and real meaning and uses, especially to mark that one is holy and as belonging to God.

This Chrism Mass is an annual event during which time the bishop of the diocese, the local ordinary gathers together with all the members of the clergy, the priests and all those who have been consecrated to God as His servants. In this Mass not only that the holy oils are blessed, but the priests together with the bishop also renew their priestly vows and promises, as a reminder that they have been called and set aside, consecrated to God by the same holy oils in the Sacrament of the Holy Orders, whether it is to the diaconate, presbyterate or the episcopate.

There are three holy oils used by the Church that are blessed today in the Chrism Mass. They are namely the Sacred Chrism, the Oil of the Catechumens and the Oil of the Sick. Each of them mark Christians through different moments and stages in their lives, with the Oil of the Catechumens used first to mark the catechumens or those who seek to be baptised and welcomed into the Church. All of them are reminders of how the holy oils mark one as sacred and holy, in the same way of how the kings of Israel like Saul, David, Solomon and others were anointed by God through His servants.

The Sacred Chrism, also known as Sanctum Chrisma is usually the one most frequently used as it is used to anoint the newly baptised Christians, as well as during the Sacrament of Confirmation, and also during the dedication and consecration of churches and altars, the ordination of deacons, priests and bishops. The Oil of the Catechumens, also known as Oleum Catechumenorum, as mentioned marks those who have expressed their willingness to embrace the Christian faith and the Lord as their God and Saviour. Lastly, the Oil of the Sick, also known as Oleum Infirmorum, as its name suggests, is used for the anointing of the sick in the Sacrament of the Sick, for those who are in the danger of death.

Each of these holy oils as mentioned mark us Christians at various stages of our faith and life, and all of them are very significant as they are also reminders of our own vocations, our calling as Christians. As Christians, we are all marked by God as His own, as partakers of the Covenant that He has made with us through Christ, His Son. By all that He had done throughout His Passion, which we focus and reflect on this Holy Week, God has established a new and everlasting Covenant with us, a Covenant that is founded on His enduring and patient, wonderful love for every one of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, while today the clergy, the bishops and the priests all around the world are renewing their vows and promises, the whole Church especially the laity are also involved. This day is not a celebration or reminder just for the clergy but also for everyone, as we must not forget that even the laity have all also been anointed with the sacred oils before and after their baptism, and most of us who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation have also been anointed further and given the affirmation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit entrusted to us all. Each and every one of us have been called and chosen, and some of us have been called to a higher calling to give their whole lives to God, but all are called all the same.

Today all of us are reminded to follow Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, Whose life itself is an example for us all to follow, in His obedience to the Father’s will, in His love for each and every one of us, even to the worst of sinners and to the most despised ones among everyone. As Christians, we can no longer be idle in living our faith in our lives. We cannot and should not pay mere lip service to the Lord and pretend to be faithful to Him when in fact we do not have faith in Him. The Lord has always been patient in loving us and in wanting to be reconciled with us, but often it is us who refused to listen to Him and resist His efforts to bring us closer to Him.

Many of us have also not lived our lives as Christians in the way that we should have. We spent a lot of time worrying and caring about our own personal matters, concerns and ambitions, but we barely spent any time with the Lord, and let us ask ourselves if we even thought of having to attend Masses on Sundays as a chore? How many of us cannot wait until the Mass is over so that we can continue with our own daily activities, our own worldly pursuits, the pursuit for money, power, glory, fame and many others? Have we even spent good, precious and quality time with the Lord? Remember, brothers and sisters, this Holy Week is a call for us to recall God’s great love for us, that He willingly took up His Cross to redeem us, because He loved us more than He despised our sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reflect on the importance of answering God’s call in our lives. Let us all turn towards God with faith, with renewed zeal and commitment, that each and every one of us may draw ever closer to God and be His true disciples and followers. Through the anointing with the holy oils we have been marked and made holy for God, and it is time for us to answer His call for us, and embracing Him wholeheartedly from now on. May God be with us always and may He empower us to live ever faithfully in His presence from now on, now and always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 13 April 2022 : Wednesday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our Scripture passages today we heard of the sufferings that the Lord would receive at the hands of His oppressors, as well as everything that would happen to Him in the moment of His Passion, His suffering and death. He would be abandoned by His disciples, betrayed by one of His closest collaborators, and He would have to endure the punishments and sufferings for mistakes, crimes and sins that He Himself did not commit.

Through Christ, our Lord and Saviour, God has willed to redeem us all from our sins, and through Him, He has called us out of the darkness, bringing His light of hope and truth into our midst, as He revealed His perfect and ever-enduring love and kindness, His compassion and mercy through Christ, the manifestation of His love in the flesh. God has become Man so that through this act of supreme love, He can be reconciled with us, and that we may find our way back to Him, and will not perish but have eternal life, as He has always intended for us.

Yet, in order to do that, He had to suffer, and suffer most grievously because the consequence and punishment for sin is rightly death. We have disobeyed and abandoned the Lord and Master of all life, the Source of our life and the One from Whom we gained our existence, and therefore, we deserve death and destruction. We should all have been condemned to hell and the eternity of sufferings, as what the devil and his fellow fallen angels had been sentenced to.

But God loved us all above everything else. For He created us out of love, making us all in His own image, as the most perfect and beloved of all of His creations. He gave us life because He loved us all and wanted us all to enjoy forever with Him the goodness and the bounty of His wonderful works, with the Gardens of Eden, the paradise that existed at the beginning of time supposedly where we should have been, if not for our downfall into sin.

Through sin we have been defiled and therefore separated from God, and yet, God did not condemn us, destroy us or annihilate us when He could perfectly and easily have done so. Instead, He still loved us all very much, and His love for us all surpassed the disgust and the anger He has against our sinfulness. He despised not us, the sinners, but our sins and wickedness. His love for us endures and even grows stronger, as He continued to watch over us and wanted to be reconciled with us.

God has loved us so much that He gave us all His one and only begotten Son, that through Him we may not perish, but have eternal life. He has reached out to us through His Son, Who willingly endured that betrayal and rejection, all the insults and humiliations, the worst of all pains and sufferings imaginable, as He shouldered His Cross and endured countless blows and wounds to His Body. That is why today we heard all of these from the Scriptures as a reminder for us of how much beloved we are by God that He has willingly done all these for our sake, to go through all the worst sufferings for us.

Today we also heard how Judas Iscariot betrayed the Lord for the mere price of thirty silver coins, which contextually was the price of a slave. Therefore, God allowed Himself to be treated like a slave, to be punished for us, so that like what He had once done to the Israelites in leading them out of their slavery in Egypt, He may also lead all of us out of our slavery to sin. Judas Iscariot showed us how our greed and desire can be our great undoing and lead us down the path towards ruin. We can end up doing things that we regret, just as Judas was swayed by Satan and overwhelmed by his desire for money and lack of faith to betray his own Lord and Master.

Then, this Holy Week as we draw closer to the beginning of Easter Triduum tomorrow, have we prepared ourselves worthily in our hearts, minds and indeed in our whole entire beings? Have we prepared ourselves so that we may physically, spiritually and mentally celebrate the upcoming greatest events and mysteries surrounding our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death, His Resurrection by which all of us have received the guarantee of eternal life and true happiness? We are all called to put our faith in Him and spend this time to reflect on our own lives. Have we lived our lives in accordance with God’s ways or not?

May the Lord continue to guide us and help us, so that in everything we do, we will always be exemplary in all things, and be good role models and examples for our fellow men and women. Let us all make good use of our time and the opportunities given to us so that we may be ever better disciples and followers of Our Lord. Let us all not be like Judas Iscariot who easily gave in to temptations and betrayed the Lord for money. May all of us be ever closer to God and be ever more reflective of His love and truth in our lives and actions, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 12 April 2022 : Tuesday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us regarding the works of the Lord in redeeming His beloved ones. All of us have been reminded of everything that the Lord had done for our sake, by the sending of His one and only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to this world to be our Lord and Saviour. Through Christ we have received the assurance of eternal life and true happiness, and as we draw ever closer to the pinnacle of the Holy Week at the Easter Triduum, we are all called to draw close to God and live our lives more worthily of Him from now on.

In our first reading today, from the book of the prophet Isaiah we heard of the words of the Lord speaking to His people, again on the prophecy of the Messiah or the Saviour from God that Isaiah was well-known for. The Lord reminded His people that He would come into their midst and provide for them all that they needed, and that He would gather them back once again into His embrace and presence, and they will never be separated from Him again, for through Christ, His Son, He has shown us the path to light and eternal life.

Isaiah spoke clearly about Christ and His coming into this world, and how He would gather all of God’s people back to Him, and what Isaiah also spoke of was how this same Saviour would have to suffer rejection, humiliation and persecution from those who refused to believe in Him and remained stubborn in their ways. The Lord would nonetheless labour and work hard to achieve all of that because He truly loved all of us without reservations. He wants us to be reunited to Him and not be lost forever to Him.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, He willingly accepted His Passion, knowing everything that would happen to Him. He knew that He had to endure the worst of sufferings, the worst of humiliations, having to endure harsh words and castigations, opposition and the worst of treatment, to be treated as less than a human being, and marked as a criminal for the crimes that He did not commit, and to be betrayed by one of His own closest disciples, Judas Iscariot the traitor.

In our Gospel passage today, that was what we heard, as we listened to how the Lord revealed what He would have to endure, and revealing the betrayal of Judas Iscariot, who at that time had already possessed the intention to betray the Lord and already had Satan inside him, tempting him and pushing him to betray his Lord and Master. Judas Iscariot gave in to his temptations and desires, and having selfishly pocketed the monies from his own group’s treasury which was under his charge, it would not probably be difficult for him to be tempted to betray the Lord for the sum of money provided by the chief priests and elders.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we enter deeper into the mysteries of the Holy Week, all of us should spend some time to reflect on our actions throughout life all these while. Have we been living our lives in opposition to God’s will and truth? Have we lived in opposition to God and His consistent patience in always reaching out to us? Have we been like prodigal children who have often refused to listen to our parents? God has always been kind to us and yet we have always spurned and rejected His generous offer of love.

Let us all spend the time this Holy Week to rediscover our love for God, and do our best to embrace His compassionate love and mercy. Let us no longer harden our hearts or allow the devil to mislead us down the path of rebellion and sin. Let us turn away from the wicked ways of this world and all that had kept us from fully embracing God and His love. This Holy Week we are again and again being reminded of everything that God had done for our sake, because He truly loved us so dearly, that He was willing to shoulder His Cross, to take upon Himself the burdens of our sins.

May all of us distance ourselves from the wickedness of our world and strive to be better and more faithful disciples and followers of God in all of our lives, in all of our actions. May we be good role models and inspirations for each other in how we conduct ourselves. Let our Holy Week observances and actions help us to deepen our relationship with God and follow Him from now on with ever greater zeal and dedication. Have a blessed and most enriching Holy Week, brothers and sisters in Christ! Amen.

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Monday, 11 April 2022 : Monday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to our Scripture passages detailing to us more about the actions that the Lord had taken for the sake of our salvation, as He entered into His Passion, the culmination of His ministry in this world. The Lord has come into our midst to bring unto us the liberation and the promises that He has made to us since the very beginning. He has never abandoned us even in our most rebellious and delinquent moments. We will never be disappointed or found wanting should we put our faith and trust in God. In the end, we all shall triumph together with Him and we shall be victorious in our struggle with evil and sin, with death and the battle against damnation.

In our first reading today, we heard of the account from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which the Lord spoke through Isaiah the prophecy of the Messiah or Saviour that God has promised. He spoke of how the Messiah would come to bring all of His people back to Him, to proclaim the Good News of the salvation of God, ushering the blessed time of new life with God. The beloved people of God would no longer be separated from Him, and He will gather all of them into His Presence, reconciling each and every one of us to Himself, through none other than the very same Saviour, Jesus Christ, the One Whom Isaiah had spoken about.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the account of the moment when the Lord Jesus, just shortly before His suffering and death, had His feet anointed by Mary, likely referring to Mary Magdalene, who used a precious and expensive jar of perfume to anoint the Lord’s feet and then wipe His feet clean with her tears and her hair. As the Lord Himself mentioned, this act was very symbolic of everything that He was to go through in order to secure for us the assurance of eternal life, that He has to go through death in order to save us all, and the anointing was reminiscent of what the dead bodies experienced, as they were usually anointed with perfumes and precious spices before they were to be buried.

We also heard how Judas Iscariot, the same one who would betray the Lord, immediately criticised Mary and her actions, saying that what she had done and spent in anointing the Lord with such expensive perfume could have been better used when sold and then the proceeds given to the poor. However, as we all heard in the same passage, the apparently noble facade of Judas Iscariot hid the true most malicious intent of the man, who had always dishonestly taken from the common fund of the Lord and His disciples, for his own personal benefits, and worse still, as we heard today, he acted as the ultimate hypocrite in saying such words.

The Lord certainly knew all that Judas had done, and He also immediately rebuked him for his words, and instead explained that what Mary did was indeed right, in preparing Him and His Body for the upcoming suffering and death that He would endure. Essentially, the Lord praised Mary for her humility and faith, that she would humble herself so, humbling herself before everyone and wiping the Lord’s feet with her hair, the crown of her beauty, symbolising her submission to God and her abandonment of worldly glory and desires in pursuit of the Lord and His truth. Contrast this with the prideful and haughty attitude of Judas Iscariot, who though sinner, must have thought of himself as being better and morally more upright than Mary.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, reflecting on all that we have heard from the Scripture passages today, we are all reminded that we are all sinners who have been so fortunate to be beloved by God so wonderfully that He has given each and every one of us the sure path out of the darkness through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. The Lord has come into our midst and He has dwelled among us, that He may bring to us the fullness of His love, and that He may bring us back to His embrace. And though we are sinners, He loves us much greater than He despises our sins, and should we be like Mary, in humbling ourselves and seeking to love and serve the Lord once again, we shall be justified, be pardoned from our sins, and be fully reconciled with Him.

Now, as we proceed through this holiest time of the Holy Week, let us all reflect carefully on our lives and actions. Let us all ponder in what way we can better live our lives that we may walk ever more courageously and with dedication in the path that the Lord has shown to us. All of us have been called and invited to return to the Lord with faith, and we recall all that the Lord, our most loving God and Saviour, by Whose suffering, death and resurrection we have been made whole again, and given once again the new hope and sure assurance of eternal life of true happiness with Him. All of us should have deserved death and eternal damnation for our sins, and yet, God in His infinite mercy and compassion wants us to repent from those sins and to return to Him.

Let us all therefore make great use of the time and opportunities that have been given to us so we may not fall into the path of sin and damnation, but instead, enter into the Lord’s presence worthy and justified by our faith. Let us have a most fruitful Holy Week and be filled with renewed conviction from now on to live our lives in the path of the Lord and be courageous and committed disciples, not imitating the examples of Judas Iscariot, but rather the piety and humility as shown by Mary as we heard in our Gospel passage today. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 April 2022 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week, the most solemn time and occasion in the entire liturgical year, as rightfully we should turn away from all of our other matters and concerns, and spend more time with the Lord, reflecting and immersing ourselves deeply in the mystery and events surrounding Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering, death and eventual glorious resurrection from the dead. On this Sunday, which we celebrate as the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, we mark the beginning of this very important series of event in the history of our salvation.

For this Sunday marks the moment when the Lord entered into the moment of His Passion, beginning the final stage of His mission and work in this world. The Lord travelled to Judea and Jerusalem for the last time after approximately three years of His ministry, and this time, He knew that this was the moment of His greatest work, when He would have to suffer for the sake of all mankind. But at the same time, He willingly went through with it, obeying perfectly the will of His heavenly Father, and because all of us are truly beloved by Him, so much so that He was willing to endure all that for our sake.

Today we heard first of all the reading of the Gospel at the beginning, in which the celebration of the Lord’s glorious entry to Jerusalem is celebrated. The palms are blessed and we all gather together to celebrate and glorify the Lord, our Saviour and King, Who has come into our midst, as He came to Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of the prophets, that the King would come to His people on a humble and lowly donkey. The Lord Jesus came into Jerusalem upon the glorious cries and shout of joy, of people praising God, with the words, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!’

The people raised palm fronds and branches, putting their cloaks and clothes on the floor, welcoming the Lord with great pomp and circumstance, a welcome fit for a king. And indeed, the Lord is the King of all, and not just the King of Israel but also the King of Kings, the Lord and Master over all of creation. Yet, He came to His people not as a mighty conqueror or warrior, riding on a warhorse or carried on a golden throne, and instead, He came riding on a mere, lowly donkey, an animal which people at that time often derided and under-appreciate, for its demeanour and lack of majesty unlike that of a great horse.

But that was exactly where the real nature of our Lord’s Kingship is revealed to us. Our Lord is the King Who came not to seek to be served but to serve us. He is a King Who did not need to depend on all the pomps and glamour to boost His credentials and power. He is the true Source of all power and authority, the One true King over all the kings and lords of this world, the true Master of all creation. He came to us revealing the nature of His love for each one of us. Here is our Lord and King, Who has humbled Himself and obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly, that even as He entered Jerusalem with such great pomp and circumstance, it was also a reminder of what would happen within just merely within the same week.

For the very same people who had cheered on the Lord that day would likely be the same people who also cried out just a few days later, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ at the instigation of the members of the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council. The same people who welcomed the Lord as their King would also be the same people who denied Him just a few days later and said that they had no king except for Caesar, the Roman Emperor. We can see how quickly everything turned, and all of those things happening within just merely within the span of a week’s time.

That is why today on this Palm Sunday marking the beginning of Holy Week, we celebrate two distinct yet connected events, namely the triumphal entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and the Passion of Our Lord, meaning His suffering and death, the events surrounding the Last Supper and the condemnation of Jesus, and His crucifixion and death on the Cross at Calvary. That is why today we call the celebration as the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, because by His entry into Jerusalem, the Lord came to finally fulfil the promises He had made to His people, the salvation that He would bring into their midst.

He has already made it known on several prior occasions on what would happen to Him, how He would be rejected and persecuted, condemned to death like a criminal and be raised up before all to see, much like how Moses raised up the bronze serpent that saved many Israelites from the death due to their own sins. Thus, the Lord came to Jerusalem to fulfil everything as foretold and prophesied, that He would, in just a short time after, be raised up on His Cross, at the culmination of His ministry and the Passion He endured for our sake, out of His overflowing love, to save us from certain annihilation and destruction.

For through His death and resurrection, the Lord has established anew the Covenant between us and God, with His Cross as the Bridge that bridges the gap between us sinners and our Lord and Creator. Through sin we have been made unworthy of God and corrupted. We have been separated from God and should have been condemned to eternal damnation. There existed that uncrossable and impassable chasm between God and us, ever since we first fell into the traps of sin. However, God made the impossible into possibility because He Himself built the bridge that helped to reconnect us to God, by His Cross.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on the important events celebrated in this Palm Sunday, the glorious and triumphant Entry to Jerusalem and the Passion of Our Lord and the way of His suffering all the way to the Cross, we are all invited to spend more time this week, during this holiest of all weeks, the Holy Week, to be closer to God, to be more attuned to Him and to walk ever more faithfully in His path. All of us are called to make good use of this time of the Holy Week beginning today to prepare ourselves, if we have not yet done so, to be ever more worthy of celebrating the greatest mysteries of our salvation and liberation from sin.

Let us remind ourselves of the great love that God has constantly shown us, all these while, that He has always willingly reached out to us, embracing us with genuine love and ever-patient compassion and mercy, that despite our constant stubbornness and disobedience, He has come to be with us, dwelling with us and to gather us back to Himself, to be our Lord and King forever. And now, let us also ask ourselves, if we have responded to His love with the same love and the same commitment to the Covenant that He has established with each and every one of us. If we have not done so, then we have to ask ourselves, why we have not done so yet.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, one aspect of the Palm Sunday celebrations that we may easily overlook is the symbolic representation of the Lord riding on the donkey, in which the Lord specifically told His disciples to bring a tied colt that had not been ridden before to be His ride. It was this colt that would become His donkey as mentioned earlier. The tied colt represent the attitude of the people of Israel, who had tied themselves to the old ways, their past sinfulness and refusal to obey the will of God. Meanwhile, the untying of the colt represent the freedom that the Lord brought to them, and a reminder of how He had freed their ancestors from the tyranny of the Egyptians.

At the same time, the colt that had not been ridden before also serves as a the representation of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people, who had not been burdened by the Law as interpreted by the Pharisees and the generations of the additions that burdened the Jewish people. The Lord taking this colt as His ride itself is according to the Church tradition and understanding serves to remind us that He came into this world to gather us all, His beloved people, to gather all His children, be it Jews or Gentiles. All are beloved equally by God, whether they belong to the race of the people called earlier by God and bound by the Law of Moses, or whether they were outside this chosen race. Everyone through Christ has become one united people in faith, not bound by blood, race, or any other artificial constructs or divisions that we often placed to divide us into ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King has brought us the assurance of hope and eternal life. All of us who believe in Him shall experience the fullness of His love and grace, the fullness of His inheritance and glory. All that remains is for us to answer His call and commit ourselves to follow Him. As we raise our blessed palms and praising the Lord, let us ask ourselves, ‘Is the Lord Jesus truly the King of our hearts, our minds, and indeed, the King of our whole entire beings?’ And if we consider Him as our Lord and King, then naturally we have to live our lives in accordance with His ways. Otherwise then we are behaving like hypocrites, who pretend to believe in something and yet act in an entirely different way in life.

As we enter into this solemn occasion of the Holy Week, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord that we may deepen our relationship with Him and spend more quality time with Him. Let us all turn away from our sinful paths and our stubborn attitudes, and let us truly recognise Him as our Lord and King, and welcome Him into our hearts and beings, into our houses and families. Let our Holy Week observance and actions be filled with rich faith and true desire to love the Lord more and more with each and every passing moments. We have to follow the examples set by Our Lord Himself, Who obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly and humbled Himself such that through Him, all of us have gained the assurance of eternal life. Follow Christ, and we will follow Him to eternal life.

Let us all be inspiration for one another in how we live our lives righteously and faithfully from now on, not only for the duration of Holy Week and Easter, but all through to the end of our lives. May God be with us all, and may He strengthen us in our desire to love Him and walk in His path, now and evermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 4 April 2021 : Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! This Sunday we have finally come to the culmination of the Holy Week and the conclusion of the season of Lent, entering into the Blessed time of Easter, as we commemorate the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, on the third day after He suffered and died, descending into hell. Through His glorious Resurrection that we celebrate, all mankind and all creation receive a new hope and light, the light of Our Lord’s saving grace.

Today, we mark the time when the light of Christ our Saviour triumphed over the darkness of sin and death. He has broken definitively the chains of sin and the bondage of evil, the power of death and the dominion of Satan and his fallen angels over us. By His Resurrection, He showed us that sin and death no longer hold any dominion over us. As He offered Himself on the Cross and died for us, the Lord truly suffered and died, not just being a superficial or for appearance. Hence, by His humanity truly united to His divinity, though distinct, God Himself had died for us.

And because we share in His humanity, we have therefore shared in His death, and through His Resurrection, we are sharing in the new life that He is bringing upon us, the promise of eternal life after, in the world to come, when we shall rise again with the Lord, and in body and soul, in our complete existence, glorify the Lord in perfect bliss and true joy for eternity. Through the Resurrection, God has broken the chains of sin and death that had held us down, and He has unbarred and opened the doors of Heaven to us.

Without the Crucifixion, there can be no Resurrection, and this is what we all need to remember as we come to celebrate this great Solemnity of Easter. The Lord truly suffered for us, and endured all the sufferings that were supposed to be for us. Thus, as we rejoice in the Lord’s Resurrection, we are all called to appreciate everything that He had done for us, all that He has endured for us, all that He had borne for us, the things that He did for us out of love.

This is the day of joy and happiness because after the long period of penitence and observance of fasting, abstinence and other practices throughout Lent, we finally enter into the time of Easter, just as how the Israelites must have been so joyful to enter into the Promised Land after having journeyed for so long in the desert, for forty years. After mankind had suffered for so long under the tyranny of sin and bondage of death and evil, we have finally seen the light of God’s salvation in the Resurrection.

We renew our baptismal promises today, and as we do so, we should remind ourselves well that those promises are not just mere formality or process to go through. Instead, when we make our solemn promises, and renew them, we should be as resolute as we are as on the day of our baptism. We must not make empty promises or only pay lip service to the Lord. On the contrary, as we begin this blessed time and season of Easter, we are constantly being reminded again and again what being a Christian is truly all about.

As those whom God had called and chosen to be His own people, and as we have willingly accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour, we are all called to be truly faithful in all things, and dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to His cause. We should not be complacent or lax in how we live our lives, but instead strive to do our best to be good examples to our fellow brothers and sisters, that we may truly be good Christian role models and inspire others to live their lives in the same way that we do, in obeying God and His will.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we all gather together to celebrate this most amazing moment, when Our Lord, Risen from the dead, have led us to freedom and new graceful existence in Him, let us all discern well what we are to do in the coming days, weeks, months and even years, to be more faithful and dedicated to God. As those who have received the faith, and called to be the Lord’s disciples, we have been entrusted with the same truth that the Apostles had received, to be witnesses of the Lord’s truth and Resurrection to the world.

And we do not have to do magnificent and great things. We can begin all these from ourselves, from whatever little things that we can do in our respective lives, in our interactions with one another, in our commitment to walk the path of faith together. And we should also be filled with the same strength, courage and enthusiasm as those disciples of the Lord had, in proclaiming the Lord’s truth, like the two disciples who met the Risen Lord on their way to Emmaus, who went back all the way to Jerusalem after a long journey that they might proclaim the Risen Lord to the other disciples.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, just as the Lord has brought His light into this world, overcoming the darkness of sin and death, let us all be wonderful reflections of His light, and bear that same light into this darkened world, that we may be the beacons of hope and light through which many others who have been despairing, downtrodden and lost hope, suffering and in sorrow, may see the same light of hope in Christ through us. Are we willing and able to commit ourselves to be these beacons of God’s hope and light especially in this past year when there had been so much suffering and trials for so many people?

In our every words, actions and deeds, let us be an Easter people, a people of hope, faith and enthusiasm, of the hope we have in the Lord and the belief and trust in our Lord’s providence and in His salvation, which He has brought upon us through Jesus Christ, His Son. Let us all reach out to our fellow brothers and sisters, and be exemplary in everything, even in our little actions in life, to be guide and helper to those who are in need of the Lord’s light and strength in their lives.

May God, our Risen Lord and Saviour be with us all, as we continue to walk down this path of faith, and may He bless our Easter journey and celebration, that each and every one of us may be ever more faithful, and be ever firmer in our conviction to love and serve Him in our daily lives. May God bless us all, and may He strengthen us all, to be faithful as Christians, an Easter people, at all times. Amen.

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Sunday, 4 April 2021 : Easter Vigil Mass, Easter Sunday of the Lord’s Resurrection (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia! Today on this holiest of all nights and at the pinnacle of the Lord’s salvation of all mankind, on this Easter Vigil, we mark the moment almost two millennia ago when the Lord brought His salvation to all of us mankind, on a night that was truly extraordinary, a night above all other nights, the Mother of all Holy Vigils just as we have heard in our Easter Proclamations or the Exsultet earlier on. On this night, as we all keep this Vigil faithfully as one Church, we remember the night when God, through Christ, His Son, Our Saviour, delivered us from the tyranny of sin and from the power of death.

That is why, today, all of us are reminded through the many readings and lessons from the Sacred Scriptures, right back from the very beginning of time, detailing all that the Lord had done for us, starting with the time of the Creation of the world in the Book of Genesis, and then followed by the account of the sacrifice of Isaac on Mount Moriah, and most importantly, the story of the Exodus from Egypt, how the Israelites were rescued from the land of Egypt, and how God overthrew their oppressors, and then through to the prophets who promised of God’s salvation for His people.

All of these events throughout history showed us how the Lord loved us so greatly and so wonderfully, that to rescue us all, a people whom He had created and loved, He had guided us throughout all of history, promising to us the liberation from the power of sin and death that had enslaved us since the beginning of Creation, with the fall of man into sin, by the disobedience against God and His will. Yet, God did not abandon us or reject us, and while we have to endure the consequences for those sins, He did not annihilate mankind although He could perfectly have done so.

Instead, He proclaimed right from the very beginning that He would save His people, that He would send His deliverance to them, right before Satan, as well as Adam and Eve in the Gardens of Eden, when He proclaimed that the Woman would come and crush the head of Satan, as the premonition for the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, born through the Virgin, Mary, and how He would save all of mankind through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, all that we have been celebrating and focusing on in the past one week, and culminating tonight at the celebration of the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord.

Tonight we mark the culmination of the entire Easter Triduum, the period of time spanning three days from the time of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday right up to the Resurrection at the end of the Sabbath. That is rightly celebrated together as such because we should see the entire Easter Triduum, the Last Supper, Our Lord’s Passion, suffering and crucifixion, His death and Resurrection as one single great event, the greatest event in the entire history of all mankind, the moment of our salvation and liberation, just as how the Israelites were saved from the hands of the Egyptians.

Earlier on in the celebration of Holy Thursday and Good Friday, I have been focusing on how the events of the Last Supper and all that happened on Good Friday were one great event of the new Passover of Our Lord, the new Passover and the New Covenant that He was establishing with us all mankind, which He initiated on the Last Supper, offering His own Precious Body and Blood through the bread and wine He blessed, broken and shared among His disciples, as the symbolic giving of Himself to all of us, and then, on Good Friday, He completed everything as He laid there on the Cross, bloodied, bruised and dying.

This was the sacrifice alluded in the reading from the Book of Genesis on the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, when God asked Abraham to sacrifice his beloved and promised son Isaac to Him, on Mount Moriah. When God saw Abraham’s faith and dedication, not holding back even from giving his own son, He told Abraham that He had seen his faith, and spared Isaac, instead placing a ram in Isaac’s place. And how is this related to what we are celebrating? That is because Christ has suffered and died in our place, putting upon Himself all the burdens and blame that were ours, so that we do not perish but live.

God did not spare His own beloved, only begotten Son, giving Him to us as the Source of Life and the Hope of eternal life. He sent us Christ, His Son, that He may become the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, by Whose Blood all of us have been redeemed, just as the Israelites were saved from death in the original Passover, being ‘passed over’ by death because of the blood of the unblemished lamb that was marked upon the doors and lintels of their houses. Thus, by the shedding of the Body of Christ, our Paschal Lamb and His Precious Blood, we have been marked as God’s beloved ones.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, then in one of the most important of the readings tonight, that of the crossing of the Red Sea, all of us are brought to attention on what we have been going through this Holy Week and through these events, together with God. As the Israelites were pursued by the Egyptians to the edge of the Red Sea, God opened the Sea before them and they all crossed on the dry seabed to the other side, towards their freedom and the Promised Land, marking the definitive moment when they gained their complete freedom from the rule of the Egyptians, as God crushed the Egyptians right behind them.

Hence, tonight, on this holiest and Mother of all Holy Vigils, we celebrate the moment when the Lord brought us all, who have shared in His humanity and therefore His death on the Cross, into the new life and existence, through His glorious Resurrection that we therefore will also share, and which we have entered through the Sacrament of Baptism when all of us, as Christians, were welcomed into the Church be it as infants or as adults. And we remember therefore this most sacred and wonderful night when the Lord led us through the valleys of darkness and death, and into life everlasting.

For through the waters of baptism, we have passed through death and into new life, just as water is capable both of destruction as well as giving life. For the Lord has, by the authority and the efforts of His Church, gathered all of us from among the nations and brought us into His embrace, that we may not be separated any longer, instead being reconciled and reunited fully with God, cleansed from the taints of our original sin, the sin of disobedience against God, and the corruption which had separated us from the love and grace of God.

Through the waters of baptism, God restored the grace and life to us and our existence, purified and cleansed, ready to start again with God and walking with Him. We have been made whole once again through baptism, and we have received pardon and absolution for those sins we committed or for those things that we failed to do. A new life has been given to us, which is possible thanks to Christ Himself, Who has gone through suffering and death, and finally the Resurrection to overcome death for all of us.

Thus, by His Resurrection, Christ showed us that sin and death do not have the final say over us. For He has conquered death itself by rising gloriously from the dead. Through His Resurrection, the Lord broke free the chains that kept mankind trapped through sin, and led them to a new future, one where sin no longer have any power and dominion over any of us. He proved to all of us that while all of us mortals will experience death and the end of our earthly life one day, but that is not the end of the road for us.

Through baptism, all of us have been gathered into the one Body of Christ, the Church, and have been given the assurance of eternal life, in the world to come, where we shall share in the glory of the Lord, the blissful life and existence of fullness of grace. However, all these will be ours in due time. And if we are wondering why is it that although we have been baptised, that we still need to regularly confess our sins and resist the temptations to sin, it is because through baptism, we have received the assurance of eternal life through Christ and sin no longer has power or dominion over us, but it is also our free will to choose to be enslaved by sin again and to reject God and His love.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, hence, tonight as we gather together to celebrate this most holy of all nights, the time of the Lord’s triumph and victory over evil and sin, over the darkness and death, let us all renew our baptismal promises with great vigour and zeal, with renewed desire to love God and to be closer to Him, to be more obedient and committed to Him. Let us make that commitment with genuine intention and the courage to live our lives henceforth as dedicated Christians at all times.

Our baptism is just the beginning of a great and new journey, just as the Israelites began their journey through the desert after crossing the Red Sea and after making the Covenant with God at Mount Sinai. They fell many times and they were tempted many times, disobeying God and fell into the darkness again and again. But God patiently continued to love them and tried to bring them back from the wrong path. The same therefore applies to us as well, brothers and sisters. Our Christian life is one of struggle and also filled with challenges, often daily, in which we often may have to choose between following and obeying God, or following the norms of the world and the society, among others.

As we enter into this season of Easter, let us all pass through this night as a renewed person, in each and every one of us. For those who are baptised this night, it is a momentous event, when they accept God fully as their Lord and Saviour, and enter into this new life, the Christian life blessed by God. And for all of us otherwise, we are renewing our baptismal promises tonight as mentioned, in this Easter Vigil Mass, and it should also be a momentous event in our lives, as we are reminded yet again, year after year, to keep ourselves holy and devoted to God, and not to fall again into the temptations of sin.

Let us all pray for one another that we may persevere ever more in the struggle against evil, and that we may always be faithful and find the courage in us to stand up for the truth and for our faith. Let us all pray for all those around the world, our fellow brethren who are unable to celebrate the Easter joy properly due to various reasons, either because of persecution, civil unrest and disturbances, war and conflict, among many other reasons. We pray that God will continue to watch over them, and if there are things that we can do to help, let us contribute in whatever way we can.

Most importantly, let us all live our lives henceforth as a liberated people, free from sin, if our past have been often troubled and filled with the darkness. Let us reject Satan, his many temptations, and sin in all of its forms, and let us be exemplary in our way of living from now on, that we may become truly an Easter people, a people who truly belong to the Lord, and everyone will know that we are Christians because of our actions, words and deeds in life, that is centred on Christ, Our Risen Lord and Saviour, upholding His truth and living virtuously according to His Law and teachings.

Let us be inspiration for one another, and help support each other especially if we see our brothers or sisters who are struggling, either in the worldly matters or even more importantly, in their spiritual matters and their faith. There have already been enough troubles in the past few months and years, and we should be the bearers of the Light of Christ in this world, bearing forth that Light by which Christ, Our Lord and Saviour triumphed over the darkness of evil and sin. By our lives and our faith, let us bring Christ’s light and truth to the nations, that more and more may come to believe in Him and become His disciples and followers.

May God bless us all, and may He guide us in our journey, particularly through this blessed season of Easter, so that all of us may grow ever stronger in our faith and dedication, and that we may be ever better examples to our fellow men and women, and together as one Church, let us all bear witness to Our Lord’s Resurrection, and do what we can to glorify His Name, through our daily lives and actions. May all of us have a most blessed and wonderful Easter, and may God, Our Risen Lord and Saviour be with us all. Amen.

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Friday, 2 April 2021 : Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the very important day of the Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord, the day when Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, was crucified for our sake, when He took up His Cross up the hill of Calvary and died for all. It was all these that made today truly a ‘Good Friday’ because without the offering and selfless sacrifice of Our Lord, there would not have been any hope for us, and it was because of Him that we have seen the light of hope and salvation once again.

Today, on Good Friday we remember the Lord Who willingly emptied Himself of all glory, in obeying the will of His heavenly Father, stripping Himself of all dignity and glory so that He may bear the punishment for all of our sins, and by taking up all those with Him, He might offer a most perfect sacrifice, worthy for the redemption of all of us mankind, and for the atonement of our multitudes of sins. Today we remember God’s love that has manifested in the crucifixion, in a love so wonderful and selfless that He willingly endured all humiliation for us.

Through what the Lord had done that day, He has completed what He had begun the day earlier, in the Last Supper when He instituted the Holy Eucharist, giving His own Precious Body and Blood to be shared by the disciples. As we all just celebrated and remembered yesterday in the events of Holy Thursday, the Lord had the Passover meal with His disciples, in which He instituted the New Passover, one that no longer remembered the past event of how God rescued the people of Israel from the slavery in Egypt, but an even much greater event, that God has come to rescue all of His people from the slavery of sin.

At that Passover meal, we may have noticed yesterday that unlike the usual Passover meal of the Jewish Passover, where a lamb is slaughtered and eaten by the household, at the new Passover, the Lord offered Himself as the sacrificial Lamb, the Lamb of God to be slaughtered for all of us, to be the source of forgiveness for all of our sins and iniquities. This has been prophesied by many of the prophets, particularly that of the prophet Isaiah who spoke at length about the Messiah or Saviour Who would come into the world and Who would suffer persecution, rejection and death.

In comparison with the old Jewish Passover, the significance of the events of Good Friday together with the preceding events at the Last Supper cannot be underestimated or ignored. For at the old Passover, at the beginning of the meal, represented by the Last Supper, is the moment when the first of the four cups of wine is drunk, led by the father and head of the house, where the unleavened bread is taken out and eaten with the lamb as mentioned earlier, which is what the Lord Himself had done, offering His Body and Blood to His disciples in the bread and wine at the Last Supper.

Then, the second cup, the Cup of Proclamations and third, the Cup of Blessings was drunk afterwards, at the moment when the family spoke of the significance of the Passover, reminding the people and especially the young children on why the Passover was so important, for God has saved His people in the past through such great deeds from their certain destruction and annihilation. As indicated from the Scriptures and the accounts of the Last Supper, the last and fourth cup, the cup of Praise had not been drunk yet when the Lord and His three disciples went out of the meal and headed to the Gardens of Gethsemane.

That last cup, also known as the Cup of Consummation, was the cup that the Lord referred to in the Last Supper as of why He would not drink the fruits of the vine again until the coming of the kingdom of God, referring specifically to how the Passover meal, the New Passover He was bringing into this world, had not ended yet as of that night of the Last Supper, and instead would culminate on the Cross at Good Friday, with the death of the Lord as the completion of the New Passover. That was why at the Gardens of Gethsemane, when the Lord was in agony, He prayed that the ‘cup may pass Him by’ and yet, He remained firm in His obedience and dedication to His mission, no matter how tough and painful it would be.

When at the ancient, first Passover the lamb was slaughtered on the day of preparation for the Passover, it was on Good Friday that was the day before the Sabbath day, as has been noted in the Scriptures, that the Lord died on the day of the preparation for the Passover. Thus, indeed it was very symbolic and real how the Lord had chosen that very day to highlight how He was truly the Paschal Lamb, the One to be sacrificed for the salvation of all, the Lamb of the New Passover. While in Egypt, the Israelites used the blood of the lamb to mark the doors of their houses that they were spared the great plague of death coming upon Egypt, thus all of us have been marked by the Blood of the Lamb of God.

How is that then significant for us? It is significant because the Precious Blood that the Lord has shed sealed the New Covenant between us and God, reconciling us to Him, and bridging the gap that had once existed between us and Him. Through the Cross, by His Passion, His suffering and death, and importantly through His Resurrection, Christ has showed that there is hope beyond death, and there is the assurance of eternal life with God.

He has perfectly obeyed the will of the Father, to be the Mediator of the New Covenant between all of us and God. And as the New Adam, according to St. Paul the Apostle, Christ became the source of new life in God, bringing all mankind to a renewed life in grace. Just as the first Adam fell into sin by eating the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, out of desire and disobedience against God, falling into the temptations of Satan. Christ, the New Adam, persevered to the very end, nailed to another ‘tree’, that is the Cross, in full and perfect obedience to God, His Father.

Thus just as the first Adam led all mankind into sin, the New Adam, Christ, led all of us into the path out of the tyranny of sin, showing us that sin and death do not have the final say over us. For through His death and Resurrection, He proved that He truly is the Lord and Master of life and death, and that His grace is greater than sin and death. And that is why, He has willingly suffered for us that by uniting our humanity to Himself, we share in His death, death to our old, sinful selves, and then share in His glorious Resurrection, entering a new life and existence, with the promise of eternal life.

Hence, we should not treat the events that happened during this Easter Triduum as separate, unrelated events, but rather as one great event, the New Passover and the New Covenant that the Lord has established with us, beginning at the Last Supper, through Our Lord’s suffering and persecution, right through His crucifixion and completed through His death on the Cross. Through all these, right up to the events on Good Friday that we commemorate today, the Lord showed His mighty hands in delivering all of us His people from the tyranny of sin and the darkness of evil.

This is why on the Cross, as He was about to die, the Lord said, ‘I thirst’, and a mixture of sour and bitter wine was given to Him, symbolically showing the drinking of the Cup of Consummation, and the completion of the New Passover, which Christ spoke of as He said, ‘It is finished.’ Right after that very moment, the Lord gave up His Spirit and died, with the words, ‘Father, into Your hands, I commend My Spirit’ completing the sacrifice and offerings of the New Covenant and the New Passover.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all now look to the crucifix, to the Cross of Our Lord, bearing our Saviour Who had suffered and died for all of us. He is the Lamb of God, sacrificed and offered for us, as the perfect and worthy atonement for our sins. And He is also our High Priest, the Mediator of the New Covenant, just as Moses and Aaron once sealed the Covenant between God and Israel with the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the Altar. And thus, Christ, Our High Priest and the Lamb at the same time, offered Himself on the Altar of the Cross, to seal the New Covenant between us and God, and to be the source of healing and absolution for our many sins.

There, on the Cross, lies a reminder of the bloody and sorrowful offering of the Lamb of God, of God Who loved us so much that He is willing to suffer and die for us. And every time we celebrate the Holy Mass, brothers and sisters, we remember this very same sacrifice, for as I mentioned yesterday, on Holy Thursday, that the whole liturgy of the Eucharist in the Holy Mass is no less than the same sacrifice and offering, the same thing that happened two millennia ago, from the Last Supper to the Cross, from the moment that the Lord offered the bread and wine and turned them into His own Precious Body and Blood, and up to the completion of that Passover sacrifice on the Cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we focus ourselves on the very important events that happened on that day at Calvary, let us all bear in mind always how God loves us so much, that everything He had done and which we remember today, are for our sake and nothing else. Every time we sin and disobey God, let us remember that all those sins are what our Lord Himself bore on His Cross, the wounds He endured, and all the bitterness and humiliations He suffered, so that we may be forgiven and enter into a new life of grace through Him.

Let us all therefore unite our sufferings and ourselves to the Lord, through His crucifixion, His suffering and death. Let us all be truly ashamed of our many sins and all the things that we have done in contradiction to our Christian faith and calling, and in rebellion against God and His will. Let us not harden our hearts any longer, but seek our Lord, the Mediator of the New Covenant, that He may heal us through His Cross, and allow His outpoured Precious Blood to wash us clean and to purify us just as the saints and martyrs had purified themselves in the Blood of the Lamb.

As we all share and partake in the Holy Communion today, let us remember that we receive none other than the Lord Himself, the same Lord and the same sacrifice He made at Calvary, on the Altar of the Cross. The Eucharist we receive is the same crucified Lord and Saviour Who have marked us by His Blood, and bring us forth from the slavery to sin and bring unto us the New Passover, that we are ‘passed over’ from death into new life, which we will be further reminded on as we enter into the time of the glorious Resurrection in Easter.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all move forward in life, no longer looking back at sin and at all the wicked ways of the world, and instead, fill ourselves with the resolve and renewed conviction to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and to glorify Him through our lives, our actions and deeds. May the Lord, our Crucified Messiah, Jesus Christ, Lamb of God, be with us always, and bless us all, His beloved ones, on this most good and wonderful day of our salvation, the salvation of His Cross. Amen.