Holy Week sermon

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Sunday, 5 April 2026 : Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia! Christ has risen from the dead, Alleluia! He has been triumphant over sin and death, Alleluia! We have finally arrived at the Easter season after the forty days and six Sundays of the season of Lent, during which time we have prepared ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually, striving to be closer to God and to change our way of life, distancing ourselves from sin and from wicked things that can keep us separated and distanced from the Lord, our God. Now that Easter has finally arrived, we are reminded that the Light that the Lord has brought into our midst, the Hope and Resurrection that He has promised and assured us with, all of these surpass the greatest darkness in our lives.

This Easter is a reminder for all of us of the coming of spring, the advent of a new hope and light for our lives, as Christ our Risen Lord has led us out from the depths of the darkness of evil, sin and death, into the new life and existence blessed and graced by God and His love. By the Lord’s death and resurrection, we share with Him this passage from death into life, from darkness into light, and from despair into hope. That is what each and every one of us have shared through our common baptism. With the Lord, all of us shall together be triumphant, overcoming the obstacles and barriers that had once kept us away from God, and with Him, we shall no longer be lost in the darkness and despair, just as the glory of His Resurrection and His Light sweeps away the darkness of this world surrounding us.

In our Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday liturgical celebrations, we commonly celebrate baptisms as we welcome many of our fellow brothers and sisters who have journeyed for some time in their search for their Lord and Saviour, as they come, just like us, in finding our hope and light, our salvation in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world. The Risen Christ has shown us that there is hope beyond darkness and sin, there are way out of the wickedness of this world. While once we have been cast out in the darkness and suffering because of our disobedience and failure to obey the will of God, we have not been left alone, as the Lord truly loves each and every one of us, though we are sinners, and He has always patiently reached out to us, loving us and caring for us, desiring to be reconciled and reunited with us. It was never His desire to punish us or to cast us out into the darkness, but it is by our own conscious and deliberate choice that we have rejected God’s generous love and resisted His constant efforts to reach out to us. But the Lord did not stop trying, and He did all He could so that we can truly regain our state of grace and be reconciled fully with Him.

That is why, He has sent us all His own most beloved Son, incarnate in the flesh, the Son of God and Divine Word of God, Incarnate as the Son of Man. He did all these so that by sharing in our humanity, Christ, the Son of God, Our Lord and Saviour, may come to lead us by His own hands, manifesting perfectly the love of God, to His Father’s loving Presence, reuniting us and acting as the Bridge that leads us mankind back to our loving God and Creator, crossing over the once unbridgeable and unpassable chasm existing between us and God. Our disobedience, wickedness and evil deeds led to sin, and sin became the barrier and obstacle separating and sundering us from the fullness of God’s love and grace. It may seem to be insurmountable but God’s love, grace and forgiveness is far greater than even all of those.

And Christ, as the Son of Man, showed us all what it truly means for us to be faithful and obedient to the will of His heavenly Father, showing us just how much He loved His Father and how willing He was to fully obey His will, that He willingly endured all the sufferings, pain, humiliations, rejections and hardships, bearing His Cross and all the burdens and punishments for our sins, so that we may be saved through Him. By His obedience, Christ has broken us free from the results of the disobedience of Adam, our ancestor, and the disobedience of our forefathers. He has reversed the unfortunate events that led us to suffer in this world, and bringing unto us the sure promise of eternal life that He Himself has won for us through His death and Resurrection. Through these He has restored the Light of Hope to all of us.

Today as we listened from our Scripture passages, each one of us are reminded of everything that the Lord has done for us, in sending us His Son, to bring us up from the depth of our sins, raising us up with Him, that through His glorious Resurrection all of us have the new hope that pierces through the darkness of despair all around us, and He has called us all to be His own people, gathering us and finding us from this world. For He is our Good Shepherd, Who went out all His way to reach out to us, His lost sheep, and having found us, He called us all to follow Him, just as the disciples had done. In our first reading today, we heard of how the disciples went forth out to proclaim the Lord’s Resurrection, and we heard how St. Peter led them all in proclaiming the truth about Jesus Christ, about how the One Whom the people had rejected, humiliated and persecuted, and condemned to die like a criminal on the Cross, was the One Whom God had actually sent into their midst to be their Saviour. St. Peter spoke of this courageously despite the fear that he and the other disciples once had of the Jews and their leaders.

Back then, the High Priest and the other chief priests, as well as the other members of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council had declared the Lord Jesus as a Criminal and as a rogue, banning His teachings and works to be spread and published, and for that reason, the disciples of the Lord had been in hiding ever since the Lord rose and then ascended into Heaven, and hence, they were hiding for a while, fearful of the repression and the opposition of the Jewish people and their elders. This happened until the coming of the Holy Spirit, on the day and moment of the Pentecost Sunday, when the Lord sent His Holy Spirit to dwell among His disciples and followers, strengthening them and giving them the courage, Wisdom and strength to carry out whatever it was that He had tasked and entrusted them to do. That was what drove the Apostles, led by St. Peter, to go forth and proclaim the truth about the Lord, everything He had done, His Resurrection and His calling on all of the people to follow the path of the Lord.

Now, as we heard these from our Scripture passages, together with the account of the Lord’s resurrection in our Gospel passage this Easter Sunday, we are all reminded that as the witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and glorious triumph over sin, evil and death, all of us are called and have been entrusted with the same mission that the Apostles had been entrusted with by the Lord. All of us have received the same truth and revelation through the Church, and through our teachers of faith, the bishops and priests, that we have also become partakers in the same mystery of the Lord’s Resurrection, and also His Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, the Eucharist. Since all of us truly believe in these, the very core tenets of our Christian faith, it is therefore important that we have to profess our faith well in our way of life and in our every actions and deeds.

The Church has been entrusted with the mission to proclaim the truth of Christ, His Resurrection and all that He had done, and God’s love for all of us, and we are all missionaries and messengers of God’s truth to the world. If we do not live our lives in the manner that Christians should have done, and if we have not been sincere in our faith and dedication to God, and worse still, if we do things that are in fact contrary to what the Lord had taught us to do, all these will bring about scandal to our faith, to the Church and to the Lord’s Holy Name. How can we convince others to believe in the Lord if we ourselves have not shown true and genuine faith in Him, and if we have continued living our lives in wickedness and evil? That is why, just as we enter into this glorious and most joyful season of Easter, each and every one of us as Christians are reminded to be faithful to the Lord, and we are to believe in Him wholeheartedly in all things.

It means that in everything we say and do, in our every actions and interactions, all of us should truly practice and show our Christian faith and beliefs, in all of our deeds and works. That is what we all should do as Christians, and as those who truly believe in the Lord’s Resurrection and truth, let us all begin from this Easter Sunday henceforth, if we have not yet done so, to be joyful and dedicated disciples of the Lord, proclaiming His Resurrection and glory with great joy and zeal. And let us also remember that this time of Easter, all of our celebrations and joy do not end on this day. Instead, this Sunday is just the beginning of the Easter season, that lasts for a whole period of fifty days right up to the Pentecost Sunday. In fact, it does not mean that our Easter joy and works should end there either, as we are all called to proclaim the Lord henceforth and beyond, in every moments of our lives.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, if our faith in the Lord is still not strong yet, and if we are still filled with fear and doubt, like how the two disciples who were journeying to Emmaus from our Gospel passage for this Easter Sunday evening Mass showed us, then we should let our Risen Lord to come into our midst and to encourage and strengthen us all with the courage and faith, so that each and every one of us may be filled with the conviction and the desire to glorify God by our lives, and to proclaim His truth to all the whole world. Let us all be inflamed and strengthened by the Word and Wisdom of God, just as how the Lord Himself had strengthened those two disciples journeying towards Emmaus, so that like them rushing back towards Jerusalem with great joy, to tell the other disciples of what they had experienced and witnessed, we may also exhibit the same strength and spirit to proclaim the Lord and His truth.

Let us ask the Lord to strengthen us with the grace of His Wisdom and the power of His Holy Spirit, so that all of us who have placed ourselves in the trust of the Risen Lord, may continue to shine forth as the bright beacons of His light, proclaiming His love and truth to our fellow brothers and sisters, so that each and every one of us may indeed become most faithful disciples and followers of Our Lord, in all things. May our actions, words and deeds, our interactions and works be exemplary and be inspirational to each other, and to all those who witness them, so that we may truly be good and worthy missionaries of our faith, and that many more will come to believe in the Lord through us, by our love for God and for those around us, especially those who are most beloved and dearest to us. Let us all renew the promises that we have made at our own baptism, be it recent or long time ago, that we will resolutely reject and resist the temptations of evil, Satan and the worldly desires, and strive to do what the Lord has asked us to do. Let us remember that our baptism is not the end of our journey of faith, but instead was just the beginning of a new journey of our lives, a journey blessed by God.

May the Lord, our Risen Christ, risen gloriously from the dead continue to inspire and strengthen us. May He bless us and strengthen us so that we may always be committed and ready to live our lives wholeheartedly, dedicated to Him and to proclaim His Resurrection, His truth and love to all those whom we encounter daily in life. May all of us continue to live with faith and with the joy of the Risen Christ in each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us all and may His light shine upon us, illuminating our path forward in life. Wishing all of us a most blessed Easter season, and may the Risen Christ be with us and our loved ones always. Alleluia! Amen!

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Sunday, 5 April 2026 : Easter Vigil Mass, Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia! Christ is Risen from the dead, Alleluia! Tonight all of us rejoice most wonderfully as we finally arrive on this most holy, wonderful and solemn Easter Vigil, also known as the Mother of All Holy Vigils, the greatest time and moment in the whole entire liturgical year. That is because on this night we rejoice most greatly at the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world. Throughout this Easter Triduum period, the culmination of the Holy Week, we have been focusing on the Lord and all of His actions, His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross, and then the peak of everything, which is tonight’s celebration, is the Resurrection that Jesus Christ our Lord went through, as He rose gloriously from the land of the dead, rising in glory from hell, breaking free the chains of the dead, and all who have sinned against God, releasing their bondage to sin and death, freeing them just as how He has once liberated His people Israel from the tyranny and enslavement by the Egyptians and their Pharaoh.

Today, in our Scripture readings, especially those from the Old Testament detailed for us the history of God’s work and salvation for us, from the very beginning right up to the coming of His salvation in Jesus Christ, Our Risen Lord. We are reminded of God’s ever-present love for each and every one of us, and how fortunate all of us to have been beloved such by God, and how He gave us all the ultimate gift of Love, manifested perfectly in His own Son, Who has been incarnate in the flesh, to dwell amongst us and to be with us, so that God’s love may become tangible, real and approachable, and that we all may know, how it is in Him alone that we shall have the hope and assurance of eternal life, true joy and glory with Him. We have once been lost from Him, separated and sundered from God’s grace and love, but God wanted us all to be reconciled to Him, reunited with Him completely and no longer be lost from Him, and that is what Christ’s triumphant glory and Resurrection has achieved for us.

Let us all begin from the first reading today taken from the Book of Genesis. In that reading, we heard about the story of the Creation of the world, how God made all things and all the whole Universe to come to existence, at the very beginning of time. It highlighted to us and reminded us that God has always been ever present and eternal, with Jesus Christ Himself, Our Lord and Saviour, as the Son, the Eternal Word of God, having existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit, a perfect Union of Love, of God in His Most Holy Trinity, with no lack or need for anything. And yet, God wanted to share His love with us, and He made all creation to be, by His own will and through the Word He uttered, to make all things to be as what He imagined them to be, everything as we have heard it from the passage of the Book of Genesis, culminating in the creation of Man, made and formed in God’s own image. Everything was made all good and perfect, without any defect yet.

God made us all in His own image, and gave dominion unto us to rule over all the other created things and beings, and to be His stewards and caretakers over all of creation. That is what God has always intended for us, to enjoy the fullness of His love and grace, and to exist with Him in perfect love, harmony and joy, in the place that He has prepared for us, this whole world and all of its wonders. We were never meant to suffer or to endure hardships, struggles and the harshness of this world, but in our own folly and inability to resist the many temptations of sin, we have chosen to disobey God and to listen to the falsehoods and lies of Satan, allowing his wicked words to tempt us and to turn us away from the path of God’s righteousness. That was how we ended up in the path of sin, cast out from Eden and separated from God’s love. But God’s love for us was so great that, He did not want to see us destroyed by our sins.

Sin has no place before God, Who is all good and perfect. Sin is defilement and wickedness that is abhorrent to God, and those who sin are thus separated from God, because no one can stand before God with sin and survives. And hence, God wants to free us from that bondage and dominion by sin, and in order to do so, He has given us help and guidance, calling on us to turn away from our wicked way of life and calling on us to follow Him. And through what we have heard in our second reading today, we are reminded of what God Himself had done for us in order to achieve that goal, of saving us and liberating each one of us from the tyranny of sin. In what we heard of Abraham and his attempted sacrifice of his son, Isaac, we actually heard the premonition and prefigurement of what the Lord Himself would do for us all, out of the love and commitment He has towards us.

Abraham was a man that the Lord made a Covenant with, calling him from the land of his ancestors in Ur of the Chaldeans. God called Abraham to follow wherever He would tell him to go to, and Abraham obeyed the Lord, leaving his ancestral lands behind and following the Lord wholeheartedly. God made a Covenant with Abraham, promising him that he would have a son to succeed him, and that he would become the father of many nations. That son eventually was born in the person of Isaac, the promised child born of Sarah, Abraham’s wife. That long promised and awaited son must have brought such great joy to Abraham, who have not had any son or child at all. Yet, as we heard, God called on Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, the same Isaac whom Abraham had been awaiting for, and must have loved so much. Yet, Abraham obeyed God and did as the Lord had told him to do, bringing Isaac to Mount Moriah to be sacrificed.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, there is deeper theological and symbolic representations in what we have heard of that story of the sacrifice of Isaac at Mount Moriah, and how it is connected to what we have been commemorating in this Easter Triduum and Holy Week period. That is because Mount Moriah is located exactly at where Jerusalem would be standing in the future, from Abraham’s point of time, and Mount Moriah itself was identified by Biblical and other historical scholars as the site of Calvary, the very place where the Crucifixion of Our Lord happened on Good Friday. Thus, just as Abraham gave Isaac, his most beloved son willingly to be sacrificed and offered to God, God Himself had done the same with us, in willingly giving us His own beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be the offering and sacrifice, slaughtered on the Altar of the Cross, at Calvary, where Mount Moriah was at, the same place as Isaac’s supposed sacrifice.

But the difference was that, Isaac was not actually sacrificed, as God was just testing Abraham and his faith and commitment to His Covenant. Having seen the pure and genuine nature of Abraham’s faith, how he committed himself so thoroughly to the Covenant and to God, that he was willing to part even with his most prized possession, his own most beloved and long awaited promised son, thus, God sent a ram in place of Isaac to be sacrificed instead. This in itself was also symbolic, as God sent us His own Son to be offered as a sacrifice, to take our place and to bear the burden of our many sins, that even though it should have been us who faced the consequences of our sins and wickedness, but God extended His great love and mercy towards us, giving us the way out of the darkness and into the light of His salvation. He bore all the heavy burdens of our sins, all of which were His wounds and pain, so that by His suffering and death, His ultimate loving sacrifice, He might save us all.

In our third reading from the Book of Exodus, we then heard of how the Lord delivered His people Israel from the slavery in Egypt and how He delivered them from the hands of their enemies, the Egyptians and their chariots and armies. The Lord made the very sea itself to part before them, allowing them to walk on the dry seabed, guided and protected by His guidance, and He threw all of the chariots and armies of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh into the sea, crushing them under the rushing waves and water. As the Israelites passed through that great journey through the sea, they passed from their past slavery to a new life of freedom and liberation from whatever that had bonded and dominated them. God brought them by His own hands to freedom, and ransomed them, so that they might no longer be under the yoke of the Egyptians, entering into a new life and existence with God.

Therefore, in the same way, God has also led us all through the waters of baptism, as He brought us into a new life that is free from sin and from our enslavement by those sins. Just like the Israelites who were under the bondage and dominion of the Egyptians, all of us have also come under the bondage and dominion of sin, that is until the Lord came to us and delivered us from our enslavement to sin, by His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, and ultimately by His Resurrection from the dead. That is what we have been commemorating through this whole Holy Week and particularly the Easter Triduum, as tonight we focus our attention on the Triumphant Christ, Risen from the dead and Victorious over sin and death. Not even death can hold Him and hell has no power against Him, and through His Resurrection, the Lord showed us all that through Him, there is hope of this new and eternal life, a new existence through Him and with Him.

Tonight is when many people all around the world are received into the Church, through the Sacrament of Baptism, as they are made anew and becoming partakers and members of God’s kingdom on earth, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Thus, just as the Israelites ended their lives in slavery and left behind their past existence through the waters of the Red Sea, thus, our fellow brothers and sisters, our newly baptised Christian brethren, all have been led to a new life and existence in God, abandoning their past sinful existence and way of life. They are no longer subject to the dominion of sin, and like us all, have become part of the same Body of Christ, the Church of God. The Lord has called on all of us to follow Him, and these brothers and sisters have followed in our examples and leads, to seek and follow the Lord in each of their own ways.

The rest of the Scripture readings reaffirm further God’s love for His people, for all of us, and they all spoke of God’s providence and the coming of His salvation and grace. All of these, which God had promised from the very beginning of time, had finally come to its fruition and completion with the glorious Resurrection of the Lord. The Lord’s Resurrection proved that there is life and existence beyond death, and that He has conquered death itself, by breaking the hold that sin has over us. As our Eternal High Priest, He has offered on our behalf, the most worthy offering and sacrifice, the offering of His own Most Precious Body and Blood, shed and broken on the Altar of the Cross. The payment and ransom for our sins and unworthiness have been received, and God had reestablished with us the connection that was once lost because of exactly those same sins and wickedness that we had committed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this night, as we rejoice greatly at the wonderful things that the Lord had done for us, and for all the love that He has shown us, and as we glorify Him for His most wondrous Resurrection, let us all remind ourselves that Easter is not just celebrated tonight or tomorrow on Easter Sunday only. In fact, we often forget that the Easter season lasts for a whole period of fifty days up to Pentecost Sunday. However, in fact, our Easter spirit and energies should be continuing even beyond that. All of us as Christians have been called by God to be His disciples and followers, to proclaim His truth and Good News to all the people, all around the world. That is our calling and our ministry as Christians, in whatever way the Lord had entrusted us with various gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities through which we can affect and influence many people throughout our various communities and places.

That is why, as we recall our Scripture readings today and what we have just discussed earlier, let us all spend the time tonight and then beyond to renew our commitment to the Lord, to dedicate ourselves and our time and effort, with a greater fervour and zeal, to serve the Lord more wholeheartedly and to follow Him with more vigour and effort. The Lord has not hold back from us even His own most beloved Son, Who willingly suffered and died for us, enduring the worst humiliations and beatings for us, so that by His death we may also die to our past sinful lives, and by His Resurrection, we may share in the new life and existence that He is leading us into. That is why, as we enter into this new glorious season of Easter, let us all remind each other of what it truly means for us to be Christians, to be a people called and sanctified by God, made to be His own sons and daughters.

Let us all therefore strive to live a life that is more worthy of the Lord, resisting the many temptations, pressures and coercions around us to conform to the world and its wicked ways. Let us instead be the shining beacons of God’s Light so that as we remember of the promises we made at our own baptism, we may truly live our lives as faithful and devout Christians, and that our every actions, words and deeds may inspire one another in faith, and touch the lives of countless others, who may come to know and experience the Lord, His love and truth, by their interactions with us. Let us all no longer be idle and no longer be ignorant of our Christian calling, remembering that all of us have been called to be holy, to be filled with the love and zeal for the Lord. Let us be good role models and inspirations to one another so that our Easter joy may truly inspire more joy and light in everyone.

May the Lord, our Risen Christ, risen gloriously from the dead continue to inspire and strengthen us. May He bless us and strengthen us so that we may always be committed and ready to live our lives wholeheartedly, dedicated to Him and to proclaim His Resurrection, His truth and love to all those whom we encounter daily in life. May all of us continue to live with faith and with the joy of the Risen Christ in each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us all and may His light shine upon us, illuminating our path forward in life. Wishing all of us a most blessed Easter season, and may the Risen Christ be with us and our loved ones always. Alleluia! Amen!

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Friday, 3 April 2026 : Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today marks the occasion of Good Friday, the day when the Lord suffered and died for us all. It was on this day over two millennia ago that the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of the whole world took up His Cross, embarked on the way of His suffering and eventually dying on the Cross for our sake. This is truly a ‘Good’ Friday because without everything that the Lord had done for us, we would have no hope out of the darkness of our lives, and we would not have enjoyed the assurance of God’s love and grace which He has poured down generously upon us and shown us through Christ, His Son, Whose death on the Cross is the everlasting sign of His undying and most generous love, His ever enduring love and commitment towards all that He has promised to us, to the Covenant He had made with us.

Continuing from the discourse of Holy Thursday, we must realise that the whole Easter Triduum is one great celebration that cannot be separated from each other. On Holy Thursday yesterday, as we commemorate the Lord’s Last Supper with His disciples, His institution of the Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood, we are reminded that what the Lord had said at that Last Supper, as He broke and shared His Body and Blood to His disciples, with the words, ‘Take and eat, this is My Body which has been given up for you.’ and ‘Take and drink, this is the chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal Covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins.’, all of these came to completion with the Passion, the suffering and crucifixion of Our Lord Himself on this Good Friday. What began on Holy Thursday, the great Passover feast, was accomplished on the Cross, just as the Lord Himself said at the end, ‘It is accomplished!’

Like the Jewish Passover of old, when the Lord told His people, the Israelites, to take a one year old young, unblemished lamb and to sacrifice it on the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar, the month of Nisan, therefore, the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb, also took it upon Himself, to offer Himself as the Lamb to be slaughtered, on the day of preparation just before the Passover, which was on Good Friday itself. As it is noted at the end of our Gospel reading of the Passion today that the crucifixion ended when the Jewish people were on the eve of their Passover, it was truly not a coincidence that the Lord suffered, was crucified and died at the exact same time when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered and sacrificed, for the liberation of the people of God from their enslavement and domination by the Egyptians. That is because by His offering of Himself as the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, the perfect offering, He has become for us the same source of liberation from the tyranny, dominion and enslavement by sin and death.

The Lord willingly did all of these because of His great love for each one of us. Everything had been prepared and foretold in advance, but no one could have predicted the extent to which the Lord was willing to go in order to save us all. Instead of sending a mere prophet or messenger to complete everything that He has willed to happen, the Lord chose to embrace us Himself, by coming down upon us, to dwell in our midst and being incarnate in the flesh, walking amongst us in the form of a Man. That was what the Lord had foretold and spoken through His prophets and messengers, veiled from the fullness of truth and understanding until everything had come to pass. From our perspective, we who have received the fullness of God’s truth, we have seen the truth revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour, Who has come to us, and willingly embraced and took up upon Himself the full burden of the Cross, all the sins and wickedness we have committed, and the punishments associated with them, to bear them Himself, to the hill of Calvary.

As we have heard in our first reading today, everything happened just as the Lord had revealed it to us through His prophets. The prophet Isaiah had spoken particularly a lot about the Messiah or Saviour Who was to come into the world, revealing that He would be born through the Woman, the Holy Virgin that God would appoint, and everything indeed came true with Mary and her miraculous conception and birth of Our Lord Jesus. The Lord has also come into our midst, willingly becoming the Man to be humbled, humiliated and crushed, to be burdened and pushed to endure the great sufferings and persecutions for the sake of all of us, His beloved ones. As we heard from the prophet Isaiah, the Holy One of God would be broken for us, crushed for us and be destroyed so that by His suffering and pains, His sorrows and wounds, all of us would be healed. As Isaiah said, this Man would bear upon Himself all of our punishments and sorrows, so that by His brokenness and sorrows, His wounds and hardships, all of us would be healed from our own hardships and wounds.

Then, there was also that clear allusion and reference to the lamb being slaughtered, referring to the Passover lamb, and in this case, the Lord Jesus Himself, as the Lamb of God, the Paschal Lamb Who takes away the sins of the whole world. By His wounds and the broken Body, the outpoured Blood, all of which He has done freely and most generously out of love for all of us, He has shown us the path to eternal life and true joy with Him. That is what Good Friday is all about, the love of God made Man, and His love manifested and shown to us, by His willing embrace of suffering and death, to suffer our punishments and trials for our sake, loving us most selflessly and generously despite of our constant and frequent rebelliousness and wickedness, everything that we have always done in spite of His love and compassion, His kindness and patience all these while. On this Good Friday, we remember especially Christ our Lord, our Saviour, Whose kindness and compassion towards us has opened for us the path to true happiness, and which is why this day is a truly a ‘Good’ day.

However, on this day, we have to better appreciate everything that the Lord had done for us. Too often we mankind have ignored the Lord, rejected and spurned His love, refused to listen to Him and being difficult in resisting His many efforts to reach out to us with love and kindness. Through His Son, God has reestablished with us, the connection that was once lost for us due to sin, the connection that we have to God, our loving Father and Creator. For Christ through His Cross has made a Bridge that linked us all with God, as a Bridge that crossed the uncrossable and infinite chasm existing between Him and all of us due to sin. Sin has caused us to be sundered and separated from God, and we have been cast out of Eden and God’s Presence because of our pride, greed and desires, everything that we did in rejecting His generous love. But God’s love for us endured still, and that is why He sent us His Son, and through Whom we have received the guarantee and assurance of salvation and eternal life.

He established with us a new and eternal Covenant, sealed by His own Most Precious Blood, and by the offering and sacrifice of His own Most Precious Body, as a most worthy sacrifice, allowed Himself to be betrayed and rejected by His own people, and even by one of those closest to Him, that by uniting His sufferings and hardships to ours, He might raise us all up from the depth of our downfall due to sin, and bring us back to Himself. Through His perfect obedience to the will of His heavenly Father, Christ showed us as the Son of Man, how we ourselves should be like in our way of life and in our actions. He showed us all perfect love, both for God, His Father and also for all of us, His own brothers and sisters, by the shared humanity that He has embraced us with. He Himself has told us that the most important Law and Commandments are to love God with all of our heart, with all of our strength and might, and that we should do the same to our fellow brethren as well. That was exactly what He had done for us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we commemorate the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Saviour and King, let us all focus our attention on the Cross of Christ, and remember all that He had done for us, the love of God made Man, manifest and tangible for us. Let us all remember everything that God had done for us as we look upon the Cross. On that Cross hung the salvation of the whole world, our entire Hope and the Light that pierced through the darkness of sin and the wickedness of this world, leading us all towards righteousness in God. And as we look upon the Cross, let us all affix our gaze upon the Lord, Whose own gaze was affixed at all of us, and let us all remember how He prayed even for those who have persecuted and condemned Him to death. We often forget the fact that Christ died for everyone, even for all those who have hated and persecuted Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is indeed very easy for us to point our fingers to blame Judas Iscariot, those chief priests and Pharisees and everyone else who have been involved in the Passion, the suffering and death of Our Lord. However, do we all actually realise that we are all just as great sinners as they were too? Do we all realise that we ourselves have also often betrayed the Lord, rejected and abandoned Him for worldly things, matters and attachments that we had? Do we realise just how often we refused to listen to the Lord and preferred instead to listen to the lies and falsehoods of the devil, embracing all sorts of temptations and pressures from the world, doing what were wicked and evil in the presence of God? Today, as we look upon the Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ, let us all spend the precious time to look deep within ourselves, and see in what way our actions and way of life had caused hurt and pain towards the Lord.

Let us all not forget that all of the wounds and pain suffered by the Lord, are all of our sins, our evils, wickedness and unworthy actions, words and deeds. Each and every one of our iniquities are what causing the Lord all the wounds and hurts He experienced. As we recall the reading of Our Lord’s Passion, everything that He had done for our sake, let us be abashed and humbled, and reminded of just how wicked and sinful we had been. Let us commit ourselves to follow the Lord faithfully once again, and reject the wickedness of the world. Let us all seek the Lord with all of our might and focus our attention on Him, remembering His Passion and His love for us, which He has given us most generously from His Cross. And as we behold the Holy Cross of Christ, let us all remember that through the Cross, all of us have been brought into triumph in the great struggle against sin, evil and death.

Let us also remember today as we gaze upon the Cross that we are all called to love both God and our fellow brothers and sisters around us, especially those whom we love and those in need of our love, care and attention. It is easy for us to end up neglecting one for the other, if we do not truly appreciate what God’s Love is all about. When we look upon the Cross, we can see that the Cross has both a vertical and horizontal part, symbolising the love for God shown by the vertical component, and the love we ought to have for others, shown by the horizontal component. When we love God and ourselves too much and neglecting others, we are no different than the Pharisees who were prejudiced against those around them and cared only about themselves. And on the other hand, without love for God, then we are no better than unbelievers.

That is why on this most solemn day when the Lord our God Himself laid down His life on His Cross for us, let us remember His most wonderful and patient love which He has constantly shown us despite our lack of faith and trust in Him. Let us all love one another most generously like how the Lord Himself has unconditionally loved us, bearing the worst of sufferings and pains for our sake. Let us all be good examples and inspirations in showing the love of God which Christ has shown us all in its most perfect form, in our own actions and way of life, so that the love of God may be manifested through us as well, and that we as Christians may indeed be known by our love, by how we love God and how we love one another, particularly those dearest and most beloved to us, and those in need of our love.

Now, let us all continue our faithful observance of the Easter Triduum, by keeping our focus on the Lord, our Crucified Christ, Who has died for us. Let us always remember that He did not remain in death, but rose gloriously in His Resurrection, conquering and defeating death in His wake. Through Christ, let us all therefore come ever closer to God and His salvation, and may all of us continue to grow ever stronger in faith and commitment, in our desire to love God and to follow Him wholeheartedly at all times. May all of us be exemplary Christians, as good and faithful disciples of Our Lord at all times. May God bless us always, continue to love us and grant us His grace. Amen.

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Thursday, 2 April 2026 : Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today on this evening all of us are gathered together as the whole Church to commemorate the beginning of Easter or Paschal Triduum with this Mass of the Lord’s Supper, marking the moment when the Lord Jesus Christ had the last meal with His disciples just before the beginning of His Passion, which refers to His suffering and death. This night as we gather together as the Church, all of us remember that night when the Lord gathered His disciples to eat the Passover meal with them, and in that occasion, He also gave them the new mandate and commandment, which is why today is also known as Maundy Thursday, for this new ‘Mandatum’ that He told all of His disciples to do, to be servants and ministers of the people of God, and also to obey God’s will. In that same occasion therefore, the Lord instituted the Holy Eucharist and also the institution of priesthood.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus in which the account of the Exodus of the Israelites from the land of Egypt was read, and how the Lord instructed His people to have their very first Passover in the land of Egypt, marking the moment when the Lord brought His tenth and final plague against the Egyptians and their Pharaoh for their stubbornness and refusal to let the people of Israel go free. The Lord therefore sent His greatest plague upon the Egyptians, that He would kill all of their firstborn, from the Pharaoh’s firstborn right down to that of the lowest among the Egyptians. But the same plague of death did not affect the Israelites for God has ‘passed over’ them and their houses, because they followed the Lord’s instruction, for them to prepare an unblemished lamb, and then mark their houses with the blood from that slaughtered lamb, and which meat was eaten by the families on that Passover night.

We may wonder why this particular reading from the first Passover in Egypt was read as our first reading today, but this in fact highlighted the clear link and parallel between the original Passover that were celebrated each year afterwards as the Jewish Passover or the Seder, and the new Passover, our Christian Passover that superseded the old Passover, revealing the true intention of the Lord for us all. That is because just as the Lord has rescued His people Israel from their enslavement in the land of Egypt, from the hands of the Egyptians and their Pharaoh in the original Passover, and thus, the new, Christian Passover is the representation of God’s desire to rescue all of His people, and not just the Israelites, from the tyranny of sin, and from their enslavement to sin and death. The first Passover was the precursor and prefigurement of the Lord’s grand plan of salvation for all of us mankind.

If we look at the Passover of the Israelites, the Lord instructed them all to choose an unblemished young lamb to be slaughtered and then its blood to be painted upon the doors of their houses, to mark those houses so that the Angels of the Lord would ‘pass over’ them as they scourged the whole land of Egypt and destroyed all the firstborn of the Egyptians. In the same way therefore, the Lord has sent us all His own Son, to be the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, the most worthy of all offerings and sacrifices, far surpassing the offering of worldly lambs and animals, and One Who is truly spotless and blameless, all perfection and good within Him. Then, just as the Passover lamb was kept and prepared and eventually slaughtered on the day of the Passover, the same thing happened to the Lord, the Paschal Lamb, Who embarked on His own Passover journey, becoming the One to be slaughtered and at the same time also as the One Who offered on behalf of everyone, the perfect and worthy offering to God.

In the Last Supper, as we heard from our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Corinth, we listened to how the Lord conducted the Passover meal in a most curious and distinct way. That Last Supper was indeed a Passover meal structured around the Jewish Passover, as it was mentioned that the Lord wanted to have a Passover meal with His disciples, but what is interesting is that, if we notice, unlike the central presence of the Passover lamb in the usual Jewish Passover, as we heard from our reading from the Book of Exodus, at the Last Supper, the Passover lamb was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the Lord Himself took the centre stage, and as He prayed and broke the bread over His disciples, He passed the bread to them while telling them that the bread is His Body, broken and shared for them to partake and eat. He did the same with the wine, which He passed to them as the chalice of His Blood, shared and outpoured for them to drink and partake as well.

Obviously, as we can see, the Lord Himself is the Paschal Lamb, Who was to be offered and slaughtered at the Altar of His Cross. However, at the time of the Last Supper, no one present except the Lord Himself could have understood what was happening. It was likely only afterwards that the Lord’s disciples realised everything that had happened, and how all that He had done at the Last Supper was a revelation of what He Himself would have to suffer on the next day after on Good Friday. Then, if we look upon the events of the Easter Triduum, what many of us might not have realised is that, everything that happened is one great liturgy and celebration, of the great Sacrifice that Our Lord offered on our behalf, as the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God, offered and slaughtered on the moment of His Passion at Calvary. His broken and shared Body and Blood, have been broken and outpoured for our salvation. That is why, the Church does not celebrate any Mass on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, with tonight’s Mass being the same sacrifice that encompass the whole of Easter Triduum.

Historically, the Last Supper was also known as an incomplete Passover, as according to the Jewish customs, there are four cups of wine that ought to be drunk at the occasion of the Passover. However, according to the Apostolic tradition, Scriptural and historical evidence, the Lord and some of His disciples, St. Peter, St. James and St. John left for the Gardens of Gethsemane, where the Lord Jesus prayed in agony in tears and sweat of Blood as He agonised over all the sufferings and hardships that He would have to endure very soon. But the Passover meal was not yet complete, and this is another hint that, what the Lord would have to go through in His Passion, is part of the whole entire Passover, the moment when He offered Himself, His Most Precious Body and His Most Precious Blood, for the salvation of all mankind, for the atonement and the reconciliation of all of us with God, His Heavenly Father, Who is our Lord, Master and Creator.

That is why, tonight, as all of us gather together to commemorate that night when the Lord embarked on His Passion, beginning with the final and most important phase in His mission to save all of us from eternal damnation and destruction, we are all reminded of God’s most amazing and enduring love for each and every one of us, which He has shown to us through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. We remember that moment when the Lord instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, offering Himself, His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood freely and willingly for our sake. By His sharing of His Body and Blood, and by our partaking in the Eucharist, the Lord has united us all to Himself, and by embracing us fully and wholeheartedly, taking up upon Himself all of our sins and faults, He has opened for us the gates of eternal life, freedom and liberation from the tyranny of sin and death. That is because if the blood of the Passover lamb had marked the Israelites as a people free from the enslavement and domination of the Egyptians, thus, all of us, who have been marked by the Blood of the Lamb of God, through the Eucharist, have received the mark from the Lord, the mark of salvation and freedom from sin.

Now, what all of us need to ask ourselves is that, do we heed what the Lord Himself has told His disciples, as we heard in our Gospel passage today. As we heard how the Lord humbled Himself and went to wash the feet of His disciples, the job usually done by slaves and servants, He has shown us all what each and every one of us as Christians should be doing in our lives. As those whom God had called and chosen from the darkness of this world, and freed from the tyranny of sin, all of us are called to a new existence, one that is blessed and graced by God. Tonight’s celebration is a reminder that as we enter into this most solemn and holy period in which we recall everything that God Himself had done for us, from His ever enduring and great love, all of us should dedicate ourselves to the Lord anew, to follow Him and obey Him, His Law and commandments just as He had told His disciples to do.

As He ‘mandated’ for them to do, all of us are called to live our lives worthily and virtuously as all Christians should, and each one of us are reminded that we should not seek personal glory and gratification, but instead be focused on the Lord and be like Him in how He loved His Father and each one of us, in His humility and commitment to us, so that all of us may also be like Him, and be good role models and examples of faith to one another. All of us have been given the great gift and grace from God Himself, Who has willingly offered and sacrificed Himself, as the Paschal Lamb, so that we may be fully and completely reconciled with God, and find the sure path to eternal life and true joy with Him. Let us all therefore discern these carefully, particularly as we enter into this Easter Triduum and deepen our focus on the Lord Jesus, His Passion, suffering and death on the Cross, all for our sake.

Let us also remember that it is our Christian calling to love God and love one another, especially those who are dearest and most beloved to us, so that in everything that we do, we will always remember first and foremost how truly beloved each and every one of us are by the Lord, and therefore love Him wholeheartedly in the same way. But this love is incomplete without us showing that same love, compassion and kindness to each other, just as the Lord Himself showed His disciples through Him washing their feet. This is a reminder to all of us to be humble and to show genuine care and concern to one another, swallowing our pride and ego, in serving each other, especially those dearly beloved to us, in giving ourselves, our time and attention just as we do the same to the Lord. It is by loving one another that we can truly love God ever more perfectly and experience His love more perfectly too.

May the Lord, our most loving God and Saviour continue to be with us, guiding us and strengthening us in our journey of faith, so that our every experiences and moments, especially during this Holy Week and Easter Triduum, be most enriching and inspirational, in allowing us to come ever closer to Him and to His salvation. May God be with us always and may He bless our days, our Easter Triduum, the upcoming Easter season and our lives beyond. May He bless our every good efforts and endeavours, and bless our loved ones all around us. Wishing all of us a most blessed Easter Triduum, brothers and sisters in Christ. Amen.

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Thursday, 2 April 2026 : Holy Thursday, Chrism Mass (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this occasion today, which is typically celebrated in the morning of Holy Thursday just before the beginning of the most solemn Easter Triduum, the Church all around the world usually celebrates the Chrism Mass, in which the holy oils to be used in the various purposes in the life of the Church are blessed and sanctified, and the bishop of the diocese together with all the priests of the diocese together commit themselves anew to the Lord, in their priestly ministry, in ministering to the people of God, the flock of the Lord. In this morning’s Mass, the whole Church gathers together in prayer, united with the whole presbyterate and the bishop, in recalling the ministry of priesthood that Christ our Lord Himself has instituted on this day at the Last Supper that He had with His disciples.

In our first reading and Gospel passage today, we heard the passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which the Lord proclaimed His salvation and the coming of His grace and love into our midst, as He reassured all of His beloved people that He always remembers them, and He will never abandon any of them, as well as any of us, at any time, since He truly loves us all, and He wants us to be saved and be reconciled with Him. That was why, He revealed through the prophet Isaiah and His many other prophets and messengers, that He will send unto us His Holy One, His Messiah and Saviour, the One Who in our Gospel passage today, Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Son of Man proclaimed before all the assembled people, that everything which God had promised them and their ancestors, all had become true and been fulfilled with His coming, Him being the Messiah long awaited.

Then, in the same readings we have also heard how this Holy One of God came unto us to bring us healing from God, healing for those who were sick and afflicted by various maladies and hardships, consolation and strength for those who were grieving and without hope, as well as the comfort of His truth and love, opening the eyes of the blind, both of our physical eyes and also for all those who are physically fit, the ‘eyes’ of our hearts and minds, that we all may see and recognise the truth of God. That was what the Lord Jesus has been tasked to do by His Heavenly Father, to be the One to bring the love, grace and salvation from God to His people, to be the Bridge that connects us all back to our loving God and Creator. And it is this same mission which the Lord then transmitted to His Apostles, Whom He appointed as the first priests of the Church, to be the servants of God forever.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what the calling of a priest of the Lord is like, and as today all the priests of the dioceses in the world come together with their respective bishops, to renew their commitment and dedication to the service of God, all of them are reminded to follow the Lord more wholeheartedly and to remember that each and every one of them are truly the representatives of Our Lord Jesus Christ, first of all as the shepherds of the people of God, and during the celebration of the Holy Mass, as the representatives ‘in persona Christi’, acting in the person of the Lord Himself, in consecrating the bread and wine, offering them to the Lord and uniting them to the same Sacrifice made by the Lord on His Cross at Calvary, becoming the Lord’s own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood, broken and outpoured unto us all, all of us who partake in His Covenant and His Most Holy Eucharist, the greatest gift that the Lord has given us.

All the priests of the Lord have given themselves and committed themselves to a life of sanctity and celibacy, dedicated completely to the Lord and to the service of His people, and they are all facing a lot of challenges and hardships, which only become more and more in these days, as many trials and attacks face our priests. Yet, despite all of these, they still have to continue to minister to the people of God, caring for them and giving them the guidance that they all needed, so that they may find their way to the Lord, their Chief Shepherd and Saviour. And all these are related to the holy oils that are being blessed in this Chrism Mass happening now as well. Those holy oils are used in many important and integral aspects of our Christian faith, and the priests are charged with the dutiful application of these oils in the many different stages of the lives of those of the faithful people of God, from their birth, right down to the end of their earthly lives.

There are three holy oils in total, namely the Oil of the Catechumens also known as Oleum Catechumenorum, the Sacred Chrism also known as Sanctum Chrisma, and the Oil of the Sick also known as Oleum Infirmorum. Each of these holy oils are important in the life journey of Christians, as the Oil of the Catechumens are used to anoint Catechumens who are preparing themselves to become Christians, in an occasion prior to their baptism. Oil of the Sick by its name, is used to anoint those who are gravely ill and sick, and are usually in the danger of death, as part of the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, one of the Church’s seven Sacraments. Meanwhile, Sacred Chrism is used most extensively, in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, as well as in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, in the dedication of churches and Altars, among many other uses. All of these are blessed today by the diocesan bishop, to be used for the good of the Church and the flock of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we gather together as the whole Universal Church today, united with the bishops and their priests all around the world, let us all unite our prayers and renew our support for all those who have dedicated themselves to God. Our priests have dedicated their whole lives to the Lord and committed themselves, and they face many struggles and hardships, and are in need of the support of the whole Universal Church. We must remember that every members of the Church and the faithful have to be active partakers of the works and the actions of the Church. The bishops, priests and deacons, the ordained members of the Church cannot be the only ones who carry out the works of the Lord and obey God’s will, as each and every one of us are part of the same Church, the same Body of Christ, and hence, have a part to play in the works of the Church, in whatever missions that God has entrusted to each and every one of us.

Let us hence pray for our priests, for the bishops and all those who have been ordained for a specific ministry in the Church, so that the Lord may continue to guide and strengthen them, to resist the many temptations, pressures, coercions, and to endure trials and hardships all around them. Let us all pray for the sanctification of our ordained ministers, that they all may continue to serve the Lord and His people with all of their hearts and minds, and with particular attention to sanctity and purity in their lives and actions. May the Lord continue to bless His Church and all of us, His beloved people, and especially our priests, whom we remember today. May God bless us always, in our every good efforts and deeds, and may He particularly bless our upcoming Easter Triduum observances and commemorations. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 April 2025 : Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia! The Lord is Risen! He has triumphed and conquered sin and death, and has brought us all into a new Hope and Light of His salvation, let us all rejoice and be glad! All of us have come to this most joyful and happy occasion of Easter, and on this Sunday, the day of Easter Sunday, we remember all of the preparations that we have done in getting ourselves ready to celebrate this most momentous and important occasion. It is at the core of our Christian beliefs and faith that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Saviour and Son of God Who has been crucified for the sake of all mankind. And this belief in the Resurrection of Jesus is truly important because without the Resurrection then our faith is nothing more than an empty faith and belief.

Without the Resurrection of the Lord, then Jesus Christ is no more than just a mere Man or a Prophet like others, and worse still, it might have affirmed what the Jewish elders and chief priests had accused the Lord of doing, that is being a False Messiah and as someone who has blasphemed against God. But the reality is that the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead and this faith has been passed down to us for generations after generations to our present day through the Church of God. The Resurrection is something that we ourselves have not seen, experienced and witnessed and yet we chose to believe in this truth, just as many of our predecessors had done before us. All of us truly believe in Jesus Christ, in Him being the Son of God Incarnate, in everything that He had taught and revealed to us, and in His suffering, death and resurrection.

People always debate on whether Christmas or Easter is the greater and more important celebration. The truth is that it is more complicated than it seems to be, and it is truly imprudent and inappropriate to compare the two of them. The reality is that both of them are very important events in the history of our salvation and neither is complete without the other one. But ultimately, Easter is more important and crucial to our salvation because without what happened at Easter, then the Child born into this world at Christmas would just be another one of the countless mankind that had been born into this world, just like any one of us. If Christ never rose from the dead, then everything that He had taught, all the prophecies that He had fulfilled all ultimately would have come to nothing, and His followers would have eventually scattered and ceased to exist just as what had happened to so many other False Messiahs.

But at the same time, Christmas is important because it provided the foundation for what happened during the whole Holy Week and Easter. In Christmas, we have seen the manifestation of God’s love made Man, the Divine Being Himself being incarnate in the flesh and appearing before us. After spending nine months in His mother Mary’s hallowed womb, the Lord Himself was born into this world and showed Himself to us, from the once intangible and unapproachable, transcendent beyond imagination into the realm of reality, approachable, touchable and tangible to us. Through Christmas, we know that God has made His salvation clear and tangible to us, and not merely just a mighty deed done from afar, but a real action from a loving God Who has assumed our Humanity, and becoming Man as we are, He has united us all to Himself and made His salvation available to us.

That is because by His perfect obedience to the Father’s will, Christ as the New Adam and the New Man showed us all what all of us mankind are supposed to be, pure, blameless, full of faith and obedience to God. God has created us all in His image and likeness, but we have all been corrupted due to our fall into sin, failing to resist the many temptations that prevented us from truly achieving our full potential in what we have been meant to be. God created us all good and perfect, all full of grace and holiness, just as the Lord Himself has shown us in His perfect humanity, untainted by sin. But we have been led astray by sin and because of this we have been forced to wander off in this world and suffer the consequences of our disobedience and lack of faith and trust in God.

Our Scripture readings this Easter Sunday then highlight to us all the things which the Lord had done to overcome sin and death, and reunite us all with our most loving God and Father, our Creator and Master. Christ our Risen Lord has endured the worst of sufferings and challenges, trials and pains, by Him embracing willingly our many sins and their punishments upon Himself, by making Himself the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of God to be slain for the New and Eternal Passover and Covenant that God wanted to establish with us all. The sacrifice and offering of our Risen Lord has been accepted in His perfect obedience, as the one and only worthy offering that is good enough to redeem and heal us all from our afflictions and corruptions by sin, as our Eternal High Priest, offering His own Most Precious Body and Blood for our salvation.

In our first reading taken from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard of the great testimony of faith from St. Peter the Apostle, the Lord’s chief disciple who spoke courageously and full of the Holy Spirit after he and the other disciples had received the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, fifty days after the Lord Jesus had risen from the dead. He spoke bravely and courageously on behalf of the Lord because he himself had seen and witnessed everything that happened, and as recorded in the Scriptures, he and many others had seen the Risen Lord Himself in the flesh, in the glory of His Resurrected Body, which has transcended death. Initially, he and the other disciples were afraid because of the intense pressures, intimidations and efforts by the Jewish elders and chief priests who sought to keep the news about the Resurrection from spreading, even to the point of spreading false stories about how the disciples had stolen the Lord’s Body from His tomb.

But there St. Peter stood courageously before the many people assembled in Jerusalem for the Festival of the Pentecost, proclaiming all the good things that the Lord had done and accomplished through the same One Whom the people had persecuted and crucified just weeks earlier, and Who had died and yet rose again gloriously from the dead despite the lies and the falsehoods that the Temple authorities and the members of the Sanhedrin attempted against the Lord. He proclaimed the salvation which the Lord had won for all of us, the people beloved by God because of His triumphant Resurrection from the dead. And because they themselves have all experienced it, St. Peter and the other Apostles and disciples, all the witnesses of the Resurrection that our Gospel passage today had presented to us and all the great deeds that the Lord had done would not remain silent, and they proclaimed them all in great joy.

In our second reading this Easter Sunday, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Colossians, in which he exhorted all of them to seek what is holy and worthy, and not in earthly and worldly things. He challenged the faithful people of God to live in the manner that they have been called and expected to do as Christians, as those whom God had called and chosen to be His own beloved and holy people. Therefore, this is the same reminder to all of us that we should always be truly be active and committed in each and every moments of our lives, in carrying out our every actions, words and deeds in the manner that the Lord had taught us all through His Church. We should not merely be faithful in the manner of formality only, but we must be like the Apostles, who courageously and faithfully defended their faith in the Risen Lord.

This Easter season and beyond, we are also reminded that as Christians, as Pope St. John Paul II once famously said, that we are all Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. This means that all of us are called to live a truly holy and worthy lives, lives that are truly active, committed to God and missionary, full of compassion for one another and righteousness, justice and virtues in all of our actions throughout life. We must have the right disposition and attitude in life in order for us to be able to follow the Lord worthily in our lives. And just as the Israelites still continue their journey after crossing the sea out of Egypt, which is a symbolism and prefigurement of our baptism, therefore, baptism is not the end of our journey towards God, but rather, marks the new beginning in this journey we have towards God. As we renew our baptismal promises, we are reminded of this commitment that we have in following God and obeying His commandments.

Essentially, we are called to proclaim the Lord and His Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to the world. But in order to do this, we must first live our lives worthily as good and faithful Christians, and this is something that many of us have difficulty doing because we face so many obstacles, temptations and challenges in our daily lives. And this is why as we enter into this joyful Easter season, we have to renew our commitment and dedication to the Lord, in doing our best to live our lives worthily and to commit ourselves to a truly holy and blessed existence in God, in all of our actions, words and deeds, and in how we interact with others around us. We cannot be hypocrites who claim to believe in the Lord and yet act in the manner that is contrary to our faith and beliefs in God.

That is why as we all enter into this joyous season of Easter, celebrating the Lord’s glorious Resurrection, let us all strive to commit ourselves to be ever more faithful and sincere in following our Risen Lord in everything that we say and do. Let the transformations and conversions that we have experienced during the Lenten season continue to bear their fruits through this time of Easter and beyond. May all of us be faithful and ever more courageous witnesses of Our Lord and His Resurrection, being good role models and inspirations to our fellow brothers and sisters, helping ever more people to come closer to God and His salvation. May our Risen Lord continue to bless us all and give us His light of Hope, and strengthen us in our resolve to follow Him wholeheartedly, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 April 2025 : Easter Vigil Mass, Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening on this Easter Vigil Mass, all of us finally have reached the end of our Lenten journey, a forty days long period of purification and reorientation of our lives, of more intense connection with God and renewal of our lives. Now, on this very evening we celebrate the glorious Resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who has suffered and died for us, bearing all the burdens and punishments that are due for our sins and wickedness. Through His Resurrection, He has shown us the great triumph that He had won over sin and death, showing us that they no longer hold dominion and power over us. And tonight we have finally come to the culmination of our long wait for salvation, and rejoicing together as one Church and holy people of God, we cry and sing out together, ‘Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ has conquered death!’

All these joy and celebration that we have this evening and this upcoming fifty days of rejoicing during the whole Easter season come from the fact that we have been given the assurance of eternal life and freedom from the damnation and domination of sin, and how death no longer reigns over us. Through His glorious Resurrection, Our Lord has promised that we too shall rise with Him and enjoy forever the true joy and glory of God’s Kingdom, where we shall enjoy forever the fullness of God’s grace and blessings. This is what the Lord has always meant and intended for all of us, as each one of us have been created out of God’s overflowing love and kindness, and He has always wanted us to enjoy forever the fullness of His love, all the blessings and good things He has created in this world. However, our disobedience and sins came in between us and God.

God however never gave up on us and His love for us endures even though we have rebelled against Him and have often showed a lot of stubbornness in our attitudes and ways. He has promised from the very beginning of time, from the time when He created us all as we have heard in the account from the Book of Genesis of the creation of the whole world and the Universe, creating all the things good and perfect as He has always meant it, including us mankind, His most beloved ones, created in His own image and likeness. But disobedience caused by our ancestors’ inability to resist the temptations of the devil led them and all of us into sin, which brought corruption into the perfection that used to be ours before our downfall into sin. And this separated us from God and His love, forcing us to be separated from God and exiled from Eden, from God’s Holy Presence.

We heard therefore throughout the many readings covered in this Easter Vigil liturgy the many things that God had done in planning for and bringing about our salvation, our liberation from sin and from the dominion of death. He showed us all His love and desire to be reunited with us by calling those from among us to be the ones to prepare the path for the eventual coming of His salvation, beginning with Abraham as we heard from our second reading today, also taken from the Book of Genesis. We heard in that occasion how Abraham, with whom God had made a Covenant with, was called by the Lord to bring his beloved son Isaac to be offered as a sacrifice to God at Mount Moriah. For the context, Isaac was the son which God had long promised to Abraham and his wife, Sarah after they had long been barren without a child.

Yet, God sought to take Isaac away from Abraham, made him to be a sacrifice to be offered to God. Certainly Abraham must have had some uncertainties or even doubts about this instruction from God, and he clearly would have struggled internally over it, considering just how much he had treasured and loved Isaac. But ultimately, Abraham chose to obey God and to put his faith in Him. Abraham trusted that the Lord knew what was best for him and his son Isaac, and went up the mountain of Moriah with Isaac, with the intention to offer him up to God as a sacrifice, with a heavy heart but also at the same time, with faith and trust in God. God saw Abraham’s great faith and trust in Him, and He told Abraham at the moment that he was about to sacrifice Isaac that He had seen his faith and was testing him with the instruction, sending a ram to replace Isaac as a sacrifice, while renewing the Covenant which He has made with Abraham, affirming the blessings that Abraham and his descendants will receive.

Now, this location of Mount Moriah is very significant and the reason why this passage was chosen as one of the readings of this Easter Vigil because many centuries later, long after the time of Abraham and Isaac, another important sacrifice were to take place at the very same site. Yes, I am referring to none other than the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus at Calvary, a hill or mountain located just outside of Jerusalem. This site of Mount Moriah was historically and traditionally associated with the site of the Lord’s crucifixion at Calvary. Therefore, the sacrifice of Isaac was in fact a prefigurement of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross at Calvary, revealing the plan that God has in mind in His desire to redeem all of us from our sins.

And there are a lot of symbolisms from this event of the sacrifice of Mount Moriah when placed side by side with the Lord’s crucifixion. Just like Abraham who willingly offered Isaac, his own most beloved son to be sacrificed to God even when he could have refused to do so, God did not spare His own most Beloved Son, His only Begotten, Whom He offered willingly and freely for us all, to be sacrificed as the Paschal Lamb, by Whose sufferings and death, we may be freed and healed from our many sins and corruptions due to those sins. Through the breaking of the Lord’s Most Precious Body and the shedding of His Most Precious Blood, sharing these with us through the gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, God has crafted for us the perfect and ultimate remedy for our sins.

The death of Christ Who willingly took upon Himself our many sins and their punishments is also reminiscent of how God spared Isaac by sending a ram to be sacrificed in his place. Therefore, as we have commemorated yesterday on Good Friday, Our Lord’s crucifixion, His sufferings and death brought us to freedom from our sins because by His Most Precious Body and Blood that we have partaken in the Eucharist and by our sincere faith and desire to be reunited with Him, God has forgiven us all our sins and made us all whole once again, freed from all the shackles of sin and all the bonds of temptations and evils that have so far kept us chained and separated from Him, our loving Father and Creator.

Then from our third reading today, which is a compulsory reading for this Easter Vigil liturgy, we heard the passage of the Book of Exodus from the moment when the Lord brought His people, the Israelites to the shores of the sea, where He opened the sea before them and allowing all of them to walk on the dry seabed, protecting them from their enemies and pursuers, the Egyptians and their Pharaoh. The latter did not want to let the Israelites go and made one final attempt to capture all the Israelites or to destroy all of them, after earlier on having let them to go free to the land promised to them by God. And we heard how God rescued His people, leading them through the waters of the sea to the other side, beginning their journey towards the promised land. It was at that moment when they left the land of Egypt behind.

And of course we heard how God crushed those Egyptians and their chariots and armies, sinking them all beneath the waves. But the Israelites were brought safely to the other end of the sea, and they rejoiced greatly at God Who has shown them His great might and triumphed against their enemies and all those who have once enslaved and persecuted them. This account of the Exodus and how God rescued His people is in fact also very symbolic and very much related to what the Lord Himself would do to save His people through Jesus Christ, His Son and Our Saviour.  Again in this case, much as the parallels between Isaac’s sacrifice and that of Christ’s, here we can also see how God led His people through the darkness of sin and into a new life with Him.

That journey through the water of the sea, opened up by the Lord before the people symbolised the Israelites having left behind their past life and slavery in Egypt, and instead they then entered into new lives and existence in which they were free and were guided by God on their journey to the land of promise. This is experienced by all of us who have gone through the Sacrament of Baptism, especially those among us who have been baptised on this Easter Vigil itself. And for all those among us who are going to be baptised later after this, as they receive the water of baptism either by pouring or immersion, this is symbolic of what the people of God had once experienced in the miraculous crossing of the sea as depicted in the Book of Exodus.

Like the Israelites who have been led from the place of their slavery into a new land of freedom, all of us have been led from our past, sinful existence into a new life and existence blessed by God. And just as the Lord has crushed and defeated the forces, armies and chariots of the Egyptians chasing after them, liberating them from the shackles of their slavers and oppressors, thus through baptism, all of us as Christians have been brought to freedom as the Lord has triumphed through His glorious Resurrection that all of us celebrate today, crushing and defeating all the forces of evil, the dominion and power of sin and death. They no longer have power and dominion over us, and through this victory, God is leading us all to the new, blessed existence in Him. That is what we all rejoice for today, because in Christ, our Risen Lord, we have the hope of eternal life and overcoming death.

Death is always something that is fearsome to us, as it marks the end of our earthly existence and life as we all know it. It is something that all of us have to experience because of sin, and by our sins, all of us have to suffer through death, and yet, because we know that Christ has Risen from the dead, we now know that there is life and existence beyond death, and death is not the end of all hope. Instead, through the Resurrection, we know that by sharing in His humanity, all of us have shared in the death of Christ, the death to our past, sinful way of life, symbolised by the gift of water which destroys the Egyptians in the days of the Exodus, and then the new life which water also symbolises, as we are led into the new life in Christ, in the assurance that we will also share in the Resurrection of Christ when the time comes. This is what we have heard earlier on from the Epistle reading before the Gospel, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans.

The remaining passages of the Scripture readings today from the Old Testament highlights the promises of the Lord of His salvation through the prophets like Isaiah, Baruch and Ezekiel, all of which have come to fruition in the coming of Jesus Christ, our Risen Lord. By His coming into this world, God has revealed to us all that He has planned from the very beginning for us, to rescue us and to lead us all back to Himself. And that is why, it is important that Christ our Lord truly died that day on Good Friday, just as we have reflected about it yesterday, because without His suffering and death, then the significance of the Resurrection will be diminished and missed. It was precisely because of the death of Christ that we have been redeemed, united to Him in death, and by His offering of a most pure and holy, a worthy offering on our behalf, we have been cleansed and forgiven from our sins.

The Lord’s Resurrection is then even more important, as if the Lord had died and not risen from the dead, then truly there can be no hope for us. Since, if the Lord Himself, Who is without sin, perished and died, and did not overcome death, then how can there be hope for us? Yet, since the Risen Lord had triumphed over death itself and showed that death does not have the final say over us, and that by His grace and love, God will restore life to all of us, hence, we should no longer fear death and yet, we must remain vigilant of sin because if we still continue to sin against God and refuse His generous offer of forgiveness and mercy, then in the end, it is by our sins that we have not repented from that we will be judged against and condemned by.

Therefore, we are also reminded that as Christians, as Pope St. John Paul II once famously said, that we are all Easter people, and Alleluia is our song. This means that all of us are called to live a truly holy and worthy lives, lives that are truly active, committed to God and missionary, full of compassion for one another and righteousness, justice and virtues in all of our actions throughout life. We must have the right disposition and attitude in life in order for us to be able to follow the Lord worthily in our lives. And just as the Israelites still continue their journey after crossing the sea out of Egypt, which is a symbolism and prefigurement of our baptism, therefore, baptism is not the end of our journey towards God, but rather, marks the new beginning in this journey we have towards God.

Essentially, we are called to proclaim the Lord and His Resurrection, His Good News and salvation to the world. But in order to do this, we must first live our lives worthily as good and faithful Christians, and this is something that many of us have difficulty doing because we face so many obstacles, temptations and challenges in our daily lives. And this is why as we enter into this joyful Easter season, we have to renew our commitment and dedication to the Lord, in doing our best to live our lives worthily and to commit ourselves to a truly holy and blessed existence in God, in all of our actions, words and deeds, and in how we interact with others around us. We cannot be hypocrites who claim to believe in the Lord and yet act in the manner that is contrary to our faith and beliefs in God.

That is why as we all enter into this joyous season of Easter, celebrating the Lord’s glorious Resurrection, let us all strive to commit ourselves to be ever more faithful and sincere in following our Risen Lord in everything that we say and do. Let the transformations and conversions that we have experienced during the Lenten season continue to bear their fruits through this time of Easter and beyond. May all of us be faithful and ever more courageous witnesses of Our Lord and His Resurrection, being good role models and inspirations to our fellow brothers and sisters, helping ever more people to come closer to God and His salvation. May our Risen Lord continue to bless us all and give us His light of Hope, and strengthen us in our resolve to follow Him wholeheartedly, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 18 April 2025 : Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is Good Friday, also known as the Good Friday of the Passion of the Lord. On this day Christians throughout the world commemorate the suffering, crucifixion and ultimately the death of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. This day is truly a Good Friday because it is a Good thing that God has died for us, as if not for this, we would have certainly perished in the eternal darkness and suffering, being separated forever from the love and grace of God. It was because of the sufferings and the pains endured by Christ, all of His wounds and hurts that we have been healed from our afflictions and sins, from all the corruptions and defilements by those sins and evils we have committed in our lives.

And indeed, God died today on this most holy and good Friday, almost two millennia ago. Such a statement is indeed baffling to many people, as to the Jews at that time, it was incomprehensible that God died, Him being the Almighty Lord and God of all Creation and the Universe, while to the Greeks and other Gentiles, such a notion that God dies, is one of foolishness and weakness, for to them, accustomed with having many gods and those gods that perished, only the strong ones remain while those that perished were weak. And yet, what God has revealed to us through His Son, the Divine Word Incarnate, Son of God and yet also Son of Man, is one of pure and ever enduring love which persists despite the many challenges and obstacles to this love that God had for us.

This death of God was made possible because in the very core of our Christian beliefs and teachings, we believe that God Himself has become incarnate in the flesh, embracing our human nature and existence, being formed and developing in the hallowed womb of Mary, whom God had sanctified and filled with His grace, keeping her away from the taint of original sin and corruption so that this vessel so pure and blameless might truly be worthy to bear the Son of God and brought Him forth into this world. We believe that in the Person of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour, is a hypostatic union of two distinct and yet inseparable natures, that of Divine and Human. That means Jesus was truly and fully Divine, fully God, while at the same time He was also fully Man.

And while God in His Divinity is immortal and all-powerful, transcendent and beyond comprehension, but in His Humanity, God truly has died that day at Calvary, pierced, beaten and wounded for us all. The death of Jesus Christ is truly a real death, and not merely a symbol or appearance only, or as some would believe it otherwise, that He did not really die but was replaced by another. The Lord really did suffer and die, and He was wounded deeply because of our sins. As the first reading of this Good Friday from the Book of the prophet Isaiah highlighted to us, Christ is the One to bear all the burdens of our sins, all of our wickedness and faults, for which we should have been punished for, and yet, God’s great mercy and compassion has allowed us to find a way out through His Son, Our Saviour.

The prophet Isaiah spoke about the Suffering Servant of God, the One Whom God would punish on our behalf for all of our faults and mistakes, burdened with all of the punishments and scourges, wounds because of our disobedience and evils, all the things which we have done in this world that are not in accordance with God’s will. The Suffering Servant is the role that Christ our Saviour has taken up upon Himself, willingly and obediently accepting punishments upon Himself so that by His perfect obedience, He might craft unto us a remedy that allows us all to overcome all of our sins, through God’s forgiveness and grace, freely given and offered to us. By the willing and most loving sacrifice of our Lord and God, on the Altar of the Cross, the perfect and worthy sacrifice in atonement of our sins have been offered by our One True Eternal High Priest.

And this offering is none other than the Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself, slain and offered on the Altar of the Cross for us. And since it is none other than the Divine Son and Lamb of God offering Himself, it is the only sacrifice and offering worthy to atone for our sins. This is the continuation of the whole grand liturgy that began yesterday at the Last Supper and which will continue through to the Easter Vigil tomorrow evening, a grand sacrifice that the Lord Himself has offered on our behalf for our salvation, with His sufferings and death uniting us all to die to our own sins and wickedness, bringing us through the valley of darkness and out into the light. And by partaking His Most Precious Body and Blood that He Himself has given to us most generously through the Eucharist, God has given us all the perfect remedy for our fallen state and sinfulness, showing us the certain path out of the darkness and into the light of God’s grace and salvation.

In our second reading this Good Friday, we then heard of the words from the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in which he highlighted the role of Jesus Christ our Lord as the High Priest, Who having shared in our human nature and being truly and fully human, He did share in our pains and sufferings. It is again His incarnation that allowed Him to experience suffering and death in His Passion and what we reflect upon throughout the long Passion story in our Gospel passage today. He has been tempted also by the same temptations that we have faced ourselves, and endured the same things that we have endured. Yet, He triumphed over all those temptations and showed us all that it is indeed possible for us mankind to resist the temptations and to be truly obedient to God, just as Christ Himself has shown us.

By His humble obedience, Jesus our Lord has shown us the perfect example of how each and every one of us as Christians should live our lives in the manner that is truly pleasing to God. And today as we focus our attention on the great sacrifice that Our Lord Himself has gone through for our sake, we are reminded that all of us should not continue to indulge in our various temptations and sins. We should instead remember that each one of our sins and faults have caused hurt on the Lord Himself, with every wounds that were inflicted upon Him being every single sins that we have committed in our lives. And yet, at the same time, God has been so generous with His love for us that He was willing to go through all the sufferings and pains meant for us so that we can be saved from certain destruction and can be reconciled and reunited with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore as we commemorate the events which happened on this Good Friday and as we continue to immerse ourselves in the important events of this Paschal Triduum, let us all grow ever more aware of our relationship with God and all of our sins, imperfections and faults. Let us all first and foremost be thankful for all the love that God has shown us, and be grateful for everything that He had done for us. Let us all lovingly gaze upon the Cross and commit ourselves wholly and wholeheartedly knowing that He has always been there for us, guiding us through our journey in life and helping us to carry our own crosses. Let us remind ourselves that whatever difficulties and sufferings we may be facing in life, the Lord has suffered them all as well, and in a manner far worse than ours. Yet, He bore them all patiently out of love for us.

Let us all therefore continue to deepen our relationship with God and do our very best to commit ourselves to Him, in everything that we do and in our whole ways of living our lives. We should be more genuine in our faith and in our efforts to build and maintain our relationship with God and we should not ignore the love that God has for us any longer. Instead, let us do our best to glorify God by our lives and our whole actions so that we may continue to be good role models and inspirations for one another in faith, as good and worthy Christians, parts and members of the Church and Kingdom of God which God Himself has established on this Good Friday through His ultimate loving sacrifice on the Cross. May our Crucified Lord and Saviour be with us always. Amen.

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Thursday, 17 April 2025 : Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening as we begin the celebrations of the Paschal or Easter Triduum, we enter into this most solemn and holy period in the whole entire liturgical year. And this evening marks the start of that three days period or Triduum, beginning with this celebration in memory of the Last Supper which the Lord Jesus had with His disciples, referring to the Passover meal which they had that evening just before the Lord was arrested and began with His Passion journey to the Cross. On this evening we remember how the Lord began this most important part of His ministry, in accomplishing and fulfilling everything that God had promised to His people, to all of us mankind from the very beginning of time, in order to lead us all from the domination and slavery to sin, and out into His salvation and eternal life with Him.

In our first reading this Holy Thursday, we heard from the Book of Exodus the retelling of the account of the very first Passover of the Israelites which they celebrated in the Land of Egypt, the place where they had been enslaved and put under harsh rule of the Egyptians for centuries. God has remembered them all, His beloved and chosen people, and He has not ignored their plight and misery in the land and place of their sufferings and enslavement. He sent to them Moses to be the leader to inspire and strengthen them, and to reveal unto them what He had planned to do with them and how He would lead them all out of Egypt with His mighty hands and deeds, striking the Egyptians and their Pharaoh with the Ten Great Plagues, as punishment for their enslavement of the Israelites and for the Pharaoh’s stubbornness in refusing them to go free.

And this Passover was instructed by God to be celebrated and done by the Israelites leading to the Tenth and the Last of the Ten Great Plagues, which was the death of all the firstborn of the Egyptians, from the firstborn of Pharaoh to the firstborn of the lowest among the Egyptians and even their animals. This plague of death was a response to the continued hardening of heart of Pharaoh and the Egyptians, who continued to refuse to relent and let the Israelites to go free to the land of their ancestors. Thus, God asked His people to prepare an unblemished lamb for each of their households, and this lamb was to be kept until the day when the lamb was to be slaughtered and then it was to be roasted for the whole household to partake and eat while they prepared in haste to depart from Egypt to their freedom.

And we heard how the blood of the unblemished Passover lamb was used to mark the houses of the Israelites, placed on their doorposts as a sign to the Angels of Death bringing forth death and destruction to the Egyptians that the houses where the blood of the lamb had been marked on belonged to the people of God, and they would therefore be ‘passed over’ from the death meant for all the others who have not put the lamb’s blood and observed the Passover. This festival of the Passover is the most important celebration and event for the people of Israel as it marks their freedom from the slavery that they had long experienced in Egypt and also their adoption by God to be His beloved and holy people, called and chosen to be His own, and for whom God had exercised His mighty power to lead them into their freedom.

Then from the second reading and the Gospel passage, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Corinth and from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle respectively, we heard the two important events that have been initiated on this Holy Thursday by the Lord for His Church. In that second reading this evening, we heard St. Paul sharing to the faithful about the moment of the Last Supper when the Lord instituted the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, linking to what we have just heard earlier from the first reading on the account of the Passover meal in Egypt. Yes, the Last Supper is indeed the same celebration of the Passover meal, but if we do read through the account of the Passover meal as detailed in the Book of Exodus and in the Jewish traditions, as compared to the Last Supper, curiously there were some very clear differences.

Why is that so? First of all, unlike the Jewish Passover which placed an unblemished lamb at the centre of the celebrations, there was no mention of lamb being used or eaten at the Last Supper. And even if there was indeed lamb being eaten at the Last Supper in the manner that the Jewish Passover had been celebrated, what the Lord did at that Last Supper was something that was different and truly revolutionary, as He prayed over the bread, broke the bread and shared them and the wine with the disciples saying that, “This is My Body, which will be given up for you.” as well as “This is My Blood, which has been poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in the memory of Me.” Through this, the Lord placed Himself at the centre of the New Passover, no longer sealed by the blood of the unblemished lamb, but by the Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Himself.

This is also supported further by the fact that the celebration of the Passover in the Last Supper was rather too early, as if we recall from the account of the Gospel on the Crucifixion of the Lord, towards the end of the Passion narrative, there was a mention of how the chief priests and Jewish leaders asked that the bodies of the Lord and the two thieves were to be brought down from their crosses as they would then hang on through the sacred day of the Sabbath, and earlier on when the chief priests and the crowd of people gathered before Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea to condemn Jesus, how they did not enter into the praetorium where Pilate governed from, as according to their traditional practice and belief, that would have made them unclean and therefore unworthy and unable to eat the Passover meal.

While the Passover day does not always coincide with the Sabbath day, but evidence from these Scriptural accounts highlighted to us how that very year when the Lord went through His Passion, suffering and Crucifixion, as well as the earlier Last Supper, the Passover that year fell on the Sabbath day, which occurred right after the Lord had been crucified and died on His Cross. Therefore that would have made the day of the Good Friday, the day when the Lord Himself was slain and died, being the day when the Passover lamb was to be slaughtered and prepared for the Passover meal, and its blood collected and used to mark the houses of the faithful. Therefore, that was why the Last Supper being the New Passover happened rather early, because the whole entire New Passover does not end with the Last Supper, but rather merely just the beginning of the whole event that spanned the whole Paschal Triduum.

During the Last Supper, the Lord did not complete the whole celebration of the Passover, as it was also mentioned during this event that He would not drink the cup of the vine again, that is wine until the coming of the Kingdom of God. This refers to the cup of suffering drunk during the Passover celebrations, which the Lord would indeed drink at the height of His Passion on the Cross. And all these would be accomplished as He mentioned at the moment of the Crucifixion, ‘I thirst’ and the soldiers gave the Lord the sour wine to drink with the hyssop, hence completing the sacrifice and offering of the Lamb of God for the sake of our redemption. By His Body broken and Blood outpoured, which we all share tonight and at every celebrations of the Holy Mass, we have received the Lord Himself, the Paschal Lamb, and by sharing in Him, we have been marked as His own, to be spared from the destruction due to sin and death.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, our celebration tonight continues throughout the whole Paschal Triduum, the great New Christian Passover that the Lord has celebrated, beginning with this Holy Thursday events, continuing through His Passion on Good Friday, His suffering and death, and it lasts all the way through the moment of His most glorious triumph, the Glorious Resurrection that He has shown us, in how He has defeated and conquered death itself. That is why there is no celebration of the Holy Mass from tonight until that of Easter Vigil, to commemorate this fact that the whole Paschal Triduum is one overarching Sacrifice that the Lord has offered for us all, the Holy Sacrifice at Calvary which is the same Sacrifice that our priests celebrate during each celebrations of the Mass. And that is why today we commemorate the Institution of both the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and also that of the Ministerial Priesthood.

And regarding that Ministerial Priesthood, it was shown this evening through what we have heard from our Gospel passage from the Gospel of St. John the Apostle in which the Lord’s action in washing the feet of His disciples during the Last Supper was highlighted to us. The Lord showed by example that He came into this world to serve all of us, to love us and to unite us all and our sufferings to Himself, and not to lord it over us and to subjugate us. Instead, He humbly accepted His role as the Saviour of all, and in being the Servant of all the servants of God. He humbled Himself and washed the feet of the disciples, the dirtiest and filthiest part of the human body, to show us all that as His followers and disciples, we must also follow His examples in loving the poorest, the weakest and the most marginalised.

After all, the Lord has loved us all even at our weakest and most unworthy moments, when we are still sinners. If God loves us still despite how defiled and wicked we have been, reaching out to us to show us His most wonderful and patient love, His mercy and compassion towards us, then how can we not love Him in the same manner as well? Our priests and bishops, all those whom God had called and chosen to be His ministers are called to embody this same spirit of service and love in them, and that is why we pray for them earnestly this evening so that the Lord may continue to strengthen and guide them all amidst their ministry and works so that they will continue to be faithful to the Lord regardless of the challenges and trials that they may have to face in their journey and ministry to God’s people and God’s Church.

At the same time, we are also reminded that the Lord’s instruction to His disciples, ‘If I, then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you also must wash one another’s feet. I have just given you an example, that as I have done, you also may do.’, therefore, in this Mandatum, or commandment that the Lord has given to us, as Christians, all of us ought to love one another just as God has loved us, and be caring and loving towards everyone around us, particularly those who have been marginalised and ignored by others. We are also challenged to love our brethren around us who may not be on best of terms with us, to our enemies and those who have persecuted us and made our lives difficult. Of course this is easier said than done, but we can gain inspiration from none other than the Lord Himself, Who forgave His enemies and persecutors, and loved all of them nonetheless, dying for them on His Cross for their salvation no less.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we continue to immerse ourselves in the events and commemorations of this Paschal Triduum, let us all deepen our understanding of what the Lord had done for us, all of His love and kindness towards us. And most importantly, let our focus be centred on the Lord, and on His Passion, on everything that He had done for our sake and for our salvation. May all of us be truly blessed and empowered by God, and may our commemoration of the sacred Paschal Triduum be a truly holy and blessed one. Amen.

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Thursday, 17 April 2025 : Holy Thursday, Chrism Mass (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this morning on Holy Thursday, just before the beginning of the liturgical celebrations of the Paschal or Easter Triduum, traditionally in many of the dioceses all around the whole world, the bishop of the diocese celebrates the Chrism Mass with all the priests of the diocese, from the Pope in Rome as the Bishop of Rome to the furthest corners and ends of the earth, from the biggest and most renowned dioceses to the smallest and least known dioceses out there. Each and every one of them commemorates this day the blessing of the holy oils that are used in the many important celebrations of the Church and its Sacraments, as well as the renewal of priestly commitments, vows and promises which they renew during this Chrism Mass.

And all of these are ultimately tied to the historic and traditional association of Holy Thursday, especially what we are going to celebrate this evening at the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, in the two most important events that the Lord had done in that Last Supper about two millennia ago, when He instituted two important Sacraments of the Church, that is the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, as well as the Sacrament of the Holy Orders, that of the Ministerial Priesthood. And since the role of the priests in the Church are truly intimately tied to their roles in administering of the Sacraments to the Church, to the faithful people of God, their central role in the Holy Eucharist and in the use of the holy oils, hence, many dioceses celebrate this during the morning of Holy Thursday.

First let us all examine our Scriptural verses today. In our first reading today, we heard from the words from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which we heard of the words of the Lord’s prophecy presented to His people through Isaiah, of the coming of the Saviour or Messiah, the Holy One Who has been empowered by the Holy Spirit, sent into our midst to lead us all out of the darkness and into the Light of God and His salvation. Through this same Saviour, God would also bring consolation and comfort to His people, healing to the sick and those who had been afflicted by various sickness and maladies, opening the eyes of the blind, and ministering to the people of God. All these would come to fruition with the coming and appearance of the Messiah, and would be the clear sign from God on Who the Messiah would be when He comes.

All those things were indeed fulfilled with the coming of Jesus Christ, the One Whom everyone had been awaiting for, and He Himself proclaimed it all at Nazareth, just as we heard from our Gospel passage today when the Lord was handed the scroll of the words of God, and it was exactly this passage from the first reading today from the Book of the prophet Isaiah that the Lord was reading from, proclaiming the completion and perfection of God’s long awaited plan, and it was His coming and mission, His works and miracles that had proven how everything that God had spoken about was indeed true and would soon be fulfilled perfectly through Him. But even more than that is what we have also heard from that same passage from the Book of the prophet Isaiah regarding the calling of those who are to be priests of the Lord.

As the prophet Isaiah mentioned in his prophecy that there will be priests and ministers of the Lord, those whom God had called and chosen among His people. This alludes to the ministry of the ministerial priesthood which the Lord has also instituted at the Last Supper which we celebrate today on Holy Thursday, at the beginning of the Paschal Triduum. And that is why all the priests all around the world renew their priestly promises, vows and commitments today, united with their bishop and renewing their obedience and commitment to the Lord through the Church and their bishop, who is the chief shepherd of the diocese. All the priests and those who have dedicated themselves to this vocation and ministry have solemnly promised to take up these responsibilities and serve the Lord and His people faithfully all the rest of their lives.

They all represent the Lord Jesus Christ, acting in persona Christi in the celebration of the Holy Mass. And as we heard in our second reading this morning from the Book of Revelations of St. John the Apostle, they represent the mighty conquering Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God that had conquered sin and death for us, overcoming the forces of evil and brought His salvation upon us. He is the Alpha and Omega, that is the Beginning and the End, Lord and Master of all the whole universe. And He has placed His priests and ministers to be our guides and shepherds in His place, guiding and helping us to come towards Him, as He showed us all the sure path towards eternal life and true joy with Him. The priests who renew their commitments today are truly the ministers of the One True King of all.

That is why today as we commemorate this occasion of the Chrism Mass, we are all reminded of the great graces which God has given us all through His Church, in the ministerial priesthood and in the Sacraments, in all that He has provided to us so that we may truly be able to find our way to Him. On this day, the holy oils are blessed as mentioned, consisting of the three holy oils that are used for the various purposes in the Church and its liturgical celebrations and other uses. The first of them being the Sanctum Chrisma or the Sacred Chrism, used in many occasions of the Church and in the distribution of the Sacraments, used in the Sacrament of Baptism to anoint the newly baptised Christians, as well as in the Sacrament of Confirmation to affirm in faith all those who have been deemed mature and worthy of the Christian faith and teachings, as well as for the anointing of the hands and heads of the deacons, priests and bishops in the Sacrament of Holy Orders, marking them as truly consecrated to God.

The Sacred Chrism is also used for the anointing of the churches and other sacred places during their Dedication and Consecration, as well as in the consecration of sacred vessels among other uses. And then for the other two holy oils, they are more limited in use but are certainly very important parts of the Church. The Oil of the Catechumens or Oleum Catechumenorum is used in the anointing of the catechumens before their baptism, in order to strengthen them in their journey to be a Christian that is to be a follower of Christ and be part of His Church. Lastly, the Oil of the Sick or Oleum Infirmorum is used in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick, when priests anoint those who are very sick and in the danger of death, preparing them for the life that is to come or for God to restore them to health if that is His will.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us can see how the Lord has provided His Church and all of His faithful with so many great means to reach out to Him, to be sanctified and strengthened in faith. Let us all therefore on this occasion pray for all of our priests and bishops, all those whom God had called and chosen from among us to be our shepherds and guides, to be the ones to minister to all the faithful and holy people of God, and to be the examples and role models in our faith and commitment to God. Let us all pray for them that God may grant them the strength, courage, faith, patience and perseverance in carrying out their missions and ministries all around the whole world. Let us pray for each other and for God’s Church too, that we may also be strong and be able to persevere in faith against all the trials and challenges that we may have to encounter in life. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.