holy women

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Friday, 21 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 3 : 13-19

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

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

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Friday, 21 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 56 : 2, 3-4, 6 and 11

Have mercy on me, o God, have mercy; for my soul takes refuge in You; I will find shelter in the shadow of Your wings, till the disaster has passed.

I call on God the Most High; on God, Who has done everything for me : may He send from heaven, a Saviour, and put my oppressors to shame. May God send me His love and faithfulness.

Be exalted, o God, above the heavens! Your glory be over all the earth! For Your love reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness, to the clouds.

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Friday, 21 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

1 Samuel 24 : 3-21

So Saul took three thousand picked men from all Israel and went in search of David and his men to the east of the Wild Goat crags. When he came to the sheepfolds along the way, he entered a cave to relieve himself.

Now David and his men were far back in the cave. David’s men said to him, “This is the day which YHVH spoke of : ‘Look I will deliver your enemy into your hands and you will do with him as you see fit.’” So David moved up and stealthily cut off an end of Saul’s robe. But afterward, David regretted having cut off an end of Saul’s robe, and he said to his men, “Let me not lay my hands on my master, for he is YHVH’s anointed.”

With these words, David restrained his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. Saul then left the cave and went on his way. Then David himself stepped out of the cave and called after Saul, “My master, the king!” When Saul looked back, David knelt and then bowed to the ground in homage and asked him, “Why do you listen to those who say that I want to harm you?”

“Look, today you have seen that YHVH delivered you into my hands in the cave. I was told to kill you but I held myself back and said : ‘I will not lift my hands against my master who is YHVH’s anointed.’ My father, look at this end of your robe which I am holding! I cut off the end of your robe but did not kill you.”

“Now you may know that I mean you no harm or treason. I have done you no wrong and yet you are hunting me down to kill me. May YHVH be judge between you and me; and may He exact justice from you in my case. But I shall do you no harm. As the saying goes, ‘From the wicked comes wickedness’; as for me, my hand shall not harm you.”

“But who is it you are after, o king of Israel? Are you pursuing a dead dog? A flea? May YHVH be Judge between you and me. May He see and uphold my cause and deliver me from your hands.”

After David had spoken these words, Saul asked, “Is that your voice, my son David?” He wept aloud and said to David, “You are right and I am wrong, for you have repaid with kindness the harm I have inflicted on you. This day you have shown your righteousness to me by not taking my life when YHVH put me into your hands. For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go unharmed?”

“May YHVH reward you for what you have done for me today. Now I know for certain that you shall reign and the kingdom of Israel will be firm in your hand.”

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture we are reminded yet again of the coming of the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. As we heard from our first reading today from the Book of Numbers, we heard how the man of God, Balaam the Seer blessed the people of Israel and spoke of a prophecy of what would be come, the coming of the Star that would rise from Jacob, an early proclamation of Christ’s coming into this world. Then we also heard from our Gospel passage today of the Lord Jesus Himself and His debate with the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who questioned Him on the authority and legality of His actions and works.

In our first reading that we heard from the Book of Numbers, we heard of the people of Israel who were at that time on their way to the promised land of Canaan, that God had promised to their ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. At that time, the Israelites had become a great nation with hundreds of thousands of people, all having journeyed through the desert for a long period of forty years during their Exodus from Egypt. God guided them and protected them during all that time, provided for them, food and drink, as well as crushing their enemies before them, all the while punishing those who refused to believe in Him and disobeyed His Law and commandments.

It was then that the king of Moab, one of the later neighbours of the Israelites, namely king Balak was worried about the Israelites, their great numbers and power, and feared them. As such, he resorted to using methods such as curses that he asked a seer named Balaam, son of Beor as we heard in our reading today. Balaam was tasked by king Balak to curse the people of Israel so that the curses might destroy them and make them to be at a disadvantage. Yet, as we heard in today’s first reading, Balaam instead spoke the truth, of whatever God had told him to proclaim before the king, a blessing instead of a curse for the Israelites.

Balaam praised God and His people, the Israelites, blessed them for all of their wonders and he also proclaimed the vision that he had received from God. He saw a vision of a Figure to come, that he was not yet able to comprehend, and yet, that figure was indeed like a Star that would arise from Jacob, a reference to the people of Israel, to be the One Who leads and guides the whole entire world. Through this we can see how Balaam was blessed by God and given the rare opportunity to glimpse God’s great plan of salvation for all of the nations and all the people, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

As we look upon from our current age and time, in which Christ had come into the world and revealed Himself, we know that Balaam spoke the truth, and he had given the people of God back then an insight of God’s plans and all that He had done out of His great love for them. And yet, we should be able to see the irony that it was Balaam, a man who did not even belong to the people of Israel, who proclaimed God’s love and truth, while God’s own people denied Him, rejected Him, doubted Him and questioned His authority as we heard in our Gospel passage today.

In our Gospel today, we heard how the Lord was questioned by the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees as He was teaching in the Temple, who questioned Him for His actions and all that He had taught the people. This was likely because of the jealousy that those people held for the Lord, as they saw Him as a rival and great threat to their own popularity, influence, authority and power. Contextually, we must understand that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law made up one of the two groups of very influential leaders of the community back then.

As such, they likely saw the Lord and His immense popularity, His radically different teachings and truths as a challenge to their own authority and power, that they opposed Him, refused to listen to Him and stubbornly resisted in believing His message of truth despite all that they themselves had witnessed, seen and heard. All the miracles and the works the Lord had done, all the wisdom He had shown and the words He had spoken all point out to Him being the Messiah or the Saviour that God had promised His people, and those same Pharisees and teachers of the Law, being those who were most knowledgeable about the Law and the prophets should have known this better than anyone else.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why it is important that we should not let our pride and worldly desires from interfering with our faith in the Lord. We should learn to listen to the truth and not to be easily swayed by all of our worldly temptations and concerns. Otherwise, we may end up behaving and responding like the Pharisees and those teachers of the Law who remained stubborn in their opposition of the Lord, and even St. John the Baptist, the Herald and messenger whom God had sent to prepare the way for His coming.

Today, all of us celebrate the feast of St. Lucy, also known as St. Lucia of Syracuse, the daughter of a Roman noble who died as a martyr during the height of the last great persecution of Christians under the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. She had consecrated herself to God as a holy virgin, but her mother who did not know about this, arranged for her to be married to the young son of a rich noble pagan family. The mother was then suffering from a disease, and was worried about St. Lucy’s future.

Through the intercession of St. Agatha, another great martyr of Sicily, St. Lucy’s mother was healed, and St. Lucy was able to persuade her mother to give generously much of their wealth and inheritance to the poor and the needy. This was not taken kindly by her betrothed pagan fiancé, who reported her to the local governor. The governor ordered St. Lucy to make offerings to the pagan idols, which she refused courageously. She was arrested and according to some traditions, was put to death by the sword after attempts to force her to a brothel and burning her did not succeed because of God’s miraculous intervention.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I hope all of us take good lesson from the faith that St. Lucy had in the Lord and strive to do what we can to be faithful to God. We should learn to live our lives with genuine faith and commit ourselves to follow Him the way that St. Lucy and many other saints and martyrs had done. And let us be inspired by the love and hope that Christ Our Lord Himself had brought us, that brought joy even to Balaam so many years ago. It is this same hope and love that we are expecting throughout this season of Advent, of celebrating the coming of Christ in this Christmas.

Let us all live our lives with great faith and dedication to the Lord from now on, committing ourselves in each and every moments to serve Him and to look forward to His wondrous coming in glory, to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly in the manner that St. Lucy and all of our holy predecessors had done. May God bless us all and may His grace be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 21 : 23-27

At that time, Jesus had entered the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests, the teachers of the Law and the Jewish authorities came to Him, and asked, “What authority have You to act like this? Who gave You authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “I will also ask You a question, only one. And if you give me an answer, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. When John began to baptise, was it a work of God, or was it merely something human?”

They reasoned out among themselves, “If we reply that it was a work of God, He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ And if we say, ‘The baptism of John is merely something human’, we have got to beware of the people, for all hold John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what right I do these things.”

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 24 : 4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9

Teach me Your ways, o Lord; make known to me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and instruct me, for You are my God, my Saviour.

Remember Your compassion, o Lord, Your unfailing love from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, but in Your love remember me.

Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners His way. He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Numbers 24 : 2-7, 15-17a

Balaam looked up and saw Israel camping, tribe by tribe; and the Spirit of God came upon him and he uttered this song : “Word of Balaam, son of Beor, the seer, the one who hears the words of God, and beholds the vision of the Almighty, in ecstasy, with eyes unveiled.”

“How goodly are your tents, Jacob, your encampments, Israel! Like valleys stretching far, like gardens beside a stream, like aloes planted by YHVH, like cedars beside the waters. His buckets are overflowing and His seeds are always watered. His king becomes stronger than Agag, and His kingdom grows.

Then Balaam pronounced his oracle : “Word of Balaam, son of Beor, the seer, the one who hears the words of God, who has the knowledge from the Most High, and sees the vision of the Almighty, in ecstasy, with eyes unveiled. I see a Figure, but not really. I behold Him but not near. A Star shall come forth from Jacob, He rises with a staff in His hand.”

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Wednesday, 17 November 2021 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are all presented with the tale of the seven brothers and their mother who were persecuted for their faith by the Seleucid King, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. They were forced to do things that were against the Law of God. Then in our Gospel passage today we heard the Lord speaking to His disciples and the people using the parable of the silver talents to explain what each of His disciples and followers had to do with their faith.

In our first reading today, we heard of the story from the Book of the Maccabees, continuing with the tale of persecution of the Jewish faithful during King Antiochus’ reign, who was determined in his megalomania and ego to stamp out any dissent and any other religious expressions, set and bound to introduce and enforce Greek customs and practices on the people of his domain and realm, including that of the descendants of the Israelites in the land of Judea, Galilee and elsewhere. This resulted in the great persecution which we had heard for the past few days.

In that particular occasion mentioned today, the seven brothers remained firm in their faith and dedication to the Lord, committed themselves wholeheartedly to Him despite the sufferings and trials that they were then facing, facing certain death and terrible suffering just as they approached martyrdom for the Lord. They all died one by one before their own mother who saw their courage and faith in God. And when the King tried to persuade the last son and asking the mother to ask her son to apostatise, the mother instead encouraged her son to remain faithful.

In any case, all the seven sons and their own mother were all martyred for their great faith, as they committed themselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, and not wishing to corrupt themselves with the corruption of sin and disobedience against God. They chose to suffer and die rather than to commit sin against God, and to stand firm against those who persecuted them, knowing that God was with them and that their sufferings and deaths would not be in vain, as their rewards would be great in Heaven.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the parable of the silver talents as described by the Lord, in which the Lord spoke of a king and master who entrusted his servants some amount of wealth in the form of silver talents that were then invested by two of them, who received ten and five silver talents each, while the last servant who received one talent of silver kept the silver hidden and did not do anything to it at all. At the time of the master’s return, he called for a reckoning from his servants of the silver talents that he had entrusted to them.

And we heard how the master praised the first two servants for having doubled what they had received by investing them, putting their hard work and efforts on the possessions entrusted to them, and therefore he entrusted to them even more things as he knew that those servants could be trusted and were worthy and hardworking. On the contrary, the servant who did not do anything to his silver talent was punished and had his silver taken away from him to be entrusted to the one more trustworthy than he was.

Coupled this with what the master then said, that to those who have been entrusted a lot, a lot will be expected, all of us therefore are reminded that each and every one of us as Christians have to dedicate ourselves and everything that God has blessed and granted us all, we have to commit to action and contributions for the greater glory of God. It means that we cannot be idle or complacent with the way that we live our lives, or else, just like the servant who did nothing to the silver talent entrusted to him, then whatever we have received, will be taken away from us and we will have no part in God’s kingdom.

Today, all of us are reminded that each and every one of us have the responsibility to live faithfully in accordance with the laws and customs, the ways and the many other directions that God has provided for us through His Church and through all the gentle reminders that He has given to us all these while. And we should be inspired today by one of the Lord’s great saints, whose feast we are celebrating, namely that of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a holy woman and a most devout servant of God.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a princess of Hungary who was betrothed and married at a young age to the lord of Thuringia in Germany. She was influenced by St. Francis of Assisi and other contemporary saints and holy people to lead a life that is virtuous and worthy of God. She spent a lot of effort in being charitable and in taking care of the need of the people in her husband’s realm, which the latter approved without much of a problem. She remained truly faithful even after her husband’s early death in the Crusades, in which St. Elizabeth dedicated herself to a celibate, religious life.

Despite the pressures from the people surrounding her and from her family for her to remarry for advancing their political aims, St. Elizabeth of Hungary remained adamant in living a holy and celibate life, dedicating her time and effort to serve the Lord through prayer and charity. She was well remembered and respected for her many contributions to the poor and for her care and love for the less fortunate ones in her community. It was also told that miracles also happened throughout her lives. She died at a young age, and miracles happened soon after.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to commit ourselves faithfully in the same manner as St. Elizabeth of Hungary had done? This wonderful and holy predecessor of ours had committed herself and her life to the Lord and we should do well to do the same with our own, reminding ourselves of the responsibilities that we all have. Let us all turn towards the Lord with a renewed faith and conviction, and dedicate ourselves to work for His greater glory from now on and always. Amen.

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Wednesday, 17 November 2021 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 19 : 11-28

At that time, Jesus was now near Jerusalem, and the people with Him thought that God’s reign was about to appear. So as they were listening to Him, Jesus went on to tell them a parable. He said, “A man of noble birth went to a distant country in order to be crowned king, after which he planned to return home. Before he left, he summoned ten of his servants and gave them ten pounds of silver.”

“He said, ‘Put this money to work until I get back.’ But his compatriots, who disliked him, sent a delegation after him with this message, ‘We do not want this man to be our king.’ He returned, however, appointed as king. At once he sent for the servants, to whom he had given the money, to find out what profit each had made. The first came in, and reported, ‘Sir, your pound of silver has earned ten more pounds of silver.'”

“The master replied, ‘Well done, my good servant! Since you have proved yourself faithful in a small matter, I can trust you to take charge of ten cities.’ The second reported, ‘Sir, your pound of silver earned five more pounds of silver.’ The master replied, ‘And you, take charge of five cities!'”

“The third came in, and said, ‘Sir, here is your money, which I hid for safekeeping. I was afraid of you, for you are an exacting person : you take up what you did not lay down, and you reap what you did not sow.’ The master replied, ‘You worthless servant, I will judge you by your own words! So you knew I was an exacting person, taking up what I did not lay down, and reaping what I did not sow? Why, then, did you not put my money on loan, so that, when I got back, I could have collected it with interest?'”

“Then the master said to those standing by, ‘Take from him that pound, and give it to the one with ten pounds.’ But they objected, ‘Sir, he already has ten pounds!’ The master replied, ‘I tell you, everyone who has will be given more; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for my enemies who did not want me to be their king, bring them in, and execute them right here in front of me!'”

So Jesus spoke, and then He passed on ahead of them, on His way to Jerusalem.

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Wednesday, 17 November 2021 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 16 : 1, 5-6, 8 and 15

Hear a just cause, o YHVH, listen to my complaint. Give heed to my prayer, for there is no deceit on my lips.

Hold firm my steps upon Your path, that my feet may not stumble. I call on You, You will answer me, o God; incline Your ear and hear my word.

Keep me as the apple of Your eye; under the shadow of Your wings hide me. As for me, righteous in Your sight, I shall see Your face and, awakening, gaze my fill on Your likeness.