Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
Psalm 54 : 7-8, 9-10a, 10b-11a, 23
I said, “If I had wings, like a dove, I would fly away and be at rest; I would seek a home in the desert.”
“I would hurry to find a cave, for shelter from the tempest.” O YHVH, shatter their plans.
In the city, I see strife and violence; day and night, they prowl about its walls.
Place your burden on YHVH, and He will sustain you; for He never allows the upright to fall.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)
James 4 : 1-10
What causes these fights and quarrels among you? Is it not your cravings, that make war within your own selves? When you long for something you cannot have, you kill for it, and when you do not get what you desire, you squabble and fight. The fact is, you do not have what you want, because you do not pray for it.
You pray for something, and you do not get it, because you pray with the wrong motive, of indulging your pleasures. You adulterers! Do you not know, that making friends with the world makes you enemies of God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be the world’s friend becomes God’s enemy.
Can you not see the point of the saying in the Scripture : “The longing of the Spirit, He sent to dwell in us, is a jealous longing?” But God has something better to give, and Scripture also says, “God opposes the proud but He gives His favour to the humble.” Give in, then, to God; resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Draw close to God and He will come close to you. Clean your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubters. Recognise your distress, be miserable and weep. Turn your laughter into tears and your joy into sadness. Humble yourselves before the Lord and He will raise you up.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us heard today the very clear call from the prophet Hosea upon the people of God, for them to repent from their sins and to return to the faith of their forefathers. This is made in the context of the wickedness of the people who lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, which had been ransacked and crushed by their enemies, because of their sins and wickedness, their refusal to obey the Lord and His laws.
The prophet Hosea promised the same promise that God has frequently told His people, that He would not abandon them to the darkness, but He would reconcile all of them to Himself, and therefore, they would once again be His people and receive again the fullness of His love and blessings. God loved all of them and did not wish to see them perish in the hands of their enemies or falling into the eternal damnation in hell.
That was the reason why, He gave them His laws and sent His prophets to their midst, so that they might seek repentance and to be forgiven from all their waywardness and from all the sins that they had committed. But the people continued to harden their hearts and refused to believe in Him or His prophets, and they continued to worship the pagan idols and did more wicked deeds, killing the prophets and messengers sent to their midst.
As a result, the kingdom of Israel was destroyed, and all the people of God were scattered. Many of them were brought off to faraway lands in Assyria and Babylon as slaves and exiles, losing the lands promised to them and their ancestors. All of these were caused by their lack of faith and obedience, and because of those sins, that they refused to repent from, they have received the just punishment for their actions.
But again, God still loved all of His people, despite all of their sins, their stubbornness and constant refusal to obey His laws and commandments. He continued to send prophets after prophets, and messengers after messengers who spoke of God’s forgiveness and mercy which He would show to His people should they turn their hearts and minds back to Him and abandon their ways of sin.
And that was why He sent us His own beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour and Redeemer. Through Christ, the Lord revealed the fullness of the truth about Himself and His love for us all. He revealed that all that He had done for His people, are all because of His enduring and everlasting love for them. He revealed to them that His Law is indeed about love, and first of all, love which is shown to Him, above all other things, and then love shown to others, to our brothers and sisters in our midst.
But at the time of Jesus, again the people hardened their hearts. At that time, they misunderstood the Law and misused it to serve their own selfish intentions. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law used the Law to advance their own careers and prestige in the society. Instead of bringing the people closer to God, they closer off the kingdom of God from the reach of man. They have been entrusted with the task to bring the people to love God more in their lives, but they have failed in that endeavour.
Thus the Lord Jesus wanted to remind us all Christians, all of us who love Him and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour, that we have to obey His Law with understanding, that is by loving God and putting Him first and foremost in our lives, without anything else in the way or as distractions in our worship of God. Then, we must also love one another, our fellow brethren, by showing genuine care and concern, compassion and love for those who need them.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us emulate the examples of St. Frances of Rome, holy woman and servant of God whose feast we celebrate today. St. Frances of Rome was a saint renowned for her charity and good works among God’s people as a lay associate of the Benedictines religious order. She was remembered for her prayerful life and devotion, and for her loving care towards her peers, opening her house as an emergency hospital for multitudes of people when a great plague struck her hometown.
Are we able to follow in the footsteps of St. Frances of Rome? Are we able to love the Lord Our God and love one another with the same intensity as she had done and shown us? This is the challenge that we are all called to do in this season of Lent, to renew our faith and spiritual life, that each and every one of us will no longer live our lives according to our past sinfulness, but instead, will find a new existence filled with God’s love and grace.
May the Lord be with us always, and may He empower us to live faithfully in accordance with His will. May God bless us all and our journey of faith this Lenten season. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Mark 12 : 28b-34
At that time, a teacher of the Law came up and asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the first of all?”
Jesus answered, “The first is : Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. And after this comes a second commandment : You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these two.”
The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master; You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”
Jesus approved of this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 80 : 6c-8a, 8bc-9, 10-11ab, 14 and 17
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it, I relieved your shoulder from burden; I freed your hands. You called in distress, and I saved you.
Unseen, I answered you in thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Hear, My people, as I admonish you. If only you would listen, o Israel!
There shall be no strange god among you, you shall not worship any alien god, for I the Lord am your God, who led you forth from the land of Egypt.
If only My people would listen, if only Israel would walk in My ways. I would feed you with the finest wheat and satisfy you with honey from the rock.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Hosea 14 : 2-10
Return to your God YHVH, o Israel! Your sins have caused your downfall. Return to YHVH with humble words. Say to Him, “Oh You Who show compassion to the fatherless forgive our debt, be appeased. Instead of bulls and sacrifices, accept the praise from our lips. Assyria will not save us : no longer shall we look for horses nor ever again shall we say ‘Our gods’ to the work of our hands.”
I will heal their wavering and love them with all My heart for My anger has turned from them. I shall be like dew to Israel like the lily will he blossom. Like a cedar he will send down his roots; his young shoots will grow and spread. His splendour will be like an olive tree. His fragrance, like a Lebanon cedar.
They will dwell in My shade again, they will flourish like the grain, they will blossom like a vine, and their fame will be like Lebanon wine. What would Ephraim do with idols, when it is I Who hear and make him prosper? I am like an ever-green cypress tree; all your fruitfulness comes from Me.
Who is wise enough to grasp all this? Who is discerning and will understand? Straight are the ways of YHVH : the just walk in them, but the sinners stumble.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings, we listened to the Lord speaking to us about His laws and commandments, which He had given to us His people. In the first reading today, we heard about the Lord speaking through Moses, His servant, teaching His people about the laws and commandments. The people were reminded to follow the Law and to obey God in all that He had taught them to do.
God has blessed them with His commandments and norms which He did not yet reveal to the other people and nations, and He expected them all to obey those laws and commandments. And He showed to them that if they remained true and faithful to His laws and commandments, they would be blessed and honoured, and they would be able to enjoy the graces He gave to them, in the land promised to them, all the prosperity meant for them as He promised their ancestors.
It is also exactly what the Lord Jesus reiterated in the words He said in the Gospel passage today. Yet, we see in those words, the frustration that the Lord showed as He was faced with opposition by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Why is that so? That is because the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law accused the Lord Jesus and His disciples of trying to supplant the Law they carefully and zealously guarded, with a new version of the Law.
But Jesus rebuked them and said that what He brought unto them was the true meaning and obedience to the Law which God had revealed to His people so long ago through Moses. The problem lies in the fact that the laws as preserved and observed by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had been misunderstood and misapplied in such a way that the people were not able to appreciate why is it that they need to be faithful and obedient to the Law.
At that time, most of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were so focused on their aim to purify the people of Israel from all of their past impurities and sins, that they ended up creating many more rules and regulations which distracted the people of God from the true intention of the Law that is to bring the people closer to God and to love God more in their daily life. They were so caught up in their attempt to live up to their so-called obedience to the laws of Moses that they forgot why they ought to be doing all those actions and to Whom they ought to be doing it.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, what the Lord Jesus had done was merely to redress the errors of the Pharisees and the corruption which had twisted the laws and commandments of God. He revealed to us all the true meaning of the Law, that is love. For all the rules and regulations added in and modified by the elders and the traditions of the Jewish people, the actual Law is truly simple, that is to love God with all of our entire effort, and to love one another with the same kind of love.
That is all that the Lord wanted from His people, a pure and unconditional love, just as He Himself has loved them first with that kind of love, commitment and devotion. Unfortunately, that was not what He received from His people, and when He came into their midst, in Jesus Christ, all that He received was scorn, rejection and refusal to believe in Him and His truth.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect, is that our attitude as Christians as well? Is that how we have treated the Lord? So far in our respective lives how many of us have truly lived them with true obedience to the Lord, loving Him genuinely in all that we do and say, in every action we take and in every moment? Or have we blindly obeyed or followed the ways and the rules taught to us by the Church without really understanding why we have done so?
Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, two renowned saints and martyrs of the Church, who lived during difficult years of intense persecution against the Church and the faithful, under the Roman Empire. St. Perpetua was a young noblewoman who resolved to become a Christian convert despite the objection from her father, while St. Felicity was a young slavewoman, who were imprisoned together with St. Perpetua for their faith.
They remained strong in their faith despite the physical sufferings and torture they had to endure, all the ridicule, scorn and anger directed at them, because of their great love for God. They did not mind enduring the same hatred of the world just as the Lord Himself had endured it. They willingly embraced martyrdom rather than to give up their faith in God. Their courage and commitment to the Lord inspired many people even many centuries after their passing from this world.
Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to live the same Christian life as St. Perpetua and St. Felicity have lived theirs? Are we able to love God in the same way that God has loved us, that is with all of our hearts, minds, bodies and souls, with our entire beings? Let us all make use of this time of Lent to prepare ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically to grow deeper in our love and commitment to God.
May the Lord be with us all, and may He awaken in each one of us the same love, dedication and commitment as shown by His saints and martyrs, especially St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, whose memory we remember today. Let us ask for their intercession, that by their prayers God may be moved to call us all to Himself, to be forgiven and redeemed from our sins and unworthiness. St. Perpetua and St. Felicity, pray for us. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Matthew 5 : 17-19
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Do not think that I have come to annul the Law and the Prophets. I have not come to annul them but to fulfil them. I tell you this : as long as heaven and earth last, not the smallest letter or dot in the Law will change until all is fulfilled.”
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 147 : 12-13, 15-16, 19-20
Exalt the Lord, o Jerusalem; praise your God, o Zion! For He strengthens the bars of your gates and blesses your children within you.
He sends His command to the earth and swiftly runs His word. He spreads snow like wool; He scatters frost like ashes.
It is He Who tells Jacob His words, His laws and decrees to Israel. This He has not done for other nations, so His laws remain unknown to them. Alleluia!
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Deuteronomy 4 : 1, 5-9
And now, Israel, listen to the norms and laws which I teach that you may put them into practice. And you will live and enter and take possession of the land which YHVH, the God of your fathers, gives you.
See, as YHVH, my God, ordered me, I am teaching you the norms and the laws that you may put them into practice in the land you are going to enter and have as your own. If you observe and practice them, other peoples will regard you as wise and intelligent. When they come to know of all these laws, they will say, ‘There is no people as wise and as intelligent as this great nation.’
For in truth, is there a nation as great as ours, whose gods are as near to it as YHVH, our God, is to us whenever we call upon Him? And is there a nation as great as ours whose norms and laws are as just as this Law which I give you today?
But be careful and be on your guard. Do not forget these things which your own eyes have seen or let them depart from your heart as long as you live. But on the contrary, teach them to your children and to your children’s children.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 