Homily of Lent

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Sunday, 19 March 2017 : Third Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we progress through the third Sunday of this season of Lent, today we are reminded of God’s love and grace, which He had given us all so generously to all of us His people from time to time, and through which He had granted us the grace of salvation by sending none other than His own Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, into this world, so that all who believe in Him may be saved and have eternal life through Him.

In today’s first reading, we heard about the rebelliousness of the people of Israel who grumbled and complained against God and His servant, Moses, complaining that they would suffer to death from hunger and thirst in the desert. They were angry against Moses and God for having brought them out of the land of Egypt, where they had suffered for over four hundred and fifty years in slavery, but in that instance, many of them wondered that if they had stayed in the land of Egypt, then they would at least have food to eat and water to drink.

They doubted God’s love and providence, even after they had seen how God had liberated them with His mighty power, bringing down the proud Pharaoh and the Egyptians, humbling them with His ten plagues over Egypt, and even after He had opened the Red Sea before them, allowing them to walk barefoot through the seabed, and crushed their enemies before them by allowing the sea to go back to its place as the Egyptian chariots passed through.

They doubted His love even after He had taken care of them for very long during their journey through the desert, even after He had fed them daily with the sweet manna, bread from Heaven itself, and also gave them large birds and fowls every evening to eat. He also gave them water even from the rocks, the clearest and finest quality water to drink in the middle of the desert, where nothing should have existed, not even water and food.

But they were not thankful to God, and instead, they grumbled and complained, and even wanted to kill Moses. They also raised even a golden idol, precisely a golden calf to be god over them when they were impatient waiting for Moses who went up the mountain of God at Horeb for forty days and forty nights. These are just among the many things which showed the disobedience of Israel throughout their time in the desert.

They have placed the desires of their flesh ahead of their faith in God. They placed the demands of their stomachs and bodies beyond their obligation and responsibility to worship the Lord and remaining true to Him in all things. They abandoned God just because they were not able to restrain the demands of their flesh, the desire to eat and drink, and of all other worldly things, which had tempted them to sin.

In this time of Lent, all of us are called by God to reevaluate our lives, our priorities and all of our actions. Let us all ask ourselves, what is it that we are living for in this world? Many of us have spent many hours working and indeed, toiling hard worrying about how we are to eat and drink everyday, and what we are going to do with our lives, with our wealth and possessions, worrying about our hard-earned wealth and even desiring more of what we already had.

This is what many of us mankind often do, and we are so preoccupied with our daily living that we are unable to see that in all of our pursuits for these things, we have lost the focus of our lives, and we are looking for the wrong things in life. What do I mean with this, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that while we seek to build for ourselves worldly treasures, we often forget that all the things we now possess will not last forever.

Whatever we have now, can be gone in just a flash of a moment. We are concerned with the demands of our flesh and our bodies, much as the Israelites had done in the past, but we forgot that while we worry about this and that, in reality, we do not really need all of these. Many of the things we now enjoy in this world are illusions and diversions that keep us away from finding the true joy that can be found in God alone.

That is because, even though we worry about many things in life, all that we need in life have been taken care of by none other than the Lord our God Himself. He has provided us all that we need, the life we have, which is a gift from Him, and also all the other times that He had blessed us with all the good things in life, but which we did not notice to be the grace given to us from God.

Like the people of Israel, who have been blessed bountifully by God, many of us often do not realise that God had done so much for us. We often take God, His love and grace for us for granted, and when we are in trouble, we often complained that God has not been there for us, which is exactly as what the Israelites had done, and like what we often do as well. How often is it that we feel angry at God for not giving us what we want?

This is where we must realise that what we want is often not God truly willed for us. We have always sought for things of this world, for food, for sustenance, for money, for pleasures of the flesh and the body, for sexual gratification, for recognition among the people, for fame and renown, and for all other things which we often crave and desire for, but which cannot satisfy us.

For we all should know that all of these worldly things bring no lasting satisfaction because when we have a taste of these things, we will desire and crave for even more. Such is the extent of our human greed and desire. And that is why in the Gospel today, when Jesus was speaking to the Samaritan woman, He pointed out that she had had five husbands, and the current one that she had was not even her husband!

When we mankind are unable to restrain ourselves, and place our trust in the things of this world, in our wealth, in our money, in our appearances and bodily pleasures, that is when we start to slide into the quicksand of sin which pulls us steadily deeper and deeper until we are unable to escape, unless we make the conscious effort to stand up and say no to sin and to our weaknesses.

Jesus said that those who believe in Him will be able to draw living water from Him, for He is the Living Water, the source of all life and satisfaction, which refers also to the time when Israel was in the desert and God gave them all that they need. If only that they placed their complete trust in God, instead of grumbling and complaining because they could not get what they wanted, they would have been perfectly happy living in the grace of God.

Now let us all ask ourselves, is God at the centre of our lives? Is He the reason why we continue to do our work and our action in this life, from day after day? If God is not at the centre of all the things we say and do, we will soon realise that whatever we are doing are meaningless and mundane, and that is when we begin to lose faith in God and in our life. Do we want to be like those who are never able to be satisfied, constantly seeking something better for themselves, or do we rather want to be with God, and enjoy His grace and love?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in this blessed time and season of Lent, all of us are called to repent from our sins and turn from our worldliness, from all the things that have kept us away from God and His love. We are called to let go of our human pride, from our desires, from our selfishness, all the things that have become serious obstacles on our path to God’s grace.

Let us reorientate our lives completely, so that Jesus our Lord is at the heart of our very being and existence. Through our penance and repentance, let us humbly seek forgiveness for all the times that we have been angry at Him, thinking that He had ignored us and our pleas. Let us all realise just how much He had loved us all, and through understanding of God’s love, let us show the same love to each other, through our almsgiving and kindness to those who are less fortunate than us.

Let us realise that because God lives in us, and because He is with us, we can do all things in He Who strengthens us, which is the words spoken by St. Paul in praise of God, the source of our life and our strength. May this time of Lent become the time for our redemption and for us to rejuvenate our faith in the Lord, that as we grow ever stronger in our faith, we may draw strength to persevere in this life and be ever righteous to the end. May God, the source of our life, the eternal Spring of Life, be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 18 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture reminding us that God is loving, and He is filled with mercy for His people, as He desires to forgive all those who have wronged Him, all who have betrayed Him and left Him behind, as what the parable of the prodigal son would have told us, that famous story on forgiveness and mercy, as told by Jesus our Lord.

Most if not all of us should be quite familiar with the story, which we have heard since our childhood, or in our catechism classes, or through reading the Scriptures. But how many of us truly understand its meaning and its significance? How many of us can relate ourselves and our own experiences with that story of the prodigal son, who was forgiven by his father?
In that parable, we heard how the prodigal son left his father after getting his share of the inheritance, and squandered off all his wealth and possessions on lavish living. In the end, he had no money left with him, and all of his friends who used to be with him left him behind. He suffered terribly in that foreign land, and no one would want to help him, even his friends. He had to endure the most difficult of conditions, and even shamed by working at the lowest possible places as a caretaker of pigs in a farm.

In the end, the prodigal son decided to go back to his father, seeking to humbly seek his forgiveness and even wanted to declare before his father that after having committed such a shameful act, and after having sinned in such a manner, he could no longer be called the son of his father. Instead, he wanted to be treated just as one of his father’s slaves.

But his father would have none of that, and ordered his servants that his younger son should be dressed up in the finest of clothes and a feast be prepared for his sake, celebrating his return from the faraway lands. He was indeed dressed up and treated with a treatment equal to that of the son and heir of a king. Then we heard about how the elder son was angry at his father after having heard of the treatment which the prodigal younger son had received.

In all of these, we can see ourselves, and how we relate ourselves with God and one another. The parable is a very good representation of our very own selves, our lives and our actions in this world. The father is a representation of God, while the prodigal son represents all those who have sinned and who have been separated from God and His love. How about the elder son? The elder son represents those who have remained true and faithful to the ways of the Lord.

First of all, the prodigal son is just like us, who have wandered off from the way of the Lord, seeking other things and other pleasures of life instead of the love of God, just as how the younger son looking to venture to a far off land. Yet, his father allowed him to do so, the loving God, Who loves each and every one of us, because He loved us. He gives us a free will and a freedom to choose our path forward.

But in our sins and in our weaknesses, in our frailties and in our easy fall into temptations, we have fallen into a miserable state just as the prodigal son did. And when we are in trouble, people who do not truly love us or care for us will leave us behind. They are like Satan and his angels, who pretended to be our friends, but when we have fallen into sin, they will laugh at our folly and marvel at our downfall and misery.

There is only One Who will remember us and continue to love us, and that is God. Even though we have wandered off, rebelled, and disobeyed Him, He will continue to love us, just as the father continued to think about the prodigal son. But we must remember what the prodigal son had done. As wrong and mistaken as he had been, he had resolved and decided to humble himself and sought his father, returning to the father who loved him.

This is where many of us mankind have faltered, because we have not been able to overcome one thing that often stands in the way of our salvation. And what is that, brethren? It is pride, our very own human pride. From our pride, came stubbornness and all the other things that have prevented us from seeking God and His forgiveness. First of all, we think that whatever we do, God will forgive us without our need to make the effort to seek for repentance, and this is the sin of presumption according to the renowned St. Cyprian of Carthage.

And presumption came from our pride, in our thought that we cannot have done any mistake, that we cannot have been wrong, even in our despicable state of sin and wickedness. This is what all of us must resist and overcome, brothers and sisters in Christ, or otherwise, we will continue to fall and end up in eternal damnation of hell. Let us seek instead to follow the path of the prodigal son, who humbly sought the forgiveness of his father.

And as we all can see, the father forgave his prodigal and wayward son, just as God is ever ready to forgive us and to welcome us back. We must not be afraid to seek God the Father for His forgiveness, for there is a second great sin, according to St. Cyprian, and that is the sin of despair, which is ultimately also born out of our human pride. We think and assume that our sins are so great that God will not forgive us, but God will forgive us if only we make the effort to overcome our sins and repent from them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to realise that God is ever merciful and loving, especially to all of us who have sinned and fallen into sin. But God’s mercy will not have any effect on us, unless we consciously put in the effort to make that mercy useful and meaningful to us. God wants to forgive us, but do we want to be forgiven? And are we able to commit to the commitment to sin no more and lead a righteous life from now on?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, during this season of Lent, we need to spend some time to reflect on our own lives and our actions. We need to reevaluate our lives and actions, and we need to renew our lives in the same manner as the prodigal son. Are we able to overcome our pride, our stubbornness and all the obstacles that had prevented us from reaching out to God and His mercy?

Now, we also then need to take note of the action of the elder son, who became angry at the return of the younger, prodigal son. Jesus through that action was rebuking the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who have often hampered the return of sinners to God’s grace, because they thought that sinners were incapable of being forgiven by God, and because they thought that they alone deserved God’s love.

As Christians, and as those to whom God had given His grace, we cannot have this kind of attitude. First of all, we need to know that God loves everyone, all sinners alike, and we have to remember that all of us are sinners after all, in need of God’s mercy. We must always be vigilant lest we fall back into our sinful ways. And therefore, we should not think that we alone deserve God’s grace, but rather, we should help open the path to God’s mercy to those who are in need of our help.

Let us therefore guide one another, and help each other to remain faithful to God and true to His ways, by showing our faith through our words, actions and deeds, so that all of us may be saved together, and receive once again God’s love and grace. May all of us walk in the path of the prodigal son, and humbly seek forgiveness for our sins, and may all of us be able to commit to repent from our sins, and do good from now onwards. Amen.

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Friday, 17 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Patrick, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we all heard the Scriptures telling us about the story of when Joseph, the beloved and favourite son of Jacob, who was betrayed by his brothers, who sold him off to slavery to the Midianites, who then sold him off to the Egyptians, as many of us certainly remembered in this well known story from our catechism classes or from reading through the Book of Genesis.

Through this story, we saw how jealousy, greed as well as pride has led to us mankind committing sins of various kinds and nature before God and before men alike, as the brothers of Joseph had shown in their actions as described in the Book of Genesis. They were jealous of the attention and the love which Jacob their father had shown to Joseph, being born of his beloved wife, Rachel, and also a child of his old age.

As we heard what happened between them and Joseph, and what the brothers plotted against Joseph, we see first of all, that jealousy and desire easily lead to anger and resentment, and then these lead further into even more jealousy and more anger against those with whom we are angry and jealous with. The brothers were angry against Joseph when he told them that in his dream, all of them would bow down to him.

This is a normal human reaction, for many of us mankind easily succumb to the temptation of our human pride, unwilling to humble ourselves before any other, especially to those who we deem to be inferior to ourselves. Our ego, our pride will not allow us to bend down and humble ourselves. Instead, we try our best to preserve our dignity and our standing, and this is when we mankind begin causing harm, pain and suffering upon each other, whenever we bicker, whenever we are divided against each other.

But God wants to show each one of us that this is not the way forward for us. All of us have been called by God to love one another, and to return to righteousness in Him. He Who created us all out of love wants to love us back and have us all reconciled to Himself. However, more often than not, it is we mankind who have resisted God and did not allow Him to come to us and we refuse to allow His love to enter our lives.

We are so preoccupied in our worldly concerns and desires, that like the sons of Israel, we have been blinded by those desires and concerns, and we are unable to listen to His will in the midst of our preoccupation with ourselves and our needs. We are acting like the evil tenants in the Gospel passage today, a rebuke which Jesus our Lord made to all those who have given in to their worldly concerns, so as to refuse the love and mercy of God.

God has loved us so much that He has given us all hope through Christ His Son, Whom He sent into the world in order to become our salvation. Through Jesus, He shows us how to live like a true Christian, as those whom He had called from the world to be righteous and just, loving and compassionate just like Himself. He wants us to abandon our ways of sin, and abandon all the selflessness, all the jealousy, hatred and evil intent in our hearts, which all of us had done throughout our lives.

In this season of Lent, all of us are called to conversion and change, to abandon our selfish deeds and actions of our past, and embrace the loving ways of our God. We are all called to a change of heart, that while once we are like the sons of Israel, like the evil tenants described in the Gospel passage today, we may now be transformed from beings of darkness and sin, into beings of light and righteousness.

Today we commemorate the feast of the well known saint, St. Patrick of Ireland, the Patron Saint of Ireland, who was sometimes called the Apostle of Ireland, being the one who was contributed with the conversion and the transformation of the whole country Ireland, from a pagan country where druidism and pagan idols thrived before his time, into a faithful Christian nation, whose foundation is in the Lord alone.

St. Patrick was known to be a Romano-British missionary credited with the foundation of the faith and the Church in Ireland, becoming the very first bishop in the island, establishing the Christian community that quickly became the faith of all Irish people just not long after St. Patrick’s time. Before St. Patrick came to Ireland, the island was divided among many different tribes and counties, each ruled by their own kings and rulers, who warred and bickered against each other.

But St. Patrick came and showed all of them the way to the truth of God. He preached the Good News of God to them, and called them to repent their past sins and wickedness. St. Patrick taught them the truth about God, including what is now famous as his symbol of the Holy Trinity, the three-leaf clover. He taught them how God is a perfect and loving union of three Divine Persons, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as inseparable as the three-leaf clover’s parts from each other.

And God Who is perfect in Love, and Who is indeed Love, wants to share that love with all of us His people. That is exactly why He has given us His commandments, His laws and ways, and Jesus His Son to be our salvation from the darkness, by bringing us into the light of His new world and life filled with love and grace, no longer with greed, evil, wickedness, ego and all other human ambitions and vileness.

St. Patrick converted many people in Ireland during his lifetime and mission, and many gave up their sinful ways and warlike behaviour. Instead, they began to live in peace, harmony and love, just as St. Patrick had taught them to do, following in the examples and the laws of the Lord. This is in fact, what each and every one of us Christians must do in our own lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, during this time of Lent, let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and bring ourselves to righteousness and justice through our actions. Let us all do more good works in our lives, as a penance for our sins, and as a sign that we are all sincere in our desire to be forgiven from our sins. Let us all practice love in all of our actions and dealings, and let us all learn to overcome our human desires, our ego, our greed, and all the things that have thus far become our obstacles on our journey towards the Lord and His salvation.

May all of us be able to draw ourselves closer to God by doing more what the Lord wants us to do, and by committing ourselves wholeheartedly to His precepts and laws. May He bless us all and strengthen our faith inside of us, that we may grow ever more in faith, and be ever more righteous and just in life, so that not only this Lent, but from now onwards, we may be true disciples of our Lord, true Christians in name and also in spirit. Amen.

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Thursday, 16 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are presented by the Scriptures the importance of being righteous in our ways, as shown by the story of Lazarus and the rich man as Jesus had told it to His disciples. Those who are righteous will be rewarded with great rewards by God, while those who are wicked and follow the path of sin will be rejected by God.

The story of Lazarus and the rich man apparently showed how the rich and the powerful oppressed the poor and the weak. But Jesus was not against the rich and the powerful because of what they have and what they possess. However, it was the actions and the deeds of those people that were denounced by Jesus through His story on Lazarus.

The rich man lived lavishly and partied day and night, as what many rich and powerful people at that time normally do. Meanwhile, Lazarus was the poor man who was always hungry and as he was jobless and without money, he was unable to provide for himself, and had to depend on begging for a living. But no one gave him anything or took pity on him, including the rich man who lived on as if nothing else matters other than his own happiness.

Lazarus therefore died in agony and pain, and according to the story of Jesus, he went to Paradise, where he enjoyed with Abraham and the saints. In contrast, the rich man when he died, he went to the depths of hell, where he suffered greatly and in constant agony, in some sorts of a reversal of roles. Lazarus suffered in this world, and he received the succour of happiness and eternal rest in heaven, and the rich man suffered for eternity though he lived in joy in the world.

In this story, which many of us are quite familiar with, as we have heard it from our catechism classes, or from our parents, or by our reading of the Scriptures, we have witnessed what both heaven and hell are like, what it is like for us to enjoy the eternal bliss and happiness in heaven, or for us to suffer eternally in hell. But many of us think of heaven and hell in terms of happiness and suffering, in worldly terms. We always think of hell as a very hot place with fire and the torture of flames.

But in reality, the suffering in hell is so great not because of flames or any other worldly forms of sufferings. It is the separation that we have to endure for eternity which leads to the suffering we have, the despair present in our hearts. And the suffering is so great because we know that there is absolutely no hope for escape and redemption, for then it will be too late for us, when there is no more turning back for us. And we will know true suffering when God Himself has been separated from us, God Who has created us, and Who is the reason for our very existence.

And that, brothers and sisters in Christ, will be our fate if we do not turn our back to sin and continue to commit whatever is wicked and sinful in the sight of God and men alike. God is ever loving and ever merciful, but His mercy will not have any impact on us if we do not act accordingly in order to accept that mercy into our own lives. Remember that we cannot be servant to two masters, meaning that we cannot be faithful to God and at the same time remaining a sinner without repentance.

In addition to this, we also need to realise that sin is not merely just caused by our actions, for those are the sins of action and wickedness. What we have heard in the Gospel today shows us the sin of omission, that is to ignore what we could have done when we are perfectly capable of doing something to help and contribute to those who need our help.

The rich man could have done something to help Lazarus with all that he had possessed in life, all the food and drink that he had consumed. But he did not lift his fingers to do anything to help him, and left him hungry, homeless and suffering at his doorsteps, even though inside his house, food and drink flowed on without stopping. He could have done something to alleviate the suffering of the poor ones like Lazarus, but he did not do so.

He therefore committed the sin of omission, which many of us certainly had done before as well, during some parts or moments in our life. We are often guilty of ignoring those brethren of ours who are in need, and who are looking for our help. We are often blind against the sufferings and the needs of those around us, because we have been accustomed with serving our own needs and wants first, at the detriment of our fellow brethren.

In this season of Lent therefore, it is time for us to reevaluate our lives, our actions and all the things we have done so far in our lives. It is time for us to see if we have brought about good things for each other, or whether by our actions or by our lack of actions we have caused sufferings for others around us, or by ignoring those who are in need. In this time of Lent, each and every one of us as Christians are called to restrain our human desires and greed, and to deepen the love, mercy and forgiveness we have for one another.

Let us all help one another and love tenderly and graciously just as the Lord our God has loved us first. Let us make use of this time of Lent to practice almsgiving and penance, being generous in our gifts and help for those who are less fortunate than us. Let us all share the joy and the blessings that God had given us, so that no one may ever suffer any more as Lazarus had, and helping one another, being reminded of the suffering of those who have sinned and refused to repent, let us all strive to seek for the heavenly glory promised by God to all those who remain true and faithful to Him.

Let us remember that Jesus did not condemn the rich, for the rich and those blessed by God with more worldly blessings have in fact been given the means by which they will be able to help their less fortunate brethren. Rather, what the Lord condemned, is the attitude which many of us often exhibited, clinging stubbornly and jealousy to our wealth and possession that we end up being greedy as well as ignorant to the plight of the poor and the less fortunate.

May the Lord bless us all and bless all of our endeavours during this season of Lent. May He empower each and every one of us to live faithfully in accordance with the ways which the Lord had shown us, that by walking in His path, we may find our way to eternal life and salvation. May God be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 15 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, as we go on through the time and season of Lent, through the Scripture passages we heard today, we should know that by following the ways of the Lord, and by turning our backs against our sinful past, more often than not, we shall encounter difficulties, challenges and oppositions from all those who are in the world, and who obey the ways of this world.

The ways of this world are different and in opposition to the ways of our Lord, for this world is filled with wickedness, with prejudice, with hatred, with anger, with pride and arrogance, and with all the things that had led us mankind into sin. In our human greed we have caused suffering upon others from whom we covet for our worldly possessions and things. We have caused great sorrow and suffering because of the hatred and the lack of love between ourselves and our brethren.

But as Christians all of us are called by God to overcome all of these, and to convert ourselves to His ways, leaving behind all forms of hatred, of jealousy, of human greed and desire, and we have been called to be righteous and just as the Lord our God is righteous and just. When we do these, there will be those who are inspired by our examples and follow in our footsteps, but there will also be those who refuse to acknowledge our actions as good, and oppose us.

Let us remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that our Lord Jesus Himself made it clear to His disciples, that He came into this world bearing His truth and His salvation, which according to Him would bring about division and strive to arise within families and within communities, where people would be divided against each other because some would come to believe in God, while some others would take up the stand against God.

Many of us may not have realised this, especially if we have been born to the faith, and having good environment of growth, supported by a loving, Catholic and faith-filled community. Many of us may not have realised this if all the people around us have been supporting for us and for our faith, but the reality is that there are persecutions in this world, as it was in the past, as it is now, and as it will be in the years to come.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be aware of our brethren in many parts of the world who are still suffering the effects, even daily, of persecution against them because of their faith in God. Let us remember all of them in our prayers, and let us help them whenever we are able to do so. And we ourselves may also encounter challenges throughout our lives, be it in the form of persecution and rejection, as well as opposition and temptation to leave our faith behind.

How are we then going to resist those difficulties and manage those challenges? It is by using our time this Lent and henceforth, even beyond this season of Lent fruitfully and meaningfully. We must deepen our relationship with God, and make sure that we remain close to Him, obeying Him in all of His laws and precepts. We must strengthen our faith as well as our resolve to remain faithful to the Lord, so that we will be able to persevere when the time comes for us to be tested for our faith.

There will indeed be those times when we feel so miserable and desperate, when we are in the midst of great sufferings and persecutions, when we will want to give up and throw away our faith, because we may think that God is not with us, and that our resistance is useless. But remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, when Jesus our Lord suffered on the cross, He encountered the same issue, a normal human reaction, when pain and suffering comes our way.

But Christ remained faithful and true to His mission to the very end. He showed us the example of perfect obedience and adherence to the will of God, knowing that God our Father is always with us through everything. Jesus Himself, Who suffered on the cross for our sake is the ultimate proof of the love which God our Father has for each one of us, that He was willing to share our sufferings and our pains, our sorrows and our difficulties, as He suffered on the cross for our sake.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, and help us to deepen our relationship and our devotion to Him. May He empower us to become His faithful disciples and followers. May this season of Lent be fruitful for us, and become a time when we are able to become closer to God, and through which we are able to help one another, fellow brothers and sisters in the same Lord, on our way and journey towards God and His salvation. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 14 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are reminded that in all that we do in this life, in all that we say, we must be humble and be righteous, and our faith in God must be genuine. All of us Christians are expected to have these virtues with them, so as to be truly devoted to God. Our actions, our hearts, and our entire being must be attuned to the Lord.

We are reminded that we should not be like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who preached in one way, but practiced what they preached differently from how they have preached. In other words, they have contradicted themselves and what they said by their actions which did not reflect the words that they have spoken. They were hypocrites who did not truly believe in God, and God warned His people, all of us against following their examples.

They have not been faithful and they misused the authority which God had entrusted to them, by misleading the people and by condemning those who had come to them seeking forgiveness that came from God. They glorified themselves and sought self-satisfaction, fame and human praise, and God rebuked them for all of their waywardness.

For all of their supposed piety, their long prayers and public shows of their faith, parading before the people their piety, they were not actually serving the purpose of the Lord, but instead cared only about themselves. God had no place in their hearts, for their ego had prevented them from doing what was truly righteous and just in the sight of God. This is what all of us need to take note of, lest we also fall to the same predicament.

Now the question should come to our minds, what is the meaning of being righteous? Is being righteous equivalent to doing what the Pharisees had done, such as saying long prayers, acting good and pious before others, doing external acts of penance and abstinence? Well, doing all these things are good and they are certainly not wrong. But to be excessively focused on them and ignoring the true meaning of our faith is not something that we should do.

What does this mean? It means that whatever we do, all the things we say and do, we must do because we love the Lord our God, and let all of our actions bring glory not to ourselves but to the Lord, for we have to realise that, despite all the achievements and the greatness we mankind may accumulate in this world, all the wealth and possessions we have, we are truly nothing without the Lord our God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in this time and season of Lent, it is appropriate for us to spend some time to reflect on our actions, and how we spend our time during this season of penance and forgiveness. We know that we need to fast on certain days, namely on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and also abstain from red meat during the season and also on Fridays throughout the year, but are we doing them just because we were told to do so? Or is it because we are just going through the motions without understanding them?

It is time for us to reflect, and ask ourselves the important question, is God at the centre of our lives? Is He the reason why we live our lives in the way that we have lived them? Has He been the reason for our actions and deeds, which bring about true righteousness and justification? Or have we rather been driven by personal reasons and desires, or by ignorance and lack of understanding of our faith?

Let us all renew our commitment to the Lord this Lent, that by the time and opportunities which He had given to all of us, we may be able to draw closer to Him, and make our observances, of fasting, of abstinence, of penance, of almsgiving and all the other good and pious deeds we have carried out this season of Lent, may become more meaningful and fruitful for the sake of our justification and salvation.

May the Lord help us to live our lives more meaningfully, by making us more and more like Him in our ways, and through His dwelling in our hearts, may He transform us completely, in body, heart, mind and soul, in our whole being, to become truly His disciples, His beloved children, and those whom He had saved from the darkness of our past sins and wickedness. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 13 March 2017 : 2nd Week of Lent, 4th Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Vicar of Christ, Supreme Pontiff and Bishop of Rome (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings we are all reminded both of our sinfulness and also of God’s mercy, which He extends to all of His beloved children. We have sinned before the Lord, disobeying His commandments and walked away from the path which He had shown us, in pursuit of our worldly glory and other things that kept us away from Him.

But God loves each and every one of us, so much that He was willing to forgive us and He wants to welcome us back into His presence, because He is indeed merciful and filled with compassion and pity for us. He will bless us and receive us back in grace, just as He had promised us through Jesus His Son, as we heard in our Gospel passage today.

Nevertheless, we have to remember the fact that, while God is merciful, and while He extends His mercy and love freely to all of His people, but whether His mercy works on us depends solely on whether we accept that mercy, and open the doors of our hearts to welcome God and allow Him to enter into our hearts and exercise His grace of mercy in us, transforming us from the sinners that we are into people of the light.

We have hardened our hearts against God, and we did not allow God to enter into our hearts. We shut Him out and drown ourselves in our many busy dealings and concerns of the world, that we were not even able to listen to Him speaking to us in the depths of our hearts, calling us to repent from our sins and to be reconciled with Him. This is the problem that many if not most of us are facing, and the reason why many people were still incapable of reaching God’s mercy and forgiveness.

We should look upon the example of the prophet Daniel, who in our first reading today was humbly petitioning God, exposing before Him the sins of all the people who have disobeyed His commandments and were wayward in their ways. He has admitted on behalf of the people, the sins which they had committed, which brought a great shame to them, unworthy to even call God their Lord and Master.

It is this kind of humility and acceptance of one’s own sinfulness that allows God to exercise His forgiveness and mercy among us. Many of us do not only harden our hearts in pride before the Lord, but we also deny our sins, thinking that we could not have done wrong in our lives, or that we are thinking that those sins were inconsequential. We were wrong if we think in that manner, brothers and sisters, for sin, even the smallest among all forms of sin, are abhorred by God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in this season of Lent, as we continue to progress through this special time for repentance and forgiveness, let us all reflect deeply into our lives. Let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord our God, promising Him that we will no longer sin as we had done before, but instead willingly embrace His love and mercy, opening the doors of our hearts to welcome Him.

Let us work conscientiously to restrain ourselves, our pride, our desire and all the temptations to sin which had led us astray. Let us use this time and opportunity that God had granted to us in order to work towards our redemption and salvation in God. It is time for us to turn our back against our old ways of sin, and to begin anew in faith in the Lord. This is what we must do, so that we will be worthy of God’s forgiveness, so that while we are sinners, but God will absolve from us our sins, and transform us into righteous people in His presence.

May the Lord bless us all and help us to go through this season of Lent filled with joy knowing that we have the hope of forgiveness and everlasting life by what He had promised us all who remain true and faithful to Him. Let us humbly seek Him with repentance and regret for all of our past transgressions and sins. May God forgive us all our sins and bring us to the glory of the everlasting life. Amen.

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Sunday, 12 March 2017 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we gather together to celebrate the occasion of the Second Sunday of Lent, each and every one of us are reminded by the passages from the Scriptures today that we have been called as Christians, to follow the Lord and walk in His path, following the examples of our forefathers in faith, in the footsteps of Abraham the just, the examples of the prophets, as well as the Apostles and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the examples we heard from the Scripture passages today, we have been given many examples of how God called His people, choosing them out of the world, calling them towards Himself, and in the process, transforming each and every one of them to be His servants, to be those who are worthy to be called the people of God, and indeed, to become His own children.

Let us begin from the example of Abraham, our father in faith. Out of the many people who have descended from Noah after the Great Flood, God called Abram, from the land of Ur in Babylonia and Mesopotamia. He was just a normal man, who had a wife and a family, living amongst his people in that area of Ur, a decently wealthy man with possessions of many animals and lands.

And most importantly, he did not have any child to continue his name or to inherit his wealth and possessions. At that time, all the other people would have looked down on Abram because he did not have a child. It was considered a curse and something bad not to have a child and to be barren, a shame and curse which surely also fell on Sara his wife. But Abram is faithful to God, and he believed in God when God called him and revealed to him what He had intended for him.

Otherwise we would be wondering why God chose such a man, who was without a child and merely just a man, not choosing the kings and the mighty ones among those who lived during the time of Abram. This is because God saw what is inside the heart and not by appearances, and He saw in Abram, something that is different from all the others. And that thing which differentiated him from others is faith.

God called Abram and he listened to that call. He followed the Lord, leaving everything behind and went on with his wife, Lot, his cousin and his belongings to the land of Canaan, far away from his ancestral land of Ur. He could have ignored the calling of the Lord, as it is much easier for him to remain in the land of his ancestors, and with what he had at that time, surely he had more than enough in order to make himself a comfortable life.

Instead, he travelled the perilous road on the journey towards the land which God promised to him and to his descendants, taking into account the difficulty of travel at that time, when travel was not as efficient and easy as it is today. He followed the Lord’s commands wherever He wanted him to go, and he remained faithful to Him. It was only in one occasion that he faltered, when he was impatient of getting a child for himself, and tried a shortcut by having a child with his slave Hagar. But God chastised Abram for his lack of faith, and reassured him that He would fulfil His promise.

Abram was rewarded for his faith with the gift of the promised child, Isaac, through whom Abram would become the father of many nations, from a man who was considered barren most of his life, to become the ancestor of many people, of kings and lords, and even of the Lord and Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ, born the Son of Abraham through His mother Mary. And as a sign of the fulfilment of that covenant, Abram received a new name, that is Abraham.

Let us then link this to our baptism, the moment when each and every one of us received our faith and become part of the Church, either as an infant or as an adult. Each of us received the baptism of water that cleansed us from the taints and corruptions of our original sins, and were received into the Church of God, becoming God’s own children, His own sons and daughters. And we also receive a new name, in honour of the holy saints and martyrs of God.

The saints and martyrs were themselves just like us, brothers and sisters in Christ. They were sinners just as we are. However, they have been called and chosen by God, and they answered God’s call much in the same way as Abram had done, and were transformed by that faith he had in God. God transformed His servants from the creatures of sin and darkness, into the creatures of the light.

In that process, we may have to leave behind the comfort of the life we know of, just as Abram had once done, leaving behind the comfort of his past life, all certainties and goodness in life, and instead following the Lord to the unknown future he was being led into. This is what we also heard in the Gospel today, the account on the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In that account, we heard how the glory of our Lord Jesus was revealed to the world through His disciples on Mount Tabor, when He was shown in the fullness of His Divine glory and majesty, before His disciples. The glory of God was revealed in all of its fullness, and Moses and Elijah appeared and talked to Jesus on that mountain. This is the first message that we can learn from this Gospel passage, that just as Christ has been transfigured in His glory, all of us therefore will also be transformed by the Lord when we answer His call and obey Him, and we shall share in the glory of all of His saints.

But then we should also take note of what happened next. It contains an equally important message and reminder for us all. As the glory of God was so great, the disciples were awed by what they had seen, and St. Peter suggested to Jesus that they all ought to remain there up on the mountain, and three tents should be established each for Him, and for Elijah and Moses.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? At that time, as Jesus continued through His earthly ministry, He knew that He would eventually be betrayed by one of His own disciples, and handed Him to the hands of His enemies, to all those who cried out for His death. And He knew just how much He had to suffer as He went through all of that, and yet despite all these, He obeyed the will of His Father completely and perfectly.

He knew that if He were to descend that mountain, He would go on to Jerusalem, and from there to His Passion and suffering, and death on the cross. To remain on that mountain in His glory is something that He could have done. After all, He did not have to go and suffer for the sake of all mankind, for they have disobeyed Him and became wayward through sin. He is God, and He could just destroy all those who have sinned against Him by His will alone.

But that was not what He had decided to do, brothers and sisters in Christ. He was so filled with love for the sake of each and every one of us that He was willing to empty Himself and humble Himself, emptying Himself from all the glory of His divinity and embark on the path of His Passion, that is the path of the cross. And although mankind had disobeyed Him and sinned, He showed an example for all, through love and perfect obedience, following the will of His Father. And through Him, all have been saved.

That is what God had done for us, obedient even unto death so that He may undo from us the damages caused by our disobedience, our sins. And He has called each one of us, all of His beloved children scattered throughout the world, that we may come to believe in Him, that we may follow Him, abandon our past ways of sin and wickedness, embracing the righteousness and justice found in God alone.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard the passages and words from the Scriptures today, each of us as Christians must know that all of us have been called from the world. We have been called by God to follow Him, to embark on a great journey with Him, to go into the unknown, to the destination which only the Lord alone knows. And we need that faith to go forth and embark on this journey, putting our complete trust in God as Abram had once done.

All of us have been called to follow in the footsteps of the saints and martyrs, those who have dared to venture forth and go to the places that God had called them to go to, remaining faithful and true to Him to the very end, even when the whole world itself was against them. Jesus Himself showed by example, stepping down from His glory at Mount Tabor and descending with His disciples, who were following Him to His Passion and death at Jerusalem, the complete fulfilment of His mission in this world, that is our salvation.

And how do we then respond, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is by taking up our crosses and follow the Lord Jesus, not in terms of physical crosses, but to be true and faithful to the teachings of our Lord, and to stand up for our faith in Him, being true and faithful witnesses to Him and to His truth by our actions, by our words and by our deeds. This means for us to practice love, compassion, grace and mercy in all that we say and do.

Through all that we have faithfully said and done in accordance with the will of God, obeying the Lord as Jesus had once done Himself, all of us will be transformed from the creatures of darkness and sin that were once all of us, into beings of light and righteousness, worthy to be called sons and daughters of God. We all will share in all the glory and the inheritance God had promised Abraham and more, and we will revel in the eternal glory of His saints and holy Angels.

Therefore, in this time of Lent, let us begin if we have not begun, to be charitable and loving to others, especially to those who are in need, not just in terms of material goods, but even more importantly in terms of spiritual needs and the need to be loved and cared. There are many people out there who are in need of our love. Let our Lenten season be meaningful and fruitful, by our actions, through which not only that we restrain our desires and temptations, but also by doing more in what we can do to help others, to love others, and to give ourselves for the sake of all those who need us, just as Jesus Himself had done.

May the Lord be with us in this season of Lent, and may He help us in our journey of faith, so that each and every one of us whom He had called, may listen to His call, and do something that we walk in His path ever more faithfully, putting our complete trust in Him, so that in the end, we may merit to share in the glory which God had prepared for all those who are faithful and true to Him. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 11 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day each and every one of us are reminded that as Christians, we have the obligation to love one another, and foremost of all, to love God with all of our hearts, with all of our strengths and might. This is what God had commanded us to do, and which we must do wholeheartedly and sincerely in our daily lives.

It is the heart and the true purpose of the Law of God. God has loved us so much that He wants us all to be like Himself, to be like Him Who is love. And His love is perfect and impartial, and He gives His love freely to all. And therefore, because God is love, so therefore His Law is also the Law of love. He has given His laws to His people so that through these laws, they may learn about love, and also how to love sincerely with their hearts.

But as the time went on, many misunderstood and misinterpreted God’s laws. They used them for their own purposes, to advance their own causes and to gain advantages for themselves. This is what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. Instead of bringing love to the people of God, the laws of the Lord became a source of burden and difficulty for the people, for they had been applied without proper understanding of its true meaning and intent.

And many took the laws and commandments of God at its face value, not realising and appreciating what these laws are truly about. The first and most important of all the commandments that God had given us His people is truly very basic and very simple, that all of us have to love God with all of our might, with all of our strength and conviction, and with our entire and whole beings. It is to follow in what God had first done unto us, giving us His unconditional love by creating us out of love for us, and by granting us His grace of life and His love.

Many of us in the world today love in the way that is not in accordance with what the Lord had taught us to do. We love because we often seek returns from the love which we have given. We love others because we know that those people will love us back and give us back in return what we have given them first, and sometimes we even demand that more should be returned to us than what we give.

That is what happened to our society and communities today, even in the love present between our families and our couples in marriages. We love because it is a conditional and transactional love, desiring for reward and returns on what we have done. This is why we have also become overly engrossed with appearances, with external beauty, desiring pleasures of the flesh, improper sexual conducts, and all the things which led to the perversion of love.

Do we all realise that when we do all these, what we have in us is not love? It is in fact desire and human greed that we have in us, loving only ourselves and caring only for our own needs. It is this selfish love and caring for oneself that had led to the breakdown of many relationships and families, and at the same time, distancing ourselves from the Lord our God.

In the Gospel passage today, all of us as Christians are challenged to overcome this status quo. We are all challenged to break free from this habit of selfishness and greed. We are all called to follow none other than the Lord our God Himself in His examples, in how He has loved us all unconditionally. And what better example there is than the loving sacrifice of Christ?

In this time and season of Lent, we are all called to reflect on the examples of Christ, Who has loved all of His beloved people, and most importantly, as He Himself said in the Gospel today, that true love, and indeed Christian love, is to love all others unconditionally and without desire for returns or rewards. And this includes loving even all those who do not love us, all those who have hurt us and hated us.

And above all else, Christ has Himself done what He had preached, loving all His enemies, forgiving them even from the cross, as He was hung on it dying from His suffering. He forgave all of them from their sins and all that they had inflicted on Him. Are we able to love in the same manner as Christ our Lord had loved? This is a challenge that all of us as Christians should take up on during this time of Lent.

Let us all reflect on this, brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us think in what way we are able to obey the Lord more faithfully by following the examples of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who had shown us all how to love and how to obey the Lord and His will. He Himself had obeyed His Father to the very end, and therefore, all of us who believe in Him ought to do the same as well.

May this season of Lent be truly a time of conversion for us, that all of us who have once been unloving, wicked and selfish may be turned into loving, forgiving and compassionate children of God our Father, following His examples in being selfless and true in our love for each other, just as how we love Him with all of our hearts, minds and strengths. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 10 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are all reminded by the passages from the Sacred Scriptures that while righteous and good deeds bring about justification and salvation in God, wickedness and evil deeds, sins in whatever forms they are, bring about destruction and condemnation for even the smallest of sins has no place in the presence of our God.

This is particularly fitting considering that this season of Lent that we are going through now is a season of repentance, of forgiveness for our sins, and of a renewal of hearts and minds. It is a time for us to reevaluate our lives, our actions, words and deeds. It is a time for us to ask ourselves, have we been justified in our actions, and have we been worthy through all of our deeds? Or have we instead done what is abhorrent and wicked in the presence of God?

All of these are reminders for us, as we live through our lives, lest that we forget and fall astray into sin and darkness. It is very easy for us to fall into temptations to sin, and as a result, fall into sin and become corrupted in heart, mind and soul. In the first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, we are reminded that even the righteous ones can fall into sin, and by the corruption of their sins, they will be judged.

This is an important reminder that we all need to be constantly be vigilant against the lures of sin, and we cannot be complacent in our faith and in our lives. It does not mean that if we have become Christians, then we are safe and certain in our struggle against sin. Sin can come back and afflict us at any time whenever we are unprepared and lacking in vigilance.

That is precisely why we practice fasting and abstinence during this season of Lent. Through fasting and abstinence, we restrain ourselves, our desires and the desires of our flesh, the vulnerabilities of our hearts and minds, so that we may resist the temptation to sin and to do whatever is not right in the sight of God and men alike. We do not fast and abstain to be seen and to be praised by others around us. On the other hand, we fast and abstain because we want to free ourselves from the lures of the sins that are surrounding us.

Discipline is very important in our lives and in our faith. We must have that rigour and commitment in doing what is right and just in the sight of God. It is normal for us to endure temptations and the pull to do what are contrary to the ways of the Lord, but if we try our best and resist, we will certainly be able to remain truly good and righteous despite all the forces of those who are arrayed against us.

On the other hand, we are also reminded that God is ever full of mercy, compassion, love and forgiveness. He will not abandon His beloved people to the darkness, and He will not let sinners to perish without ever having the hope of reconciliation and reunion with Him. That is why in the same passage from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, God also gives hope to all those who have sinned, which is truly all of us mankind, that if only we turn away from our sins, we will be saved.

In this season of Lent, all of us sinners are called to repentance and redemption in God. All of us are called to turn our back to sin, to all the things which we have committed, all the wicked actions and deeds we have done. We are all called to do penance before God and men alike, doing deeds and actions that are good, as a penance for all of our sins, and as a sign that we have truly regretted our sins and genuinely desiring forgiveness from God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all during this time and opportunity given to us by God, turn towards Him and commit ourselves anew to Him. Let us no longer sin and resist the temptation to sin. Let us throw away our pride, our arrogance, our selfishness and all the things that have separated us from God. Let us help one another to persevere in our journey, so that all of us will remain to be true to our faith in God, and we remain worthy of Him to the end of it all, when God will glorify all those who have kept their faith in Him.

May God bless us all and be with us in our daily lives, and may all of us through this holy and penitential season of Lent find a renewal in our faith. Let us draw closer to God, and let us always walk in His ways, holy and blessed, all the days of our lives. Amen.