Homily of the Mass

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Wednesday, 16 April 2025 : Wednesday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today on this Wednesday of the Holy Week, a day also commonly known as the Spy Wednesday, we draw ever closer to the peak of our entire liturgical year, the Paschal or Easter Triduum. And the reason why this day is named as such is because of the reading of the Gospel for today, which touches on the moment when Judas Iscariot, the disciple who betrayed the Lord Jesus went to the chief priests and the Temple authorities, discussing on how they would be able to cooperate in handing over Jesus to the chief priests and the Sanhedrin to be tried and judged, so that they could all condemn Him for the faults and accusations that they would all blame on Him, such as the crime of blasphemy against God and also the crime of treason against Rome and the Emperor.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which we heard of the sufferings to be faced by the One Whom God would send into this world, to save us all mankind, to save all of us, His beloved people. The Suffering Servant, the Suffering Messiah would have to bear the brunt of the many punishments and pains, the trials and challenges that all of us should have faced and endured, all the punishments that we all have deserved because of our disobedience and sins. He faced all these humiliation and disgrace, all the oppressions, rejection and wounds, all because of the ever enduring and great love that He has always had for us. By His perfect obedience, this Servant of God fulfilled everything that God Himself has promised to His people throughout all of history, accomplishing everything through His ultimate, loving sacrifice.

And this Servant of God, suffering and humiliated all pointed towards Jesus Christ, the Son of God made Man, the One Whom had been sent into our midst, born of the Virgin Mother, Blessed Virgin Mary, to be the One through Whom God would sanctify and rescue all of His beloved ones. And during this time of the Holy Week, as we immerse ourselves in the moments of the Passion of Our Lord, and as we gaze our sight upon the Lord crucified on His Cross, all of us should remember how such great love has been shown to us all in everything that He willingly embraced and endured so that He could rescue us from our predicament and fated destruction. By His humble obedience, He is reversing the effects of our disobedience and sins, all of which had separated us from the fullness of God’s love and grace. By His wounds, His broken Precious Body and outpoured Precious Blood, He has shown us all salvation in God.

Then, as mentioned earlier, from the Gospel passage taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the story of the time when Judas Iscariot came before the chief priests, offering to them to betray his own Master and Teacher, cornering Him in a place where the Lord’s opponents and enemies could arrest Him without much opposition from the people, as previously, they feared the reaction of the people whenever the Lord was teaching in public and they dared not to move against Him. Judas was likely unhappy with the Lord through various reasons, but it was also him embracing the temptations of the evil one, who sowed the seeds of dissension and sin in his heart and mind. And this provided the chief priests with the perfect opportunity to seize the Lord and arrest Him.

Therefore, as we heard in the Gospel, they agreed to offer Judas Iscariot a sum of thirty pieces of silver, and this offer of the silver pieces is actually a very significant symbol and fulfilment of the prophecies that the Lord Himself had foretold through His prophets. This is because thirty pieces of silver was the price that a slave was commonly priced for in the slave market at the time, and therefore, Judas had betrayed his own Master for the price of a slave, and it symbolises how Jesus would indeed take the place and position of a slave, and by humbling Himself, emptying Himself of all glory, honour and majesty, He Who is the Incarnation of the Divine, the Word of God made Man. And through His suffering and death, He is uniting us all in our humanity to death to our own sins and wickedness, to all the vices and evils that have kept us separated from God.

We heard then of the account of the moment at the Last Supper from the Gospel today, in which the disciples were gathered together with the Lord while having the Passover meal. It was there that the Lord again predicted that one of His disciples would betray Him. The Lord already knew who that betrayer was to be, and Judas himself in a way confirmed his betrayal, and the Lord was in fact not too discreet in making this fact known. Yet, at that time, the other disciples were all unaware of the significance of what the Lord was telling them clearly before them all. Thus that was how Judas eventually went to betray the Lord, by allowing Satan, the evil one to act through him, in trying to derail the Lord’s plan of salvation for His people, by striking at the One that God had sent to this world to bring forth His salvation.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are reminded today not only of God’s persistence in loving all of us and in His most generous gesture of love, which He has truly shown us all most generously through all that He had done in His Passion, His sufferings and all the wounds and beatings that He had endured for our sake, but all of us are also reminded that we must not allow ourselves to be easily swayed by the temptations of sin, the temptations of worldly pleasures and all the evils and wickedness around us, all the efforts and works of the evil one and his forces, all trying to lead us all into eternal damnation and destruction. We must not allow the devil and his forces to strike easily at us because we willingly embrace the path of greed, ambition and worldly pursuits, all of which had misled so many down the path of ruin in the past.

Let us all therefore as we prepare to enter into the most holy and solemn Paschal Triduum tomorrow continue to deepen our faith in the Lord and focus ourselves wholly and wholeheartedly on the Lord as we centre our focus and attention on Him and on His most wonderful love, on everything that He had done for us. Let us no longer harden our hearts and minds, and no longer be stubborn or obstinate in our refusal to obey and follow Him. Let us instead do our very best so that we will truly immerse ourselves in the important events we are going to commemorate during this time of the Paschal Triduum. May all of us be truly blessed and be enlightened by our experiences these next few days, and may all of us be ever more strengthened in faith in God, now and always. Amen.

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Tuesday, 15 April 2025 : Tuesday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today on this Tuesday of Holy Week all of us are reminded ever more of God’s salvation which has been fulfilled through Christ, the Son of God Incarnate, Who has embraced our Human existence and nature, becoming one of us and one like us in all things but sin, becoming the means for our salvation and liberation from the tyranny of sin. Through everything that He has done during the time when He endured His Passion, all the obstacles that He has to bear through and overcome amidst His efforts in bringing us all, His lost children and scattered lost sheep from the darkness all over this world. We are reminded that the Lord has done all these because He loves us all generously and genuinely, showing us truly great love that surpasses all things, and is greater even than our sins and wickedness.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Isaiah regarding the words of the Lord for His people reassuring them all of His salvation that He would send unto them through His Saviour, the One that He would send into their midst to gather those who have been scattered around this world, made to wander around in suffering because of our sins. And this Holy One of God would be marked from before He was even born, given the Name above all the other names, and by the will of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, He was given the most important task to bring the Light of God, God’s Good News and love, God’s mercy and compassion to all of His people in this world, to all of us sinners who are still separated from the light of God’s salvation and from His grace.

In that prophecy of the prophet Isaiah that we heard today, we heard the prophet speaking as if he was the Saviour that God had sent, speaking in the first person, proclaiming everything that God would do through this same Saviour, the Word of God Incarnate. And through this manifestation of God’s love, His generous mercy and compassion which He has lovingly poured out upon us, and which He has constantly given to us despite our many sins and disobedience, God wants us all to be healed and to be reunited with Him. And the only way that this can be done is through His Son’s coming into this world and what He had done in redeeming us all from the clutches of sin and death. God has made His only Begotten Son to be our Eternal and one True High Priest to redeem us all from destruction and death, to be the Paschal Lamb of Sacrifice, the perfect offering and the only One that is worthy to redeem us all.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist we heard of the moment during the Last Supper between the Lord and His disciples, the Passover meal that He had planned to have with all of them, where He revealed how one among them, namely Judas Iscariot would betray Him to the chief priests and hand Him over to them to be condemned to death and crucified by the Romans. This was part of what the Lord had predicted through the various prophecies and messages that He had given to His disciples throughout time and history. But God also gave us all the freedom of will and the freedom to choose our path in life, whether we want to embrace His righteousness and virtues or whether we want to follow the path of sin and darkness.

Judas Iscariot chose to listen to the temptations of the evil one, who have often tempted him on many things, such as what we have heard in our Gospel passage yesterday, on how he had often stolen from the common funds of the Lord and His disciples to enrich himself, giving in to selfishness and wicked desires. Judas Iscariot also likely clashed with the Lord on other matters that might not have been highlighted or shown in the Gospels or elsewhere, but regardless of the details or specifics, what matters is that Judas chose the easier path of embracing the temptations of desire and greed, the desire for money and wealth and the acceptance of the world over the Lord’s often rather controversial teachings and ways, including how Judas himself was chastised after he criticised Mary for anointing the Lord’s feet with expensive perfume.

Judas clearly had the freedom to choose his path in life, just as Mary, the Mother of Our Lord and God had been given the same freedom to choose. While Mary indeed had the advantage of being free from the taint of original sin due to her Immaculate Conception, she was no doubt also tempted by the various sins and evils of the world around her. Yet, she trusted in the Lord completely over those temptations, fears and uncertainties. That was why she was greeted with the words, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace’ by the Archangel Gabriel. Mary chose to obey the Lord and to trust in Him, while Judas chose to give in to the temptations, to his fears and desires, and that was how he fell into sin, in betraying his Lord and Master for a mere value of thirty pieces of silver, the price for a slave, the price that is to pay for our salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what we are all reminded today through these readings from the Sacred Scriptures are the revelation of God’s ever enduring love for us and also all the opportunities that God had given to us, in sending unto us His Son, Jesus Christ Our Lord, to be our Lord and Saviour, to be the One to heal us all from our faults and iniquities, and to lead us all one by one, all to the Throne of the Mercy of God. And we have also been reminded of the free will and the freedom that God has given to each and every one of us in choosing our path in life. Let us make the conscious effort and choice in our respective lives, directing ourselves towards the Lord because it is in Him alone that we shall find true satisfaction and happiness, and not in all the distractions and temptations that are around us in this world.

May the Lord our God, our Crucified Saviour and King continue to lead and guide us all to Himself, and continue to strengthen us in our faith and commitment to Him, so that in everything that we say and do, in our observance of this sacred period of the Holy Week, this holiest week of all weeks in the year, we will continue to grow ever more committed to God and that we will become more aware of the great love that God has shown us through His Son, Our Saviour and King, and also of our own sinfulness and unworthiness before God. Let us all make the concrete effort and strive to commit ourselves, our time and our whole being to embrace this Holy Week period with dedication and true desire to be reconciled and reunited with our loving God and Father. Amen.

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Monday, 14 April 2025 : Monday of Holy Week (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the Monday of the Holy Week and as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are called to remember the role that Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Our Saviour had done in accomplishing everything that God had planned for our salvation, and on this most holy and solemn of all weeks in the year, we remember the things that the Lord has done for us, in loving us most wonderfully and generously, that He was willing to empty Himself of all glory and honour, embracing all of us and bearing our sins and faults upon Himself so that by His sufferings and by His willing endurance of the punishments meant for us, He may show unto us the path to eternal life.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah we heard of the words of the Lord regarding the Servant Whom He would send to His people, the people of God and the whole world, bearing forth the salvation of God made manifest through this same Servant. And God reassured all of His people that He would be with them through this Servant on Whom His Holy Spirit and favour was on, and through Him the salvation and liberation of all of God’s people would be accomplished perfectly, just as He has foretold and prophesied to them through His many prophets including that of the prophet Isaiah. God does not want any of His children and beloved ones to be separated or lost to Him, and that was why He sent to them the salvation and promise of eternal life.

And this Servant Whom He has spoken about through Isaiah was none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God incarnate in the flesh, Who has become the Son of Man, bringing forth the love of God perfectly manifested and becoming tangible and reachable to us. This same Christ, Our Lord and Saviour would also indeed suffer just as Isaiah prophesied, revealing how the same Lord Jesus would be rejected, persecuted and oppressed, and would be inflicted with the worst of punishments, but He would not resist or fight, and He accepted those sufferings with genuine and ever enduring love for us. He was led to the slaughter place, like a Lamb brought to be sacrificed, so that by His perfect obedience and most loving and selfless sacrifice, He might heal us all and bring us all to full reconciliation with God our Father.

Then from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Lord was in Bethany near Jerusalem during the week leading to His Crucifixion, when Mary, the sister of Lazarus came to the Lord before His disciples, anointing His feet with expensive perfume made of pure spikenard, and then wiped the perfumed feet clean with her hair. It was at that moment when Judas Iscariot, as mentioned, being the one who would betray the Lord to the chief priests, immediately criticised her for having wasted the expensive perfume, and in such case, the author of the Gospel, St. John pointed out the hypocrisy of the action of Judas because he himself had stolen from the funds of the Lord and His disciples to enrich his own pocket. Therefore, for him to criticise the actions of Mary was truly pure hypocrisy, and the Lord condemned Judas as such.

What Mary had done was more than just a prefigurement of the Lord’s sufferings and crucifixion, which the Lord hinted on as He mentioned how Mary was preparing His Body for His death, like that of how dead bodies were to be prepared for burial. Even more importantly is the symbolic representations of Mary’s actions before the Lord which should serve as important lessons for all of us to heed and to follow. First of all, Mary humbled herself before everyone and she put perfume on the Lord’s feet, when the feet at that time was considered as the filthiest and dirtiest part of a person’s body. Yet, she touched the Lord’s feet without hesitation, and even used her hair to wipe and clean the Lord’s feet. A woman’s hair is the crown of beauty and the pride of a woman, and Mary humbled herself such that she threw away all that pride in serving the Lord.

Through the example of Mary, the Lord Jesus wanted His disciples and hence all of us to take note what it truly means to become His disciples and followers. As the Lord Himself would do on the Last Supper a few days after this event, He would humble Himself and wash His disciples’ feet, an action which also drew a similar comment and astonishment from His disciples, especially from St. Peter the Apostle. But the Lord showed that true Christian love and leadership is one of service and not one of vainglory and ambition. He came into this world to lead us all to salvation and to reconciliation to the Father, and He showed this to us not through glorious and mighty deeds, but through humble and perfect obedience to the Father’s will. To be Christians, we have to follow the example of Our Lord Himself, Who has been always full of love, and like Mary, whose love for the Lord made her to humble herself and to serve Him in the manner that few would have thought of or considered.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore continue to deepen our faith in the Lord as we continue to progress through this Holy Week period. Let us make good use of the time and opportunities which had been presented to us so that we may truly benefit fully from this time when we commemorate Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, all of which He had done for our sake, for His great and ever enduring love for us. We should always be grateful at what we have received from God and all the opportunities that we have been given for us to come back to Him, being called and reminded many times by our loving and most compassionate Father. Let us all continue to focus our gaze upon the Cross of Christ this Holy Week, and spend good quality time to reflect on our sinfulness and how God’s love and compassion had made it possible for us to overcome those sins and return back to God, forgiven and reconciled with Him by the sacrifice of Christ on His Cross.

May the Lord continue to guide us all through this time and period of the Holy Week, helping us to focus our attention on the Lord and His Passion, His love and sacrifice for us amidst all the busy schedules and things that we have daily in our time this week. May He continue to encourage us all with the strength and wisdom to carry on living our daily lives with faith and obedience, with righteousness and desire to follow God in all things, to be the inspiration for our fellow brothers and sisters around us. May God be with us all and may He bless our every good efforts and works this Holy Week, and bless our family and loved ones too. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 April 2025 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week, the holiest and most important of all weeks and periods in the whole entire liturgical year. This Sunday marks the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, in which the moments surrounding the Lord’s Passion or suffering is highlighted to us, in this most solemn week when the Lord fulfilled all of His promises of salvation to us, bringing unto us the fulfilment and perfect completion of everything that He had planned for us from the very beginning, the plan of bringing us all back to God’s loving embrace the moment that we fell into sin through disobedience and rebellion against Him. On this day we remember the Lord embarking on this most important mission which has been entrusted solely to Him alone in order to bring us all out of the darkness and back into God’s light and grace.

In our Gospel passage this Sunday, which was read before the triumphant procession with the Cross and the blessed palms, we heard of the account of the time when the Lord was about to enter into the city of Jerusalem for the last time prior to His Crucifixion, at the appointed time when He would accomplish everything that had been planned for our salvation. We heard how He sent His disciples to prepare the time of His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, getting a colt or a young donkey that had never been used or sat on before. This fulfilled the prophecy which God had made through His prophets, particularly the prophet Zechariah who prophesied about the coming of the Messiah or Saviour, the King of Kings, Who would come on a donkey to the Holy City of Jerusalem, marking the coming of God’s salvation for His people.

That is why by this action of this triumphant entry of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem, the people of God and hence all of us are shown God’s fulfilment of everything that He has promised to us, everything that He had said that He would do for those whom He dearly loved, and He came on a donkey instead of a great and fearsome warhorse, highlighting the manner by which He would accomplish this mission. He came into this world not to subjugate it to His will or to force us all to obey Him, but rather as our loving and compassionate King, Jesus showed us all this most generous love in restoring hope in our hearts, through His coming that fulfilled the prophecies of the prophets and the promises of God. And while Jesus came to Jerusalem with great pomp and celebration, it was all to obey the Father’s will and for Him to suffer for our sake on the Cross, to be the Source of salvation for all of us who believe in God.

Then, from our first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, the One Whom God sent to be with His people, the Saviour Who would suffer on behalf of all of mankind. This was indeed a curious and strange prophecy because the common understanding by many of the Jewish people by the time of the ministry of Jesus and His works, was that the Messiah would be a mighty, conquering King Who would restore the Kingdom of Israel as how it was during the glorious days of David and Solomon, and that He would be born into the House of David. But little did many of them realise that the Lord did not intend for that, as His plans and ways are truly beyond that of man’s comprehension. Firstly, He chose to be born into a poor family in Nazareth, the simple family of a carpenter, and then, He would accomplish His mission through suffering and not through war and conquest.

And that is how the narrative of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem then shifts to the sombre details of the sufferings and the trials that the Lord’s Saviour had to endure as we heard from the first reading today onwards to the Passion Reading, showing us what we are going to experience throughout this coming week, this Holy Week commemorating our Lord’s Passion, His sufferings and all that He had to endure in His mission to bring us all to salvation and eternal life. God has never forgotten about us and while we are suffering the consequences of our sins and wickedness, He has always persisted in loving us so generously and lovingly as a loving Father loving His children. And in order to save us all, He has given us all His own Son, manifesting His love in the flesh, so that by His perfect obedience and His ultimate loving sacrifice on the Cross, He might offer us the assurance of eternal life and true freedom from the bondage and domination of sin.

From the second reading this Palm Sunday taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful people of God in Philippi, in what is now part of Greece, we heard of the Apostle speaking about the obedience of Christ, the Son of God made Man, Who has come into our midst and revealed God’s love for us, and as just mentioned, how this perfect obedience of Christ, as the Son of Man, as the New Man, the New Adam, has for His Father’s will, counteracted perfectly the disobedience of our ancestors that had once led us all into our downfall. By acting as our High Priest in offering the perfect offering of His own Most Precious Body and Blood, and by His perfect obedience, His sacrifice has been accepted by the Father for the atonement of all of our innumerable sins and flaws, allowing us all to access His love and grace once again.

Therefore, as we remember then everything that the Lord Jesus, Our God and Saviour had done for us as we recall our long Passion reading today, the story of the sufferings which Our Lord had to endure in the midst of this ultimate show of His genuine love, all of us are reminded on why we celebrate this Holy Week with such great dedication and faith, and with such great effort and intensity, because ultimately, it was God Himself Who has loved us all so intensely first that He has done such a deed for us. And today as we recall the story of everything that happened in Our Lord’s Passion let us keep our gaze upon the Cross of Our Saviour, the Cross with the figure of Our Lord crucified on it, His wounds and everything that He had done for us. Each and every one of His wounds have been caused by our wickedness and sins, and He bore all these punishments for us.

That is why as we enter into this Holy Week with today’s commemoration of Palm Sunday and the beginning of the Lord’s Passion story and experience, let us all appreciate and internalise why we celebrate this most important series of events in the history of our salvation. Let us remind ourselves on how God has reached out to us, His beloved people, with love and generous mercy and compassion, that He was willing to forgive us all our sins even when we do not deserve such a nice treatment. We should have suffered eternity in Hell and be damned for all of our rebelliousness, disobedience and sins. Yet, by God’s mercy and His grace, and by Him extending to us this assurance of salvation through His Son, made available to us through the Church and the Sacraments, we have been led through the darkness and into the Light of Christ.

This Holy Week should be different from our past Holy Week observances and experiences, especially if we have not truly devoted ourselves, our time, attention and effort to focus ourselves and our whole lives to the Lord, to the One Who has overcome sin and death by His most painful and sorrowful death on the Cross. And by the glorious Resurrection that He has shown us at the end of this most Holy Week, the triumph of Our Lord over sin and death by His Resurrection reminds us all that if we put our faith and trust in the Lord our God, we will be truly be victorious in the end, sharing in His joy and majesty. We shall no longer be bound by the tyranny and power of sin, evil and all the things that had kept us separated and sundered from God’s fullness of grace and love for us. That is why we should strive our best to focus ourselves well this time of the Holy Week, to centre ourselves upon the Lord’s Passion, all the sufferings that He had to endure out of love for us all.

May the Lord our most loving God and Father continue to guide us all through our lives and especially through this upcoming celebrations this Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum so that each and every moments of this most solemn and sacred period be truly fruitful and faithful to Him. Let us all continue to do our best to follow the Lord ever more faithfully each day and let us continue to be good role models and examples in our faith and in how we live our lives so that our lives may truly be exemplary and be good beacons of God’s Light and truth to all mankind. May God be with us all and be with our every efforts and good works in all things, and may He bless our Holy Week observances and time. Amen.

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Saturday, 12 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings, all of us are reminded of what the Lord had most generously done for us all, His beloved people and children. God has not forgotten about us and our sufferings in this world, and He wanted us all to be reconciled fully with Him, just as how He had treated His people, the Israelites, who have sinned and rebelled against Him, and yet, He showed them all His mercy and compassion, gathering all of them from the various corners of the world to be once again reunited with Him. All of us are also reminded that we should not continue to harden our hearts and minds against the Lord because of our pride, ego, ambition and desires, among other things, all of which can lead us down the path of destruction and damnation through sin.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, in which the Lord told His people in exile, scattered throughout many distant lands, in Babylon, Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere of the love and compassion which He had for them, and His reassurances to them on how they would all be reunited and gathered back from the lands of their exile to their homeland, the lands which God had granted to their ancestors, the Israelites in the land of Israel and Judah. The people of Israel had frequently disobeyed the Lord and His commandments, refusing to listen to God and His many prophets sent to them to remind them, and that was why, separated from God’s grace and blessings, they were defeated and conquered by their enemies, humiliated and had to suffer the loss of their homes.

Not only that but they even had to witness and experience the destruction of the Temple of God which King Solomon had established in Jerusalem as the House of God and the focus of the people’s worship of God and community. That destruction and desolation serve as important reminder of the dangers and effects of sin which had separated the people of God from their loving Master and Creator. Fortunately, the Lord is truly full of love and mercy, ever rich and generous in His compassion and in His desire to love His people, that though they were sinners, they were always precious and beloved by God, Who gave all of the people the means and the path to reach out to Him, just as He has outrightly declared His salvation and liberation for all of them, that they would truly be blessed once again.

And this passage from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel is also in fact a prophecy of the Messiah or the Saviour, promising to the people of Israel the coming of God’s salvation which would happen through the House of David, just as God had once promised King David of Israel, His faithful servant. God renewed this promise again, and through Ezekiel, He made it clear that through the allusion of David, the One Whom He would send into this world, none other than His own Begotten Son, would be born into the House of David, and through Him, Our Lord and Saviour, God would gather all of His beloved ones and show unto us all how we can enter into His grace and love, and receive His forgiveness and be reconciled with Him. And we also heard of the promise of the Covenant which God would establish with us all, which all would indeed come true in Christ.

Then, through our Gospel passage today, we heard of the story of the events that transpired at the moment when the Lord was in Jerusalem for the time of the Passover, the moments leading towards the culmination of His mission in this world. It was at that time in which more and more among the Pharisees, chief priests and elders were opposing the Lord and began to call out for the elimination of this great threat to their power, influence and status in the community of the people of God. Many among the Pharisees, who were the intellectual elites of the people of God at the time, had issues and disagreements with the Lord and His teachings because they refused to accept that their way of observing and practicing the Law could have been flawed and mistaken.

And then, among the other influential groups like the Sadducees, to which belonged many of the chief priests and the members of the religious elite of the community, they also had issues and disagreements with the Lord because they did not see eye to eye on many matters and beliefs, and because ultimately, like the Pharisees, many among them were likely jealous at the great influence and the successes which the Lord Jesus had managed to gather during His time of ministry among the people of God and even among the Gentiles or the non-Jewish people. They feared that these would eventually lead to the loss of their prestige, status and influence among God’s people, and also 

That was why in the meeting of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council, many among their members sought to destroy the Lord Jesus, thinking of false accusations to condemn Him and to bring Him to be punished, plotting His destruction, which all happened just shortly before the Lord began the journey of His Passion, leading to His suffering and death on the Cross. And just as we have heard from our first reading today, from the prophet Ezekiel, as we have just discussed, we are reminded of how God fulfilled everything, all of His promises of love and salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ, Son and Heir of David, the One Whom had been sent into our midst in order to save all of us from certain destruction and damnation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard and reflected from the messages of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are reminded of the need for us to turn away from our sins and from all the temptations of worldly glory, pride and ambitions, greed, desires for all sorts of worldly pleasures and attachments, all of which can lead us astray in the path and journey we have towards the Lord. We should not allow these to distract us in our focus on the Lord, but instead we should remind ourselves of the great love and compassion which God has shown us, that He was willing to send unto us His only Begotten Son, to be Man like us, and to suffer and endure the worst punishments and sufferings so that all of us can be saved from certain destruction.

All of us are reminded that we are sinners, imperfect and flawed, and we are indeed easily tempted by the temptations of worldly glory and pleasures. But at the same time, God has shown us the sure path out of this predicament, and through His own Son, He has shown us all His perfect and most wonderful love, which He extends upon us lovingly through the sacrifice and offering that Christ His Son has offered on the Altar of His Cross. By His wounds and hurt, by His sufferings and death, all of us have been shown the path to eternal life and salvation, as through the breaking of His Precious Body and the outpouring of His Precious Blood, God Himself has washed us away from the taint and corruption of our original sins, and led us all to Himself, making the Bridge that leads us all back to our loving Father and Creator.

Therefore, as we are about to enter into the most solemn and important events of Holy Week beginning tomorrow with Palm Sunday, let us all therefore renew our commitment to the Lord and strive to put ourselves wholly in His care and love, trusting in God’s ever wonderful mercy and compassion. Let us all put our focus and attention on all the events that we are going to celebrate in this Palm Sunday so that we will truly be drawn into them and grow ever stronger in our appreciation of everything that our Lord has done for us through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross. May all of us have a truly holy and blessed Holy Week ahead. Amen.

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Friday, 11 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Stanislas, Bishop and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the persecutions, hardships and challenges which we have to face in the midst of our journey of faith and life as Christians, as those whom God had called and chosen to be His own because the world itself and all those wicked forces all around it have opposed the Lord and His works, persecuting the Lord and even rejecting Him, in their unwillingness to obey the Lord and in refusing to listen to Him. That is why, being made aware of these obstacles, and all the challenges we may face, we should be more resilient and persistent in our desire to follow the Lord and to be faithful to Him at all times.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah in which we heard of the plots and the dangers which Jeremiah had to face amidst his ministry among the people of God in the kingdom of Judah. For the context, Jeremiah had been sent to the people of the kingdom of Judah at the time just before that kingdom met its end at the hands of the Babylonians, and he came bearing God’s words of warning to the people of Judah, telling them of the consequences of their many sins and wickedness, all of which would prevent them from truly living a righteous and worthy life in God’s Presence. But Jeremiah was hated and reviled for his works and ministry, labelled as doomsayer and even traitor to the nation for what he delivered to the people of God.

There were many false prophets who had risen during that time, misleading the people of Judah and their king to continue on the path of rebellion and disobedience against God. That was how many disregarded Jeremiah’s words and prophecies, as they chose rather to trust in the words of the false prophets and in the arrangements and plans of man, depending and trusting in worldly powers and strengths rather than in their Lord and God Who has always been faithful to them. And those enemies of Jeremiah plotted even the destruction and downfall of the prophet, and almost managed to do so if not for the intervention and protection from God which prevented those people from succeeding in their plots.

Then, from our Gospel passage today taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the continuation of the bickering and disagreements between many of the Jewish people in Jerusalem and the Lord Jesus, with the former mostly belonging to the group of the Pharisees and their supporters, those who followed the overly rigid and legalistic approach of the observance of the Law of God, in the manner that the Pharisees had observed them. They continued to harden their hearts and minds, closing them against the Lord Who had repeatedly brought His truth and love to His people, but the stubborn attitudes shown by those same people had rebuffed Him and His efforts.

And the main problem as I had mentioned in the previous days was that of pride, ego and arrogance, all of which had hardened the hearts and minds of the people of God against the love of their Master and Creator. They thought that they could not have been wrong in their interpretations and way of living their faith and the Law of God. The Lord revealed to them the truth and many among them could not accept it, being angry and refusing to believe in Him, especially when He revealed that He is the Son of God, the manifestation of God’s perfect Love and kindness, His mercy and compassion towards us all. And this is despite His identity having been alluded in the prophecy of the prophets and servants of God, and despite all the signs and wonders that He had performed before each and every one of them. This is also a prelude to everything that we are about to commemorate in the Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum.

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Stanislas, also known as St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, a Polish bishop and martyr of the Church, whose faith and life should be good inspiration for all of us to follow in our own lives as Christians. St. Stanislas hailed from the village of Szczepanów in Poland during the Medieval era, about a thousand years ago. He eventually joined the priesthood and was ordained first as priest and then as bishop succeeding the Bishop of Krakow who had ordained him. He did many good works in Poland, establishing relationship between the domains of Poland and the Church in Rome, and the establishment of Church hierarchy in Poland, bridging between the King of Poland and the Church.

In what many saw as a parallel as the story of another famous bishop and holy servant of God martyred by the secular ruler due to conflicting ideals and disagreements, like that of St. Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England, St. Stanislas got into a conflict and argument with the Polish king with regard to land disputes pertaining to the Church lands and properties. The king claimed that the lands which the Church had purchased through St. Stanislas as bishop from a man named Piotr, and which was claimed by the man’s family belonged to the family and not the Church. When the king challenged St. Stanislas to produce an evidence of the purchase, deemed impossible because the man Piotr had died, St. Stanislas miraculously brought the man back to life and the latter testified for St. Stanislas and chastised his sons who had claimed the land for themselves.

St. Stanislas also got into another, more serious conflict with King Boleslaw of Poland, whom he chastised for his actions in war and in another immoral behaviours that he had done, leading to St. Stanislas excommunicating the king for his grave sins and faults. This brought about conflict in the royal court and made the king and his allies to accuse St. Stanislas of treason against the king and state, and sentenced him to death. When no one among his nobles and allies dared to lay their hands on the bishop, the king himself came to slay St. Stanislas as he was celebrating the Mass outside the walls of Krakow or within Wawel Castle depending on the traditions. He was martyred defending the Church and the Christian teachings against the immoral and sinful king, leading to great outrage and eventual dethronement of the same king.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect upon the readings from the Sacred Scriptures today and from the life of St. Stanislas, let us all therefore remember that we are all called to be truly holy and worthy of God as His beloved children and people. We should not allow ourselves to be easily swayed by the temptations present all around us, all the challenges and oppositions that we may have to face in living our lives faithfully as Christians. Many of our holy predecessors like St. Stanislas and ultimately the Lord Himself had faced a lot of persecutions and hardships throughout their lives and ministry, and we should in fact strengthen ourselves with the knowledge and resolve that we are all enduring these for the faith and love that we have for the Lord.

Let us all therefore renew our commitment to love and serve the Lord ever more faithfully, doing our very best so that by our commitment, dedication and efforts, we will continue to walk faithfully down this path that the Lord has shown us and led us through, the path that leads to eternal life and to reconciliation with Him. Let us no longer be separated from our loving, merciful and most compassionate God, but instead let us take the initiative and make the conscious effort to follow the Lord our God with zeal and devotion, with true courage and faith so that in everything that we do, we will always glorify Him at all times, coming ever closer to Him and to His salvation. May our Lenten observances and practices continue to bear rich fruits and be truly blessed. Amen.

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Thursday, 10 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the Word of God contained within the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the promises and the Covenant which God had given and made with Abraham, the forefather of the Israelites and many other nations, and who is also our father in faith, as the progenitor of all those who believe in one of the major Abrahamic traditions and beliefs, including that of Christianity. And therefore we are reminded that we ourselves are also part of the same Covenant between God and us, and we are all part of this commitment which all of us are expected to fulfil in our daily living and in all the things that we do so that we are truly indeed worthy of God’s grace and love, His promises and reassurances for us.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis detailing to us what the Lord had established with Abraham, making a Covenant with him as mentioned earlier on, binding himself and his descendants to God, and therefore blessing Him with the promise of many descendants and the land which God would bestow upon the descendants of Abraham, but at the same time, also requiring them all to follow the Law and commandments that God would give to them. A Covenant is a two-way commitment between two parties, and in this case between God on one side and then Abraham and his descendants on the other. And that God willingly made this Covenant between Himself and us, His beloved people, is a clear sign of His ever enduring and great love for each and every one of us.

The Lord showed and proved His commitment to the Covenant which He had made with all of us, and this includes His guidance to Abraham and his descendants, providing for them and protecting them through difficult times and moments. He provided for them in their time and hour of need, shielding them from their enemies, bringing them out of their slavery in the land of Egypt and showing His might to the Egyptians and their Pharaoh. He was always with His people, guiding and providing for them even when they have often hardened their hearts and rebelled against Him. The Lord showed us all His persistent and powerful love, and we truly should be grateful for what He has shown us, all the kindness that He has bestowed upon us, and hence, we should return His love with the same kind or commitment and dedication as well.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the continuation of the interactions and disputes between the Lord Jesus and the Jewish people, which were referring to the zealous Pharisees and the members of the community that supported them, in their refusal to believe in the Lord, in His teachings and works. And today we heard the increasing hostility between the crowd and the Lord, when the crowd, proudly claiming their descent from Abraham just as we heard in our Gospel passage yesterday, took offense at the Lord when the Lord told them that if they believed in Him, they would not experience death, saying that He was uttering nonsense or even blasphemy by stating such things.

But the Lord was saying the truth when He told them all that, telling them that His truth and all that He delivered to them would indeed save them all from certain destruction and death. But those people, many of whom had witnessed the Lord’s miracles and works, and heard His Wisdom and truth failed to believe in Him despite of what they themselves had experienced, all due to their pride and ego which had made them to harden their hearts and minds against God. They were proud of their descent from Abraham, and as was common at the time, they considered others to be unworthy of God, inferior and sinners who would defile and corrupt them if they were to mingle with those people. Yet this is not what God had taught and wanted His people to do in their lives.

For to God, each and every one of us mankind are important and beloved, and we are all equally beloved by Him, and He does not discriminate us based on our descent, background or origins. He made all those who believe in Him and have been faithful to Him to be His beloved children, and as the children of Abraham by faith, by adoption and by our partaking of the same Covenant which God had promised to Abraham. Therefore, all of us are also worthy of everything that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants, as long as we believe in God and live our lives in the manner that is truly pleasing to Him. We should not be like those who claimed to be worthy because they were descended from Abraham, and yet, refused to believe in the Lord when He came to their midst, and those who were hypocrites in their faith and life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore heed the messages that we have heard today from the Sacred Scriptures and be reminded that we are all part of the Covenant which God had made with us, and henceforth, all of us are expected to observe faithfully the commandments and Law that God had taught, shown and revealed to us. We should not allow ourselves to be easily swayed by the temptations of the world, of ambitions and glory, prejudices and all other things which may lead us astray in our journey towards God. Instead, we should abandon our pride and ego, and grow more in humility, realising the depth of our sinfulness and wickedness, all the things which had kept us away from God and His love.

During this time and season of Lent, let us all hence renew our commitment to God and turn away from all of our rebellious attitudes, doing our very best to embrace God’s love and mercy, and doing our part to fulfil our obligations and commitments to God. We are all called to be good role models and examples for our fellow brothers and sisters around us, in living our lives faithfully out of compassion for our brethren and our genuine love for God. Let us all therefore as Christians be truly faithful to the Lord and show our faith through our everyday living and actions, now and always. Especially during this time of Lent let us all be the good and worthy bearers of the truth and light of God’s Good News and salvation. Amen.

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Wednesday, 9 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our today’s Scripture readings we have all been reminded of God’s love, mercy and kindness for those who have been faithful to Him. And as God’s holy and beloved children, His disciples and followers, all of us are expected to put our faith and trust in Him, and not to be easily swayed by the temptations of evil and sin around us in this world. That is why today we are called to put our faith in God and not in men, not in the glory and powers of the world. If we allow ourselves to be tempted, swayed and led astray by our worldly desires and by all the temptations around us, then we are bound by those temptations and sins which we have indulged in, and we cannot truly consider ourselves as being free and in the state of grace. In the end, if we continue to persist in our sinful ways, then we shall be judged for those sins we have committed.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Daniel, we heard of the story of the moment when the three friends of Daniel, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, faced a great dilemma when the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, built for himself a great statue of gold in his own image, as the ultimate symbol of ego and greed, being the ruler of many lands and having conquered many countries and territories, including that of Judah and Jerusalem where Daniel and his friends had come from. The dilemma was that King Nebuchadnezzar demanded that all of his subjects gathered there, including that of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego must bend their knees and worship the golden idol made in the king’s own image, essentially declaring himself to be a god or like a god. But this was contrary to the beliefs of the Israelites, who believe in only one and only one God.

That was why the three friends of Daniel courageously stood up to their faith in God, and while everyone else obeyed the king’s commands and orders, they alone among the multitudes of people refused to worship the golden idol of the king. And we heard then how they remained firm in their conviction to remain true and faithful to their faith in God despite being threatened and having to face the wrath of the king. They did not fear certain suffering and death that the king had threatened against all those who refused to obey him, and their resolve and firm courage in refusing the demands of King Nebuchadnezzar made the king so much angrier, ordering the great furnace designed to punish the dissidents to be made far hotter than it had been, meant to torture and destroy the three servants of God.

And yet, as we have heard in that same passage today, the Lord protected and guarded His servants, sending His Angel to help them, and they were completely unharmed in that furnace, to the total surprise and astonishment of Nebuchadnezzar and all who witnessed the event. They were all aghast seeing how those people could have survived and was in fact unharmed by the flames, and in the end, Nebuchadnezzar was humbled and chastised by the Lord through this miraculous occasion, and he praised the Lord God and His servants who had shown courage and perseverance, faith and commitment despite the threats and sufferings which they had to face in defending their faith. The golden idol and statue was also brought down and destroyed afterwards according to the Scriptures.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist in which we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus continued to have heated arguments and discussions with the Jewish people, which in this context referred to those people who belonged to the Pharisees and the religious elites of the community of the people of God in Judea, as well as their supporters and partisans. These people were quite vocal and stubborn in their opposition against the Lord Jesus, His teachings and works because many among them saw Him as rival and threat to their influence and prestige in the community, drawing away many of the people especially the poor and the marginalised away from them and the Temple as they flocked to seek the Lord and listen to Him.

The Lord told all of them that unless they all believed in Him and listened to His words, keeping whatever truth and revelations that He had brought unto them, then they would remain bound by the chains and enslavement to their sins and evils, which would therefore prevent them from coming towards true reconciliation and reunion with God, their loving Father and Creator. But as we heard, those people hardened their hearts and answered proudly saying that they were the descendants of Abraham, and because of that, they were not slaves and were free. This shows to us the problems that were associated with many among the people to whom the Lord had been sent to at that time, that is pride and arrogance, all of which were keeping them away from God and from being truly worthy and righteous in His path.

Many of those people, especially the Pharisees and the members of the Sanhedrin, the religious and societal elites were proud and arrogant in their attitudes, thinking that they were superior and better than the others around them. They thought that their way of observing and practicing the Law was the correct one, and they did not take it lightly any kind of criticism or practices and ways that were different or contrary to the way that they were doing things. And this was why they often ended up in conflict and disagreements with the Lord and His disciples in how they conducted themselves and practiced the Law of God. The Lord Himself pointed out many times the hypocrisy of these so called elders, leaders and guides, reminding the people while they should listen to them, they should not follow the way that they were observing the Law of God.

That is a reminder to all of us that as faithful and obedient people of God, as Christians, we should not allow ourselves to be swayed by pride and ego, or by other kinds of temptations around us which can lead us astray as they had done to those Pharisees and elders, in hardening their hearts and minds against God. We should instead be humble and be willing to listen to God calling upon us in our lives to follow Him and to embrace His path. We should not let hubris and ego overcome us like what happened to the King of Babylon, thinking that we are superior and better, and instead, we should realise the extent of our flaws and faults, coming to Him and embracing His love and kindness. This Lent especially we have been given these opportunities for us to return to our loving God and Father, and we should not squander it.

May the Lord be with us always and may He in His most generous and rich mercy and compassion continue to help us in our journey back to Him. May our Lenten journey and observances be truly fruitful and blessed, and may God bless us in everything we do, in making us all to be good role models and examples for our brethren around us. May all of us continue to grow in our love and trust in God, and grow ever stronger in our relationship with Him, with each and every passing moments. Amen.

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Tuesday, 8 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, and as we draw ever closer to the beginning of the Holy Week, we are reminded of the important events that we are going to commemorate and focus on during this upcoming Holy Week and Paschal Triduum. We heard of the great love which the Lord has shown us all that He sent us His Son to bring us all into reconciliation with Him, so that by His ultimate show of the most generous and enduring love of God, He might restore hope to all of us sinners, and bringing us all into the justification of those who have been made worthy by God’s grace. We are reminded as we come towards the end of this Lenten season that by God’s most generous mercy, we have the means to reach Him and to be once again fully beloved and worthy of Him.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Numbers we heard of the account of what happened during the time of the Exodus of the Israelites from the land of Egypt where they had been enslaved for centuries towards the land of Canaan, the land promised by the Lord for His people to be their own land and dwelling place. It was there during this journey that the Israelites, having frequently and persistently grumbled and disobeyed the Lord, rebelled and complained against Him, despite all the good things that God had done for their sake. They complained that what they had received were the tasteless manna and they were not keen on journeying through the desert as they had done. Many among them had also grumbled saying that they should have remained in Egypt where they would have good food to eat even though they were enslaved by the Egyptians.

For their lack of faith and trust in Him, the Lord sent fiery serpents as we have heard, and how many of the people were struck by those fiery serpents and perished in the desert. This represented and showed to us the consequences of sin, which is death, that has struck upon the rebellious people of Israel. By their rebellion and disobedience against God, they have sinned against Him, and for their refusal to trust in God and to love Him wholeheartedly, therefore, they had to endure separation and sundering from the Lord and Master of all life. Yet, when the people sought forgiveness from God and showed repentance for their many sins, God showed His mercy and love, offering the assurance of new life and salvation, by what He had told Moses to do, in crafting a bronze serpent and putting them on a standard, promising that all those who were bitten and gaze upon the bronze serpent would not perish but live.

This raising of the bronze serpent of Moses, later on known as Nehushtan, was in fact a prefigurement of Christ’s sacrifice and offering on Calvary, the moment when He bore all of our many sins upon Himself, on His Cross, and was raised on the Cross high for everyone to see. Just like the bronze serpent of Moses raised up high with the figure of the serpent that brought death to the people of God, representing sin and the punishments for sin, the Cross of Christ with the Lord being nailed on it, showed forth the salvation of God through the sins of mankind that He Himself had borne, endured and persevered through, in all the wounds and stripes that He had to face. Yet, amidst all of these, He showed us all His most wonderful love and desire to be reunited with us, by offering us freely His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, broken and shared for all of us to partake, that we may be saved through Him.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, we heard of the account from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist in which we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who sought to destroy Him and to plot against Him for having disagreed with them and threatened their influence and teachings among the people of God. That was when the Lord revealed to them more of the truth about Himself, how He had come into their midst as sent by the Father to bring about the salvation of the world. He also revealed how He would eventually soon be raised for all to see, much like that of the bronze serpent of Moses, so that through this act, He would become the source of salvation to all who saw Him and believed in Him.

As we heard from our first reading today, this moment of the Crucifixion and its significance as revealed earlier on through the bronze serpent of Moses served as a reminder for all of us of what we are preparing for during this season of Lent. The Lord has reminded us all of everything which He had done for our sake in bearing the massive burden of our many sins, which should have been ours to suffer from. But the Lord in His infinite and ever enduring love for each and every one of us continue to provide for us and reach out to us, desiring our reunion with Him, through our repentance and our willingness to embrace His love and mercy. And thus, as we gaze upon the Lord on His Cross, we should remember just how fortunate and beloved all of us have been, to be shown this most wonderful love of God manifested to us.

Let us therefore deepen our relationship with God and learn to focus our attention and efforts particularly as we are about to enter into the more solemn time of Holy Week, and as we are already in this period of Passiontide, where our attentions are brought to focus on the important events and mysteries that we are about to commemorate during that sacred period and time, leading towards the Paschal Triduum, the most important moments in the history of our salvation, when God Himself offered His own life, His own Most Precious Body and Blood to be the perfect and most worthy offering on our behalf, to bring about our certain reconciliation with our loving God and Father, as He promised us all His constant care and love, giving us opportunities one after another to help us to attain this salvation by His grace, love and mercy.

In this remaining time of Lent before the important events of Holy Week and Paschal Triduum, let us all therefore make good use of this time that we have been provided with so that we may come to realise the state of our sinfulness and corruption because of the sins which we have committed in life. Let us not tarry or delay any longer, but strive instead to seek God and His forgiveness as soon as possible, that by His grace and love, we may truly be cleansed and freed from the chains of our sins, that being purified and made clean once again, we may be truly worthy of God and His love, no longer separated from Him due to our sins. Let us realise that sin is truly something that can bring us all a lot of danger, as what the Israelites in the past had experienced, and we should hence turn away from the path of sin, embracing once again God’s love in its fullest. May God be with us always, and may He strengthen and guide us in our journey towards Him. Amen.

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Monday, 7 April 2025 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. John Baptist de la Salle, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded of the dangers of sin that can corrupt us and lead us down the wrong path of rebellion and disobedience against God, and eventually we all may fall into the eternal damnation and suffering in Hell, if we are not careful with how we carry out our lives. We are reminded that we should not easily be tempted by the temptations of the flesh, of pleasures and desires that can lead us deeper and deeper into sin. At the same time, we are also reminded that God has always been generous in His mercy and desire to forgive us all our sins and faults, and He has always reached out to us lovingly, giving us many means for us to find the way to God’s salvation. 

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Daniel in which the story of Susanna, an Israelite woman who was prominent in the exile community in Babylon in her predicament when she was faced with false accusation by two of the elders of the people who lusted over her and tried to force their way with her. Those elders wanted to prevent anyone from knowing their wicked deeds and therefore, they used their influence and great respect within the community to push the community to condemn Susanna to death, so that by this action, she might be silenced and then their wicked deeds would not be discovered. But before they managed to carry out such a wicked action, the Lord intervened on behalf of His faithful and righteous one, saving Susanna from certain death through Daniel.

Empowered and inspired by the Holy Spirit, Daniel spoke the word of God and proclaimed His Wisdom before the people, showing how the plots and the wickedness of the two elders would be uncovered, and how the righteous would be provided for by God. We heard how Daniel, by the power of the Holy Spirit, unveiled the wicked intentions and lies of the two elders which led to the vindication of Susanna and for the two elders to be punished instead. This is an important reminder for all of us that we should not allow sin to have its way with us, or else, like those two elders, we will end up committing more sin, one after another. And that may lead us to destruction in the end, as those elders had experienced. In this time and season of Lent, we have been reminded and given the opportunities to reconcile ourselves with the Lord and to come back towards Him.

Then, from our Gospel passage today taken from the Gospel of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the time when the Lord Jesus encountered a group of Pharisees and teachers of the Law who sought to trap Him with the case of a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. According to the Jewish laws and customs, especially the extra strict and rigid rule enforced and followed by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, such an act of adultery would have led to punishment by stoning to death. That was why the Pharisees asked and pressured the Lord to respond to the case of the adulterous woman with the wicked intention of hoping that they could find something wrong in what He was to say and therefore they could accuse Him or advance their own cause. 

For example, if the Lord had said that the adulterous woman should be forgiven and shown mercy, as His enemies would have expected Him to do, given His penchant for outreach to sinners like prostitutes and tax collectors, then the Pharisees could accuse the Lord of colluding and siding with sinners, disobeying and refusing to obey the commandments of the Law of God. On the other hand, if the Lord said that the adulterous woman ought to be stoned for the sin that she had committed, then it was exactly what the Pharisees themselves would have done, and thus they could add on or gain to their own popularity and cause by claiming that what the Lord Jesus taught was affirming the teachings and the ways of the Pharisees.

But the Lord calmly evaded the argument as we all have heard, while those Pharisees continued to pressure Him to take action on the adulterous woman. It was there and then that the Lord in His Divine Wisdom told those people that if any one among them had no sin in them, then that person could cast the first stone to be thrown at the woman. And we heard how one by one, all those people left, beginning from the oldest, who likely had committed the most sins and disobedience to God, to the youngest ones among them. The truth is that, there was indeed one person there at that place who was without sin, and that was none other than the Lord Jesus Himself. And although He could indeed have cast the first stone, Jesus showed us all the meaning and importance of God’s generous mercy and forgiveness.

He showed this to us all by forgiving that woman from her sins, pardoning her from the faults that she had made. Not only that, but as we heard, the Lord also told the woman that she should sin no more and live her life in the manner that is worthy of God from then on. And it is here exactly where we are reminded of what God has always desired to do with us, to forgive us all our sins and to bring us back to His loving embrace, while at the same time reminding us that we should no longer disobey Him, or to remain in the state of sin. Instead, all of us are called to embrace wholeheartedly the mercy which God has for us, and to change our way of life so that we are no longer corrupted and defiled by sin and its allures, showing that we truly commit ourselves to God and to His path of righteousness and virtue.

Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. John Baptist de la Salle, a saint whose life and examples can be inspiration to many of us in how we ourselves ought to live our Christian faith and way of life each day. St. John Baptist de la Salle is the founder of the Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools or also known well as the De La Salle Brothers. He was born in Reims in what is today France where since a young age he has been intended for service to God, eventually becoming the canon at Reims Cathedral and then ordained as a priest after a short period of time taking care of his immediate family, his brothers and sisters after the sudden passing of his parents. St. John Baptist de la Salle was inspired for his future role in the Catholic education through his interactions and works with the Sisters of the Child Jesus as he assisted them in establishing a school in Reims.

Eventually this inspired the then young priest, St. John Baptist de la Salle to dedicate himself in the area of education after seeing how so many young children did not have the opportunity for education due to the nature of that time’s society and how education worked then, being mostly reserved for those in the higher strata and echelons of the society. Without proper education, those children, especially the poorest, the weakest and the least among them had little chance to improve their lives or to have some sorts of economic improvement and social mobility. This inspired St. John Baptist de la Salle to establish the Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools, calling together more men who were willing to follow in his examples and passion to work for the less fortunate. And that was how the Institute of the Brothers of Christian Schools eventually grew until today where they were involved extensively in education all around the world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore continue to live our lives faithfully in the manner that the Lord had taught and shown us, and let us all be inspired by St. John Baptist de la Salle and our many other holy predecessors in how they all devoted themselves to the Lord, doing their best such that they were truly worthy of God in all of their actions. Let us all distance ourselves from sin and from all sorts of wicked things in life. Let us embrace God’s mercy and forgiveness, humbly asking Him to forgive us our faults, trespasses and all the things which we have committed in our daily lives. May God continue to strengthen us and empower us in our lives, and may He bless us with the perseverance to endure the challenges and struggles in life, so that we may draw ever closer to Him, and make best use of this Lenten season to commit ourselves anew to God, to be more faithful to Him, to sin no more and to live a new life in God’s grace. Amen.