Innocent

by

Wednesday, 14 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the word of God in the readings, in which we are told first of the greatness of God and His kindness and love for His people, in giving to His people, the full promise of His covenant by bringing them into the land promised onto them for possession, just as God had once promised Abraham, their forefather.

Today, we also listened to the end of Moses the great prophet and leader of God’s people, who acted as the conduit of God’s amazing power and brought Israel out of Egypt, through the miracles the Lord performed through Moses and his brother, Aaron. Moses was appointed to be tool through which God exercised His saving power on His beloved people. But Moses too had his flaws, and he disobeyed God in Massah and Meribah, when the people tested the Lord and complained against Him and Moses, His servant.

Through that disobedience, Moses was not allowed to enter the Holy Land, that Promised Land of Canaan, but he was indeed allowed to take a look of the land the people of Israel was about to enter, before the Lord took him into heaven into His presence at the end of his earthly life. Moses, as all men had, met the end of his life that is death. But as Christ had proven, that death is not the end, nor does it have any power over us, because, He had overcome death, and brought new life to all mankind, that is eternal life with God in heaven for those who remain faithful in God.

Although Moses had indeed gone, and no one was ever like him in this world, save for Christ, our Lord who had incarnated Himself as one of us, but there were many prophets that God had sent to His people to guide them from generations to generations. And then, our Lord Himself had commissioned His apostles, the disciples whom He had chosen, to be the new messengers and bearers of the will of God in this world. Yes, they were to be the leaders of the people of God, the shepherds of God’s beloved sheep, in the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church He Himself had established and entrusted to the Apostles through Peter.

From the apostles, the authority of leadership of God’s people, as the divine shepherds, came down to bishops and priests throughout the generations, and eventually to our bishops and priests today, who minister to us and lead us in our path towards God, as our leader and guide. They are our role models and to be like Moses of old, when he led the people of Israel from the land of Egypt, to the Promised Land of Canaan.

And like Moses, our priests and bishops too have to deal with all kinds of problems, with our complaints and rejections of the Lord, that they really have much things to deal with in their hands. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, their job is not easy, and they always need our constant prayers and assistance. And one of the task that priests need to do is to bring peace and love between one another, just as we listened in the Gospel Reading today, of the need to reconcile between ourselves, between brethren and children of the same God.

Today, we mark the feast of one of those excellent priests of the Lord, the leader of God’s people, the true shepherd, the good shepherd of God’s flock. Yes, that is Saint Maximilian Kolbe, the well-known saint of the Holocaust of Nazi Germany during the World War II era. St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar, who in his great zeal in the service of the Lord, and after witnessing the erosion of the faith in many, established the Militia Immaculata or the Army of Mary, a group intended to foster the love and devotion to the Lord through His mother Mary, and through the work, many people rejoined the Church and had their faith strengthened.

St. Maximilian Kolbe did much good works and service during his life and as a priest of the Lord. He truly became like Moses was for the people of Israel. He ministered to the people of God and through the Militia Immaculata, spread catechism and teachings of the Church to many people, bringing them closer towards the Lord and salvation, by means of printed media and publications such as newspapers and magazines. St. Maximilian Kolbe also went to Japan and established at Nagasaki in particular a base of operations, from where the good works of St. Maximilian Kolbe and his fellow workers spread to the people still in darkness.

St. Maximilian Kolbe protected many thousands of people including the Jews, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II. He protected them from the cruelty of the Nazi holocaust policy, but in the end he himself was captured and imprisoned by the Germans. He was incarcerated in prison with many other people, suffering under very harsh treatment and hard labour in the Nazi concentration camp. Yet, he did not give in to despair, but he in fact encouraged his fellow inmates, singing hymns and saying the Mass for them.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was not obliged to do so, but he did so because of the faith and dedication he had for the Lord and for the people of God. He truly lived his faith and made it a concrete and living faith. One day, the Germans wanted to punish a few people in the prison, because it was found that someone had managed to escape the prison, and therefore these people had to suffer in the escaped prisoner’s place. One Polish military officer who was imprisoned was chosen to be among the ones to suffer death. His pleas for mercy because he had a wife and children brought the attention of St. Maximilian Kolbe, who offered himself in exchange for the man, that is to die in his place instead.

The example of St. Maximilian Kolbe is truly praiseworthy, brothers and sisters in Christ, because through his death, much had been achieved. Yes, his death was not a waste, but it has brought much fruits, that is the fruit of love, the fruit of one’s selfless act of sacrifice, for the love of his fellow men. St. Maximilian Kolbe exemplified the very words of Christ, on who is a true and good shepherd, that is someone who love fully those who had been entrusted to him, his friends and loved ones, and one who even would die for the sake of his friends. That was what St. Maximilian Kolbe had done with his sacrifice for the poor soldier and indeed, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself had done for all of us out of His love.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, we all ought to emulate the example of St. Maximilian Kolbe in our own lives, in our giving of ourselves to our brethren in need. We can do it in a variety of ways, but basically we have to be ready to give our all for our brethren’s sake. As importantly as this, let us support our priests and those who have been appointed as shepherds over us, that they will remain faithful to the mission they have been appointed to, and faithful to the people and the flock they have been entrusted with, just as St. Maximilian Kolbe and many other great saints and martyrs had done.

May the Lord bless us, our priests, and our Church, and may through the intercession of St. Maximilian Kolbe and all the saints, more souls will find their way to heaven, and may in this world that we live in today, justice and peace can be held up ever better, and may the innocent and the weak ones be protected from harm, injustice, and evil. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 12 : 1-8

It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at Your disciples! They are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”

Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did, when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, though neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?”

“I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words : ‘It is mercy I want, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. Besides, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

by

List of possible regnal names for the new Pope, from Benedict to Peter

These are the list of all the possible regnal names (may not be entirely complete, since I may miss some in the way), that the new Pope can and may take as his own regnal name. In parentheses are how the name will look like if the Pope takes the name.

The ones listed below are the names that Popes had been taking since 1775 till today (2013) :

1. Benedict (Benedict XVII) last Benedict still living as Pope Emeritus

2. John Paul (John Paul III) last John Paul died in 2005

3. Paul (Paul VII) last Paul died in 1978

4. John (John XXIV) last John died in 1963, no John before that since 1334

5. Pius (Pius XIII) last Pius died in 1958

6. Leo (Leo XIV) last Leo died in 1903

7. Gregory (Gregory XVII) last Gregory died in 1846

 

Below are the names that the Popes had taken before 1775, but this does not rule them out from being picked by the new Pope, but chances are remote, with the above 7 names in use for the past 238 years.

8. Clement (Clement XV) last Clement died in1775

9. Innocent (Innocent XIV) last Innocent died in 1724

10. Alexander (Alexander IX) last Alexander died in 1691

11. Urban (Urban IX) last Urban died in 1644

12. Sixtus (Sixtus VI) last Sixtus died in 1590

13. Marcellus (Marcellus III) last Marcellus died in 1555

14. Julius (Julius IV) last Julius died in 1555

15. Adrian (Adrian VII) last Adrian died in 1523, last non-Italian Pope before 1978

16. Callixtus (Callixtus IV) last Callixtus died in 1458

17. Nicholas (Nicholas VI) last Nicholas died in 1455

18. Eugene (Eugene V) last Eugene died in 1447

19. Martin (Martin VI) last Martin died in 1431

20. Boniface (Boniface X) last Boniface died in 1404

21. Celestine (Celestine VI) last Celestine died in 1294, also a Saint, the famous Pope who resigned

22. Honorius (Honorius V) last Honorius died in 1287

23. Lucius (Lucius IV) last Lucius died in 1185

24. Anastasius (Anastasius V) last Anastasius died in 1154

25. Eugene (Eugene IV) last Eugene died in 1153

26. Gelasius (Gelasius III) last Gelasius died in 1119

27. Paschal (Paschal III) last Paschal died in 1118

28. Victor (Victor IV) last Victor died in 1087

29. Stephen (Stephen X) last Stephen died in 1058

30. Damasus (Damasus III) last Damasus died in 1048

31. Sylvester (Sylvester IV) last Sylvester died in 1045

32. Sergius (Sergius V) last Sergius died in 1012

33. Agapetus (Agapetus III) last Agapetus died in 955

34. Marinus (Marinus III) last Marinus died in 946

35. Lando/Landus (Landus II) only used once, died in 914, last Pope whose name is only used once

36. Theodore (Theodore III) last Theodore died in 897

37. Romanus (Romanus II) only used once, died in 897

38. Formosus (Formosus II) only used once, died in 896

39. Valentine (Valentine II) only used once, died in 827

40. Zachary (Zachary II) only used once, died in 752

41. Constantine (Constantine II) only used once, died in 715

42. Sisinnius (Sisinnius II) only used once, died in 708

43. Conon (Conon II) only used once, died in 687

44. Agatho (Agatho II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 681

45. Donus (Donus II) only used once, last one died in 678

46. Adeodatus (Adeodatus III) last Adeodatus died in 676

47. Vitalian (Vitalian II) only used once, died in 672

48. Severinus (Severinus II) only used once, died in 640

49. Sabinian (Sabinian II) only used once, died in 606

50. Pelagius (Pelagius III) last Pelagius died in 590

51. Vigilius (Vigilius II) only used once, died in 555

52. Silverius (Silverius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 537

53. Felix (Felix V) last Felix died in 530

 

All the names below have been used only once, ever. Most of them are the early Church Fathers and Saints, and therefore, it is rather extremely unlikely any of these names would be picked.

54. Hormisdas (Hormisdas II) only used once, died in 523

55. Symmachus (Symmachus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 514

56. Simplicius (Simplicius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 483

57. Hilarius (Hilarius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 468

58. Zosimus (Zosimus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 418

59. Siricius (Siricius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 399

60. Liberius (Liberius II) only used once, died in 366

61. Mark (Mark II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 336

62. Miltiades (Miltiades II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 314, First Pope after Edict of Milan

63. Eusebius (Eusebius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 310

64. Marcellinus (Marcellinus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 304

65. Caius (Caius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 296

66. Eutychian (Eutychian II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 283

67. Dionysius (Dionysius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 268

68. Cornelius (Cornelius II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 253

69. Fabian (Fabian II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 250

70. Anterus (Anterus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 236

71. Pontian (Pontian II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 235

72. Zephyrinus (Zephyrinus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 217

73. Eleuterus (Eleuterus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 189

74. Soter (Soter II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 174 or 175

75. Anicetus (Anicetus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 166

76. Hyginus (Hyginus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 140 or 142

77. Telesphorus (Telesphorus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 136 or 138

78. Evaristus (Evaristus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 105 or 107

79. Anacletus (Anacletus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 88 or 92

80. Linus (Linus II) only used once, last one is Saint, died in 76 or 79

81. Peter (Peter II) only used once, and he is the founder of the Church, Apostle of Jesus Christ, and it is extremely unlikely any future Pope, or any Pope will ever adopt the name of the Prince of the Apostles.