Liturgical Colour : Red
1 Chronicles 29 : 10, 11abc, 11d-12a, 12bcd
May You be praised, YHVH God of Israel our ancestor, forever and ever!
Yours, YHVH, is the greatness, the power, splendour, length of days, glory; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is Yours. Yours is the sovereignty forever, o YHVH.
You are supreme Ruler over all. Riches and honour go before You.
You are Ruler of all; in Your hand lie strength and power. You are the One Who gives greatness and strength to all.
Liturgical Colour : Red
1 Maccabees 4 : 36-37, 52-59
Then Judas and his brothers said : “Our enemies are defeated, so let us go up and purify the Holy Place and consecrate it again.” And all the army assembled and went up to Mount Zion.
On the twenty-fifth day of the month of Chislev, in the year one hundred and forty-eight (in the year 164 B.C.) they arose at dawn and offered the sacrifice prescribed by the Law on the new altar of holocausts which they had built. It was precisely at that same time and date that the pagans had profaned it before; but now they consecrated it with songs, accompanied by zithers, harps and cymbals. All the people fell prostrate and blessed Heaven that had given them happiness and success.
They celebrated the consecration of the altar for eight days, joyfully offering holocausts and celebrating sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise. The front of the Temple was adorned with crowns of gold and shields; and the gates and the rooms had been restored and fitted with doors. There was no end to the celebration among the people; and so profanation of the Temple by the pagans was forgotten.
Finally, Judas, his brothers and the whole assembly of Israel agreed to celebrate the anniversary of the consecration of the altar annually for eight days, from the twenty-fifth of the month of Chislev, in high festivity.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, all of us who heard of the Scripture readings would know that all of us are faced with the reality of suffering and difficulties to come in the future, as the time is coming again when the world will persecute us Christians for our faith in the Lord, just as we have been persecuted in the past, the faithful people of God, because we do not walk with the world, but rather with the Lord.
In the first reading, the prophet and servant of God, Daniel, interpreted for the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar the meaning of the dream that he had, about a large statue made from amalgamation of many different materials, which represented the many kingdoms and powers of the world that would come throughout history, and how a great stone came and destroyed the entire statue.
That dream has a significant meaning in that it was a vision and foretelling of the future of the world. There would be many kings, kingdoms and powers, and many of these would persecute those who are faithful and righteous in one way or another. The Lord’s people would be in difficulties, and challenges would come their way, as their ways are not in accordance with the ways of the Lord.
And great will be the tribulations awaiting the faithful because the forces of those kingdoms and powers were great indeed. But instead of fearing or succumbing to the pressure from these worldly forces, rather, we all should work together and remain true to our faith, for the vision of Daniel foretold the coming of the true Power that will overcome all the worldly powers and oppressions.
And that Power is the Power of the Lord that would come down, as He had foretold the people, when He revealed about His second coming into the world, just as He told them about the tribulation that would befell Jerusalem. It was a promise that God will uphold, and He will rescue all of the faithful and those who remain true to His covenant and Laws, and by His grace, bring them all into salvation and eternal life.
And for all their grandeur and great strengths, the world cannot overcome the might and glory of God which transcends everything. The worldly powers and the powers of the evil one were broken just as that huge statue was destroyed by the huge boulder with minimal effort. This means that the Lord and His kingdom of justice will triumph, while those who seek the destruction of the righteous will be crushed in the end.
And that is the hope that we are looking forward to, that is to gain eternal happiness, joy, redemption and life through the Lord, after having persevered through the difficult challenges of life. And perhaps the examples of St. Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions in faith and martyrdom will be inspirational to us, and will help us on our path to achieve righteousness and salvation in God.
On this day, we celebrate the feast of the Vietnamese Martyrs, St. Andrew Dung-Lac and their companions, who were persecuted grievously for their faith in God, where the worldly and secular authorities were trying to snuff out and destroy the Faith and the Church in Vietnam, and persecuting the faithful and forcing them to betray the Lord and to recant their faith.
Yet, he and his companions never gave up the faith, and mirroring the examples that Daniel and his companions would later show in the Book of Daniel, they persevered through the torture, imprisonment, pain and great suffering, and chose to obey the Lord and die in their faith rather than to live and betray the Lord their God by disobedience and by persuasions of the world.
And in doing so, while they were despised and brought down by the world, the Lord lifted them up high in glory above the earth and into the heavens, and to them, He had granted them the glory and the greatness of the eternal kingdom of Heaven. They died in the world and they suffered in our current world, but in the world to come their rewards are great indeed.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us should also emulate the same examples as these holy peoples have done. Let us all also stay faithful and committed to the Lord, and let us not be swayed or be persuaded to betray the Lord our God. Let us all renew our commitment through faithful and loving actions, through which we declare our faith to the world, and make it known that we belong to Him and not to the world. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Luke 21 : 5-11
At that time, while some people were talking about the Temple, remarking that it was adorned with fine stonework and rich gifts, Jesus said to them, “The days will come when there shall not be left one stone upon another of all that you now admire, all will be torn down.”
And they asked Him, “Master, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” Jesus then said, “Take care not to be deceived, for many will come claiming My title and saying, ‘I am He, the Messiah; the time is at hand!’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and troubled times, do not be frightened; for all these things must happen first, even though the end is not so soon.”
And Jesus said, “Nations will fight each other and kingdom will oppose kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and plagues; in many places strange and terrifying signs from Heaven will be seen.”
Liturgical Colour : Red
Daniel 3 : 57, 58, 59, 60, 61
All the works of the Lord, bless Him, praise Him, exalt Him forever.
Angels of the Lord, bless Him, praise and glorify Him forever.
Heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
All the waters above the heavens, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
All the powers of the Lord, bless the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Daniel 2 : 31-45
Daniel said to king Nebuchadnezzar, “In your vision you saw a statue – very large, very bright, terrible to look at. Its head was of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.
As you watched, a rock cut from a mountain but not by human hands, struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, smashing them. All at once the iron, clay, bronze, silver and gold crumbled into pieces as fine as chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind swept them off and not a trace was left. But the rock that struck the statue became a great mountain that filled the whole earth.
That was the dream. Now the interpretation. You, o king, are king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given dominion, strength, power and glory, and into whose hand He has placed humankind, the beasts of the field and the birds of the air, making you ruler over them. You are that head of gold.
After you, another kingdom inferior to yours will rise. Then a third kingdom of bronze will rule the whole world. Last shall be a fourth kingdom strong as iron and just as iron breaks and crushes everything else, so will it break and smash all the others.
The partly clay and the partly iron feet and toes mean that it will be a divided kingdom, yet it will have some of the strength of the iron, just as you saw iron mixed with clay. And as the toes were partly iron and partly clay, the kingdom will be partly strong and partly weak. Just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, the people will be a mixture but will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay.
In the time of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom never to be destroyed or delivered up to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and put an end to them. And it will endure forever. This is the meaning of your vision of a rock cut from a mountain not by human hands, the rock which struck the statue and broke into pieces the iron, bronze, clay, silver and gold. The great God has shown the king what will happen in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation reliable.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s readings we heard two great exhortations, by St. Paul in his letter to the faithful and the Church in Corinth on the nature of the resurrection of the faithful and then the parable of the sower and the seeds by Jesus who told them what happened to the various seeds that ended up in different conditions.
In the two readings, we can see a great link and similarity, as both of them refer to the growth and the sowing of seeds, and what are these seeds? They are none other than the seeds of faith, hope and love, the three cardinal virtues of Christian life, as these have been planted in us, within our hearts and souls. And the purpose for these seeds are so that we may truly be transformed from our sinful, mortal and earthly bodies, to be truly worthy of our Lord and God, in a new spiritual body as mentioned by St. Paul, that is a body filled with the wonderful flowers and fruits of faith, of hope and of love.
But Jesus our Lord mentioned in His parable of the sower, that this would not be an instantaneous, automatic or easy process. He clearly highlighted the problems, dangers and great challenges that line up against us, to prevent us from achieving that state of spiritual maturity and worthiness, that we end up to continue living in sin and darkness rather than be accepted into the light.
Mankind had lived in this world and as such are bound to the ways of this world, that is the way of the flesh, and the ways of the world. That had been the way of mankind ever since the days of our first ancestors, after they had sinned and been cast away from the presence of God, and had to endure the sufferings of the earth. Ever since then, mankind had lived on earth and obeyed the ways of the world rather than the ways of the Lord.
What we need in order to escape this bonds and prison of the world is by cultivating and growing the seeds of faith, hope and love which God had planted in us, through His Spirit. It is however, as mentioned, not going to be an easy path. The parable of the sower in fact showed us that the devil is always at work in order to prevent us from ever achieving salvation in God, and instead perish with him together in hell.
Jesus mentioned that the seeds fell on first the roadside and got eaten by the birds. In this case, He also explained how Satan is always at work as he desired our total annihilation, as a form of his vengeance and continuous rebellion against God. As we mankind are God’s greatest and most beloved creation, there is indeed nothing more sinister and evil for Satan to commit his defiance against God other than by subverting mankind and bringing them into sin.
And Satan has much in his possession in order to execute this extremely well. This is because many of us are like the seeds that fall on the rocky ground. We listened to the word of God and we received the words of the Good News of Christ, but these did not take root in our hearts. It is like we heard these words from our ears, but it then remains just a superficial attachment in any, and indeed, in our actions, in our own words and deeds, they represent nothing that the Lord had taught us.
This is a fertile ground for Satan to make his attack upon us, and it is easy for him to sow the seeds of dissent and unfaithfulness in our hearts. And indeed, the same also applies to the kind of those who are like the seeds that grow on the soil with thistles. Thistles are plants that can spread and grow on the surfaces of other plants, taking precious nutrients as a parasite to the host plant, which then eventually is suffocated, impoverished and therefore die.
This is one main way through which Satan made his attacks, that is through the pleasures of the flesh, and the desires of men. He made his attack on us through these, so as to ensnare us on our way to reach the Lord, and therefore fail to reach salvation in God. The thistle represents the temptations and the corruptions which Satan is trying very hard to impose on us, so that we may obey him instead of God.
For us to truly be able to achieve salvation, we have to take heed of what Jesus and St. Paul had conveyed to us on this day. This is namely that we have to abandon our earthly ways, and all the things we used to do in this world, which are not in accordance with the will of God, which He had revealed through Jesus His Son. In this manner, then we can have that rich soil in us, upon which the Word of God and the seeds of faith, hope and love in us may form deep roots and grow strong.
And perhaps, by sharing the lives of the saints which feast we are celebrating today will inspire us even more to follow God with all of our hearts. Today, we celebrate the feast day of St. Laurent Imbert, Vicar Apostolic of Korea, one of the first shepherds of the Church and the faithful in Korea, and also St. Jacques Chastan, another missionary to Korea, with his many companions in martyrdom, both missionary, laity and priests alike, the Martyr Saints of Korea.
Korea at that time, as it had been for about two hundred years, ever since the Faith first came there, was truly a very hostile place for the Church and the faithful. There were open and state-led persecution of the Christian faithful, who were seen as disloyal, traitors and enemies of the state. Many were made to choose between keeping their faith and death. Many abandoned Christ, but there were also many of those who remained faithful to the Lord and suffered holy martyrdom.
St. Laurent Imbert was the Vicar Apostolic of Korea, a missionary part of the French mission to Korea. He faithfully worked in shepherding the people entrusted under his care, and more and more come to believe in Christ and achieved salvation through his dedication. St. Laurent Imbert however, heard that the persecution of the faithful might cease, if he and the other leaders of the faithful would surrender themselves to the authorities.
The suffering of the faithful at the time was really great, and many were brought to martyrdom every day. Thus, in the spirit of the words of Jesus, St. Laurent Imbert, who was in hiding at the time, told his people, that he would surrender himself to the authorities, in exchange for the safety and protection of his flock. He mentioned the good shepherd, where Jesus mentioned that the good shepherd lay down his life for his sheep.
St. Laurent Imbert followed the example of Jesus and in his love and faith for his flock, he thought only of the best for them. Thus, he even willingly surrendered himself, even while knowing that his fate most likely would be death. He thus gave a great example to the faithful, which we too should follow and emulate in our lives. Even though the martyrdom and persecution would continue even after the martyrdom of St. Laurent Imbert, as the authorities reneged on their promises, the blood and faith of these holy martyrs continued to cause more and more faith to blossom and prosper among the persecuted people of God.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all come to a greater realisation of how great is the amount of effort and work that we should input into our lives, so that we may grow deeper and stronger in our faith, our hope and our love, that we may indeed bear fruit, that is the fruits of the Holy Spirit.
May all of us be ever more faithful and devoted to our Lord, so that our Lord may find us worthy of Himself and reunite us with Him together in the company of St. Laurent Imbert, St. Jacques Chastan, St. Andrew Kim Taegon and all the holy martyr saints of Korea, and together with the other holy men and women, as well as the angels. God bless us all. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 