liturgical abuse

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Tuesday, 8 July 2014 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded yet again that we need to forsake and abandon sin and all its ways, and embrace the Lord and His ways in our respective lives. And it is also important that we rebuke Satan and all of his attempts to convert us to his rebellious cause, as Israel had once done and repeatedly done during their time in the Promised Land, disobeying their Lord and God.

But we cannot do this alone, brothers and sisters. We need guidance and help, and we cannot face the threat of the evil one and all the forces he had arrayed against us all alone. We need support and strength, which our Lord provides us through none other than our holy priests, and also all those who had committed and surrendered themselves to a life wholly dedicated to God and His people.

Today Jesus called on all of us to consider His words, how that the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. And let us also discern on the words of the prayer He said, that the Lord would send more and more labourers to work and gain the harvest of the faith for the Lord, and for the good of all of us in this world. This is reflecting exactly the reality of the faith, both in that era, and in the era that had come after that, all the way to this modern time.

For the harvest that Jesus mentioned is the world, and all the people who lives in that world. There is indeed rich harvest to be reaped, and there are truly many souls who long and yearn for the word of God and for salvation to grace them. Many are still in the darkness, and many of them even had been baptised in the Church! Yes, brethren, that is the reality of our Church and the reality of our world today.

In the years and decades after the Second Vatican Council, which happened just about fifty years ago, due to gross misinterpretations of the true meaning and purpose of the Council, many had been misled by the errors and this also unfortunately led to a great decline in the vocations to the priesthood, which resulted in less and less priests, especially young priests, available to help with the needs of the many faithful all over the world, which numbers continue to grow unabated.

In our world today, unlike those times in the past, taking up a religious and consecrated life to God is no longer considered an honour, and in our rapidly changing world, there are increasingly more and more benchmarks of life and successes in life. Mankind as a whole are growing more and more attached to the goodness and the pleasures offered by the world, and coupled with the expectations and prejudices of the society, this led to even graver problems with vocations, and therefore, with the well-being of many of the faithful who are not cared of by the dwindling number of priests.

There are those who seek shortcuts by attempting to ‘adjust’ to the demands of the changing world, but they truly failed to understand the gravity and the reality of the matter. They seek to run away from the problem and from the issue, by proposing to take shortcuts that harm the life of the faithful, in particular the priests, their shepherds. I do not need to elaborate further on this issue, on the matter of ordination of women and allowing priests to have a married life. These are not of our faith, brethren, but these are the suggestions of Satan trying to divide us and destroy us.

The misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council led to the diluting and loss of the true values and morale integrity in the faith within our society and our Church as a whole. More and more people became lost on their way to God, being disturbed and tempted by the ‘better offers’ of Satan in various means through the world. And this in particular affected many young men, who were then led away from their calling to be servants of God. And this also affected some who had decided to follow the Lord, and then reneged on the decision.

These are the hard truths and realities of our faith and our world, brothers and sisters in Christ. We lose out so many good men to the evil one, and he even tried to corrupt those whom God had made His labourers in faith. And through their fall, many too, would end up falling on their way to the Lord, which can then explain the troubles and the great challenges facing us today.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important that we all gather our strength and work together to help one another to overcome those challenges, rediscovering the purity and the truths of our faith, long forsaken by many who chose to reconcile with the ways of the world, and the ways of those who were wayward, over maintaining without fail, the deposit of faith in the Holy Mother Church.

Let us all pray especially for our priests, that in everything they do, and in living their difficult but enriching lives, they may commit to always stay pure and totally dedicated to the Lord, as on the day of their sacred ordination. Let us pray, that there will also be many more vocations to the priesthood, that many more young men would open their hearts to God, and allowing Him to do with them according with His will. Let us pray also for more vocations to the religious life, that all those who are called may respond positively and with confidence, for the sake of God and for the love of His people.

May God bless us all with love, hope and faith, that we may rediscover the zeal of faith that we had lost, in the confusion over the misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council’s true intentions. God bless our priests too, and may He guide them all the days of their life. Amen.

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Monday, 14 April 2014 : Monday of Holy Week (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today in the Gospel is the sad reality of some portions of the Church and our faith, where people became and end up as hypocrites in their faith, in the name of false almsgiving, charity and humility and end up discrediting the faith itself.

What am I talking about here? It is about some of those who held the view that the Church has to become simple, but for the very wrong reasons. The poverty that these people talked about is literal poverty, stripping the beauty and splendour of the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Lord at the Mass. In the name of false simplicity and poverty, they turned the Holy Mass and its celebration into a playground.

This is a true scandal of the faith, one that is sadly quite existent in our Church these days as it had been in the past decades. They substituted the Lord for their own human desires and lack of appreciation for the true faith that the Lord wants from us. In doing what they had done, they not only doom themselves, but also many others who were innocent, in the process.

In the recent years and decades ever since the end of the renewal of the Second Vatican Council, there had been many mistaken and wayward interpretations on what the Council was truly about, and it ended up on the destruction of the beauty of worship which had been preserved for millenia, and for many years, many parts of the world devolved into anarchy of the faith, because they have failed to understand what the Lord truly wants from them.

They brought low the true meaning of the sacrifice in the Mass, the offering of our hearts and love to the Lord. Yes, just as Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus once offered her love and devotion to the Lord, only to be rebuked unfairly by the betrayer, Judas Iscariot. She offered the Lord her love and the best offering of her humble heart, anointing and preparing Him for His Passion, while Judas rebuked her for the reason of a hypocrite, pretending to love the poor while in his heart, it was truly a selfish concern for himself.

The same too can be said, even today, on those who wreak havoc on the offering of mankind, who had given their best of all as the gifts and offerings of their heart, in the name of false humility and concern for poverty, or the poverty gospel as one may say. We have to love and care for all, especially the poor for they have little or nothing, and there is much that we can give them. But, this must not be used as an excuse to attack the faith or those who love God and seek to glorify Him by giving Him their all.

We like to make these excuses because we fail to understand and have God in our hearts. Our hearts are not filled with the love and goodness of God, but with malice and ill intent, as Judas Iscariot once did, thinking only about himself and his own benefit with the pretext of giving lip service to God and His way.

This we must not do or we risk to walk the same path that Judas had taken. Mankind had lived for far too long under the influence and corruptions of the evil one. Shall we take the proactive stance and say a definitive no to the devil? Let us cast away all the temptations and false promises which the devil has offered us and instead be true followers of the Lord.

May God be with us, and guide us on our way, as we proceed on this journey of life, that we may always persevere and be strong, rejecting the evil and his falsehoods and be like Mary, giving her all to glorify and to serve the Lord. Let us all remain faithful, brethren! Amen.

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On Liturgical Music and Proper Worship (Video by Cardinal Francis Arinze)

A very nice argument by Cardinal Arinze, who was the head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. This is how and why music, liturgy and all parts of the Mass must be proper (to refute those who says that these are irrelevant), because exactly they help us to be closer to God, to make the worship at the Mass truly a worship, and not instead becoming a glorification of the priest, self, or anyone else besides God.

The parish priests, anywhere in the world, Singapore, Asia, Africa, Europe, and others must make sure that rock music, loud music, clapping in the Mass, even within song is not relevant and therefore must not be used. A hymn, a proper Catholic hymn sung with reverence is much more appropriate and should be promoted.

The way to evangelise to our Catholic youths and youths in general is not to include contemporary music into our worship that makes it less than appropriate, just so that we can attract them. Those music and clapping actions, are more suitable for rally sessions or praise and worship, but NOT for the Mass.

The best way? Introduce our youths to the proper and solemn music, many of which are beautiful and no longer heard today, sunk by all the ugly contemporary music the likes of those by Lady Gaga, Psy, and so many others, which are contemptuous twisting of the true beauty of music, which purpose, like what the angels are doing in heaven, is to praise the Lord in His glory. Gregorian chants in Latin and other chants and hymns in the vernacular languages are the way to go.

We are the Church, and we worship the Lord in the Mass. We are not going to a marketplace or attending music concert when we attend the Mass, instead in the Mass we are with the Lord and through our tongues we praise Him with glorious and beautiful hymns appropriate to worship Him!