Liturgy of the Mass

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Thursday, 17 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Genesis 49 : 1-2, 8-10

Jacob then called his sons and said, “Gather round, sons of Jacob. And listen to your father Israel!”

“Judah, your brothers will praise you! You shall seize your enemies by the neck! Your father’s sons shall bow before you. Judah, a young lion! You return from the prey, my son! Like a lion he stoops and crouches, and like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?”

“The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to Whom it belongs, and Who has the obedience of the nations.”

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Wednesday, 16 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we hear the message of the Sacred Scriptures, telling us about the Good News of salvation that He Himself has proclaimed many times through the prophets, through His many other servants, and finally through Himself in Jesus Christ, the Lord our Saviour Who came into the world in our form, taking up our flesh in order to save all of us.

God did not forget about His people and all those whom had been lost from Him, for He had endeavoured to gather all of His beloved ones to Himself, and called upon all those who were lost, so that they would hear the voice of their Shepherd, and therefore follow Him into the path towards eternal life and salvation in Him. He wants us all to be saved and to receive eternal life and to never again be lost.

And that is why all of us should be grateful, for God had stretched out His hands, and by His might He had gathered people from many nations, through the Church, the Apostles, bishops and the servants of God through whom many peoples of many nations are called ever closer to the holy presence of God. Through the hard works of the missionaries who prepared the path for the Lord, many souls have been saved and made ready for the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us today are called to be faithful servants of our Lord, just as St. John the Baptist had been. St. John the Baptist was the one who heralded and announced the coming of the Lord and Messiah, and he taught them about what to do in order to attain the salvation which our Lord and Saviour has brought us, that is through genuine and sincere repentance and through the baptism that cleanses from the taints of sin.

In the same way, the Church also sent out many missionaries, preachers and workers of the faith, who worked hard just like St. John the Baptist, to preach the Word of God and to proclaim the Good News of His salvation to the entire world, the four corners of the earth. And just like John, they also encountered sceptics, dissidents and all those who refused to listen to the word of God, and who even made it difficult for the servants of God to spread the Good News.

Indeed, God is loving, merciful and forgiving, and it is His desire that as many people as possible come to listen and understand His will, and through the words of the Gospel, hopefully many would repent their sins and their wicked ways, and return to the path of the light. But if there is no one to bring the word of truth to the souls that are now dwelling in the darkness of this world, who will then allow them to come to the light? Some may come to the light eventually, but many will not.

Therefore, all of us, the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, and as the members of God’s Holy Church, we all have to understand that the mission which our Lord Jesus had entrusted to His Apostles, and thus to His whole Church, and thus to all of us living today, is far from done, and there are indeed still so many things that we can do, in order to bring the salvation of God to our brethren.

Remember that Jesus had commissioned His Apostles to baptise the peoples of the whole world in the Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and to proclaim His truth to all of them? The same task is now ours, and we too should walk in the footsteps of the faithful servants of God. And it does not mean that we should go to faraway places to preach and to make sermons about the faith, but instead, we should always begin from somewhere close, from our own homes.

Have our families been examples and role models of faith for others? Have we practiced what we believe in our own daily life actions and works? Or have our faith been merely on paper only and on the surface only? We should not think that we can convince others to follow whatever we tell them, if we do not practice the faith that we believe in, on our own.

Let us in this season of Advent, as we continue to prepare to celebrate the commemoration of our Lord’s entry into the world in Christmas, let us all prepare ourselves body, heart and mind, so that in all things, we may become ever more faithful and be ever more devoted to our God. Let us all give more effort to accomplish what the Lord had entrusted us, that is to preach the Word of God and the Good News to those who still have not heard of these yet, and therefore bring our brethren into salvation as well. May God bless us, now and forever. Amen.

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Wednesday, 16 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 7 : 19-23

At that time, John sent two of His disciples to the Lord with this message, “Are You the One we are expecting, or should we wait for another?” These men came to Jesus and said, “John the Baptist sent us to ask You : Are You the One we are to expect, or should we wait for another?”

At that time Jesus healed many people of their sickness and diseases; He freed them from evil spirits and He gave sight to the blind. Then He answered the messengers, “Go back and tell John what you have seen and heard : the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor are given Good News.”

“Now, listen : Fortunate are those who meet Me, and are not offended by Me.”

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Wednesday, 16 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 84 : 9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints. Yet His salvation is near to those who fear Him, and His Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from Heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Wednesday, 16 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 45 : 6b-8, 18, 21b-25

From the rising to the setting of the sun, all may know that there is no one besides Me; I am YHVH, and there is no other. I form the light and create the dark; I usher in prosperity and bring calamity. I, YHVH, do all this.

Let the heavens send righteousness like dew and the clouds rain it down. Let the earth open and salvation blossom, so that justice may also sprout; I, YHVH, have created it.

Yes, this is what YHVH says, He Who created the heavens – for He is God, Who formed and shaped the earth – for He Himself set it : “I did not let confusion in it, I wanted people to live there instead – for I am YHVH and there is no other.

Who announced this from the beginning, Who foretold it in the distant past? Is it not Me YHVH? There is no other God besides Me, a Saviour, a God of justice, there is no other one but Me. Turn to Me and be saved, all you from the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

By My Ownself I swear it, and what comes from My mouth is truth, a word I say will not be revoked. Before Me every knee will bend, by Me every tongue will swear, saying, “In YHVH alone are righteousness and strength.” All who have raged against Him will come to Him in shame. But through YHVH there will be victory and glory to the people of Israel.

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Tuesday, 15 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard our Lord Jesus Who told us clearly in the face, that whatever we believe in God, His ways and all of these, we must not just stop at believing and merely knowing on what are we supposed to do, but instead we must go further and apply our faith, whatever we believe in, in our own lives and actions.

The parable about a father with his two sons made this fact clear enough for us. The father represents the Lord our God, while his two sons are representatives of all of us with our various reactions to our Father’s wishes and desires, which can indeed be categorised into two major categories. First of all, the first son on the surface obeyed the father, gracefully with his mouth uttering his readiness to do his will, and yet he did not do what he had said he would do.

This represents all those whose faith are merely superficial, that is faith merely on paper only. This is the faith of those who have little or no commitment in love to God, and whose hearts have no place for the Lord. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law belonged to this category, and as well as surprisingly, majority if not most of mankind.

Yes, many of us if we look at how we live our daily lives, we should immediately realise how even though we call ourselves as Christians, we do not truly live as Christians should live. As Christians and member of God’s Church we should follow the will of God, His teachings and commandments, and obey the laws and rules of the Church and the Sacred Tradition that has been passed down to us from the Apostles and from the Lord Himself.

Yet, many of us prefer to choose what we like to believe in and what we do not like to believe. This is a phenomenon commonly known as ‘Cafetaria Christians’ as just as those in cafetaria or a market choose what they want to buy and what they do not want to buy, we too choose in what we want to believe. And yet, this is something very wrong for us to do.

Indeed, we must believe in the entirety of the teachings of the Church and embrace wholly what it means for us to be Christians, rather than choosing what we like to believe and skipping and rejecting those that do not appeal to us. We either believe in the entirety of the Christian teachings or not at all, and there can be no compromise or middle way in these, as some would believe.

Thus we ought to reflect on the Lord’s parable of a father and his two sons. The second son was the better of the two because he did what the father had asked him to do, even though outwardly he was unwilling and showed apprehension. Surely this is what had happened to many of us as well, as we have doubts, uncertainties and apprehensions about many things even as we live our lives as Christians, but if we take heed of the examples of the second son, we know that God favours those who do His will and obey Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us therefore put the effort to live faithfully as Christians from now on, if we have not done so, and continue to do so, if we have already did. Let us all obey the entirety of the teachings of the Church and keep holy whatever has been entrusted to us as God’s children and as members of His Church. Let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord and bless His glorious Name through our own actions, obedient and filled with faith. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 15 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 21 : 28-32

At that time, Jesus went on to say to His disciples and to the people, “What do you think of this? A man had two sons. He went to the first and said to him, ‘Son, go and work today in my vineyard.’ And the son answered, ‘I do not want to.’ But later he thought better of it and went.”

“Then the father went to his other son and gave him the same command. This son replied, ‘I will go, sir,’ but he did not go. Which of the two did what the father wanted?” They answered, “The first.”

And Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you : the publicans and the prostitutes are ahead of you on the way to the kingdom of Heaven. For John came to show you the way of goodness, and you did not believe him; but the publicans and the prostitutes did. You were witnesses of this, but you neither repented nor believed him.”

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Tuesday, 15 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 33 : 2-3, 6-7, 17-18, 19 and 23

I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, the Lord hears and saves them from distress.

But His face is set against the wicked to destroy their memory from the earth. The Lord hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught. But the Lord will redeem the life of His servants; none of those who trust in Him will be doomed.

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Tuesday, 15 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Zephaniah 3 : 1-2, 9-13

Woe to the rebellious, the defiled, the city that oppresses. She did not pay attention to the call nor accept the correction; she did not trust YHVH nor did she approach her God.

At that time I will give truthful lips to the pagan nations that all of them may call on the Name of YHVH and serve Him with the same zeal. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia they will bring offerings to Me. On that day you will no longer be ashamed of all your deeds when you were unfaithful to Me; I will have removed from your midst the conceited and arrogant, and My holy mountain will no longer be for you a pretext for boasting.

I will leave within you a poor and meek people who seek refuge in God. The remnant of Israel will not act unjustly nor will they speak falsely, nor will deceitful words be found in their mouths. They will eat and rest with none to threaten them.

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Monday, 14 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John of the Cross, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, as we draw ever closer to the commemoration of Christmas, and as we continue to prepare ourselves during this Advent season, let us all heed the messages of the Sacred Scriptures that are being conveyed to us even as we listen to them. The readings today spoke of putting our trust in the works of God, and what we ought to do in order to keep ourselves faithful to Him.

In the first reading, the seer Balaam blessed the people of Israel after he had been tasked and brought by an enemy king to curse them. But Balaam was a seer who saw the will of God and listened to Him, and there is no way for him to contradict the Lord by cursing the people whom He loved, and thus, he blessed them just in accordance with the will of God, and instead of a curse to destroy them, God made them to be even stronger.

This is to remind us that God is always with His people, and despite the challenges and the opposition that faces all of us, as long as we cling strongly in our faith to our God, nothing is impossible and we shall not fail or perish. We see the example of how there are such oppositions, with the example of Jesus, Whom the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law opposed, and these people tried at every possible opportunities to question Him, to doubt Him and to strike against Him and His disciples.

They have had the privilege of witnessing and experiencing directly the works of God’s mercy, and they have seen directly the miracles and the healings attributed to our God, and yet they stubbornly refused to believe and continued to walk in the path of sin and wickedness. They placed themselves as arbiters and judges of the actions and works of others, and yet they themselves failed to look into and judge at their own actions and works.

Yes, they judged others for their shortcomings and for apparently not following the Law as how they followed it, but yet in their hearts, although they outwardly showed their piety and devotion, God was not in their hearts and minds. They were not serving the interests of God and His people first, but instead their own interests and needs. They strove hard to be seen as holy and pious among men, but what they have done had no meaning and empty.

And because of this, they did not understand the Lord and all that He had done for His people. And because the Lord was not in their hearts, they failed to understand the actions that Jesus had done, and they refused to listen to His teachings, for to them, it was them and their own ways that were the only right ones. And this is the very same reason why, this world which has its own ways and which was unable to understand the Lord, also persecutes us all who believe in our God and all who walk in His ways.

But we should not be disheartened or be afraid, for God is always with us. He will guard us and protect us so long as we are faithful to Him, and no harm will ever come our way. In this, let us follow the footsteps and examples of St. John ofthe Cross, the faithful servant of God and saint whose feast we celebrate on this day. He was a Carmelite who was renowned for his role in serving the poor and in helping to reform the Church and religious orders, and who himself encountered many oppositions and even persecuted for persevering in doing what he had done in faith.

St. John of the Cross lived during a time of the so-called Protestant ‘reformation’ heresy, when many of the faithful were lured away from the Church and salvation by the lies and the lures of the devil, and inside the Church itself, many of its members became engrossed in material excesses and followed a path of vice, sin and moral corruption unbecoming of the children of God and as His servants.

St. John of the Cross worked hard to serve the poor and to care for those who are destitute and have less or none on themselves. He also strove hard to enact reforms on the way how the faithful, in particular the religious order of the Carmelites that he was a part of, in how they ought to live out their lives in devotion to God and to their brethren, suppressing and condemning the excesses that had characterised the Church at the time.

But in doing so, St. John of the Cross encountered many significant oppositions and made many enemies. He nevertheless continued to push on in doing good for the sake of the Church and for the people despite all the sufferings he had to endure, the rejection, the ridicule, the oppression, and even persecution in prison and slander by those who refused to repent their ways of sin and continued to live in wickedness.

In the end, it was not all those people who lived by the ways and standards of the world who were to receive the eternal blessings and graces of God. It was St. John of the Cross, the many other saints and martyrs who had been persecuted for their faith and their steadfast dedication to God’s truth that had merited them to be glorified and to be recognised as those who deserve directly the glories of eternal life and heaven.

Therefore, let us all reflect on this, and let us all think of our own actions. Have we been truly faithful to God despite all the challenges from the world and despite all the obstacles that had been placed on our paths? Can we dedicate ourselves and commit ourselves anew to God, and place our complete trust in Him. God will not fail us in the way that men’s strength will fail us. Even though the world will fail and be destroyed, the anchor of faith we have in the Lord will last forever.

Let us all pray and ask for the intercession of St. John of the Cross, that we may be given the grace by God to be strengthened in our faith, and so that our minds and hearts be ever more attuned to Him and to His words, practicing what we believe actively in our own daily lives. May God be with us all. Amen.