Lord God

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Sunday, 20 October 2013 : 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Mission Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 120 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8

I lift up my eyes to the mountains – from where shall come my help? My help comes from the Lord, Maker of heaven and earth.

Will He let your foot slip, the One watching over you? Will He slumber? No, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.

The Lord is your guardian, the Lord is at your side and you in His shade; Sunstroke will not be for you by day, nor the spell of the moon by night.

The Lord guards you from every evil; He will protect your life. The Lord watches over your coming and going both now and forever.

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Saturday, 19 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John de Brebeuf, St. Isaac Jogues, Priests, and Companions, Martyrs, and St. Paul of the Cross, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests and the Mass of our Lady)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God is so faithful to all of us, even when we are unfaithful. He keeps His promise even when we stray away from His path and erred before Him. He is truly faithful and devoted to us, that He sent us salvation in Christ, through whom He made this whole world complete once again, in the. Blood of the slaughtered Lamb of God.

He is faithful to the promise He made to man, and to Abraham His servant. Even if He wanted to break that promise, He could not have done so, that is because it is His nature to be faithful and true to the promise, indeed, any promise that He had made to all of us. There is no instance at all, where the Lord had broken any of His promises, that is the covenants He had made with us.

Covenants are made between two parties, brethren, and if one side break their part of the covenant, that covenant is broken. That is precisely what had happened, we and our ancestors are the ones who had broken the covenant the Lord had made with us, through our rebelliousness, stubbornness, and sinfulness, beginning from Adam our forefather and Eve, his wife, tempted by Satan to disobey God, right down to us sinners, who sin daily and do things abhorrent in the eyes of God.

Yet, the Lord who punishes those who has done evil, is also loving, and despite us having trespassed against Him, in His love, He continues to embrace us, and hope for us to return to Him. That is why, through Christ His Son, He willed to reconcile us to Himself, and reestablish the covenant that had been broken, and at the same time fulfill the promises He had made to us and our ancestors.

Lord Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of all God’s promises to mankind, and the One who marked the ultimate and infinite nature of God’s love and the perfection of the divine covenant. God promised man that He will send a deliverer through a woman, a descendant of Eve, the first woman, and the promise that while the snake, the deceiver would bite the children of the woman, that is Satan, will have power over mankind for a time, but the woman, from whom the Saviour came from, will crush the head of the snake, that is Mary, through whom Christ was incarnated into Man, will end the tyranny of Satan, through the death and resurrection of her Son, Jesus, God incarnate into Man.

God also fulfilled the promise to Abraham, by truly making his children as innumerable as the stars. The descendants of Abraham spread wide and numerous, and then, He also fulfilled it through Jesus, in making the descendant of Abraham great, everlasting through Christ, the descendant of David, and therefore of Abraham, through Mary His mother and Joseph, His foster-father.

To David, God had promised that He would establish his descendant on the throne of Israel forever, and that is fulfilled completely through Jesus, the son of David, and at the same time, the eternal and Almighty God. To Jesus will be given the eternal kingdom of glory, and He will be exalted by all creation, by all the angels, for He had broken the power of death, overcome it, and through His resurrection, He had made the whole world pure once again, from the taints of original sin, and bring mankind back towards the Lord.

Yet, many of us spurn and reject this expression of pure and unadulterated love. We prefer to mingle and linger in our sinfulness rather than opening ourselves to God’s infinite mercy and love. We love the darkness of Satan more than we love the Lord who is light and the true guide of our lives. That is because we perceive the lies of Satan as things good and enjoyable, while fearing the anger of the Lord because of our sinfulness. That anger however, is precisely because we refuse to turn away from evil, and continue committing what is evil in the eyes of God. If only that we turn ourselves back towards Him, He who is faithful and loving will surely welcome us back into His embrace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the holy saints and martyrs of the Universal Church. We commemorate today, the feast of St. Isaac Jogues, St. John de Brebeuf, and their companions, who were martyred in North America, during a time of great evangelisation and missionary work in that country. At that time, most of North America, as was the rest of the New World were still largely populated by the natives of the continent, who looked suspiciously on the activity of the missionaries like the two saints.

Yet, St. John de Brebeuf and St. Isaac Jogues, together with many of their missionary companions, most of which were Jesuits, continued to work hard for the sake of the Lord, gaining converts among the pagan native populations. The hard work of the saints gained the conversion of even the entire Huron native American nation after long years of work in the bitter cold of Northern American winter conditions.

But rivalries between the native American tribes were common at the time, and the saints and their companions were caught in the midst of a vicious and terrible inter-native American tribal rivalry, which saw the Iroquois pagan natives completely defeating and eradicating the Hurons whom the saints had converted to the cause of the Lord. The saints were captured, tortured and mocked for their faith. Yet, they remained firm and devoted to the Lord, and they met their end at the hands of their torturers.

Therefore, brethren, we ought to be inspired by their example, the example they have made in their deep faith and devotion in God, that is in the One who has been promised to us mankind, to be our Saviour and salvation, as the deliverance freeing us from the tyranny of death and evil. Let us not be fearful to express our faith in God, and rather, as St. John de Brebeuf, St. Isaac Jogues, and their companions had done, show that faith through our actions, through our love and dedication to both our fellow men, as well as to God our Lord and Father.
May the Lord strengthen our faith, empower us, and bless us with His Holy Spirit, that our faith in Him will ever grow strong and never grow dim. Amen.

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Friday, 18 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the feast of one of the Four great Evangelists, the four writers of the Gospel of salvation, the Good News of the Lord made apparent to all of us through Jesus His Son, in His life, death, and glorious resurrection. It is through the Gospel that the truths of the Lord are made evident to all, through the inspiration by the Holy Spirit on those appointed to be the writers of the Good News of salvation. Luke, the disciple of the Lord, was one of those four chosen.

We have to first look at what is the nature of this Good News, the wonderful news that we read in the Gospels, written by Luke and the three other Evangelists. In the Gospel, lies the fullness of the Lord’s promise of salvation, as well as the perfect fulfillment of that promise, in Jesus His Son, through whom He brought the Good News into the world, and through whom, by the means of His death and resurrection, the Good News in the Gospels were fulfilled perfectly, along with the prophecies of the prophets as written in the Old Testament.

In Christ we have hope, and in Him our bondage to sin and Satan were broken, and in Him, the path to salvation in God was once again opened to all of us. This is what the Gospels are about, and this is what the Apostles and the other disciples of Christ had preached, ever since the Day of the Pentecost, converting people to the cause of the Lord. That was the true essence and reason of their hard work and dedication, even to the point of shedding their blood and giving up their lives for He who is God.

As we see in the First Reading, we see that St. Luke was one of the companions of St. Paul the Apostle, in his travels and preaching visits around the cities across the Mediterranean Sea. St. Luke was a physician or a doctor, who became a follower of Christ after receiving the revelation of the truth through the Apostles and Christ Himself. Ever since, he had been part of the missionary effort, as Christ had commanded, to bring the words of salvation to the ends of the earth.

St. Luke was part of that mission, which Christ Himself had initiated, with the commissioning and sending of the seventy-two disciples to the towns and villages as heralds for the coming of Christ. With His death and resurrection, the Lord sends forth all of His disciples to all mankind, Jews and Gentiles alike, bringing to them the Good News and the salvation in Jesus Christ.

And just like the Apostles like St. Peter, leader of all of God’s disciples had once been a fisherman, and was made a fisher of mankind, thus, St. Luke too had been called, from his profession as a physician, as a doctor of the illness of the physical body, to be a doctor for our souls. And just as Peter as fisher of man ‘fished’ mankind out of the waters of darkness into the light, therefore St. Luke too, become the one who cured mankind out of the darkness of their hearts and their souls.

How did St. Luke do that? That is through the Gospel that he had written, the Holy Gospel according to Luke, which is rich in history and details, and which made clear to all who read them, on the fullness of God’s love and care for us, that in great detail, St. Luke explained the process through which, the Lord Jesus accomplished and fulfilled perfectly God’s planned salvation for all, beginning from His humble birth in Bethlehem, rejected by all, through His life and ministry, and until His Passion, death, and glorious resurrection.

Brethren! This Holy Gospel, as is the rest of the Holy Scripture is that cure for the darkness that had corrupted our hearts, the key to unlocking the doors of our heart, allowing God to enter into ourselves and make us worthy once again. But beware that we would not be deceived by Satan and his agents, who can twist the words of the Scripture to serve his own purposes. Remember the time when Jesus was tempted three times by Satan in the desert.

That is why, brethren, all of us, firstly, must regularly read the Holy Scriptures, particularly the Gospels of salvation, where we read on Jesus and His divine words and on the central tenets of our faith. And then, we must also pray fervently and seek guidance, that we will not be tempted by the evil one, and will be able to internalise within our hearts, the Good News of our Lord’s salvation, and do not just remain at that, but spread it to the whole world, to all mankind.

May we, therefore, be able to follow in the footsteps of St. Luke and the Apostles,  to carry out the words of the Lord in the Gospels to all the nations, that through us, our own actions and words that reflect the Holy Gospels, we may bring all mankind towards God their Father, who will welcome them into His eternal kingdom. May we be courageous to follow in the footsteps of St. Luke, the Holy Apostles, and the other disciples of Christ. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 18 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Luke 10 : 1-9

After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two other disciples, and sent them two by two ahead of Him to every town and place, where He Himself was to go. And He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So you must ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers to His harvest.”

“Courage! I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Set off without purse or bag or sandals; and do not stop at the homes of those you know. Whatever house you enter, first bless them, saying, ‘Peace to this house!’ If a friend of peace lives there, the peace shall rest upon that person. But if not, the blessing will return to you.”

“Stay in that house, eating and drinking at their table, for the worker deserves to be paid. Do not move from house to house. When they welcome you to any town, eat what they offer you. Heal the sick, who are there, and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God has drawn near to you.

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Friday, 18 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Luke the Evangelist (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Timothy 4 : 10-17b

You must know that Demas has deserted me for the love of this world : he returned to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke remains with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is a useful helper in my work. I sent Tychicus to Ephesus.

Bring with you the cloak I left at Troas, in Carpos’ house and also the scrolls, especially the parchments. Alexander the metalworker has caused me great harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. Distrust him for he has been very much opposed to our preaching.

At my first hearing in court no one supported me; all deserted me. May the Lord not hold it against them. But the Lord was at my side, giving me strength to proclaim the Word fully, and let all the pagans hear it.

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Thursday, 17 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 129 : 1-2, 3-4b, 4c-6

Out of the depths I cry to You, o Lord, o Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears pay attention to the voice of my supplication.

If You should mark our evil, o Lord, who could stand? But with You is forgiveness.

For that You are revered. I waited for the Lord, my soul waits, and I put my hope in His word. My soul expects the Lord more than watchmen the dawn.

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Romans 2 : 1-11

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you are able to judge others. For in judging your neighbour, you condemn yourself, for you practice what you are judging. We know that the condemnation of God will justly reach those who commit these things, and do you think that by condemning others you will escape from the judgment of God, you who are doing the same?

This would be taking advantage of God and His infinite goodness, patience and understanding, and not to realise that His goodness is in order to lead you to conversion. If your heart becomes hard and you refuse to change, then you are storing for yourself a great punishment on the day of judgment, when God will appear as just judge.

He will give each one his due, according to his actions. He will give everlasting life to those who seek glory, honour, and immortality and persevere in doing good. But anger and vengeance will be the lot of those who do not serve truth but injustice.

There will be suffering and anguish for everyone committing evil, first the Jew, then the Greek. But God will give glory, honour, and peace to whoever does good, first the Jew, then the Greek, because one is not different from the other before God.

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Sunday, 13 October 2013 : 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God’s saving power. All you lands, make a joyful noise to the Lord, break into song and sing praise.

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Sunday, 13 October 2013 : 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Kings 5 : 14-17

So Naaman went down to the Jordan where he washed himself seven times as Elisha had ordered. His skin became soft like that of a child and he was cleansed.

Then Naaman returned to the man of God with all his men. He entered and said to him, “Now I know that there is no other God anywhere in the world but in Israel. I ask you to accept these gifts from your servant.”

But Elisha answered, “I swear by YHVH whom I serve, I will accept nothing.” And however much Naaman insisted, Elisha would not accept his gifts. So Naaman told him, “Since you refuse, let me get some sacks of soil from your land – the amount that two mules can carry. I shall use it to build an altar to YHVH, for I shall not offer sacrifices to any other god but Him.”

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Saturday, 12 October 2013 : 27th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Joel 4 : 12-21

Rise up, o peoples, and come to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, nations. Bring a sickle for the harvest is ripe; come and tread for the winepress is full and the vats overflow, so great is their wickedness!

Multitudes and more multitudes in the Valley of Verdict! The day of YHVH is near in the Valley of Verdict! The sun and the moon become dark, the stars lose their radiance. YHVH roars from Zion and raises His voice from Jerusalem; heaven and earth are shaken. Indeed YHVH is a refuge for His people, a stronghold for the Israelites.

You will know that I am YHVH, your God, dwelling on Zion, My holy mountain. Jerusalem will be a holy place, and foreigners will never pass through there again. On that day the mountains shall drip wine and the hills flow with milk; all the streams of Judah will run with water and a fountain will spring from the House of YHVH, and water the valley of Shittim.

On the other hand, Egypt will be devastated and Edom will become a deserted wasteland because they committed violence against Judah, and shed innocent blood in their country. But Judah will be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem through all generations. And I shall avenge their blood and not leave it unpunished, for YHVH dwells in Zion.