Middle Ages

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Tuesday, 15 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bonaventure, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are given a clear warning, one that is really true and genuine by our Lord Himself, who is thoroughly concerned with our safety and well-being. He did not lightly condemn the cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum and the other cities of Israel and Galilee, but He did so because of the constant opposition and rebelliousness which the people showed Him.

These people, particularly represented by the factions of the Pharisees and the Scribes, or the religious, as well as the Sadducees or the ones in power, constantly and viciously were always following Jesus to try to disturb and disrupt His works, in particular the former group. They persuaded and bribed the people to act against Jesus and His disciples, and for all these rebelliousness, Jesus rebuked them as we heard in the readings today.

The Lord truly meant good for His beloved people, and He did not curse without reason. For in the first reading, God gave His reassurance to the people beleaguered and attacked from all sides without hope, and delivered them from the way of harm into salvation. God meant good for all of them, but they often did not appreciate or show gratitude for such love which God had shown them, and instead they betrayed Him and His love by worshipping other gods, pagan gods and idols.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is easy for us to think that because we live in an age and time where paganism is no longer prevalent or existent then we are safe from this problem. As a matter of fact, even in this day, this kind of disobedience still exists in our world and in our society. When the pagan gods of the natural elements, stone and gold went away, come the gods and idols of wealth and possessions, such as money, career and consumeristic behaviour.

Our world today is filled with them, and its people filled with endless desires and greed for these, and they are never satisfied, their desires and wants ever growing. These are the new idols of this world, which feeds on the desire of mankind, and grow on mankind’s endless desire and quest to gain more and more happiness in this world, even though the happiness that they seek is nothing more than really the pleasures of the flesh.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Bonaventure, a great saint and thinker in the Church, whose works were so numerous and amazing that he was given the title of the ‘Seraphic Doctor’. He was once also a Cardinal of the Holy Roman Chyrch, chosen for his intellect and great leadership qualities, which he showed clearly in his life. He was of the Franciscan religious order and his numerous works, together with that of St. Thomas Aquinas, his contemporary, had helped to develop the teachings of the faith enormously.

St. Bonaventure was truly brilliant in his writings and works, and through his writings many aspects of the faith become clearer to us today. But he was not just merely an intelligent and excellent writer of the faith, as he was also a contemplative thinker and a faithful servant of the Lord, whose thoughts are always aimed and focused on the Lord alone. He was a champion of maintaining a balance and relations between reason and faith, showing how reason can complement faith, and how faith can truly be a guidance to men.

St. Bonaventure also shows how the ways of this world is not always necessarily evil, provided that we take precautions and be careful in our life. If we stay unceasingly and solidly obedient to our Lord and God, definitely there will be no difficulty in doing this. Challenges and difficulties will still be on our way, but nothing will be impossible if we stay close to the Lord, as St. Bonaventure had once done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we from now onwards reject Satan and all of his false promises? Shall we turn away from the rebelliousness of our ancestors and turn to God alone? Let us pray to St. Bonaventure, asking for his intercession, that he may ask the Lord to strengthen the faith in us, that our faith will be a strong and vibrant one, and will not be easily affected or corrupted by this world and the evil one’s influences.

May God bless us all, and continue to guide us in our works, that we may serve Him to the best of our abilities. Amen!

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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Share your goods with one another, be with those among you who are lonely, sick, in trouble, or downtrodden, and comfort one another. Assure them that Christ is with them, through your actions. That is the essence of the lives of the early Christian communities, where the earliest converts to the cause of the Lord lived together in perfect harmony and in accordance to the will of God.

In doing what they had done, these predecessors of our faith has eliminated the temptations of this world, in the temptations of money, wealth and power, so that their lives might be completely dedicated to the cause of the Lord, as they had shown in how they lived and treated one another as brothers and sisters, children of the same God.

In essence, what these disciples of Christ had done is true communism and socialism, unlike what had been attempted by those we know as the communists and socialists of our days. They failed miserably, because they lacked God in their system, and they were unable to prevent human desire and intentions from interfering in their attempt to achieve true communism as the disciples of Christ had done.

This of course does not mean that what we have today is bad, or systems like capitalism is bad. It is unbridled capitalism, the desires and hunger for money and more money that is harmful, for it leads us to disregard for our fellow brethren especially those who are in need, and we are in the position where we are able to help them.

In reality of this world, what has been known as communism and socialism is nothing better than the tyranny of the minority and the powerful, that is in the name of championing equality and common good, certain people had taken advantage of the situation and ended up benefitting from what they had done. And these people are those in the positions of power, that is those who have the greatest access to many resources shared by the people, and ended up embezzling them for their own benefits and to the suffering of the people.

Greed, jealousy, fear, dishonesty, and many other vices we know well off are the many problems that mankind commonly face, and these are the main cause behind the problems that prevented the true implementation of common good for all mankind as the early Christian communities had done. That was why so many of the so-called communist and socialist states had failed miserably in achieving their aims, and instead became places where people suffer greatly.

On the other hand, however, we should also not take whatever is in the Scriptures literally. It does not mean that because the early Christian communities had lived as they did, sharing their goods with one another and selling their possessions to be shared, then we too must do the same. Indeed, in this era, in our world today, doing so would merely do more harm than good and it will also hinder us from having the opportunity to help those who are less fortunate.

Having possessions is in fact a great opportunity for us to give help to those who are in need. These possessions can be shared and yet we still have enough for ourselves. Remember that we should not impoverish ourselves to help others, as in fact this may hinder our ability to help them in the long run. What is the most important is that we have the heart for sharing, that is the heart to love another and the giving of ourselves to those who are in need.

It is the attitude that is important for us all, that we open our hearts to God and allow His love to fill us, and from us to the people around us, our brethren. We have to share this love and through the graces that God has given us, some of us have more and some have less, we should share it genuinely and sincerely, without coercion, unlike what those communist states had tried to do, and as what they are doing now in places like North Korea.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. Catherine of Siena, a renowned saint, religious and mystic well-known for her deep faith in God, her holiness and her visions of the Lord. St. Catherine of Siena and her numerous works and writings are essential for the growth of faith in many of those who read them, and she also inspired countless others who followed in her footsteps, with some becoming saints eventually, like her.

St. Catherine of Siena desired that her life be one that is completely on tune with God in complete and total dedication, to the point of even declaring her perpetual dedication to Christ as His spouse. St. Catherine of Siena led a very holy and dedicated life, in deep prayers and fasting, which is often at odds with the society at the time, even clashing with her own family and their desires and plans for her.

St. Catherine of Siena threw far away her pride and human desires, seeking instead the solace and happiness that she could find in God alone, and she was among those called to be the instruments of God’s favour and love for mankind. Through her visions and works, she brought forth numerous writings that exemplified the excellence of her faith, that it shone out of her persona, and in her writings, God made His presence in this world known.

The holiness of St. Catherine of Siena and her dedication to the Lord, which at one point even brought her to be the one to convince the Pope to return to Rome to end the terrible and bitter schism which had divided the Church at that time, is our inspiration, and should indeed empower us to follow her footsteps and become more and more like her in our deeds and actions.

May the Lord continue to guide us in our lives, that we may dispel the superficial and the lies of Satan, and instead seek the truth in God as St. Catherine of Siena had once done. May God be with us, that we may be more and more like Him and when the time comes, may we all be found worthy of life everlasting. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 7b-15

Jesus said, “You must be born again from above. The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus asked again, “How can this be?” And Jesus answered, “You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things! Truly, I say to you, We speak of what We know and what We witness to the things We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If you do not believe when I speak of earthly things, what then, when I speak to you of heavenly things?”

“No one has ever gone up to heaven except the One who came from heaven, the Son of Man. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”

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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 91 : 1ab, 1c-2, 5

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praise to Your Name, o Most High.

For You make me glad with Your deeds, o Lord, and I sing for joy at the work of Your hands.

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Tuesday, 29 April 2014 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Catherine of Siena, Virgin and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 4 : 32-37

The whole community of believers was one in heart and mind. No one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but rather they shared all things in common. With great power the Apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, for all of them were living in an exceptional time of grace.

There was no needy person among them, for those who owned land or houses, sold them and brought the proceeds of the sale. And they laid it at the feet of the Apostles who distributed it according to each one’s need. This is what a certain Joseph did. He was a Levite from Cyprus, whom the Apostles called Barnabas, meaning : “The encouraging one.”

He sold a field which he owned and handed the money to the Apostles.

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Tuesday, 20 August 2013 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the story of the calling of Gideon, whom God called to be His judge over Israel, and to be their liberator from their oppression by the Midian people, who lived south of the land of Israel. God showed His mercy and love for His people despite of their constant and regular transgressions, betrayal, and rebellion against His will.

The path to salvation is difficult, brothers and sisters in Christ, and many are tempted or swayed away from the path that they fell into damnation, because they were bought over by the power of Satan, the temptations and the pleasures of the world, which come in many forms, including sexual pleasures, material wealth, possessions, and many others, things that we easily desire within our hearts, the things that divert our attention from the Lord, or worse still, worship as the pagan idols within our own hearts.

These are what made it difficult for people with much possessions, wealth, and privileges, such as the rich class, to get to the kingdom of God, where salvation lies. But be very careful here, brethren, because Jesus did not condemn the rich nor wealth nor possession when He made His example of the rich man and the camel to His disciples. He did say that it is indeed more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to enter the eye of a needle, but He did not in fact condemn the rich people as a class.

We have to first look into the context of what Jesus was speaking about, the time when He was walking in our world, more than two thousand years ago. Just as today, the society can roughly be divided along many lines, not least of which along monetary lines, between those who were more fortunate and those who were less fortunate. Wide gap existed between them, just as the gap is still present in our modern day world.

Yet again, Jesus did not condemn the rich, exactly because not all rich people were bad or evil, and not all of them hoarded their wealth and turned a blind eye to the plight of the poor. In fact, quite a few people with rich material wealth were well known for their philanthropy, and not few of them did so out of their genuine concern for the poor, for the love of their less fortunate brethren, exactly as what God commanded all of us to do.

To condemn the rich because they are rich is in fact self-defeating, because it condemns even the good among the rich. Even among the poor, they ought to share among them the bountiful gifts God had given them, that is love and mercy, even though they are poor in wealth, but they are rich in spirit. Yet, even among the poor, there are those who selfishly kept their love and the gift God had given them, and in some instances, even oppress those who are even less fortunate than them.

What God condemns is the fixation on wealth and possession, that we seek the futile treasure of this world that is temporary, and abandon the true wealth and treasure that we have in heaven, that is none other than the Lord our God Himself, and the eternal life He had promised all of us who believe in Him and accepted Him. When we are too fixated and bound to those things, we tend to exclude God and others from our heart. Remember that the Lord Himself had said, that where our treasure lies, there lies our heart too.

Today, we mark the commemoration of the feast of St. Bernard, also better known as St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a religious and holy man living in the Medieval Europe during the era of the Crusaders. St. Bernard lived at the time when Europe was in the High Middle Ages, where he joined the religious group, the Cistercians, and worked hard to spread the faith among many and strengthen its hold on the faithful across Europe.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux lived in a time of divisions in the Church, when heresies spread rampant across Europe, and many fell to such heresies and became detached from the salvation of the Lord in the Church. Even the Pope himself, as the leader of the Church faced rivals in his mission on earth, with even antipopes claiming authority over the Universal Church. St. Bernard had a tough task ahead of him, and yet he did not give up and preached in many places as well as brokering peaceful solutions in reuniting the factions of the faithful, that everyone returns to the one true faith in the One True God.

St. Bernard lived at a time when the rich oppressed the poor, and the rich lived lavishly while the poor languished in suffering and hunger. He approached the poor and showed them his dedication and love, just as much as he was dedicated and loving towards his God. He showed many others that all of us, the children of God, must truly follow God’s commandment and obey His will, by loving Him more than anything else, even the things and wealth of this world, and also love one another, especially those who are in need.

St. Bernard showed us how to dedicate ourselves to God and love Him with all our hearts, our beings, and all of our strength. He showed that no matter everything else in this world, it is our love and our actions based on love that truly matters, especially what we are doing for the sake of our less fortunate brethren. In this too, it is made clear to us that our purpose in life is to love, and to be caring for one another.

Yes, indeed, being rich is nothing wrong, and it is indeed wrong to condemn someone just because he is rich or that he does not want to relinquish all that wealth. It is only justified to condemned someone with riches if that person had not yet lifted up his fingers to help the poor, by using what he had been given, and what he had been blessed with. Like the people of Israel, who had been given much and a rich land to begin with, and yet misuse what they had been given, and worshipped the pagan gods instead of the Lord who had given them all the blessings they had. The Lord took all that away from them, and threw them to their enemies.

With the possessions and wealth we have, we have a great opportunity to show our love to one another. They can indeed be great tools for either good or evil. Let us not misuse what we have and what we have been blessed with, and let us also not remain in idleness or inactivity, when we can use our gifts and talents to make a difference in others, to give love and life to others through our words and actions.

May St. Bernard of Clairvaux pray for us before the Lord, that He will show us His mercy and love upon us, and that He may open our hearts and minds, that we will realise and understand the need for all of us to love, both our fellow men, and ultimately the Lord our God who loves us. Amen.