mission

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Tuesday, 27 August 2013 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Thessalonians 2 : 1-8

You well know, brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not in vain. We had been ill-treated and insulted in Philippi but, trusting in our God, we dared announce to you the message of God, and face fresh opposition. Our warnings did not conceal any error or impure motive, nor did we deceive anyone.

But as God had entrusted His Gospel to us as to faithful ministers, we were anxious to please God who sees the heart, rather than human beings. We never pleased you with flattery, as you know, nor did we try to earn money, as God knows. We did not try to make a name for ourselves among people, either with you or anybody else, although we were messengers of Christ and could have made our weight felt.

On the contrary, we were gentle with you, as a nursing mother who feeds and cuddles her baby. And so great is our concern that we are ready to give you, as well as the Gospel, even our very lives, for you have become very dear to us.

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Saturday, 24 August 2013 : 20th Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of St. Bartholomew, Apostle (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great feast day of one of the Twelve Apostles, namely St. Bartholomew, also known as Nathaniel or Nathanael. He was a righteous and upright man called by the Lord to be one of His disciples, and therefore made him His apostle. The Lord did call His disciples from various backgrounds, including even tax collectors and murderers, as well as the righteous ones. All of them called from their former lives, abandoning them to follow the Lord their God in Christ.

Each of the Apostles were called to be the followers of Christ, to help Him in His mission in this world, and ultimately, to continue the works He had done, after He ascended in glory to heaven. They were entrusted with the care of the faithful, as shepherds of the sheep of the Lord, that is all of us, to be the guiding beacons along our long and arduous path towards salvation in God. From them came many generations of shepherds of the people of God, including that of our priests and bishops today, who are their successors, the successor of the Apostles of Christ.

St. Bartholomew travelled wide after the events depicted in the New Testament, as one of the Apostles of Christ, spreading the Good News of salvation to many around the world, and according to records, St. Bartholomew had visited and evangelised in Ethiopia, Armenia, India, and some other places throughout his ministry, converting many to the cause of God, bringing God’s salvation to many those who had not yet heard about Christ or saw His marvellous works.

He converted many to the Lord and brought many into the Church. However, in the same way with all the other Apostles and disciples of Christ, St. Bartholomew met much opposition, persecution, and oppression just as he was accepted by some in the societies that he had visited. Nevertheless, he continued to labour for the sake of the Lord in distant, foreign lands, until he eventually met the end of his life in martyrdom, apparently in Armenia, by being flayed alive and crucified upside down, much like St. Peter in Rome.

Despite his death, and the death of the other Apostles of Christ, in the hands of their enemies and executioners, in the hands of the enemies of God and the godless ones, they had brought forth a growth and flowering of the faithful in the Church, such that the saying is really true that ‘the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians’. Their devotion, dedication, and martyrdom had inspired many to remain true to their faith and to remain faithful to their God, and many followed the Apostles like St. Bartholomew, into martyrdom themselves.

St. Bartholomew and the other Apostles of Christ, St. Peter, St. John the Evangelist and others, were not superhuman, brothers and sisters in Christ. They were same like us, mere man, with all their weaknesses, but also with their respective qualities and strengths. They experienced human emotions as we too experience our human emotions. They experienced doubt and fear when they followed Jesus, and especially when Jesus was captured, tried, and executed. They were scattered like sheep without a shepherd, and yet, when Christ came back in great triumph against evil and sin, He gathered them back upon Himself and sent them the Spirit as the Helper.

They were empowered with God’s love through that Spirit of love, and they were emboldened to take up the cause of the Lord and went forth courageously to spread the Gospels to all men. The Apostles went through hardships and suffering for the sake of God and also for the sake of His people, in the Church of God, and they faced death bravely when they were martyred for their faith and unshakeable devotion to the Lord. They shed their blood, and as I had mentioned, these formed the foundations of the Church of God, along with many other martyrs, that even though they are persecuted against, they remain vibrant and growing in both number and in their faith.

In the first reading, we see the Holy City of Jerusalem descending from heaven, to meet her Bride, that is the Lamb of God. That Holy City was great and precious, the heavenly Jerusalem, pure and clear like crystal. The City has twelve gates and twelve foundation stones, representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Those foundation stones also in fact represent the twelve apostles, brothers and sisters! Just as Christ Himself had said that the Apostles will sit on twelve thrones and judge the people of God. They are akin to the guardians of those gates, barring the entry into the city to anyone found not worthy.

That Holy City of God in fact represent both the presence of God, that all of us aspire to enter, and also the Church of God, built upon the support, the foundation stone of the Apostles. Their faith and dedication had been the strong foundation that held up the Church of God, and ensured its continuity throughout time, despite all the opposition, persecution, and evils it had faced all these while. That includes St. Bartholomew who gave up his life and laboured hard for the sake of the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today, as we recall the labours and the righteousness of St. Bartholomew the Apostle, resolve to follow his life examples, and resolve to devote ourselves more to the laws and commandments of our God that is love, by loving one another, giving our love especially to those who have little or none of it, and to love God with all our might. Pray for us St. Bartholomew, the Apostle of Christ and defender of the faith. Amen.

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

Liturgical Colour : White

Judges 6 : 11-24a

The Angel of YHVH came and sat under the sacred tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash, of the family of Abiezer. Gideon, the son of Joash, was threshing the wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.

The Angel of YHVH said to him, “YHVH be with you, valiant warrior.” Gideon answered, “Please, my Lord, if YHVH is with us, why is all this happening to us? Where are the wonders which our fathers recounted to us? Did they not say that YHVH led them up from Egypt? Why has He abandoned us now and given us into the hands of the Midianites?”

YHVH then turned to him and said, “Go, and with your courage, save Israel from the Midianites. It is I who send you.” Gideon answered : “Pardon me, Lord, but how can I save Israel? My family is the lowliest in my tribe and I am the least in the family of my father.”

YHVH said to him, “I will be with you and you shall defeat the people of Midian with one single stroke.” Gideon said to Him, “Please give me a sign that it is indeed You who speak. Do not leave until I return with an offering and present it to You.” YHVH responded, “I am going to wait for you here.”

Gideon went and prepared a young goat, took a measure of flour and baked unleavened bread. He put the broth in a pot and the meat in a basket, and went to present them to the Angel under the tree. Then the Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the bread; put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” Gideon did so.

At that moment, the Angel of YHVH extended the staff He was holding and touched the meat and the bread. Suddenly, fire blazed from the rock. The fire consumed the meat and the bread, and the Angel of YHVH disappeared.

Gideon realised that He was the Angel of YHVH and said, “Alas, o Lord YHVH! I have seen the Angel of YHVH face to face.” But YHVH said to him, “Peace be with you. Do not fear for you shall not die.” Gideon built an altar to YHVH in that place and called it YHVH-Peace.

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Friday, 16 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Stephen of Hungary (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today Christ told us about the importance and sanctity of marriage, as something not merely a legal thing, nor it is merely a thing of this world, because marriage is a bond between man and woman, united and sealed by God Himself, and no man can divide or break this bond. That is because this bond is holy, and indeed, is one of the Seven Sacraments in the Church, that is the Sacrament of Marriage.

God made man from dust, and that was Adam, the first man. From his own flesh, bone, and blood, God created woman, Eve, the first woman. Because of that, man naturally needs woman, and God gave man to woman and vice versa. When man and woman come together, they become perfect, because in the beginning they share one another’s flesh and blood. God who created this world and all of us, had joined man and woman, in the sacred bond that made them perfect in one another, and allow them to multiply with the gift of children, to fill the earth and be prosperous, as God had commanded man to do after He created him. They are supposed to live in perfect happiness and joy for eternity, with God, in the presence of God forever.

But when mankind disobeyed the Lord and sinned against Him, they were torn away from the Lord. They were torn away because of their disobedience. And because of our sins, we should have deserved death and destruction. We have been corrupted and made unworthy of the Lord. The Lord our God loves us, and He did not want us to suffer destruction because of our faults. That was why He chose to intervene from time to time in order to bring us back to Him.

Through sin and evil, the purity of our relationship with one another had been made impure. We had been infected with the sin of lust, greed, and discord. These had corrupted the original intent the Lord had for us. We lust for pleasure and turn ourselves from the path of righteousness. In our lust and greed, we forgot the holiness and sanctity in which the bond we have between us, specifically the bonds between husband and their wives had been forged, that no man or woman should divide or ever come in between the two whom the Lord had sealed in holy matrimony.

The Lord therefore sent His help to us, to His people, through the leaders and prophets He had sent them throughout the ages past. And finally, He sent His own Son, our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, to be with us and become the source of our salvation, and also our purification and sanctification. Yes, brethren, for the Lord had become one of us, in flesh and blood, that through His incarnation, we are bound to Him in the holy bond much like the holy bond of matrimony between husband and wife as I had mentioned earlier on.

Yes, we belong to Christ and Christ belong to us, and through that same bond He had forged with us, He channeled all of our faults, our sins, and our defilements towards Him, that He may bear all of them, with great faith and courage, during His Passion, His suffering and path to the completion of His mission of salvation. He died on the cross, so that we who are bound to Christ, may also die to ourselves, to our old and sinful selves, and be reborn into a new life, a life of new beginnings, and a life in which holiness can emerge, from the old self of sin.

Through Christ’s resurrection from the dead, we too are all promised and offered the new life in Christ, not just any life, but eternal life in happiness in the presence of God. He has offered us this, and if we accept it, we will be saved. Yes, brethren, our Lord truly loves us and cares for us, that He gave us His only Son, Jesus, not only as our Saviour, but also as our Teacher, the One who reminds all of us of the need to love God and follow His will and His words.

Yes, in the Gospel today, Christ reminds the people the importance and sanctity of marriage, of the holy union between man and woman, that He reiterates the divine and holy nature of such union, that no power in heaven or on earth may disturb or dissolve. However, it is sad indeed that throughout history, too many times the people of God had disobeyed this ordinance, and hence sinned against the Lord and faced condemnation for their adulterous behaviour.

If we ask then, why do so many people commit adultery, by dissolving that holy union and marrying again after divorce? That is because, we do not commit our hundred percent attention and effort into maintaining the health and viability of the holy union, and therefore, when temptation comes, our union, that lacks strong and true love maintaining it, easily dissolves, by the wickedness of our own minds and our hearts, poisoned by lust and our love for worldly pleasures, especially dangerous nowadays, because such temptations are essentially everywhere around us.

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we commemorate the feast of a saint, one who played a great role in the salvation of many. Yes, that is because this saint is none other than St. Stephen of Hungary, which history knew as King Stephen I Arpad, the first King of Hungary, who converted into the faith, and brought his entire people, his entire nation, into God’s holy Church. He is also well known as the Christian King, because of his dedication to the faith and the Church of God, in ensuring that the faith reached all the peoples within the four corners of his kingdom.

The people of Hungary were known once as the Magyars, the pagan and ferocious nomadic barbarians who raided much of central Europe in the ninth and tenth century, a century before the time of St. Stephen’s rule as King. St. Stephen united the people through his rule as king, and he brought his people before the Lord into their salvation. You see, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as the Lord is united to His people, and man in united with his wife, a king and a ruler is also bound to the land and to his people, in the same way as a shepherd is bound to his sheep. He brought Christ to his own nation and opened the door of salvation to his people.

St. Stephen did many works that become the foundation of both his nation of Hungary, and also the Church, whom he greatly strengthened during his reign by ceaseless attempts to bring God to those who still close their hearts against Him. His rule of Hungary as king was filled with justice and benevolence, and he ruled his people with the grace of God and with God’s wisdom. Truly, he is an example to all of us Christians, in his dedication to the faith, to God, and to the people he is bound to in a sacred bond of kingship.

And ultimately, we must not forget that indeed, Christ Himself mentioned about the role of a special group of people, that had been appointed and chosen by God as the shepherds of His people, a special role of complete and total dedication to God and His people. Yes, brethren, it is about the celibacy of our priests and those in the religious life. God had chosen them and taken them away from the world, and taken to be the brides of our Lord.

Yes, that is why our priests and our religious brothers and sisters do not marry, precisely because they are ‘married’ first to the Lord Himself, and secondly, to the people of God, all of us, whom they serve. And if anyone contest why our priests do not marry and seemingly contradict the Lord’s command that man and woman be united as one in sacred bond of matrimony, we can then say that, yes, they are married indeed, in a sacred bond with our God Himself, and with all of us, the sheep of the flock of God, and the priests as our shepherds, bonded to us in a sacred and inviolable bond of love, just as the Lord Himself belongs to us and we belong to the Lord.

They need our prayers, brothers and sisters in Christ, because their works and responsibilities are numerous and they have many room for errors. Remember that they are also humans like us. They need our prayer, our help, and our support. They have given up marriage with another in order to be in union with us and with God, serving a greater purpose. They have given up having families of their own, that they can now be with all of us in one big family of the Church.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, from today on, let us play our respective parts in the Church, to be good and responsible in all our dealings and actions, and to follow the Lord’s will and commandments at all times. Let those who are married, renew their commitments to one another, recalling the promise they made before the Lord, and maintain the holiness of their lives and their union at all times, building up love in their union, that their marriage will be truly blessed. And for our leaders who are ‘bonded’ with us their people, may they also realise the commitment they have to us, and the dedication that they need to put in into their service.

May the Lord bless all of us, all our priests as well today, that we all may remain committed in our own vocations in life, that we will always walk in the ways of the Lord and remain in His love. God be with all of us. Amen.

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Wednesday, 14 August 2013 : 19th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, Priest and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 18 : 15-20

If your brother has sinned against you, go and point out the fault, when the two of you are in private, and if he listens to you, you have won your brother. If he does not listen to you, take with you one or two others, so that the case may be decided by the evidence of two or three witnesses. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the assembled Church. But if he does not listen to the Church, then regard such a one as a pagan, or a publican.

I say to you : whatever you bind on earth, heaven will keep bound; and whatever you unbind on earth, heaven will keep unbound. In like manner, I say to you : if, on earth, two of you are united in asking for anything, it will be granted to you by My heavenly Father; for where two or three are gathered in My Name, I am there among them.

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Tuesday, 6 August 2013 : Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a great feast in the Church, that is the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, when our Lord is transformed into His true divine nature on top of the mountain, and seen by the disciples Peter, James, and John, together with Moses and Elijah, the greatest of the prophets of God.

Yes, Christ our Lord and Saviour is indeed our God and divine in His nature, and He, through His birth by our Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, is also human in nature, the Word of God made flesh and man by the power of the Holy Spirit that reside within the womb of Mary. He is in His nature, fully and completely divine as well as fully and completely human at the same time, separate yet one, one in the person of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yes, our Lord is human, and He has human emotions as well, the love and compassion He has for all of us. He was overwhelmed with sorrow when Lazarus, His beloved friend died and when He witnessed the sorrow of his sisters, Martha and Mary. He showed compassion to the people gathered to listen to His sermons and speeches when they were hungry and without food. He showed compassion and love to the widows and people with afflictions and showed to all of them His great love.

Yet He is also fully divine, the Son of God, who revealed the fullness of His glory to the three of His disciples on the mountain, an occasion which we celebrate today as the Transfiguration. He revealed the truth about Himself and the truth about His power and glory to the three disciples, showing that He is not a mere human, neither is He merely another of the prophets, nor is He merely a liar. Yes, He is the divine Son of God, the Word of God made flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through the Blessed Virgin Mary, was made man, fully human, as the Son of Man.

Then, what is the significance of Moses and Elijah appearing to Jesus on the mountain during His Transfiguration and speaking to Him about His death? The significance is that Jesus is the perfect embodiment of what Moses and Elijah each had embodied, as the greatest of the servants the Lord had sent into this world. Moses embodied the Law of God, the commandments and precepts He had given to His people to follow, while Elijah embodied the teaching authority of the prophets granted by the Lord. Jesus, as the Word of God made flesh is the greatest of all the prophets, delivering directly God’s will and message to mankind, and He also perfectly fulfilled all the prophecies the prophets had told about Him, the awaited Messiah, the awaited Saviour of all men.

In Jesus Christ lie our salvation, the perfection of the Law God had granted us, that is the commandments of love, through His explanation and His revelation on the truth about God and His laws, as well as the fulfillment of the prophecies and the teachings of the prophets in all its perfection. All of these, through His birth, His life, His works and ministries, and finally completed with His suffering and death on the cross, that cross on Calvary, and all are completed, just as He said “It is completed.” Yes, the completion of the grand plan on salvation God had prepared for all of us, that we can finally escape the slavery under sin, into freedom of eternal life in God.

However, to reach there, and to complete the plan, Christ had to bear our sins and our faults, as the sacrificial Lamb, the Lamb of God who bared Himself for us, in our place, and suffer instead of us. For we deserve to be punished severely for our sins, and not just any sins, but the persistence and the heaviness of our sins and evils that we have committed since the days of Adam and Eve our ancestors. Our Lord Jesus is without sin and pure, although He is indeed fully human like us, and yet He was made to bear our sins and our punishment in our place, that we will not suffer and experience death allotted to us for our rebelliousness, but instead have a new hope of eternal life and bliss.

He has to suffer, drink the cup of bitterness that God had given Him to drink, and die a prisoner’s death, a criminal’s death on the cross, judged by a Roman governor, condemned by His own people, scourged with lashes and crooks, and pierced by nails and elevated high between the heaven and the earth, all for our sake. Yet, He came down from that mountain where He showed His glory to His disciples, from the place where He manifested Himself as the great and glorious God, into His suffering and Passion, on the way to Jerusalem to die.

The disciples did not understand this, nor why did Christ do so, and what they wanted was that they remain in that wonderful place, in the fullness of the glory of God, that is because they have tasted heaven on earth on that mountain, and certainly they did not want to leave that feeling behind, that happiness and joy being in the glory and perfection of the Lord. That was why Peter suggested to Jesus to build three tents for Himself, for Moses, and for Elijah.

Christ could simply choose to stay there at the place for eternity, because indeed, He is God, and everything is within His power to do. He can remain forever in His great glory, and He did not have to face suffering, rejection, pain, and death. However, Christ knew what must be done, and despite the vast extent of suffering that He must go through in order to save us from our own destruction, His love for us is so great, that He is willing to go through all that, for our sake. He left His comfort zone, that He can exercise what He had come to this world for, that is to be our Saviour.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate today this great feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us take some time to reflect on ourselves, on our own actions and deeds. Have we overcome our fear of what is outside our comfort zone, and dared to take a step outside that comfort zone, so that we can make use of whatever gifts and talents God had given us, in order to bring love, comfort, and happiness to one another? Or have we chosen to be like the disciples, who prefer to remain in their comfort zone forever?

Brothers and sisters, to follow Christ means to take up our crosses and follow Him, through difficulties and oppositions that will surely face us in this uphill battle we have to reach our salvation in Christ. It does not mean that we should all suffer or die the same way that Christ had suffered or died for our sake, but certainly it means that it will not be easy either. We have to go the extra mile brothers and sisters, in our service and dedication to the people of God, especially those who are poor, in material and in spirit, and those who lack love in them, those who are unloved and forsaken.

Just as Christ chose to go down from the mountain and face His suffering to come proudly and courageously, we too should follow the example Christ had given us, going down that mountain, and gladly make ourselves available to others, sharing our love with them, bearing one another’s crosses on the way to God and His salvation. Let us be courageous to go an extra mile, stepping outside our comfort zone in our service to God and His people.

Do not fear, brothers and sisters in Christ! For the Lord Transfigured on the mountain and glorified in His might will always be with us, and He will bless us tremendously if we follow in His footsteps, carrying our crosses, in our journey, sharing the love and the Spirit He had given to all of us who have faith in Him with one another. May the Lord Jesus Transfigured bless all of us and our endeavours, and remain with us forever. Amen.

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Thursday, 25 July 2013 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of one of the great Twelve Apostles, that is St. James the Lesser, the brother of St. John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple of Christ, and one of the sons of Zebedee, whose mother’s pleading to Christ we heard in the Gospel Reading today. St. James the Lesser was also the first of Christ’s Apostles to be martyred and went to heavenly glory, leading the way for his fellow Apostles, in glorifying Christ and God through his death.

St. James and his brother, St. John were courageous and fearless defenders of the Gospel, and brave messengers of the message of salvation, that is brought by Christ unto this world. They became witnesses to the death and resurrection of Christ. He witnessed the Risen Lord who gave them the mission to spread the Good News to all mankind, to the ends of the earth, and to make disciples of all the nations, a mission which is still true even until today.
Just as St. James was captured, imprisoned, and eventually martyred by the actions of King Herod, the King of Judea at the time, he did not give up his faith, and neither did he slacken from the mission the Lord had entrusted him with, despite the relatively short time that he had in his mission, him being the first to be martyred and die among the Apostles of Christ.

But that reminds us all of the reality of following our Lord Jesus Christ, that as St. Paul mentioned in the first reading today taken from the Second Letter to the faithful in Colossus, that following the Lord is not an easy way, and there will be many persecutions awaiting the faithful, many trials and tribulations inflicted by those who hated the Lord and His people. The devil is at work, brothers and sisters in Christ, because he is ever busy undermining the work of Christ in this world, trying to snatch us away from His embrace, and bring us into the eternal darkness of hell.

However, let us not fear the devil and his devices, Satan with all his wicked tools of corruption, temptation, and blasphemy against the Lord. That is because Christ our Saviour had conquered, and He had shown His might to all creation, freeing mankind forever from their bondage to sin, and therefore to death and Satan himself. For Satan, the evil one, had been our jailor and our master, the slave master ever since our ancestors chose to follow and obey his words rather than the commandments of the Lord.

Christ had given up Himself as the sacrificial victim, offered to everyone without exception, so that out of the outpouring of His love and His blood from the cross, everyone will be washed clean from the taints of their sins, like the way how the saints and martyrs in the vision of St. John, the brother of St. James, washed their cloaks and robes clean and pure white in the Blood of the Lamb, in his vision written in the Book of Revelation, as a vision of the end times.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, while following Christ will be difficult, with opposition from many, and even persecutions and oppressions may accompany it, but the Lord will be with us, walking alongside us. He carries us whenever we are weak and downtrodden. He gives hope to us whenever our hearts are heavy and filled with despair. For He is our God, a loving God, and a Good Shepherd, who cares for His sheep so much, that He would give His life for their sake, that they may live.

Today, brothers and sisters, we are still called by the Lord, to be like His disciples, and to be like His Apostles, particularly like St. James whom we remember today, in our zeal for Him, in our love and dedication for Him, and most importantly, in our actions and words, that we always reflect Christ at all times in them. Never speak a word without contemplating Christ, and never lift up your hand before listening to the Lord’s will.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important that we base ourselves on a good, strong, and vibrant prayer life, because prayer is the way for us to communicate with the Lord our God. Prayers are not supposed to be one-way request hotline for us to bombard the Lord with our needs and petitions, but it is rather a channel for us, to be able to listen to the Word of God speaking silently inside our hearts. Once our internal dispositions are good, based on a good faith and prayerful life, then we can embark on our mission of love, that is to make disciples of all the nations, by preaching the Good News of salvation, to the ends of the earth.

In his Epistle, that is the Epistle of James, St. James wrote especially about how faith without good works is the same as a dead faith. There can be no salvation without a living faith, that is faith made alive with good works based on the love of God. Therefore, it is important that we have a good prayer life and a heart dedicated to the Lord, and use this love in our heart, to do good for our neighbours, our brothers and sisters in need, that our faith is made alive, because we practice our faith, in following the Lord’s commands, that is to love one another just as we love ourselves.

The world today has ever greater need for missionaries and labourers of Christ, as more and more people are in need of God’s love and mercy. More and more people are turned away from the Lord because the world and its goodness have deceived them and led them away from the true path towards the Lord. Materialism and consumerism had made so many people paying less attention to the very God who had saved them from damnation, and they turned their backs on the Lamb who had shed His blood for their sake.

Be not afraid, and inspired by the zeal and example of St. James the Apostle, and the other Apostles and disciples of Christ, let us renew our effort to make a difference in our world, by bringing Christ into it, and fearlessly preaching the truths of the Gospel. We do not have to aim high nor go far, brothers and sisters, because we should indeed begin within our own families, within our own circle of friends, and within our own respective societies.

Have we as a family or within our friendships reflect Christ in all our words, deeds, and actions? Have we showed love in all the dealings we have with others. Do we bring life and love to others through what we have done to them? Have we brought peace to people who are in conflict and have we stood up for those who had been unjustly treated and persecuted?

All of us can do our own respective parts to play in our own respective communities, be it at home or outside, between our friends and our families. Let us all then resolve, and renew our commitment to the Lord, to be truly His disciples, not just in name, but also in our actions, and every words that leave our mouth. Let us bring light to all the nations, the Light of Christ, which reveals the way to the salvation of Christ.

Let us pray also for all the participants of the World Youth Day, which is now ongoing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that the youths of God will be new missionaries and new disciples of the Lord, committed to their mission, to bring the Good News to all, to comfort the sorrowful, to bless and heal the sick, and to love those who are unloved and rejected by the society.

St. James the Apostle, pray for us and intercede for our sake, all of us sinners and weak at heart, to the Lord our God, that He will strengthen us and give us His Spirit that we will all be courageous to glorify Him and to show Him to the world, a world that still lies in darkness, and badly in need of the Light of Christ. May God bless us all and give us all courage and faith. Amen.

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Sunday, 21 July 2013 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Colossians 1 : 24-28

At present I rejoice when I suffer for you; I complete in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, which is the Church. For I am serving the Church since God entrusted to me the ministry to make the Word of God fully known.

I mean that mysterious plan that for centuries and generations remained secret, and which God has now revealed to His holy ones. God willed to make known to them the riches and even the Glory that His mysterious plan reserved for the pagan nations : Christ is in you and you may hope God’s Glory.

This Christ we preach. We warn and teach everyone true wisdom, aiming to make everyone perfect in Christ.

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Saturday, 20 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Christ had delivered us from the hands of the devil and bring us to the land of the living, that is new life in Him, and the hope of eternal life together with the saints and the angels of the Lord, for eternity. He had come, He had been victorious, and He had conquered, a glorious king triumphant over His enemies, that is Satan and his followers, his fallen angels.

He did not let His people to live forever in suffering and oppression, as He once rescued the people of Israel, the people He had first chosen among the nations, from the oppression and tyranny of the Egyptians. So the same He had done too, for all of us, all mankind, without exception, to free us all from the tyranny of the true evil, that is Satan and all sins.

He sent forth His Son to be our hope, our rescuer, and our Redeemer. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born as a humble man, had died on the cross for all of us, that through His death, and ultimately, His glorious resurrection, He broke forever the yoke of sin on all of us. Our debts of sin were paid by the ultimate price of His Most Precious Body and Blood, which He offered freely on the cross for all of us, God’s beloved children.

To those who follow the ways of the Lord, and those who repented their sins and turned back to face the Lord their God, with all their hearts, with all their strength and power, and in the true spirit of repentance in sincerity, the Lord will reward them with forgiveness, love, and His eternal embrace. He will welcome them into His kingdom and bring all of them into the land of eternal happiness, just as He had once promised the people of Israel and Abraham, their father, that they will inherit the land of prosperity, of flowing milk and honey.

But those who ignored His call and His mercy, and those who disobeyed Him will receive what is their due, that is punishment for sins and death, a fate that awaited all of us, because of our rebellion against God through sin, but which our Saviour, Jesus Christ had voided for all of us through His sacrifice on the cross, but a fate that will not be voided for those who reject Christ and persecute His people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us not harden our hearts the way that Pharaoh had done in his refusal to let the people of Israel go free from their slavery. Let us rather open our hearts to God’s love and His Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit will come into us and dwell within us, transforming us from the children of darkness and sin, into children of God, that is of love and light. He is a loving God and a merciful Lord, who will forgive us from our faults and rebellion, but only if we would open our hearts. He is a just God, and One who hates all evil and sin, and therefore, if we harden our hearts and close them against Him, there will be only one sentence that awaits us, which is death, eternal damnation in hell.

Today, brothers and sisters, we commemorate the feast day of St. Apollinaris, a bishop of the early Roman Empire, one of the early leaders of the Church, who was martyred in his ministry and kept his faith to the Lord till the end faithfully. St. Apollinaris with great zeal preached the Good News of the Lord throughout many parts of the then Roman Empire, across the Mediterranean Sea, not unlike what St. Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles had done just decades before St. Apollinaris did.

St. Apollinaris persevered with great courage and faith, despite numerous difficulties he received along his mission and his preaching. Many opposed him, not least the pagan priests and rulers, who viewed his teachings as a threat to their influences in the society, and who also viewed him as both a rival and a rebel to the Imperial authority.

Why rebel? Because St. Apollinaris preached the Word of God in Christ Jesus, that is the Saviour of the world, in the belief in the One, true and only God, which contradicted directly with the pagan worships at the time, particularly when the contemporary Roman Emperors were increasingly worshipped as divine even when they were still living. As Christians do not worship anyone other than God, they were somewhat seen as traitors by the Romans, for rejecting that the Emperor is divine.

As such, St. Apollinaris, who preached the Gospel and led the early Christians as bishop, the path was really tough, and persecutions and rejections were very common. In the end, even St. Apollinaris, following the Apostles and disciples of Christ before him, was put to death in sacred martyrdom. Following Christ is never easy, brothers and sisters, because we have to carry our own crosses, with Christ, on the long path to salvation. Yet Christ had made the path straight for us, if we believe in Him and remain faithful in Him, that we will not go astray, and remain in the true path towards the Lord and eternal happiness.

The people of Israel too endured suffering in the desert in their journey. Following the Lord is not easy, but in the end, if we remain faithful, the Lord would reward us greatly, with none other than everlasting life and eternal happiness, that our lives of suffering would truly be worth living for the sake of the ultimate reward at the end.

But if we are not faithful, and go astray in our path, then we risk death as our ultimate end. The people of Israel constantly grumbled about their suffering and disobeyed the Lord many times, through Moses, whom they disobeyed so often as their hearts were hardened against the Lord. They did not live to see the Promised Land, and died in the desert as their punishment. So, the lesson is that, all of us should do our best, to remain faithful always and ever loving to the Lord our God. Our Lord who loves us wants our love in return, that we remain in Him just as He remain in all of us, within our hearts.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, and through the example of St. Apollinaris, may we be inspired to always persevere in our mission to bring the Good News to all nations, to the ends of the earth, without fear, and with zeal and fire of the faith in our hearts. St. Apollinaris, pray for us, and may God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the story of salvation, the liberation of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. They had been brought with great power from the yoke of the Pharaohs into the new journey towards their Promised Land. In his stubborn mind and hardened hearts, the Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go repeatedly, valuing them greatly as assets for his great Empire, as the builders of his cities and the labour force for many of his projects. In his ambition, pride, and arrogance, he thought that he could do away with the anger of God, but as history told us, he could not.

God smote Egypt hard with plagues of fire, ice, locusts, darkness, and many others, but their lack of repentance made God to deal with them firmly in a last punishment. A punishment originally crafted by the Pharaoh to be aimed to the Israelites, was overturned by the Lord to be aimed at the people of Egypt instead, and not even Pharaoh was spared. That punishment was the death sentence for all the firstborn sons, first intended for the Israelites, but then changed by the Lord to be the firstborn sons of their Egyptian slave masters.

Those who obeyed His will gave a sacrifice of the blood of the lamb, an unblemished lamb, as a sign of their salvation, and God passed over the houses of the faithful, marked by the blood of the lamb, that none of their firstborn sons were killed by the angel of death passing through the land of Egypt at that night of the first Passover. He showed His mercy and love to the people of Israel and gave them His care.

That covenant God had with His people was renewed, in a new salvation, a new liberation. Just as once the Lord had brought His hand to save His people from slavery in Egypt, and freed them from the yoke of the Pharaohs, He made His move once again, to save mankind, and liberate all of them, without exception, from the yoke of Satan, from the slavery of evil and sin.

For that purpose, He sent none other than Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, to be our Saviour. He sent His own Son, to be born of the Virgin Mary, to be a humble man, one of us, to suffer with us, to be with us, and most importantly, to give Himself up for us, as the Lamb of God. Just as the lamb was sacrificed and its blood became the symbol of salvation for the people of Israel, so had the Lamb of God gave His Blood, the Most Precious Blood, freely for our own salvation. His Blood pouring down from the cross cleanses all of us and made us whole once again.

To those who believe and accepts His Blood, the same happened as what had happened at that First Passover. Those who receive the Most Precious gifts of the Lord, that is His own Body and His own Blood, just as the lamb sacrificed at the First Passover had given its body and blood for the people of Israel, will be saved, because, when we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, we take in the Lord Himself through His Body and Blood in the bread and wine transformed, into ourselves, and in us, the Lord will be able to see an unmistakeable mark, mark that we all belong to Him.

The Lord who sees that we belong to the Lord will then ‘pass over’ us, and we are free, free from death and the fate that awaited us, just as the people of Israel had been passed over by the Lord and His angels of death, because we have received the Lord and accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour. We who put our faith and complete trust in the Lord will not taste death but will be given eternal life. But to those who rejected Him and His free offering of Himself, He will show His wrath and anger, and they will face damnation in hell, and because they rejected Him, they too, will then be rejected.

He is the Lord of the Sabbath and the Lord of all laws, and He had rebuked the Pharisees, who had been trapped in their own petty observances of the law, which included the laws made by men, so that they entirely missed the purpose of the Law that God had given the people of Israel. That Law was meant for the people so that they will love God, and give themselves entirely, with all their hearts, with all their soul, and with all their being, to the Lord, the offering of oneself, which the Lord valued much more than the offering of sacrifices of lambs and goats.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reaffirm our commitment and dedication to the Lord, pouring out to Him our hearts and our sincere love for Him, that He will also bless us with everlasting grace and blessing. Let us follow Him and obey His will always, through both our complete faith in Him, and also through love that we show to our fellow brothers and sisters in this world, particularly those in the greatest need for our help.

Let us not be complacent, brothers and sisters, but use all the opportunities in our power to bring salvation closer to many of those who have yet to manage to listen to the Word of God. Let us be proactive in carrying out our faith, that it will always remain alive and will not be stagnant. Let us reflect life, hope, and love in all the things we say, in all the things we do, and in all our deeds. May God who has liberated us from sin and evil, bring us ever closer into His embrace. Amen.