Monday

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Monday, 31 January 2022 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Bosco, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 15 : 13-14, 30 and 2 Samuel 16 : 5-13a

A messenger came to report to David that the Israelites were siding with Absalom. Then David said to all his servants who were with him in Jerusalem, “Let us flee, for we cannot resist Absalom. Go quickly, lest he come hurriedly and overtake us. Surely he will put the city to the sword if he can bring disaster upon us.”

David himself went up the Mount of Olives, weeping. He was barefooted and had his head covered, and all the people who were with him had their heads covered and wept as they went. When king David came to Bahurim, a man from the clan of Saul’s family named Shimei, son of Gera, came out cursing him. He threw stones at David and his officers although the king’s men and warriors flanked the king on the right and left.

As he yelled curses, Shimei said, “Leave! Leave! You man of bloodshed, you wicked man! YHVH has brought down on your head all the blood of the family of Saul. You became king in his place, but God has now placed the kingdom in the hands of your son Absalom. Ruin has come upon you because you are a wicked man.”

Then Abishai, son of Zeruiah, said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go and cut his head off.” But the king said, “Why should I listen to you, sons of Zeruiah? If YHVH has ordered him to curse me, who shall ask him why he acts like this?”

Then David said to Abishai and his officers, “If my own son wants to kill me, how much more this Benjaminite! Leave him alone and let him curse me if YHVH has ordered him to do so. Perhaps YHVH will look on my affliction and turn to good things the curses heaped on me today.”

So David and his men went on their way while Shimei, following on the hillside opposite him.

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Monday, 24 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, we are called to remember the love that God has shown upon us, His beloved people that He raised for us His Saviour, born of the House of David, the great King of Israel just as He has promised and revealed through the various prophecies, in Jesus Christ, Son of God and Heir of David. We are reminded from the Scripture readings today what it means for us to follow the Lord and to be faithful to Him.

In our first reading today, we heard from the the second book of the prophet Samuel regarding the time when David was elected and affirmed as the King over all of the Israelites. For the context, David had earlier on been chosen by God as the new King over all Israel to replace Saul, the first and previous King of Israel. But Saul and David ended up in conflict and rivalry, in which Saul attempted in several occasions to kill David and remove him as a threat to his rule.

When later on King Saul was killed at Mount Gilboa during a battle with the Philistines, the people were divided between those who supported David to be King of Israel and those who supported Ishbaal, Saul’s son. The conflict lasted for a while in a brief civil war before finally the whole nation was united under the leadership of David. The elders and the whole people asked David to be their king, and he finally led the Israelites to many years of glory.

He built his kingdom and the great city of Jerusalem, to be the place where God would dwell, as he himself planned for the House of God, that would eventually be built by his son, Solomon. The Lord provided for His people and guided them, and gave them great prosperity and happiness so long as they obeyed him and listened to Him and His words, as they did during the reigns of David and Solomon, and other good kings. But the people fell again and again into sin and disobedience against God.

Yet, the Lord still patiently loved His people, all of us His beloved children and creation. He Who created us all out of love would not want to see us destroyed and crushed under the sins and evils we have committed, and therefore just as He has chosen David to be the leader, shepherd and King over His people, thus, He sent His own Son, the Divine Word, to be born and incarnate in the flesh, born into the House of David to fulfil the promises He had made to His people and to David long ago.

Through Christ, God had endeavoured to lead us all out of the misery of evil and darkness, and provided us all with a sure and certain path into the light of His presence. He revealed His truth and love to us, and yet, as we have heard in the Gospel passage today, there were still people who hardened their hearts against Him, despite everything that He had done for them all. We heard how the teachers of the Law were accusing the Lord of colluding with Beelzebul, the prince of demons in order to perform His miracles.

That was something that happened due to the pride, ego and arrogance of the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, who thought that they knew it better, and they could not accept the fact that someone not from within their ranks could have gotten such great popularity, spoke with such great wisdom, truth and authority, that they felt threatened and they gave in to their desires and temptations which resulted in them foolishly opposing the good works of the Lord.

Many of us are often like that too, brothers and sisters in Christ. Many of us often hardened our hearts against the Lord and ignored Him and His love, and many of us had done things to spite the Lord, rejecting His compassion and kindness for worldly things and ambitions, for other things that distracted us from the truth about just how much God has loved us and how precious all of us are to Him.

Today, all of us should be inspired by the faith and the good examples set by St. Francis de Sales, a great saint, bishop and Doctor of the Church, whose life and dedication to the Lord can inspire us to be better Christians and better followers and witnesses of His truth and love. St. Francis de Sales was the Bishop of Geneva during the height of the Counter Reformation efforts in countering the divisions in the Church and among the Christian faithful due to the reformation earlier on.

He was born a noble, but encounters with the Lord and some questions about the faith eventually led him to seek the Lord more closely and he then chose to become a priest. Against initial family opposition, St. Francis de Sales finally gave up his rights and inheritance and became a priest. He dedicated himself a lot for the people he was working with, and in everything he had been entrusted to do. And later on as the Bishop of Geneva, he tirelessly involved himself in reaching out to many Christians and including those who have separated themselves from the Church.

St. Francis de Sales also wrote extensively about the faith which influenced and impacted many even long after his passing. His enormous contributions eventually led him to be declared a saint and a Doctor of the Church. Through his dedication and lifetime of service to God, all of us ought to be inspired to follow his great examples in walking the path of God faithfully ourselves.

Let us all therefore renew our commitments to be faithful to the Lord. Let us be committed and full of love for Him, and do whatever we can to glorify the Lord and His Name through our every acts, words and deeds, in every opportunities in our lives. Let us glorify our Lord and King, He Who has chosen and raised David to be King over His people, and Who has come down upon us Himself, to be our King forever. Amen.

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Monday, 24 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 3 : 22-30

At that time, the teachers of the Law, who had come from Jerusalem, said, “He is the power of Beelzebul : the chief of the demons helps Him to drive out demons.”

Jesus called them to Him, and began teaching them by means of stories, or parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a nation is divided by civil war, that nation cannot stand. If a family divides itself into groups, that family will not survive. In the same way, if Satan has risen against himself and is divided, he will not stand; he is finished.”

“No one can break into the house of a strong man in order to plunder his goods, unless he first ties up the strong man. Then indeed, he can plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, every sin will be forgiven humankind, even insults to God, however numerous. But whoever slanders the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He carries the guilt of his sin forever.”

This was their sin when they said, “He has an unclean spirit in Him.”

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Monday, 24 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 88 : 20, 21-22, 25-26

In the past, You spoke in a vision; You said of Your faithful servant : “I have set the crown upon a mighty one; on one chosen from the people.”

I have found David My servant, and, with My holy oil, I have anointed him. My hand will be ever with him; and My arm will sustain him.

My faithfulness and love will be with him; and, by My help, he will be strong. I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.

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Monday, 24 January 2022 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Samuel 5 : 1-7, 10

All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “We are your bone and flesh. In the past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led Israel. And YHVH said to you, ‘You shall be the shepherd of My people Israel and you shall be commander over Israel.’”

Before YHVH, king David made an agreement with the elders of Israel who came to him at Hebron, and they anoint him king of Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for forty years : he reigned over Judah, from Hebron, seven and a half years; and over Israel and Judah, from Jerusalem, for thirty-three years.

The king and his men set out for Jerusalem to fight the Jebusites who lived there. They said to David, “If you try to break in here, the blind and the lame will drive you away,” which meant that David could not get in. Yet David captured the fortress of Zion that became the “city of David.”

And David grew more powerful, for YHVH, the God of Hosts, was with him.

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Monday, 17 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are called to reflect on the need for us to have a new attitude in life when we follow Christ, and not to continue living our lives the way that the world always expects us to live our lives. As Christians we are called to be different in that we follow the path that the Lord has shown us and to embark on this journey of faith in life, with God as our Guide and as our focus. This is our calling as Christians that we should embrace wholeheartedly.

In our first reading today we heard from the Book of the prophet Samuel regarding the time when King Saul of Israel disobeyed the Lord and His will, following the whims of his own judgment and desires instead of obeying the Lord completely and trusting in Him. King Saul did not listen to the Lord’s words telling him to completely destroy the Amalekites, a group of people that had always harassed and attacked the Israelites all the way from the time of their Exodus. Instead, King Saul spared their property and wealth, their herd and even their king and women, contrary to the Lord’s words.

As such, because of this disobedience, King Saul led the people of Israel into sin as to him had been granted the leadership and the guidance of the people as the King of Israel. If the leader falls into sin, then so will the people and all those entrusted under him may fall into sin as well. That is why those entrusted with leadership has to be upright, just and committed to the path that they have been called to follow, to be obedient and faithful servant of God in the way that Samuel himself had done, but which King Saul had failed to do.

Saul failed because he allowed worldly ways, customs and habits, all the worldly desires and temptations, the temptations of power, wealth and glory to distract and mislead him down the wrong path. Saul allowed himself to be swayed by those things, and tried to make an excuse of wanting to offer some of those that he spared as offerings to God, but in truth, he did all that he had done because he wanted to increase his own wealth, his own prestige and his own standing, perhaps by negotiating with the Amalekites, and for various other reasons. But this is plain disobedience and refusal to follow God’s path.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus and His words speaking to His disciples and the people, using a parable to make His intent clear to them. The Lord spoke about the parable of the new cloth and old cloth, new wine and wineskin and old wine and wineskin. Through this parable, the Lord wanted to make it clear to all of us that following the Lord often requires us to change our way of life, not to adhere to the past norms of the world and all the things that we usually are accustomed to. This is why, linking to the previous part, the disobedience of King Saul, all of us are called to reflect on this as well.

The Lord used this parable because at that time, the people would have been aware of the way wineskins were used to store wine and how clothes were made and repaired. He used such simple examples as means to deliver His message to the people, to make them aware of what they were supposed to do in order to be His genuine followers. They have to change their ways to suit the path that the Lord has shown them, that is the path of righteousness and justice, of faith and commitment to His truth. They should not remain in their old ways or continue to walk down the path of sin.

As the Lord mentioned in our Scripture passages today, what He wanted from us is not merely just lip service or mere appearances only, as King Saul had intended to do. He wanted to offer sacrifices to the Lord from the ones he spared in the battle against the Amalekites as an excuse for the greed in his heart for power, wealth and majesty. What the Lord needed from us is our love and commitment for Him, for us to live according to what we have been taught to do, through the Church and the Scriptures. And we also have many good role models to follow in that endeavour.

One of them, whose feast day we celebrate today, is none other than St. Anthony the Abbot, also known as St. Anthony the Great. He was one of the earliest Christian monks and one of the pioneers of monasticism in Christendom, dedicating his life to the service of God by withdrawing to the wilderness of Egypt. He left everything he had and dedicated himself to God wholeheartedly. St. Anthony spent many years in this state of spiritual journey and purification, while it was told that the devil often sent other demons and fallen angels to strike at him. He endured it all with faith and grace.

His works then came to fruition with the advent of monasticism in Christianity, as more and more people who considered themselves as his disciples came to follow his examples and began to lead a life of purity and fidelity to God. They strove to seek the Lord and commit themselves to Him, not swayed by the temptations of the world, and changed themselves for the better, much in the same way as the Lord’s exhortations in our Gospel today had been made clear to us, that we ought to change our ways to adapt to that of the Lord’s ways.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, having been inspired by St. Anthony, let us all therefore commit ourselves to the Lord anew with a renewed spirit and zeal. Let us all be ever more genuine Christians not just in appearances only, but even more importantly, in spirit and in all things. May God be with us always and may He empower us that we may walk with Him faithfully, and that we may find it in us to glorify His Name by our every words, actions and deeds. Amen.

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Monday, 17 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 2 : 18-22

At that time, when the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting, some people asked Jesus, “Why is it, that both the Pharisees and the disciples of John fast, but Yours do not?”

Jesus answered, “How can the wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the Bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the day will come, when the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.”

“No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear away from the old cloth, making a worse tear. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins, for the wine would burst the skins, and then both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”

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Monday, 17 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 49 : 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23

Not for your sacrifices do I reprove you, for your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I need no bull from your stalls, nor he-goat from your pens.

What right have you to mouth My laws, or to talk about My Covenant? You hate My commands and cast My words behind you.

Because I was silent while you did these things, you thought I was like you. But now I rebuke you and make this charge against you. Those who give with thanks, offerings, honour Me; but the one who walks blamelessly. I will show him the salvation of God.

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Monday, 17 January 2022 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony, Abbot (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Samuel 15 : 16-23

Samuel then told Saul, “Enough! Let me tell you what YHVH said to me last night.” Saul replied, “Please tell me.” So Samuel went on and said, “Though you had no confidence in yourself, you became chief of the tribes of Israel, for YHVH wanted to anoint you king over Israel. Then He sent you with this command, ‘Go. Completely crush the Amalekite offenders, engaging them in battle until they are destroyed.’”

“Why then did you not obey the voice of YHVH but instead swooped down on the spoil, doing what was evil in His sight?” To this, Saul replied, “I have obeyed the voice of YHVH and have carried out the mission for which He sent me. I have captured Agag, king of Amalek and completely destroyed the Amalekites. If my men spared the best sheep and oxen from among these to be destroyed, it was in order to sacrifice them to YHVH, your God, in Gilgal.”

Samuel then said, “Does YHVH take as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to His command? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission better than the fat of rams. Rebellion is like the sin of divination, and stubbornness like holding onto idols. Since you have rejected the word of YHVH, He too has rejected you as king.”

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Monday, 10 January 2022 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are called to reflect on the Lord’s calling for each and every one of us in life, and we are also called to trust in Him, in the path that He has shown us. God has always called on us to follow Him, just as He had called His disciples, to walk in His path and to do His will. Ultimately, it is up to us whether we want to respond to His call or not.

In our first reading today, we heard of the passage from the first Book of the prophet Samuel, in which we heard how the prophet Samuel, one of the greatest prophets in the history of salvation, came to be conceived and born. Samuel was born of his mother Hannah, who had been barren for many years despite a most loving marriage to her husband Elkanah. In addition, Hannah herself was often bullied by Peninnah, Elkanah’s other wife, who despised and was jealous of Elkanah’s love for Hannah.

Thus, today we heard how Hannah was distressed at this bullying by Peninnah, who often teased and harried her for having no child when Peninnah herself had many children. Hannah was truly distressed, and later on, she would come to the House of God, praying before Him and begging Him to listen to her pleas, which the Lord did. And as Hannah also offered her firstborn son to the service of God, hence, when Samuel was conceived and born, he was offered to the Lord and became His servant.

Samuel has been called by God in his youth and he answered the Lord’s call with great faith and vigour. He would go on to dedicate his whole life to the Lord, guiding the Israelites as a great Judge, the last in the line of Judges sent by the Lord to the people of Israel. And as a prophet, he also spoke God’s words and proclaimed His will before the people, leading them and guiding them to the right path, to help them find their way through the darkness of the world.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard how the Lord called His first disciples, whom He called from the fishermen of the Lake of Galilee, namely the brothers St. Peter and St. Andrew, as well as St. James and St. John, the sons of Zebedee. In that occasion, the Lord told all of them to follow Him and be the fishers of men. They would be His instruments in reaching out to the people whom the Lord wanted to call to His presence.

In that calling, the Lord revealed His intentions and love for each and every one of us. As Christians, all of us are called to be the bearers of the Good News of God, which He has entrusted to us as the ones walking in the footsteps of the Apostles. The Lord has called us all to embrace His path and proclaim His truth at every opportunities that He has given us in our lives. We are also charged with the same mission that the Lord has entrusted to His Apostles, to do what He has called us to do, to be His witnesses to all the peoples of all the nations.

Today, we mark the beginning of the first half of the Ordinary Time. Yet, we must not misunderstand the meaning of this Ordinary Time, as it was by no means meant to be ordinary in any way. Instead, it is a time for us to do whatever we can in our daily lives and in our daily actions to be true and faithful witnesses of Our Lord’s truth and to be the ones to do His great and wonderful works. Through us and our exemplary lives, we can inspire so many more to come to believe in the Lord as well, and to follow Him and be saved, together with us.

Let us dedicate ourselves with a new heart and a new spirit, dedicating ourselves to serve the Lord. Let us all draw ever closer to Him and do our very best to bear witness to His truth and love, at each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us always, in our every good endeavours. Amen.