Monday

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Monday, 22 September 2025 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are reminded by the message contained within the Sacred Scriptures which we have heard of the message of hope from God for all of His people. The Lord wants to remind us all through these readings of the Scriptures that if we continue to put our faith and trust in Him, and do our very best to live our lives with genuine faith and understanding of His ways and love, then we shall be provided for and protected by God, and God will always guide us all, and show us the way. And then, God also wants us all to make good use of whatever it is that He has given and blessed us all with, all the blessings, graces and opportunities that He has provided to us, so that we may use them well for the benefit of everyone.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Ezra, we heard of the moment when the Israelites living in exile in Babylon finally had their moment of freedom and emancipation after living in exile for many years. While traditionally it was numbered as seventy years or seven decades, the reality was such that some of those Israelites spent more years in exile while others spent less years in exile in Babylon, and for those people living in the northern kingdom of Israel, which was destroyed by the Assyrians almost two centuries earlier, some of them might have also returned to their ancestral lands as well, and it had been a long wait for all of them regardless. Contextually, the Israelites, the people of God had faced all these trials and challenges, all because their own disobedience against God.

They chose to follow the gods of their neighbours, abandoning the Law and commandments of God, persecuting the prophets and messengers sent into their midst to remind and call them to return to the Lord their God. They chose to embrace their worldly desires and ambitions instead of following the Lord and doing what He has taught and shown them to do, and as a result, they veered further and further away from the path that God has led them to, and as such, they fell from grace and lost the favour which God had once bestowed on them. They became divided and weakened, and they fell into disarray, becoming the object of derision and scorn from their neighbours, and were oppressed, conquered and subjugated by their enemies. Both Israel and Judah, Samaria and Jerusalem were destroyed and many of the people of God were carried into exile.

But the Lord did not forget them and still showed them all His wonderful and patient love as always. He reminded them of this love through His prophets and messengers that He sent to them, promising restoration and reconciliation for them, if they were to embrace Him once again with love and devotion, and with sincere and genuine repentance from their many sins and disobedience. That was what happened then, as God sent them deliverance through the King of Persia, Cyrus the Great, who conquered Babylon and emancipated those people of God who had been living in exile for many decades. He allowed the people of Israel to return to their homeland and to rebuild their lives there, and giving them the freedom once again to worship their God.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the words of the Lord to His disciples in which He told them all with a parable using the example of lamp placed on a lamp-stand for everyone to see to highlight the need for their faith, for the faith that all of us have in the Lord to be lived genuinely in our own respective lives in each and every moments. This means that whatever God has given to us and blessed us with we should not ignore or neglect, or use them for the purposes that are not meant to glorify God. God has given us all various gifts, talents, abilities and opportunities which we should actively use and engage in our daily lives and in everything that we say and do so that in even the smallest things that we do, we will always do the Lord’s good works and proclaim His Good News to all.

The Lord also mentioned that whoever produces more, shall be given more while those who have not produced, even what they had will be taken away from them. This is the same reminder of how each and every one of us need to be active in living our faith, not through grand gestures or amazing achievements, but rather through daily actions and words which truly show that we are indeed God’s holy and beloved people. As Christians, it is imperative that we have to be full of God’s love as always, to love God wholeheartedly as we should, and not like the people of Israel in the past that had been unfaithful to Him. At the same time, we must also love all those around us, and especially those who are truly dearly beloved to us, and we should not neglect them or ignore their needs.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us have been given various responsibilities in our own areas of life, and we are all called to be active and faithful disciples of God, ever mindful of the impact that our words and actions have on everyone around us. Consequently, we should always strive to live our lives ever more faithfully in all things, by becoming closer to God and also to all those whom we love, practicing our genuine faith by showing love and care for everyone, including even to those who have hurt and disappointed us. It is by these actions of love that we are indeed showing tangible signs and evidence that we are God’s beloved people, and it is by those real and tangible actions and works that we can touch the lives of others and help them to come closer to God.

May the Lord our most loving God continue to be with us and guide us all in our respective journeys in life. May He continue to strengthen each and every one of us to carry out our daily activities showing ever greater faith and commitment to Him, so that we may touch the lives of many others around us, and thus helping many to find their way to the Lord as well, through inspiration of our own good and worthy lives filled with God’s grace and love. May God bless our every efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 22 September 2025 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 8 : 16-18

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “No one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a bowl or puts it under the bed; rather, he puts it on a lamp stand, so that people coming in may see the light.”

“In the same way, there is nothing hidden that shall not be uncovered; nothing kept secret, that shall not be known clearly. Now, pay attention and listen well, for whoever produces, will be given more; but from those who do not produce, even what they seem to have will be taken away from them.”

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Monday, 22 September 2025 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 125 : 1-2ab, 2cd-3, 4-5, 6

When YHVH brought the exiles back to Zion, we were like those moving in a dream. Then, our mouths were filled with laughter, and our tongues with songs of joy.

Among the nations it was said, “YHVH has done great things for them.” YHVH has done great things for us, and we were glad indeed.

Bring back our exiles, o YHVH, like fresh streams in the desert. Those who sow in tears will reap with songs and shouts of joy.

They went forth weeping, bearing the seeds for sowing, they will come home with joyful shouts, bringing their harvested sheaves.

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Monday, 22 September 2025 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezra 1 : 1-6

In the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, YHVH willed to fulfil the word He had said through the prophet Jeremiah. So He moved the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, to issue the following command and send it out in writing to be read aloud everywhere in his kingdom : “Thus speaks Cyrus, king of Persia : YHVH, the God of heavens, Who has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, has ordered me to build Him a Temple in Jerusalem, in the land of Judah.”

“To everyone belonging to His people, may his God be with him! Let them go up to Jerusalem with the help of their God and, there, build the House of YHVH, the God of Israel; the God Who is in Jerusalem. In every place where the rest of the people of YHVH live, let the people of those places help them for their journey with silver, gold and all kinds of goods and livestock. Let them also give them voluntary offerings for the House of YHVH which is in Jerusalem.”

Then they rose up – the heads of the families of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and the Levites, and all those whose spirit God had stirred up – and they decided to go and build the House of YHVH. And all their neighbours gave them all kinds of help : gold, silver, livestock and precious objects in great quantity, besides every kind of voluntary offering.

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Monday, 15 September 2025 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day the Church celebrates the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, which is always celebrated on the day following the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Both feasts are indeed related to each other as we cannot separate the sufferings and sorrows of Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows when she witnessed the cruel and most painful sufferings of her Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. Mary’s great sorrow, seeing all that her Son had to undergo for the sake of the salvation of the world indeed reminded us of the great love and devotion which she has always had in following and committing herself to all that God had planned and revealed to her, in everything that He has entrusted to her in the story of our salvation.

In our first reading passage today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of this Epistle spoke of the great obedience which Christ our Lord and Saviour had shown in following the commands and the will of His heavenly Father, in taking up His Cross and bearing upon Himself the whole combined burdens of the sins of the whole world, of all mankind, past, present and future, of all time. Such a seemingly infinitely heavy and impossible burden it may be, but the Lord bore it patiently out of His even greater love for each and every one of us. And this role was what He had been sent into this world for, the Divine Word and Son of God Incarnate Who had been made Son of Man through His mother Mary, who is truly His mother.

And when Christ suffered on the Cross, He really did suffer genuinely, as although He is God, the Divine Word of God, but He is also fully Man at the same time, and He truly did suffer in the flesh, all the pain and wounds that He endured out of love for all of us, and seeing this kind of suffering is something that no one, and especially no mother would have wanted to witness to happen to her own child. This had been presaged and revealed to Mary herself many years previously as we heard in one of our two possible Gospel passages for today, from the Gospel according to St. Luke the Evangelist. At the time when Mary and St. Joseph presented the Child Jesus at the Temple in Jerusalem, the old man of God named Simeon had been promised by the Lord that he would not pass away before beholding in person the Saviour that God had promised all of His people.

It was at that very occasion that Simeon spoke to Mary regarding what she would have to face amidst the upcoming challenges and pains that she would have to suffer as part of the mission which God had entrusted to her. She would face the worst of heartbreaks and sorrow when seeing her own Son being persecuted, suffering and dying before her. And as we heard, Mary listened to the words of Simeon and kept those words in her heart, trusting in the Lord in everything that He had planned, and not even once questioning what the Lord had intended to do with her. As what she had responded to the Archangel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, she is truly the handmaid of the Lord, and she devoted herself wholly to Him, in everything that He had entrusted to her.

And in the other Gospel passage from the Gospel according to St. John the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus was dying on the Cross, and how He entrusted His own Mother Mary to the care of His beloved disciple, St. John himself, and then conversely, also entrusted St. John to the care of His Mother. Through this symbolic act, what in fact happened was the entrustment of all of us mankind, represented by St. John, to the Mother of Our Lord herself, to be our loving and caring Mother, Our Lady and Mother of Sorrows, whose heart had been greatly troubled by the sufferings of her own Son that she had witnessed, as she followed Him throughout the whole Way of the Cross. That is why Mary has always been so passionate and committed to help us all, her own adopted children, to find our way to the salvation in her Son.

Having seen for herself everything that the old man of God, Simeon, had predicted to her, indeed Mary’s heart must have been pained as if she was pierced by many swords.
And yet, she remained firm in her resolve to follow through what had been entrusted to her, and she committed herself ever more to the mission, which therefore should be great inspiration for all of us to follow in our own lives as Christians. Mary is indeed the perfect example of faith, and how each and every one of us should live our own lives so that we may truly align ourselves to the Lord’s will, to everything that He has shown and taught us to do. And while we may encounter a lot of hardships, disappointments and challenges in life, we should remain firm in faith as what Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows has shown us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, from the sufferings and pains that she had encountered, Mary our loving Mother has constantly shown us her love even to this day, as proven by her many efforts and works, in appearing to us at the times of great need. Mary’s proven apparitions in Guadalupe, Lourdes and Fatima, among others, all usually happened during times of great conflicts and turmoils, all of which would cause the downfall of many people through violence and wickedness, and as such, Mary showed herself to remind all of us her children that we should not disobey the Lord but instead remembering that we should turn towards Him and asking Him for His mercy and forgiveness, or else we will suffer the fate of those who have rejected God’s generous offer of mercy, just as how her Son had suffered on the Cross for our sins.

May all of us continue to walk in the path that Our Lord has shown us, and may we continue to put our hope and faith in Him despite the many challenges and hardships that we may have to endure and persevere through in life. May Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, our loving Mother continue to intercede for us all in our journey of faith and life, and may through her patient prayers, intercessions and guidance, many more of us come to seek the Lord and find our true joy and redemption in Him. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 15 September 2025 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 19 : 25-27

At that time, near the cross of Jesus stood His mother, His mother’s sister Mary, who was the wife of Cleophas, and Mary of Magdala. When Jesus saw the mother, and the disciple whom He loved, He said to the mother, “Woman, this is your son.”

Then He said to the disciple, “This is your mother.” And from that moment the disciple took her to his own home.

Alternative reading

Luke 2 : 33-35

At that time, the father and mother of Jesus wondered at what was said about the Child. Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary, His mother, “Know this : your Son is a Sign; a Sign established for the falling and rising of many in Israel, a Sign of contradiction; and a sword will pierce your own soul, so that, out of many hearts, thoughts may be revealed.”

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Monday, 15 September 2025 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 30 : 2-3a, 3bc-4, 5-6, 15-16, 20

In You, o YHVH, I take refuge, may I never be disgraced; deliver me in Your justice. Give heed to my plea, and make haste to rescue me.

Be a Rock of refuge for me, a Fortress for my safety. For You are my Rock and my Stronghold, lead me for Your Name’s sake.

Free me from the snare that they have set for me. Indeed You are my Protector. Into Your hands I commend my spirit; You have redeemed me, o YHVH, faithful God.

But I put my trust in You, o YHVH, I said : “You are my God.” My days are in Your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, from those after my skin.

How great is the goodness which You have stored for those who fear You, which You show, for all to see, to those who take refuge in You!

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Monday, 15 September 2025 : 24th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 5 : 7-9

Christ, in the days of His mortal life, offered His sacrifice with tears and cries. He prayed to Him, Who could save Him from death, and He was heard, because of His humble submission.

Although He was Son, He learnt, through suffering, what obedience was, and, once made perfect, He became the Source of eternal salvation, for those who obey Him.

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Monday, 8 September 2025 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, an occasion in which we celebrate the birth of Mary, the Mother of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and since we believe that Jesus is truly the Son of God and the Divine Word of God Incarnate, therefore, we mark on this day the birth of the Mother of God herself. To those who did not understand fully the importance and significance of Mary’s role in the story of our salvation, they all may indeed wonder why we spend so much time honouring her and celebrating her birthday today, but once they understand everything that happened through Mary, by her faith and obedience, then they shall appreciate why we celebrate this occasion.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Micah, we heard of the words of the Lord made through the prophet Micah sent to the people of God in the southern kingdom of Judah, in which the Lord gave His encouragement to His people, who had been waiting for a long time for the coming of the salvation and deliverance which the Lord had promised to His people. God showed that He is always true to His promises and He would never abandon those who are truly dear and beloved to Him, and He therefore told them how the Saviour would come, although it would still be in the future, and this Saviour would come in the smallest town of the tribe of Judah, in Bethlehem, which happened to be also the city where David, the famous King of Israel came from.

Through this arrangement we can see how God had prepared and planned all things, getting ready everything for our good and benefit, bringing upon us all the manifestation of His love perfectly, made evident and tangible to us through His Son, Who became incarnate in the flesh, becoming truly approachable to us, becoming for us the manifestation of God’s ever generous and enduring love, which He has lavished on us, and made truly real, and sent unto us, not through glorious appearance, but by the simple manifestation through a humble Woman in Nazareth, that of Mary, the one whom God Himself had prepared well in advance to be the one to bear the Saviour of all, the Son of God Himself. And by this great honour, of being the Mother who bore the Son of God within her, as His Mother, we honour Mary and her birthday today.

In the other first reading today, which is the second reading for the case of a Solemnity, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, God’s grace and love had indeed been manifested in this world, from the perspective opposite to that of the prophet Micah. While the prophet Micah spoke of things that had not yet happened, a few centuries prior to the Lord’s coming, St. Paul spoke from the perspective of those who have seen, witnessed, heard and known of everything which the Lord had planned and how He had accomplished them perfectly through His Son, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all Who had been born into this world. 

Then, from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew the Apostle and Evangelist, we heard of the whole long list of the genealogy of Our Lord and Saviour Himself, listing down His descent through Joseph, His foster father, through the House of David and eventually to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the patriarchs of the people of God, the Israelites, and then further back all the way to Adam, the first man that God had created. Through this long genealogy, St. Matthew wanted to highlight that the Lord Jesus, Son of God and the Saviour of all was indeed born of the human race, born as the fulfilment of everything that God had promised to His beloved people, to Adam, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to David and all the Covenant He had made.

And all these became possible because of Mary’s role in accepting her part in the story of salvation. She has accepted what the Lord Himself has revealed to her through the Archangel Gabriel, the Good News of the long awaited salvation which had become manifested in Mary’s acceptance of her role and by the will of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit, the Saviour has become manifested in the flesh in the hallowed womb of Mary. God has blessed Mary above all other children of mankind, because Mary herself would become the bearer of the Saviour, the Son of God Himself, and hence, as the bearer of the New Covenant of God, as the New Ark of the Covenant, Mary must be hallowed and set aside much as the original Ark of the Covenant had been made from the finest materials and blessed by God.

The Church believes and teaches that Mary has been conceived without the taint of original sin, in the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, as this is made by the singular grace of God granted to her, nothing being impossible for God, to keep sin away from corrupting her, unlike all the other children of mankind which had been corrupted by sin due to the disobedience of our forefathers. It is unfitting for the one to bear the Lord Himself within her to be tainted and corrupted by sin, and that was why the Lord preserved Mary and set her aside in this manner. And this is why we rejoice today at her birthday celebration, marking the moment that after she had been conceived without sin in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, the bearer of the world’s salvation was finally shown to the world at last.

Our honour and respect, veneration and praise for Mary is not just based on her role as the Mother of God and the special nature of her conception, but also her total obedience to God and complete love for the Lord, which is why she is truly ‘Full of Grace’, being full of God’s grace and love. And we look up to Mary as our loving Mother and also as the perfect role model for each and every one of us to follow in becoming good and faithful disciples of our Lord. Mary’s perfect obedience and faith, her great and constant love for the Lord, and also the most wonderful love that she has shown to her Son, and which she also now shows to us all, her adopted children, are examples for us to follow so that we may also live our lives in the same way that she had lived hers with great faith.

May our Blessed and loving Mother Mary continue to show us all her love and inspire in us all a strong faith and devotion to her Son, our Lord and Saviour. May she continue to pray and intercede for us all her children, all sinners in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness. As we thank the Lord for her birthday today, let us all continue to strive to be more like her in all things, in faith, hope and love, now and always. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Monday, 8 September 2025 : Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 1 : 1-16, 18-23

This is the account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (their mother was Tamar), Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron of Aram. Aram was the father of Aminadab, Aminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon.

Salmon was the father of Boaz. His mother was Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed. His mother was Ruth. Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, the king. David was the father of Solomon. His mother had been Uriah’s wife. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Then came the kings : Abijah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah.

Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. After the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel and Salathiel of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, Abiud of Eliakim, and Eliakim of Azor. Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, and Akim the father of Eliud. Eliud was the father of Eleazar, Eleazar of Matthan, and Matthan of Jacob.

Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and from her came Jesus Who is called the Christ – the Messiah. This is how Jesus Christ was born : Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her.

While he was pondering over this, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet : The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and He will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Matthew 1 : 18-23

This is how Jesus Christ was born : Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her.

While he was pondering over this, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet : The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and He will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us.