Monday

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Monday, 9 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest and 119 Companions, Chinese Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Matthew 9 : 18-26

At that time, while Jesus was speaking to the disciples of John and the Pharisees, an official of the synagogue came up to Him, bowed before Him and said, “My daughter has just died, but come and place Your hands on her, and she will live.”

Jesus stood up and followed him with His disciples. Then a woman, who had suffered from a severe bleeding for twelve years, came up from behind and touched the edge of His cloak; for she thought, “If I only touch His cloak, I will be healed.”

Jesus turned, saw her and said, “Courage, my daughter, your faith has saved you.” And from that moment, the woman was cured. When Jesus arrived at the official’s house and saw the flute players and the excited crowd, He said, “Get out of here! The girl is not dead. She is only sleeping!” And they laughed at Him.

But once the crowd had been turned out, Jesus went in and took the girl by the hand, and she stood up. The news of this spread through the whole area.

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Monday, 9 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest and 119 Companions, Chinese Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 144 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

I will praise You, day after day; and exalt Your Name forever. Great is YHVH, most worthy of praise; and His deeds are beyond measure.

Parents commend Your works to their children and tell them Your feats. They proclaim the splendour of Your majesty and recall Your wondrous works.

People will proclaim Your mighty deeds; and I will declare Your greatness. They will celebrate Your abundant kindness, and rejoice in singing of Your justice.

Compassionate and gracious is YHVH, slow to anger and abounding in love. YHVH is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

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Monday, 9 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest and 119 Companions, Chinese Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Hosea 2 : 16, 17b-18, 21-22

So I am going to allure her, lead her once more into the desert, where I can speak to her tenderly. There, she will answer Me, as in her youth, as when she came out of the land of Egypt.

On that day, YHVH says, “You will call Me my Husband, and never again : my Baal. You will be My spouse forever, betrothed in justice and integrity; we will be united in love and tenderness. I will espouse you in faithfulness; and you will come to know YHVH.”

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Monday, 2 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard how God reminded Israel, through His prophet Amos, of how He has blessed His people and helped them throughout the ages, protecting them from their enemies and guiding them through their difficult years. Yet, they disobeyed Him and did all sorts of things that are sinful and abhorrent to Him. It is no surprise that God was angry at His people.

After all, they have abandoned Him to worship pagan idols and gods, all of which have no role whatsoever in the history and life of the Israelites, unlike what God had done so generously for them. Instead, they refused to follow His laws and obey His commandments, and they prefer to walk in their own ways and listen to the desires of their own hearts and minds.

They committed all sorts of wicked things and sinful acts before the Lord, and they ended up falling deeper and deeper into the darkness of sin. But in the end, God still loved them and cared for them. Despite His anger against their sins and wickedness, He still loved them for He created them to be His children. And that was why, He sent them prophets and messengers, like the prophet Amos, to remind them of His love, and to call them to repent and turn away from their sins.

And to this end, in order to save His people, He sent all of us, the ultimate deliverer and Saviour, in Jesus Christ, His Son, Whom He sent into this world, to bring forth the truth and the Good News of His salvation to all of us. In the Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord Jesus teaching and working among the people, and a teacher of the Law came to Him and said that he would follow Him wherever He went.

This is what the Lord Jesus also wants from us, that each and every one of us come fo follow Him and walk in His ways. But as He also mentioned in the Gospel passage to the disciple who hesitated because he wanted to bury his father first, He called them to a life of total commitment and obedience to the will of God. And this is what each and every one of us as Christians should also be doing in our own lives.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that all of us as Christians must truly be Christ-centric in our lives, in our every actions and deeds, so that Christ is always at the centre and is the focus of our lives. For the people of Israel in the past, God was not at the centre of their lives, and that is why, they easily forgot about God and the love which He had shown them, for so many years.

And it means that as Christians, all of us must be wholly oriented towards the Lord, in every aspects of our lives, so that we may truly have Him as the direction for our lives, and we may be internally oriented towards Him, in our every actions and deeds, in our every words and in every moments we interact with one another. This is very important for each one of us as Christians.

Let us keep this in mind, as we carry on with our lives. Let us all draw closer to God, and do our best, in whatever way we can, in order to serve the Lord with greater zeal and with greater purpose, abandoning our past sinfulness and wickedness, and seek the Lord with a contrite heart, desiring His love, mercy and forgiveness. May the Lord bless us all and remain with us throughout this journey. Amen.

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Monday, 2 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 8 : 18-22

At that time, when Jesus saw the crowd pressing around Him, He gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. A teacher of the Law approached Him; and said, “Master, I will follow You wherever You go.”

Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Another disciple said to Him, “Lord, let me go and bury my father first.” But Jesus said to him, “Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

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Monday, 2 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 49 : 16bc-17, 18-19, 20-21, 22-23

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

You join a thief when you meet one; you keep company with adulterers. You have a mouth of evil and a deceitful tongue.

You speak ill of your brother, and slander your own mother’s son. 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.

Give this a thought, you, who forget God; lest I tear you to pieces with no one to help 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, 2 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Amos 2 : 6-10, 13-16

YHVH says this, “Because Israel has sinned, not once but three times; and even more, I will not relent; They sell the just for money and the needy for a pair of sandals; they tread on the head of the poor and trample them upon the dust of the earth, while they silence the right of the afflicted; a man and his father go to the same woman to profane My Holy Name; they stretch out upon garments taken in pledge, beside every altar; they take the wine of those they swindle and are drunk in the House of their God.”

“It was I Who destroyed the Amorites before them, whose height was like the height of the cedar; a people as sturdy as an oak. I destroyed their fruit above and their roots below. It was I Who brought you up from the land of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness to take possession of the land of the Amorites.”

“Behold, I will crush you to the ground, as a cart does when it is full of sheaves. The swift shall be unable to flee and the strong man shall lose his strength. The warrior shall not save himself nor the bowman stand his ground. The swift of foot shall not escape nor the horseman save himself. Even the most stout-hearted among the warriors shall flee away naked on that day,” says YHVH.

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Monday, 25 June 2018 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the account of the downfall of the northern kingdom of Israel, which fell to the onslaught of the Assyrian Empire, which burnt down its capital, Samaria, and ransacked the cities of the Israelites, carrying off their inhabitants to exile in faraway lands of Mesopotamia. This is the punishment that was due for the people who have repeatedly disobeyed the Lord and sinned in various ways.

This is after repeated reminders and helps which God had put in place through His many prophets and messengers, whom He sent to the northern kingdom of Israel, such as Elijah and Elisha among many others. Yet, the people and their kings refused to turn from their wicked ways and from their sins. In the end, their actions and wicked deeds justified their punishment, and God judged them according to those sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the theme of today’s Scripture readings, that is on the matter of judgment, and not just any kind of judgment, but in particular, Christian judgment. And the most common misunderstanding which we have on this time and age is that, we misunderstood the Lord’s words and instructions in this Scripture passage, by saying that the Lord Jesus asked us that we must not judge or should not judge.

That is because we read the Gospel passage literally and understand what the Lord said and not trying to understand what He really wanted to deliver to us. The Lord did not actually say that we cannot judge anybody or anyone at any situation at all. Instead, what He wanted to tell us is that, before we judge, first of all we must always reflect first whether we ourselves have done the same or even worse than what we want to judge.

He said that by whatever standards we judge, then we will also be judged by others. It is quite natural because if we judge others for their wrongdoings, and yet, we ourselves have done the same or even worse deeds, then others who see us and witness our actions and deeds will judge us in the same way. Do we want that to happen to us? Surely we do not want. Yet, this is what we mankind commonly do, day after day, again and again.

The Lord alone is the perfect Judge, for He Himself cannot be judged, for He is all perfect and good, and perfect in everything He has done. By whatever standards that we want to judge God, it is impossible to do so. That is why, God alone is worthy of judging us for our every actions, our every shortcomings, words, deeds and everything that we are. However, once again, this does not mean that we cannot ‘judge’.

The Lord Himself said in another occasion in the Gospels, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with a good judgment.” And St. Paul in his various letters to the Churches also mentioned the importance and the need for sound judgment in the Christian communities. What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that we must judge first and foremost basing our judgment not on our own prejudices or personal preferences, but instead on our Christian faith and truth.

For our personal preferences and prejudices are often not just and right, and in fact, they may be even worse and more wicked than what we want to judge. But the Christian truth and the faith as kept by the Church is unchanging and perfect, as long as we anchor our Christian judgment in God, Who is the source of all truth and Who is perfect in all of His judgments. This is what we must do, and not to judge wrongly.

And ultimately, it is about what we intend to do with the judgment. Most of the time, as is common for us man, is that we judge so as to condemn the other party for the mistakes or the faults that they have committed. But as Christians, we are instead called to judge, not because we hate the person or wanting to bring harm to the person, but instead, because we want the other party to realise the mistake that he or she has made, and make a change or difference for the better.

That is precisely what God has done, as He, first and foremost of all, loves each and every one of us, His most beloved creations, and certainly, He does not want us to be lost to Him, or to be cast down to hell for eternity. That is why He gave us opportunities, again and again, and sent us reminders through various means, from the Church, from even our families and from those who we encounter at various times and opportunities in our lives.

But we also have to remember, that there is ultimately a limit to God’s mercy and love, not that His mercy and love are limited, but rather, our mortal existence in this world is limited. All of us will ultimately encounter death, and that is the moment when we will face our particular judgment, when each and every one of us will have to answer for our every actions and deeds in life, and when our eternal fate will be judged.

If we refused to accept God’s generous offer of mercy, forgiveness and compassion, then it is by our sins, stubbornness and rejection that we shall be judged, and when we fall into the eternal suffering, separated from God’s love and grace forever, it is by our own actions that we are judged. And it is the right and just consequences for our own disobedience and refusal to repent.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, while we have the time and opportunity in this world, given to us generously by Our God, let us all make best use of them, by realising just how sinful we have been, and commit ourselves to a renewed faith filled with new love and dedication for God. And we are called to ‘judge’ one another with love, caring for the needs of our brethren, especially those who are in danger of falling into damnation because of their sins.

Hence, let us all not be judgmental in the wrong way, but judge with the right intention and method, so that each and every one of us as Christians may be able to help one another, to persevere through the various challenges and obstacles in life. Let us all pray for one another and help each other in this journey of faith, that we may eventually all find our way to God’s salvation and eternal life. May God be with us, and may He bless us and our endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 25 June 2018 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 7 : 1-5

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “Do not judge; and you will not be judged. In the same way you judge others, you will be judged; and the measure you use for others will be used for you.”

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, and not see the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Come, let me take the speck from your eye,’ as long as the plank is in your own?”

“Hypocrite, remove the plank out of your own eye; then, you will see clearly, to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

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Monday, 25 June 2018 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 59 : 3, 4-5, 12-13

O God, You have rejected us and have broken our defences; You have been angry; but now turn back to us.

You have shaken the land and torn it open; mend its cracks, for it totters. You have made Your people suffer; You have given us wine that makes us stagger.

Have You not rejected us, o God? You no longer go with our armies. Give us aid against the foe, for human help is not worth a straw.