Monday

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Monday, 30 January 2017 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the great deeds of our Lord Jesus, Who cast out demons from a man of the region of Gerasenes, and therefore healed the man. That man had been wondering in the wilderness, among the tombs, away from the society, as his condition made him an outcast, rejected by all the other people and cast out from the community.

No one would want to interact or even have anything to do with the man who had been possessed by the evil spirits, because they feared that they too would contract the same affliction. That is why those who had been possessed would be chained, and would be kept away from human interaction, left to fend off on his or her own. But when Jesus came to that place and saw the man possessed by the evil spirits, He did something different.

Instead of shunning the man, He approached him, and listened to him when he called out to Him. The evil spirits inside him knew just Who Jesus was, and they were afraid, for they knew that although they could do what they liked with the man, but there was nothing that they could do against the power of God in Jesus. Even they had to obey God, for they were created by God in the beginning, only to rebel against Him and cast out from heaven.

They know that they were doomed the moment that they were defeated, and they knew that Jesus is the One alone Who had the power over them, to destroy them and to cast them into the eternal fire prepared for them. Jesus therefore represents God’s saving love, through which God desires to bring all of His lost people back to Himself.

For each and every one of us who are sinners have been separated from God, and because of our sins, darkness had entered into our hearts, just like the evil spirits who entered into the man and made him to be a renegade and an outcast from his own community. In the same manner therefore, we have also been made outcasts and renegades from the kingdom of our God, cast out from His holy presence, and unworthy to be with Him.

And yet, it is God Himself Who had extended His loving and merciful hands to us, willingly offering us the means to our salvation, and this is even when such measures would require the sacrifice of His own Most Precious Body and Blood, which He willingly offered on the Altar of the cross at Calvary. He Who has the power to heal us, the only One indeed, has done so much for us. Now, we need to look upon ourselves and ask, what then have we done in order to thank Him for having done so for our sake?

Many of us do not appreciate what God had done for us, and we also even ignore Him, and rejected the kind offer of His mercy. We prefer to carry on living this life in the state of sin, living on with abandon, and putting ourselves into the ways of this world, following the temptations of worldly pleasures and as a result, we remain in the darkness, and we remain lost to the Lord. This is what we cannot do, brothers and sisters in Christ.

As Christians, now each and every one of us are called to help each other to live our lives filled with faith, commitment and devotion to God. We are called to help one another to reach out to the Lord, and not to close any path towards salvation from all those who need that salvation. But rather we must help our brethren who have not yet received God’s grace, and are still living in sin, that they may realise their sinfulness, and work towards redemption and forgiveness by God.

May the Lord help each and every one of us, so that we may draw ever closer to Him, and in all things may we always try our best to adhere to Him and to His ways, so that we may be found worthy, when He comes again to claim us all His beloved people. Let us all let the Lord our God touch us with His loving care, and open our hearts to welcome Him into our beings, that He may transform us from beings of darkness into beings of the true Light. May the Lord be with us all. Amen.

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Monday, 30 January 2017 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 5 : 1-20

At that time, Jesus and His disciples arrived at the other side of the lake, in the region of the Gerasenes. No sooner did Jesus leave the boat than He was met by a man with evil spirits, who had come from the tombs. He lived among the tombs, and no one could restrain him, even with a chain. He had often been bound with fetters and chains, but he would pull the chains apart and smash the fetters, and no one had the strength to control him.

Night and day he stayed among the tombs on the hillsides, and was continually screaming, and beating himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell at His feet, and cried with a loud voice, “What do You want with Me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? For God’s sake, I beg You, do not torment me!”

He said this, because Jesus had commanded, “Come out of the man, evil spirit!” And when Jesus asked the evil spirit, “What is your name?” It replied, “Legion is my name, for we are many.” And it kept begging Jesus, not to send them out of that region.

Now a great herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside, and the evil spirits begged him, “Send us to the pigs, and let us go into them.” So Jesus let them go. The evil spirits came out of the man and went into the pigs, and immediately the herd rushed down the cliff, and all were drowned in the lake. The herdsmen fled, and reported this in the town and the countryside, so all the people came to see what had happened.

They came to Jesus, and saw the man freed of the evil spirits sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the same man who had been possessed by the legion. They were afraid. And when those who had seen it, told what happened to the man and to the pigs, the people begged Jesus to leave their neighbourhood.

When Jesus was getting into the boat, the man, who had been possessed, begged to stay with Him. Jesus would not let him, and said, “Go home to your people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you.”

So he went throughout the country of Decapolis, telling everyone how much Jesus had done for him; and all the people were astonished.

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Monday, 30 January 2017 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 30 : 20, 21, 22, 23, 24

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

In the shelter of Your presence You hide them from human wiles; You keep them in Your dwelling, safe from the intrigues of wagging tongues.

Blessed be the Lord for His wonderful love! He has strengthened my heart.

I said in my fright : “I have been cut off from Your sight!” Yet when I was crying, You heard; when I called for mercy, You listened.

Love the Lord, all you His saints! The Lord preserves His faithful, but He fully requites the arrogant.

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Monday, 30 January 2017 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Hebrews 11 : 32-40

Do I need to say more? There is not enough time to speak of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, as well as Samuel and the prophets. Through faith they fought and conquered nations, established justice, saw the fulfilment of God’s promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the sword, were healed of their sicknesses; they were weak people who were given strength to be brave in battle and repulse foreign invaders.

Some women recovered their dead by resurrection but there were others – persecuted and tortured believers – who, for the sake of a better resurrection, refused to do what would have saved them. Others suffered chain and prison. They were stoned, sawn in two, killed by the sword. They fled from place to place with no other clothing than the skins of sheep and goats, lacking everything, afflicted, ill-treated.

These people of whom the world was not worthy had to wander through wastelands and mountains, and take refuge in the dens of the land. However, although all of them were praised because of their faith, they did not enjoy the promise because God had is in mind and saw beyond. And He did not want them to reach perfection except with us.

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Monday, 23 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s Scripture readings, we heard about the Lord’s saving work which He had done through Christ, by Whom all have been made whole and worthy, as He is the Mediator of the new Covenant between mankind and God. And yet, we heard in the last part of the Gospel today, where Jesus rebuked the teachers of the Law, mentioning that the sin of the Holy Spirit, will not be forgiven.

We may be confused, as what we may know of the Lord, is He not all merciful and forgiving? Had He not in fact sent His Son into this world, so that He may save all of us? That no one ought to be left behind and forgotten? But this is a misunderstanding of the truth of God, that He is indeed merciful, but only so far as we mankind accept the offer of His mercy.

Forgiveness is given to all those who are willing to accept the mercy of God, and not to those who refuse it. That is exactly what is meant by sinning against the Holy Spirit, that is the refusal to be forgiven, even though one knows fully that forgiveness has been offered. And that was what happened to the teachers of the Law, who knew what Jesus had done, witnessed what He had done, and yet they attributed His works to the works of Satan and his allies. They slandered against the Lord by doing so.

The mercy of God has been freely offered and freely given, but we Christians must not misunderstand and mislead others that God offers all unconditional forgiveness and mercy. Indeed, as long as we breathe, God will always try to give us a chance, and forgiveness will come upon us should we seek for it and genuinely trying to reform ourselves and our ways.

Those who doubt the Lord’s mercy and good works, and worse still, openly mocking the good works of God, and slander it such as what the teachers of the Law had done against Jesus, will have the door of mercy shut before them. That is not because God is not merciful or has practiced double standards in His mercy, but instead, because they themselves had rejected and shut the doors of their heart off to the Lord, Who wanted to come and heal them.

For this, our Lord Who loves each and every one of us resolved to become one like us, and to walk among us in this world, and taking up our own sins and their consequences upon Himself, He bore the cross of sins and wickedness on His way to Calvary, where He offered Himself as a perfect sacrifice, as an ultimate and loving sacrifice for the reparation and forgiveness of our sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord had done so much for our sake, and He has loved us so tenderly that He was willing to go through those immense sufferings during His Passion, just so that all of us mankind may be saved, and therefore do not need to suffer the consequences of our sins. Such was the love of our God, and are we able to reciprocate the same kind of love to Him? We have been given the opportunity, but are we ready to accept that opportunity?

Let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, and let us all commit ourselves to a life renewed by the grace of God. Let us no longer persist in our pride and in our refusal to obey the will of God, as well as His offers of mercy and forgiveness. Let us all hope in the Lord, and help one another to reach out to the Lord’s mercy. Let us not act stubbornly in the same manner as the teachers of the Law, who not only refused God’s mercy, but also slandered His good works and lied about Him.

May the Lord strengthen our faith, awaken in our hearts a warm love which we ought to have for Him, just as He had loved us. May He bless us all and give us all the opportunity to renew ourselves, accepting fully that we have been made whole again by the good works of Christ, the Lamb of God, by Whose Blood, we have been washed away from our sins. Amen.

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Monday, 23 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 3 : 22-30

At that time, the teachers of the Law, who had come from Jerusalem, said, “He is in 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 histories, 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, 23 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God’s saving power. All you lands, make a joyful noise to the Lord, break into song and sing praise.

With melody of the lyre and with music of the harp. With trumpet blast and sound of the horn, rejoice before the King, the Lord!

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Monday, 23 January 2017 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Hebrews 9 : 15, 24-28

So Christ is the Mediator of a new covenant or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.

Christ did not enter some sanctuary made by hands, a copy of the true one, but heaven itself. He is now in the presence of God on our behalf. He had not to offer Himself many times, as the High Priest does : he who may return every year, because the blood is not his own.

Otherwise He would have suffered many times from the creation of the world. But no; He manifested Himself only now at the end of the ages, to take away sin by sacrifice, and, as humans die only once and afterwards are judged, in the same way Christ sacrificed Himself once to take away the sins of the multitude. There will be no further question of sin when He comes again to save those waiting for Him.

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Monday, 16 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews, about the meaning of the holy priesthood, as a vocation and calling for all those who have chosen to dedicate themselves and their whole lives to the Lord, and among these priests, God had chosen His high priests, those whom He entrusted with the leadership among the people, through whom He would exercise His power and authority, and through whose actions, the people would be absolved from their sins and be reconciled with God.

And unlike all the other high priests, which offered again and again for the sake of the people’s sins, God had appointed One to be the Eternal High Priest for all, and He is none other than Jesus Christ, the long promised Saviour of the whole world, the Divine Word of God Who was incarnate into the person of the Son of Man, through Mary His mother. It was through Him that God willed to make all of mankind, all those whom He loves, to be saved and liberated from their sins, that is from our sins.

While the high priests of old were told to sacrifice and offer the gifts of animal blood, fats and other sacrificial goods, the Lord showed them all that all these were incapable of offering complete and total reconciliation between mankind and their God. It is only the complete obedience of the Son of God, Who willingly offered Himself, through His Most Precious Body and Blood, that all of mankind are able to access the salvation which He guaranteed to all those who believe in Him.

In the Gospel today we heard about Jesus our Lord Who chided the Pharisees and the disciples of St. John the Baptist, who compared themselves to His own disciples, as those two groups did what was prescribed in the laws of the people of God as originally passed down to them from Moses, who received them from God. They questioned Jesus because they thought that it was improper for His disciples not following the commandments of the Law.

But in all that, there lies a misunderstanding of the true Law of God. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in particular became obsessed with the minute details of the Law, in how they should be observed, to the smallest details. They were very particular in enforcing them, to the point that it was often they did not do them while knowing what was the original purpose of the Law of God.

Take for example, the practice of fasting, which was done to express mourning, grieving and also most importantly, the regret and the desire for repentance for one’s sins and wrongdoings. And yet, as Jesus mentioned in another part of the Gospels, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had used fasting as a pretext to advance their own interests and to make themselves look good before the people.

They paraded around, showing their fasting and other supposedly pious acts to be seen by others, so that they would be praised and gained prestige as well as fame among the people. But that was as we can see, not the intention of the Law. That is why Jesus came into this world, to straighten up all those who have erred and bent the purposes of the Law, revealing to them all the new path that He brought with Him.

That was what Jesus meant when He related to all of them the parable of the wine and the wineskins. Old wine is not meant to be put into a new wineskin, as they are incompatible with each other. The same applies to new wine that is placed into old wineskins. And Jesus also added up with another example, the parable of old cloth and new cloth. Old cloth cannot be used to patch up new cloth and vice versa.

It means that, the ways of the Lord are not compatible with the ways of the world. And similarly therefore, sin is incompatible with God, and indeed, sin is incompatible with all of us being Christians. We should not follow the example of those Pharisees who claimed to serve God, and yet in reality, they are serving only their own desires and purposes.

It is inappropriate for us all to call ourselves as Christians if we do not live a genuine Christian life through our actions and deeds. That is why, because our Lord Jesus had shown us the path that we ought to take in order to reach out to Him, and as also by His own obedience to the will of His Father, He as our Eternal High Priest had saved us all, therefore, all of us should also obey Him and walk in His ways.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect on this, and think about what we as Christians are still able to do in our lives in order to have a Christ-like attitude and thus live a genuine Christian living. It is only then by our obedience to the Law and by following the examples of Christ that we will be true witnesses for our Lord, and many more people, both inside and outside the Church, will come to believe in the Lord as well, and be saved together with us.

May the Lord be with us all in our journey of life, and may He strengthen the faith inside each and every one of us, that we may emulate in full faith, the examples of our High Priest, Who is also our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, for our salvation and the redemption of the whole world. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 16 January 2017 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 2 : 18-22

At that time, one day, 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 wineskins, for the wine would burst the skins, and then both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”