Monday

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded that each and every one of us as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people, each and every one of us are called to commit ourselves wholeheartedly to the path that God has called us to walk through, following the examples of the Lord Himself, Our Saviour and High Priest Who has obeyed so perfectly the will of His Heavenly Father so that by His perfect obedience, He may show all of us mankind the path towards eternal life and salvation. He has become the perfect Man, the New Adam and the New Man that all of us as Christians are called to follow and embody in our own lives, embracing wholeheartedly our Christian faith in everything that we say and do at all times.

In our first reading today, the continuation from the discourse by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews on the nature and the works of the Messiah, in which the author continued to elaborate on the role which Christ as the Messiah had played in the story of our salvation. As the author was writing to the audience composed of the Jewish people, likely both those who have believed in the Lord and also those who have not yet believed, he explained in detail throughout this Epistle Who the true and real identity of Jesus Christ was, the One Whom the Jewish leaders and authorities had rejected, oppressed and then handed over to the Romans to be crucified. This Epistle to the Hebrews instead presented this crucifixion as part of the plan of the Lord in saving all of His people just as He has promised and prophesied through His prophets like the prophet Isaiah.

The account from this Epistle further highlighted the actions that Christ has done at the pinnacle of His salvific mission, in offering on our behalf the perfect offering for all of our multitudes of sins, in the manner how the priests of the Israelites offered sacrificial offerings for the people of God. Those priests had to first offer sacrifices for themselves first because they themselves were sinners and had to atone for their own sins first, before offering the sacrifices on behalf of the people who came to them seeking their help. But it is different for the case of the Lord Jesus, the One and only True High Priest of all because He is perfect and without any taint of sin, and hence had no need to offer sin offering for Himself.

And most amazingly, while He Himself is blameless and without any fault, He chose willingly to bear the blame and the punishment assigned to Him, imposed on Him by the Jewish leaders and authorities, who blamed on Him the fault of rebellion and blasphemy against God, that He was handed over to the Romans to be crucified. Yet, as those who were familiar with the Scriptures would realise, this persecution and suffering of the Messiah that God had sent to be with His people has been foretold by the prophets, and it was by this willing sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all, offered His own Most Precious Body and Blood on the Altar of His Cross, by which He has purchased all of us, once and for all, the redemption for all of our innumerable sins.

Then from our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the words of the Lord Jesus against those people who questioned Him on why those Pharisees and the disciples of St. John the Baptist carried out fasting and other pious practices but His disciples did not do the same. This was because at that time the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were particularly strict in how they interpreted the Law of God, requiring all the people to follow the Law strictly, and one of them was the requirement for fasting, and how they ought to fast in the right manner. However, they placed so much emphasis and time focusing on how they observed and practiced the Law, that they ended up neglecting to follow the Lord faithfully and with God at the centre of all things.

The Lord also presented to them all the parable of the new wine and wineskin, old wine and wineskin, as well as new cloth and old cloth. This parable is meant to highlight first of all the fact that the Lord’s coming revealed truths about the Lord and His Law, His intentions and desire for His people, all of us, to fulfil them all perfectly and to correct the erroneous ways that His will, His Law and commandments have been received by the people, particularly by those who interpreted the Law and practiced them. Secondly, it is also a reminder for us that if we truly want to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and completely, then there is a need for us all to follow His path and reject the old path of worldliness that we may be familiar with. Otherwise, if we do not do so, we are no better than hypocrites.

Today, the Church also celebrates the feast of not just one but two amazing men of God whose faith and dedication to Him should be reminders for all of us to be truly faithful and committed as well in our own lives, in our obedience to God and His cause, and in doing whatever we can so that we may imitate their good and faithful lives, and realise how being good Christians may often require us to make sacrifices and to be ready and prepared to face challenges, trials and even oppressions for our faith in God. Pope St. Fabian and St. Sebastian both have suffered for their faith in God, being persecuted for their belief in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all. However, they remained firmly faithful even despite all those sufferings and becoming for us great inspirations and role models to follow.

Pope St. Fabian was born into a noble Roman family during the third century after the birth of Christ, at a time of great challenges and turmoil for the Church and the faithful as they often encountered harsh persecutions and oppressions from the Romans who treated Christians and their faith as those who deserved to be punished and killed, unless they abandoned their faith. His election as Pope was truly remarkable in the sense that when the previous Pope, his predecessor passed away and the election for the successor took place, the future Pope St. Fabian was actually just visiting, and amidst all the competition between all the influential candidates at that time, no one minded Pope St. Fabian at all until a dove miraculously descended upon him, and the whole assembly acclaimed him as the new Pope. He would go on to carry out many great deeds and works as Pope.

Meanwhile, not much was known about the early life of St. Sebastian, but according to Church tradition and his hagiography, he was a young man who joined the Roman military during the time of the reign of the then Emperor Carinus, and then under his successors, Emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Those two Emperors were notorious for their very harsh and terrible persecution against Christians, but St. Sebastian managed to become one of the captains of the Praetorian Guards, the guards of the Emperor himself. In that capacity, he managed to help several of the captive and persecuted Christians, and even managed to convert some of those involved in the arrest and persecution of Christians.

Eventually, after the relatively long reign of about fourteen years for Pope St. Fabian and after the clandestine efforts in helping Christians and converting others for St. Sebastian, both of them were found out in their efforts and faith as Christians, with Pope St. Fabian being persecuted by the new Roman Emperor Decius, who unlike the previous Emperors that had been more tolerant of Christianity, he was a hardliner, arrested Pope St. Fabian and executed him for his faith as an example to all the other Christians. St. Sebastian meanwhile was persecuted by another harsh persecutor, the Emperor Diocletian, who was particularly displeased that one of his own Praetorian captains was a Christian. He was shot with many arrows, but miraculously survived and cared for by a Christian widow, before being martyred after he rebuked the Emperor publicly for his actions against Christians.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of what we have heard in our Scripture passages today and the lives of those saints whose memory we commemorate is that we must appreciate the great love, compassion and kindness which God has given to us so generously through His Son, and therefore, just as He has suffered in doing so, being rejected by the world and all those who dwelled and remained in sin, and how Pope St. Fabian, St. Sebastian and many other saints and holy men and women of God had done, let us all realise the challenges, difficulties and sufferings that we may face amidst our lives as Christians in this world today. Let us also be ready to live lives that are truly worthy of God at all times so that we may be good role models and inspirations ourselves to one another. Amen.

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

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!”

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 109 : 1, 2, 3, 4

The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand till I make Your foes Your footstool.”

From Zion the Lord will extend Your mighty sceptre and You will rule in the midst of Your enemies.

Yours is royal dignity from the day You were born in holy majesty. Like dew from the womb of the dawn, I have begotten You.

The Lord has sworn, and He will not take back His word : “You are a Priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.”

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Monday, 20 January 2025 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, and St. Sebastian, Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Hebrews 5 : 1-10

Every High Priest is taken from among mortals and appointed to be their representative before God to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He is able to understand the ignorant and erring for he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he is bound to offer sacrifices for his sins as well as for the sins of the people.

Besides, one does not presume to take this dignity, but takes it only when called by God, as Aaron was. Nor did Christ become High Priest in taking upon Himself this dignity, but it was given to Him by the One Who says : You are My Son, I have begotten You today. And in another place : You are a Priest forever in the priestly order of Melchizedek.

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. This is how God proclaimed Him Priest in the order of Melchizedek.

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Monday, 13 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we mark the beginning of the Ordinary Time, the first of the two seasons of the Ordinary Time of the liturgical year, with this first season lasting from now until the beginning of the season of Lent. This Ordinary time and season is however by no means ‘ordinary’ lest we misunderstood the meaning of this period and time. The word Ordinary here comes from the word ‘Ordinal’ which means numbered, from the fact that the Sundays of this season are numbered in sequence.

That is why this period of time after the time of Christmas and before the beginning of the Lenten season should not be a period of inactivity and passivity, or a time when we ignore our obligations and calling to do what is right and appropriate for us to do as God’s holy and beloved people, as His disciples and followers, to whom God had entrusted His Church and His missions in our world today. All of us should instead be active in embracing the many opportunities that God has granted to us, the chances we have been given so that we may touch the lives of others in a good way.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Epistle to the Hebrews in which the author of this Epistle spoke about the coming of the salvation of God which has been fulfilled and completely revealed through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Who had been sent into this world to be the Redeemer of all mankind, restoring all of us back to the state of grace, and the author also revealed to us that this Saviour was truly the Son of God, Who has been incarnate into the flesh, assuming our humanity, human nature and existence, becoming the Son of Man, appearing in our midst to lead us all into salvation in God.

And as the title of this Epistle suggests to us, the words of the author of this Epistle, commonly attributed to St. Luke the Evangelist, they are directed to the Jewish people, to whom the Lord was first sent to, to fulfil everything which the Lord has promised to all of His people throughout history. The author spoke of the One Whom the Jewish people has encountered, Jesus Christ Himself, Who has come, showing the great Wisdom of God in His various words and teachings among them with authority, and the power which God has exercised through Him, in His various miracles and wonders.

Therefore, the author of this Epistle to the Hebrews proclaimed to the Jewish community, both to strengthen the faith of those who have believed in Christ, and also to convince and persuade those who have not yet believed in Him, that the Lord Jesus Christ, was indeed the Holy One Whom God had sent into this world to lead everyone into salvation and eternal life. It is also a reminder for all of us Who it is that we have served, and the One through Whom our salvation has come from, what we have celebrated earlier on in Christmas, and which we now need to proclaim courageously in our world today.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist in which the account about the time when the Lord Jesus called His first disciples, the four fishermen of the lake of Galilee, namely St. Peter and his brother St. Andrew, and also the two sons of Zebedee, St. James and St. John, were told to us, and we heard how God called them all to be the ones to lead mankind to Him and His salvation, to become the fishers of men. And that was what they would be doing henceforth, committing themselves to the good cause of the Lord.

Hence, all of us are reminded through what we have heard in that passage today that we are all called to the service of God, to do what the Lord has entrusted to us, His gifts, talents, abilities and all the opportunities that He has provided to each one of us. All of us as Christians have been tasked to proclaim the Lord and His truth in our communities today, and to live in a truly Christian manner, putting the Lord our God ever at the centre and heart of our whole lives and existence, so that we will always do our best in glorifying Him by our lives, and showing Him to many others around us.

Today, the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Hilary, also known as St. Hilary of Poitiers, who was the Bishop of Poitiers during the late era of the Roman Empire. He was born from a pagan family who embraced Christianity, and was raised with good and comprehensive education in the classics and philosophy. At that time, the Church was bitterly divided by those who supported the then very popular and powerful Arian heresy which denied the equality of Christ the Son of God with the Father, and those who upheld the true, orthodox teaching of the faith.

St. Hilary of Poitiers was elected to be the new bishop of Poitiers during that time of division and confusion among the faithful, and immediately the new bishop committed himself to oppose the false teachings of Arianism, and he worked hard to restore order and unity to the faithful under his care in Poitiers, while also doing a lot of work in the wider Church to oppose the influence of Arianism and other heresies, as well as ministering to his flock to the best of his abilities. He faced a lot of hardships and difficulties, opposition from those who did not agree with him, and even exile by the authorities, but he remained firm in his courageous efforts and works for the good of the Church and the faithful.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore follow in the footsteps of St. Hilary and many other holy saints, holy men and women of God, all of whom had devoted themselves, their time and effort to proclaim the truth and Good News of God to others around them, like the Apostles before them. And all of us as Christians are entrusted with the same mission to evangelise and to spread the Good News of God to more and more people all around the world. May the Lord be with us always and may He continue to empower us all in our efforts and good works for His greater glory, and may all of us continue to inspire everyone around us in faith. Amen.

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Monday, 13 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 1 : 14-20

At that time, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee and began preaching the Good News of God. He said, “The time has come; the kingdom of God is at hand. Change your ways and believe the Good News.”

As Jesus was walking along the shore of Lake Galilee, He saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fish for people.” At once, they abandoned their nets and followed Him.

Jesus went a little farther on, and saw James and John, the sons of Zebedee; they were in their boat mending their nets. Immediately, Jesus called them and they followed Him, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men.

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Monday, 13 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 96 : 1 and 2b, 6 and 7c, 9

YHVH reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the distant islands be glad. Justice and right, are His throne.

The heavens proclaim His justice, all peoples see His glory. Let all spirits bow before Him.

For You are the Master of the universe, exalted far above all gods.

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Monday, 13 January 2025 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hilary, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 1 : 1-6

God has spoken in the past to our ancestors through the prophets, in many different ways, although never completely; but in our times He has spoken definitively to us through His Son. He is the one God appointed Heir of all things, since through Him He unfolded the stages of the world.

He is the Radiance of God’s Glory and bears the stamp of God’s hidden being, so that His powerful Word upholds the universe. And after taking away sin, He took His place at the right hand of the Divine Majesty in heaven. So He is now far superior to Angels just as the Name He received sets Him apart from them.

To what Angel did God say : You are My Son, I have begotten You today? And to what Angel did He promise : I shall be a Father to Him and He will be a Son to Me? On sending His Firstborn to the world, God says : “Let all the Angels adore Him.”

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Monday, 6 January 2025 : Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the joyful occasion of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, marking the occasion when the Lord revealed and made Himself known to all the people of all the nations as represented by the Three Magi or the Three Wise Men or Three Kings, a story which we all are certainly familiar with, in how they came from their distant lands to seek the Saviour of the world, the Light of His salvation and grace, and found it in the Holy Child born in Bethlehem over two millennia ago. On this day we all rejoice in the great Christmas joy celebrating the salvation and hope which we have all received from God’s most generous love and compassionate Heart, manifested in real and tangible form in His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

In our first reading today, we heard about the premonition and prediction of this event which the Lord had made through His prophet Isaiah many centuries before everything came true. The prophet Isaiah had been sent to the people of God who have suffered difficulties, challenges and trials, as those in the southern kingdom of Judah had witnessed their northern neighbours and fellow Israelites in the kingdom of Israel conquered and having their cities destroyed by the Assyrians recently, and how many of those people had been brought into distant and far-off lands by those same Assyrians, bereft of their homeland and their dwelling, forced to live as exiles among the foreigners, all because of their lack of faith and virtue, their disobedience against God.

And similarly, those in Judah itself had not been spared from all those difficult moments, as in the context of the time when this prophecy was revealed through the prophet Isaiah, it was likely that the people of God in Judah had faced and survived the event when the King of Assyria, Sennacherib brought with him a mighty force numbering in the hundreds of thousands with the intent of conquering and destroying Judah and Jerusalem, just as they had done with their northern brethren earlier on. And as the Assyrians besieged Jerusalem, their king even mocked the Lord and made blasphemous comments about Him, trying to make the Israelites to give in to fear and despair, saying how the other gods of the other people the Assyrians had conquered were powerless to stop them.

But God showed His might and crushed all the forces of those Assyrians, and sent their king back home in great shame. And through this and many other events, the Lord proved His love and providence for His people, reassuring them of His constant presence and help, and as what we have heard in today’s first reading, the Lord promised the coming of His Salvation and Light which will be revealed and shared to all the nations, which will all come to Him, seeking His love and compassion, His kindness and grace. God does not desire the destruction or damnation of any one of His children and He loves all of us mankind without exception. That is why He gave us all His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, and revealed Him to everyone, and showed that His salvation is given freely to all and not just to a select group of people.

In our second reading today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful people of God in Ephesus spoke of this same revelation, that God reveals the desire He has to save each and every one of us mankind, without exception, His love and kindness, His generous mercy, that all those who seek Him, regardless whether they are Jewish or non-Jewish, they will all be saved and become part of the one holy people of God, those whom God has called and chosen. This is the response to those whom at the time of the Lord’s ministry and the early Church who claimed that only the Jewish people deserved salvation from God, or that everyone who sought to be saved must adopt all the customs, practices and beliefs of the Jews to the extent that they themselves became Jewish.

Thus, St. Paul refuted such a claim, and the fact that it was he who did so is significant because St. Paul was a Pharisee who adhered to such beliefs in the superiority and exclusivity of salvation to only the Jewish people. But God revealed the truth to St. Paul, and upon whose conversion received the reality and true intention of God in calling all of His people to Himself, regardless of their background, race, origin or by any other worldly parameters we often differentiated ourselves by. To the Lord, everyone is truly equal, equal in stature, equal in opportunity and equally beloved by Him without prejudice or discrimination. And He has given us all the ultimate means to achieve this salvation, and that is through His Son and His coming into this world.

In our Gospel passage this day we then heard of the story of the moment that we are celebrating about this Epiphany of the Lord, when the Lord Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, the Saviour of the world and the Son of God Most High, the Divine Word of God Himself incarnate in the flesh. At that time, a great and bright sign has appeared in the sky, the Great Star of Bethlehem, clearly heralding the coming of the Saviour. And three wise men from the East, from distant places and renowned for their great wisdom and knowledge of astronomy, which were studied for signs from God and they all saw the great Star heralding the coming and arrival of the Messiah, the Saviour from God. The three of them went on a long journey towards the land of Judea, coming to seek the salvation of God, which has come into our midst, and the Lord showed Himself to everyone, symbolically presented through the Three Magi.

We heard how the Three Magi eventually found their way to Bethlehem to the presence of the Lord, the Holy Child after enquiring about Him at the court of King Herod the Great. The Three Magi came to the Lord to pay homage to Him, bearing the three unique gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Gold represents the kingship and the glory of Christ, while the frankincense represents both His Divinity and also His role as our Eternal High Priest, and lastly the myrrh represents the way how the Lord would accomplish His mission, through the suffering and death that He would have to endure during His Passion, for our sake and our salvation. Through all these three gifts therefore, we all come to know the full extent of Who the Lord our God is, and what He has done for us through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. This is the essence of what the Epiphany celebration is all about.

First of all, the gift of gold is a very symbolic sign of the kingship of Christ, as gold has always been a very valuable commodity and noble metal used in coinage and in collection of wealth, and they are often associated with power and worldly glory, and they also have associations with the Divine, as gold is often used on the ornaments and the worship of gods and idols in various cultures and traditions. Gold in this case symbolised that Christ is truly our Lord and King, the King of Kings, Lord and Master of all, all of creation and the whole of the Universe. It also showed the glory and divinity that our Lord and God has, and how each and every one of us are expected to give Him honour, glory and homage, as the King over all of us. He is the only One truly worthy of our worship and obedience.

Then, the gift of frankincense is a representation as earlier mentioned, of the divinity of Christ, as incense is often used in religious festivities and worship, and incense is used until this day in the Church to indicate the prayers of the faithful people of God rising towards God. At the same time, incense was also usually used by the priests in offering the sacrifices and offerings to God. Hence, this frankincense, which is among the finest type of incense available, is a representation that Christ our Lord is truly Divine, the Almighty God Who manifested Himself in the flesh, to be in our midst. Then, at the same time, it also highlighted Christ’s role as our one and true Eternal High Priest, the One Who would offer on our behalf the perfect and worthy offering, for the absolution and forgiveness of all of our sins.

Lastly, the gift of myrrh is the representation of what the Lord would do for our salvation, as myrrh is a precious spice used for the embalming of the bodies of the dead. It may indeed be a rather strange and curious gift for a newborn Child, but in this case, it is a representation of how Christ would suffer and die from the Cross that He Himself would bear, and through His death He would redeem all of us, by making us all free from sin, and then by His glorious Resurrection, He would lead us all into a new life, no longer subjected to sin and death, to evil and destruction. This is what the gift of myrrh had revealed to us, and we are all reminded that we are all truly so fortunate that God has done all of these for our sake. We must be thankful for all that He has done, and we must return to seek the Lord and His salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate wonderfully during this time of the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, we are reminded through the three gifts of the Magi of the true nature of that Child Who has been born in Bethlehem two millennia ago, He Who revealed Himself to all of us through the symbolic representation of the Three Magi. In Christ our Lord, we have the Divine Lord Himself, Almighty and all-powerful coming down into our midst, to dwell among us and to be with us, and ultimately, to offer Himself for our sake, to suffer and die for us, so that all of us can receive the sure promise of eternal life and fullness of grace from Him. Let us all keep this in mind as we go forth to this world, to our communities around us, to proclaim the Lord our God and Saviour, He Who has come into this world and revealed His love, to everyone, calling them to His Presence and mercy.

May the Lord, Who has been manifested, ‘Epiphaneia’ in the flesh, revealed in His love and kindness through the Holy Child of Bethlehem, continue to be with us and bless our every endeavours and deeds, and may He continue to bless our every works, efforts and endeavours to glorify Him by our lives, our every actions, works and deeds. Holy God, Mighty God, Holy Immortal God, revealed to us all through the Wisdom and love You have shown us, have mercy on us and give us Your love and grace, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 6 January 2025 : Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 2 : 1-12

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in Judea, during the days of king Herod, wise men from the East arrived in Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn King of the Jews? We saw the rising of His star in the East and have come to honour Him.”

When Herod heard this he was greatly disturbed, and with him all Jerusalem. He immediately called a meeting of all high-ranking priests and scribes, and asked them where the Messiah was to be born.

“In the town of Bethlehem in Judea,” they told him, “For this is what the prophet wrote : And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least among the clans of Judah, for from you will come a Leader, the One Who is to shepherd My people Israel.”

Then Herod secretly called the wise men and asked them the precise time the star appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem with the instruction, “Go and get accurate information about the Child. As soon as you have found Him, report to me, so that I too may go and honour Him.”

After the meeting with the king, they set out. The star that they had seen in the East went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the Child was. The wise men were overjoyed on seeing the star again. They went into the house, and when they saw the Child with Mary His mother, they knelt and worshipped Him. They opened their bags and offered Him their gifts of gold, incense and myrrh.

In a dream they were warned not to go back to Herod, so they returned to their home country by another way.