Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 88 : 20, 21-22, 25-26
In the past, You spoke in a vision; You said of Your faithful servant : “I have set the crown upon a mighty one; on one chosen from the people.”
I have found David My servant, and, with My holy oil, I have anointed him. My hand will be ever with him; and My arm will sustain him.
My faithfulness and love will be with him; and, by My help, he will be strong. I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers.
Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)
2 Samuel 5 : 1-7, 10
All the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron and said, “We are your bone and flesh. In the past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led Israel. And YHVH said to you, ‘You shall be the shepherd of My people Israel and you shall be commander over Israel.’”
Before YHVH, king David made an agreement with the elders of Israel who came to him at Hebron, and they anoint him king of Israel. David was thirty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned for forty years : he reigned over Judah, from Hebron, seven and a half years; and over Israel and Judah, from Jerusalem, for thirty-three years.
The king and his men set out for Jerusalem to fight the Jebusites who lived there. They said to David, “If you try to break in here, the blind and the lame will drive you away,” which meant that David could not get in. Yet David captured the fortress of Zion that became the “city of David.”
And David grew more powerful, for YHVH, the God of Hosts, was with him.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Scriptures in which we are all reminded that we should not blindly obey the Law and the commandments of God without understanding and appreciating their meaning, purpose and intention. We also must not obey the Law and the commandments of God with the perverted and corrupt intentions to satisfy our own greed and desires. We must never allow the temptations of our flesh, all sorts of worldly corruptions from turning us from the path of righteousness. We must be vigilant lest the temptations of sin may tempt us away into our downfall and destruction, as how it had happened to our predecessors, including what we have heard in our Scripture passages today.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Samuel, in which the story of the disobedience and sin of Saul, King of Israel was presented to us, when he did not do what the Lord had told him to do, in eliminating and destroying the Amalekites, their king and their possessions. Instead, Saul spared the king of the Amalekites, Agag, and also many of the sheep and oxen, which Saul argued to the prophet Samuel who confronted him on the matter, that those were meant to be sacrificed to God. This earned Saul a firm rebuke from God through Samuel, who told him off for his disobedience and failure to do God’s will, and for putting his own desires and judgments above that of obedience to God and His commands. Thus, that was the reason why Saul was eventually replaced as king by the more faithful David.
Why did Saul disobey God? It was not specifically or clearly mentioned, but based on the evidence from the Scripture passages and from the circumstances of the time, it was likely that Saul was tempted by the temptations of the wealth and riches that he could seize from the Amalekites, as well as other worldly recourses and matters, such as by sparing the Amalekite king, he could have gained more from the wars and conflict for his own benefits and for the treasuries of the kingdom as compared to if he followed the Lord’s words completely in obliterating the Amalekites wholly and thoroughly as he should have done. Thus, King Saul allowed himself to be tempted and swayed away from the path of righteousness and truth, falling into disobedience and committing sins against God.
Not only that, but according to the traditions of the people of God, this action of sparing the King of Amalek and part of their flocks would have repercussions in the future, as it was told that from the Queen of Amalek that escaped from the hands of the Israelites, and from Agag, the same king whom Saul spared, an Amalekite named Haman would rise in the distant future, a few centuries later, when this Haman almost managed to destroy the whole people of Israel and their descendants. From the Book of Esther, Haman did so as he used his influence and power to exact revenge against the Israelites, and if not for the intervention of God through Queen Esther of Persia and one Mordechai, the people of Israel would have been exterminated.
This is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, what the prophet Samuel told King Saul was indeed very important, as he told the latter that what God sought from him and all others were not sacrifices but obedience. There was no point for many sacrifices made to the Lord if this was done out of disobedience and sin, just as what Saul had done. King Saul chose to follow his own desires and temptations of the world rather than to trust in the Lord, and that was where his sins and faults lie, and all of us are reminded and warned of this today so that hopefully we will not end up in the same situation either. It is important reminder for us so that we do not easily allow ourselves to be swayed by all the temptations, coercions and pressures present all around us.
In our Gospel passage today, we then heard about the confrontation between the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees who were there questioning Him and His disciples why they were not fasting in the manner that they and the disciples of St. John the Baptist had done. The Lord then answered them that His disciples do not fast in the manner that they were asked for, because He, the Lord Himself, was with them. There would indeed be a time when they would fast and mourn, but essentially, they would not do things in the same manner as that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, or the disciples of St. John, and this was because the way that they had practiced the Law and the commandments of God by that time, had become obsolete and wayward from what the Lord had originally intended for them.
What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that by the time of the Lord’s earthly ministry, the Law and commandments of God had been largely misunderstood and misrepresented by those Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, all of whom had inherited various practices, customs, rituals and habits, all of which were additions and alterations from the true original Law of God. Many of those amendments and alterations were done without proper understanding and appreciation of what God had intended with His Law and commandments. The Lord has given us all His Law so that all of us may be able to reach Him and find our way to Him, and through His Law and commandments, we may find our path towards His salvation and grace more easily.
However, those Pharisees, teachers of the Law and elders had ended up using the Law in the wrong manner, trusting in their own traditions, practices, customs and human judgment and refusing to listen to the Lord speaking to them and explaining to them why their ways of practicing the Law and commandments of God had been wrong. It is important therefore, that all of us are again reminded that we should always put the Lord our God at the very centre and as the focus of our lives, and we should not allow the temptations of the world and all sorts of earthly ambitions and glory from distracting us from our focus on the Lord. This is why we should always keep our focus firmly on the Lord and do our best so that in each and every moments of our lives, we will always obey the Lord wholeheartedly, understand and appreciate His ways, and ultimately, be filled with love for Him all the time.
May the Lord be with us all, His beloved ones, always, and may He empower each one of us so that we may be strong and be able to persevere through the various challenges and trials in life. May God bless our every good efforts and works, all of us in everything we say and do, now and forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 2 : 18-22
At that time, when the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist were fasting, some people asked Jesus, “Why is it, that both the Pharisees and the disciples of John fast, but Yours do not?”
Jesus answered, “How can the wedding guests fast while the Bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the Bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the day will come, when the Bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.”
“No one sews a piece of new cloth on an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear away from the old cloth, making a worse tear. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins, for the wine would burst the skins, and then both the wine and the skins would be lost. But new wine, new skins!”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 49 : 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23
Not for your sacrifices do I reprove you, for your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I need no bull from your stalls, nor he-goat from your pens.
What right have you to mouth My laws, or to talk about My Covenant? You hate My commands and cast My words behind you.
Because I was silent while you did these things, you thought I was like you. But now I rebuke you and make this charge against you. Those who give with thanks, offerings, honour Me; but the one who walks blamelessly. I will show him the salvation of God.
Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Samuel 15 : 16-23
Samuel then told Saul, “Enough! Let me tell you what YHVH said to me last night.” Saul replied, “Please tell me.” So Samuel went on and said, “Though you had no confidence in yourself, you became chief of the tribes of Israel, for YHVH wanted to anoint you king over Israel. Then He sent you with this command, ‘Go. Completely crush the Amalekite offenders, engaging them in battle until they are destroyed.’”
“Why then did you not obey the voice of YHVH but instead swooped down on the spoil, doing what was evil in His sight?” To this, Saul replied, “I have obeyed the voice of YHVH and have carried out the mission for which He sent me. I have captured Agag, king of Amalek and completely destroyed the Amalekites. If my men spared the best sheep and oxen from among these to be destroyed, it was in order to sacrifice them to YHVH, your God, in Gilgal.”
Samuel then said, “Does YHVH take as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obedience to His command? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission better than the fat of rams. Rebellion is like the sin of divination, and stubbornness like holding onto idols. Since you have rejected the word of YHVH, He too has rejected you as king.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the occasion of the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, in which we recall the moment when the Lord Jesus was baptised at the River Jordan marking the beginning of His period of ministry in this world. This occasion today marks the last day of the liturgical season of Christmas, although traditionally in some forms, Christmas is still commemorated for a whole forty days period up to the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord or Candlemas on the second day of February. This day is the moment when the Christmas celebrations pass over to the Ordinary Time again, before in a few weeks’ time we are going to enter into the season of Lent in preparation for the Holy Week and Easter. However, this upcoming Ordinary Time is far from being ‘ordinary’ as we often understand it.
Instead, the word ‘Ordinary’ here comes from the word ‘Ordinal’ or numbered, named as such because the Sundays are numbered from the first one to the last one, the thirty-fourth one on the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe at the end of the liturgical year cycle. And this reminds us that, just as at His Baptism, the Lord began and embarked on His ministry and works, therefore each and every one of us too are called to proceed with whatever works and good things which Our Lord and God had entrusted to each and every one of us. All of us have been given the mission and the vocation in our respective capacities and areas of life, that we should live our lives worthily and well as Christians, in any way we can.
In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Isaiah in which God spoke to His people through Isaiah regarding the salvation which God had promised to all of us, and which He would send to us in fulfilment of all that He has promised, through the coming of His Messiah, or Saviour, the Word of God, sent to the world to carry out and accomplish everything that God had planned for us all. God promised that through His Saviour, He would gather all of His people to Himself, getting them, reaching out to them and helping them on their path and journey, calling on everyone to embrace His salvation and path, gathering all of us from the darkness of this world so that we may find the joy of God’s love, providence and care.
All those promises have been made by the Lord to us His people, and He fulfilled them all through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose Baptism and beginning of earthly ministry we recall and celebrate today. In our Gospel reading today, this is highlighted by St. Mark in the short account about the Baptism of the Lord, where St. John the Baptist baptised the Lord Jesus, as foretold, and hence, the Lord’s truth and ministry that He was to embark on, was all revealed to us, and to St. John the Baptist himself, as we heard of the Heaven itself being opened, and then the voice of the Father speaking, revealing that the One Whom St. John the Baptist had just baptised, is the Son of God, with the words, ‘You are My Son, the Beloved, the One I have chosen.’ This is also the same truth referred to by St. John the Apostle in his Epistle, which was mentioned in our second reading today.
This truth according to St. John the Apostle, witnessed by St. John the Baptist and other people who were present, has been affirmed and acknowledged through the three testimonies of Water, Blood and Spirit. Each one of these testimonies confirmed that truly Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the One Whom all the prophets had been proclaiming and prophesying about, the One Who has brought God’s love and compassion into our midst, unveiling to us the fullness of God’s ever generous mercy and kindness, His love and care for all of us, His beloved ones. The Lord has shown us that He was not merely just making empty promises and big words without action, but truly putting all of His love for us into real action, loving us generously at all times.
Firstly, the testimony of Water is also referred to in our Gospel today, at the moment when the Lord Jesus was baptised at the River Jordan by St. John the Baptist. At that moment, according to the testimony of St. John the Baptist, when the Lord had been baptised and emerged from the waters of the River Jordan, Heaven itself opened and the Holy Spirit descended on the Lord like the Dove, and the voice of the Father came upon all, speaking His will and revealing Who Jesus truly was, as the Incarnate Son of God in the flesh, with the words ‘You are My Son, the Beloved, the One I have chosen.’, which highlighted everything that He had done for us, in sending us His own beloved Son, so that through Him, all of us may be saved, and gathered through the same water of baptism, into eternal life.
Then, the testimony of Blood refers to the Blood which the same Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, had shed for all of us mankind, from the Altar of His Cross. He was offered, willingly enduring for us the worst of punishments and sufferings, trials and tribulations so that by all of His wounds and hurts, all of us may be healed. His Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood had been broken and poured down upon all of us mankind, freely offered and freely given to us, so that through this sharing of Himself, all of us may partake of the same Paschal Lamb, the Bread of Life, and hence enter into the eternal life which He has promised to all of us who partake upon His heavenly banquet, the Most Holy Eucharist that He has instituted and given to all of us, as yet another testimony of the truth about Him.
Lastly, the testimony of the Spirit mentioned by St. John can mean both the Holy Spirit descending on the Lord Jesus at the moment of His Baptism, but also the gift of the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord, and hence upon the Church, on the Pentecost. The Lord has promised the Advocate, the Helper, that is none other than the Holy Spirit, Who would come to strengthen all the faithful and holy people of God, and the Holy Spirit did indeed come, ten days after the Lord ascended gloriously to Heaven and fifty days after His glorious Resurrection from the dead. All these testimonies were proofs and evidences enough for all those who have witnessed them, and which they had taught and passed on to us through the Church.
Therefore, as we have heard and discussed above, the moment of the Lord’s Baptism and the testimonies of faith, of Water, Blood and Spirit surrounding it, are affirmations for each and every one of us of God’s Love, and also a call for us all to remember everything that He had done for us, in embracing the Cross, all the burdens, punishments and sufferings that He had to endure despite Him having the choice of not having to go through them all. The Lord has called us all to follow Him, in walking down the same path that He had walked, in carrying our crosses with Him, and in following the path that He has led us through, in the Church of God and in our respective calling and ministries entrusted to us.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, through our own baptism, when we were welcomed into the Church, be it as infants or as adults, each and every one of us have been made part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the same Body of Christ, the united assembly of all the people who are faithful in God, and counted among the flock of those whom God had called and chosen. Each and every one of us has professed our faith in the Lord, and renewed them every time we renew them ever since at Easter. Now, the question is, are we all truly aware of what we have been called to do as Christians? Are we aware of the missions and vocation which God has entrusted to each one of us in calling us all to walk in the path of righteousness and grace?
Baptism is not the end of the journey of faith, especially for all those of us who have gone through the period of catechism and catechumenate, leading to our baptisms as adults. Baptism is the beginning of this new phase in our lives, as we enter into a life of holiness, free from the bondage and the tyranny of sin, evil and death. However, we can always fall back again into sin, and be corrupted again by the many temptations present all around us. Hence, it is important that we remain vigilant, and strive as always to live our lives as worthily as possible, in obeying the Law and commandments of God, and in ensuring that our whole lives, our every actions, words and deeds are always full of faith and grace of God.
Let us all therefore recall the moments when we were baptised, and initiated into the Church and in receiving this Christian faith, and hence let us all recall the promises and commitments we have made at our baptism, and heed the Lord’s call for us to follow Him and walk in His path. Let our lives be truly faithful and full of Christian virtues, at all times, and each one of us become the shining beacons and examples of our faith to others around us. May the Lord our God be with us always in this journey of faith, and may He continue to bless our every works, good efforts and endeavours, done for His greater glory, now and always, forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Mark 1 : 7-11
John preached to the people, saying, “After me comes One Who is more powerful than I am; I have baptised you with water, but He will baptise you in the Holy Spirit.”
At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth, a town of Galilee, and was baptised by John in the Jordan. And the moment He came up out of the water, heaven opened before Him, and He saw the Spirit coming down on Him like a dove.
And these words were heard from heaven, “You are My Son, the Beloved, the One I have chosen.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Isaiah 12 : 2-3, 4bcd, 5-6
He is the God of my salvation; in Him I trust and am not afraid, YHVH is my strength : Him I will praise, the One Who saved me.
You will draw water with joy from the very fountain of salvation. Then you will say : “Praise to the Lord, break into songs of joy for Him, proclaim His marvellous deeds among the nations and exalt His Name.”
“Sing to the Lord : wonders He has done, let these be known all over the earth. Sing for joy, o people of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Isaiah 55 : 1-11
Come here, all you who are thirsty, come to the water! All who have no money, come! Yes, without money and at no cost, buy and drink wine and milk. Why spend money on what is not food and labour for what does not satisfy? Listen to me, and you will eat well; you will enjoy the richest of fare.
Incline your ear and come to Me; listen, that your soul may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, I will fulfil in you My promises to David. See, I have given him for a witness to the nations, a leader and commander of the people. Likewise you will summon a nation unknown to you, and nations that do not know you will come hurrying to you for the sake of YHVH your God, the Holy One of Israel, for He has promoted you.
Seek YHVH while He may be found; call to Him while He is near. Let the wicked abandon his way, let him forsake his thoughts, let him turn to YHVH for He will have mercy, for our God is generous in forgiving. For My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways, says YHVH.
For as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from the heavens and do not return till they have watered the earth, making it yield seed for the sower and food for others to eat, so is My Word that goes forth out of My mouth : It will not return to Me idle, but It shall accomplish My will, the purpose for which It has been sent.
Alternative reading
1 John 5 : 1-9
All those, who believe that Jesus is the Anointed, are born of God; whoever loves the Father, loves the Son. How may we know, that we love the children of God? If we love God and fulfil His commands, for God’s love requires us to keep His commands.
In fact, His commandments are not a burden because all those born of God overcome the world. And the victory, which overcomes the world, is our faith. Who has overcome the world? The one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus Christ was acknowledged through water, but also through blood. Not only water, but water and blood. And the Spirit, too, witnesses to Him, for the Spirit is truth. There are, then, three testimonies : the Spirit, the water and the blood, and these three witnesses agree.
If we accept human testimony, with greater reason must we accept that of God, given in favour of His Son.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 