Monday

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 1 : 26-38

In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth. He was sent to a young virgin, who was betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the family of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

The Angel came to her and said, “Rejoice, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” Mary was troubled at these words, wondering what this greeting could mean. But the Angel said, “Do not fear, Mary, for God has looked kindly on you. You shall conceive and bear a Son, and you shall call Him Jesus. He will be great, and shall rightly be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the kingdom of David, His ancestor; He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and His reign shall have no end.”

Then Mary said to the Angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” And the Angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore, the Holy Child to be born of you shall be called Son of God. Even your relative Elizabeth is expecting a son in her old age, although she was unable to have a child; and she is now in her sixth month. With God nothing is impossible.”

Then Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me as you have said.” And the Angel left her.

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 23 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord, the world and all that dwell in it. He has founded it upon the ocean and set it firmly upon the waters.

Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who will stand in His holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain.

They will receive blessings from the Lord, a reward from God, their Saviour. Such are the people who seek Him, who seek the face of Jacob’s God.

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Monday, 20 December 2021 : 4th Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 7 : 10-14

Once again YHVH addressed Ahaz, “Ask for a sign from YHVH your God, let it come either from the deepest depths or from the heights of heaven.”

But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask, I will not put YHVH to the test.” Then Isaiah said, “Now listen, descendants of David. Have you not been satisfied trying the patience of people, that you also try the patience of my God? Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign : The Virgin is with Child and bears a Son and calls His Name Immanuel.”

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture we are reminded yet again of the coming of the salvation of God in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. As we heard from our first reading today from the Book of Numbers, we heard how the man of God, Balaam the Seer blessed the people of Israel and spoke of a prophecy of what would be come, the coming of the Star that would rise from Jacob, an early proclamation of Christ’s coming into this world. Then we also heard from our Gospel passage today of the Lord Jesus Himself and His debate with the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who questioned Him on the authority and legality of His actions and works.

In our first reading that we heard from the Book of Numbers, we heard of the people of Israel who were at that time on their way to the promised land of Canaan, that God had promised to their ancestors, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. At that time, the Israelites had become a great nation with hundreds of thousands of people, all having journeyed through the desert for a long period of forty years during their Exodus from Egypt. God guided them and protected them during all that time, provided for them, food and drink, as well as crushing their enemies before them, all the while punishing those who refused to believe in Him and disobeyed His Law and commandments.

It was then that the king of Moab, one of the later neighbours of the Israelites, namely king Balak was worried about the Israelites, their great numbers and power, and feared them. As such, he resorted to using methods such as curses that he asked a seer named Balaam, son of Beor as we heard in our reading today. Balaam was tasked by king Balak to curse the people of Israel so that the curses might destroy them and make them to be at a disadvantage. Yet, as we heard in today’s first reading, Balaam instead spoke the truth, of whatever God had told him to proclaim before the king, a blessing instead of a curse for the Israelites.

Balaam praised God and His people, the Israelites, blessed them for all of their wonders and he also proclaimed the vision that he had received from God. He saw a vision of a Figure to come, that he was not yet able to comprehend, and yet, that figure was indeed like a Star that would arise from Jacob, a reference to the people of Israel, to be the One Who leads and guides the whole entire world. Through this we can see how Balaam was blessed by God and given the rare opportunity to glimpse God’s great plan of salvation for all of the nations and all the people, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

As we look upon from our current age and time, in which Christ had come into the world and revealed Himself, we know that Balaam spoke the truth, and he had given the people of God back then an insight of God’s plans and all that He had done out of His great love for them. And yet, we should be able to see the irony that it was Balaam, a man who did not even belong to the people of Israel, who proclaimed God’s love and truth, while God’s own people denied Him, rejected Him, doubted Him and questioned His authority as we heard in our Gospel passage today.

In our Gospel today, we heard how the Lord was questioned by the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees as He was teaching in the Temple, who questioned Him for His actions and all that He had taught the people. This was likely because of the jealousy that those people held for the Lord, as they saw Him as a rival and great threat to their own popularity, influence, authority and power. Contextually, we must understand that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law made up one of the two groups of very influential leaders of the community back then.

As such, they likely saw the Lord and His immense popularity, His radically different teachings and truths as a challenge to their own authority and power, that they opposed Him, refused to listen to Him and stubbornly resisted in believing His message of truth despite all that they themselves had witnessed, seen and heard. All the miracles and the works the Lord had done, all the wisdom He had shown and the words He had spoken all point out to Him being the Messiah or the Saviour that God had promised His people, and those same Pharisees and teachers of the Law, being those who were most knowledgeable about the Law and the prophets should have known this better than anyone else.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why it is important that we should not let our pride and worldly desires from interfering with our faith in the Lord. We should learn to listen to the truth and not to be easily swayed by all of our worldly temptations and concerns. Otherwise, we may end up behaving and responding like the Pharisees and those teachers of the Law who remained stubborn in their opposition of the Lord, and even St. John the Baptist, the Herald and messenger whom God had sent to prepare the way for His coming.

Today, all of us celebrate the feast of St. Lucy, also known as St. Lucia of Syracuse, the daughter of a Roman noble who died as a martyr during the height of the last great persecution of Christians under the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. She had consecrated herself to God as a holy virgin, but her mother who did not know about this, arranged for her to be married to the young son of a rich noble pagan family. The mother was then suffering from a disease, and was worried about St. Lucy’s future.

Through the intercession of St. Agatha, another great martyr of Sicily, St. Lucy’s mother was healed, and St. Lucy was able to persuade her mother to give generously much of their wealth and inheritance to the poor and the needy. This was not taken kindly by her betrothed pagan fiancé, who reported her to the local governor. The governor ordered St. Lucy to make offerings to the pagan idols, which she refused courageously. She was arrested and according to some traditions, was put to death by the sword after attempts to force her to a brothel and burning her did not succeed because of God’s miraculous intervention.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I hope all of us take good lesson from the faith that St. Lucy had in the Lord and strive to do what we can to be faithful to God. We should learn to live our lives with genuine faith and commit ourselves to follow Him the way that St. Lucy and many other saints and martyrs had done. And let us be inspired by the love and hope that Christ Our Lord Himself had brought us, that brought joy even to Balaam so many years ago. It is this same hope and love that we are expecting throughout this season of Advent, of celebrating the coming of Christ in this Christmas.

Let us all live our lives with great faith and dedication to the Lord from now on, committing ourselves in each and every moments to serve Him and to look forward to His wondrous coming in glory, to dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly in the manner that St. Lucy and all of our holy predecessors had done. May God bless us all and may His grace be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 21 : 23-27

At that time, Jesus had entered the Temple and was teaching, when the chief priests, the teachers of the Law and the Jewish authorities came to Him, and asked, “What authority have You to act like this? Who gave You authority to do all this?”

Jesus answered them, “I will also ask You a question, only one. And if you give me an answer, then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. When John began to baptise, was it a work of God, or was it merely something human?”

They reasoned out among themselves, “If we reply that it was a work of God, He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ And if we say, ‘The baptism of John is merely something human’, we have got to beware of the people, for all hold John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.”

And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what right I do these things.”

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 24 : 4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9

Teach me Your ways, o Lord; make known to me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and instruct me, for You are my God, my Saviour.

Remember Your compassion, o Lord, Your unfailing love from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth, but in Your love remember me.

Good and upright, the Lord teaches sinners His way. He teaches the humble of heart and guides them in what is right.

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Monday, 13 December 2021 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Numbers 24 : 2-7, 15-17a

Balaam looked up and saw Israel camping, tribe by tribe; and the Spirit of God came upon him and he uttered this song : “Word of Balaam, son of Beor, the seer, the one who hears the words of God, and beholds the vision of the Almighty, in ecstasy, with eyes unveiled.”

“How goodly are your tents, Jacob, your encampments, Israel! Like valleys stretching far, like gardens beside a stream, like aloes planted by YHVH, like cedars beside the waters. His buckets are overflowing and His seeds are always watered. His king becomes stronger than Agag, and His kingdom grows.

Then Balaam pronounced his oracle : “Word of Balaam, son of Beor, the seer, the one who hears the words of God, who has the knowledge from the Most High, and sees the vision of the Almighty, in ecstasy, with eyes unveiled. I see a Figure, but not really. I behold Him but not near. A Star shall come forth from Jacob, He rises with a staff in His hand.”

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Monday, 6 December 2021 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Nicholas, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, we are reminded of the healing and liberation that God is bringing us through His Saviour, His own only begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Through Him, all of us have received the guarantee and assurance of salvation, through our faith in Him. He has revealed to us God’s most amazing and infinite love, and His desire to forgive us our sins as well as reconciling us to Himself.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard how God reassured His people of the coming of salvation for all of them, and God Himself will come to succour them and to provide for them. He shall bless them and reveal to them His love and all that He will do for them. All of these eventually will come true through Christ, His Son, Our Lord and Saviour. Through the coming of His light into this world, He reveals the Way of Holiness as mentioned, the Way of Light out of the darkness of evil and sin.

It was a most reassuring message that the Lord gave to His people, especially to those who still remained faithful to Him despite the history of many disobedient and rebellious actions that the people of God had done in the past years, decades and centuries. He still remembered them and loved them, and sent prophets and messengers, one after another to help them, to guide them to the right path, ever patiently hoping for them to return to Him and be reconciled with Him.

That was exactly what happened on our Gospel today, the coming of His long promised salvation, in the person of Jesus Christ, Who revealed the truth of God to the people, and healed a paralytic man brought upon Him through the roof, because there were simply so many people that were assembled around the Lord to listen to Him. I am sure many of us knew this well-documented miracle, as the Lord told the paralytic that his sins had been forgiven, and made him to be able to walk and move freely once again.

Yet, as we heard from that same Gospel passage, the Lord’s actions were not truly welcomed by some among His own people, especially the powerful elites, the members of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who were among the very influential persona in the community of the people of God. Those people were unhappy, displeased and even infuriated at hearing the Lord forgiving the sins of the paralytic man, not knowing that it was indeed well within His power and right to do so. They hardened their hearts and minds against God, refusing to believe in the truth. They had even charged the Lord of blasphemy for having done what God alone can do.

Ironically, those same Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were supposedly the most intelligent, knowledgeable and understanding of the truth of God as contained within His Law and in the words of His prophets. They were the guardians and caretakers of God’s Law and commandments, and the teachings and words of the prophets were kept by them, even by heart. Yet, when seeing everything unfolding exactly as how the prophet Isaiah himself and the other prophets had mentioned, they still refused to believe in God.

It was this same attitude that God had to face for so many years while patiently sending His people His prophets and messengers, reminding them of His love and truth. Yet, He never gave up on us and kept trying to bring us to Himself. And we should also compare the attitudes of the Pharisees to that of the companions of the paralytic man, who had so much faith in the Lord that they were willing to climb up with the paralytic man to the roof, a no small feat, and helped the man to reach the Lord to be healed.

The question that all of us should ask ourselves is, who do we want to be like? Do we want to behave like the Pharisees in their ways, in refusing to humble themselves to the Lord and in keeping their pride and arrogance? Or do we want to be like the paralytic man and his companions instead, who sought the Lord, our Salvation and Light, our Hope and Prince of Peace with true and genuine faith? This is something that we have to ponder carefully in our hearts as we continue to prepare ourselves in this blessed season of Advent, for the coming of the joyous Christmas celebrations.

Today, all of us should be inspired by the faith and dedication, the good examples and virtues shown to us by our holy predecessor, whose feast we celebrate today, the renowned St. Nicholas of Myra. Many of us may recognise him more as the origin of the ubiquitous Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, Father Christmas and many other personas that were inspired upon the original saint. However, many of those personas did not tell us anything at all about who the true St. Nicholas of Myra truly was. He was a truly devoted man of God, who loved God with all his heart and also did the same for his fellow men.

We may see St. Nicholas of Myra more as an elderly bishop who truly loved children and liked to give them presents. This he actually did as part of his pastoral works and approach among his flock, from which eventually sprang, the legend of St. Nicholas, that eventually was corrupted into Sinterklaas and Santa Claus. But the true St. Nicholas of Myra was not just a loving shepherd to his flock, but an ardent and faithful defender of the faith.

He was an ardent defender of the true faith in the midst of the Arian heresy and schism caused by the priest Arius, during the heated debate and discussions at the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. He stood up against those who sought to corrupt the true faith and pervert the truth of God for their own worldly desires and ambitions, as the heresiarch Arius and his supporters had done. In one tradition, it was even told that the faithful St. Nicholas hit the heresiarch when the latter in his speech spoke such utter falsehood that it enraged him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we recall the Scripture passages today and reflect on the life, courage and examples showed by St. Nicholas of Myra and many other saints, let us all be inspired by the genuine faith that others had for God, and the love that they also had for Him. Are we willing and able to commit ourselves thoroughly to God, and dedicate ourselves and our efforts to serve Him for His greater glory?

May the Lord be our Guide and Strength, and may He give us all the courage to remain faithful throughout our journey of life. May God be with us all, and may He empower us all in our everyday lives, that we may ever be inspirations ourselves in how we live our faith, at all times. Amen.

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Monday, 6 December 2021 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Nicholas, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)

Luke 5 : 17-26

At that time, Jesus was teaching and many Pharisees and teachers of the Law had come from every part of Galilee and Judea, and even from Jerusalem. They were sitting there, while the power of the Lord was at work to heal the sick. Then some men brought a paralysed man who lay on his mat.

They tried to enter the house to place him before Jesus, but they could not find a way through the crowd. So they went up on the roof, and removing the tiles, they lowered him on his mat into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the man, “My friend, your sins are forgiven.”

At once the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees began to wonder, “This Man insults God! Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” But Jesus knew their thoughts and asked them, “Why are you reacting like this? Which is easier to say : ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Get up and walk’? Now you shall know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

And Jesus said to the paralysed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” At once the man stood before them. He took up the mat he had been lying on, and went home praising God. Amazement seized the people and they praised God. They were filled with a holy fear, and said, “What wonderful things we have seen today!”

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Monday, 6 December 2021 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Nicholas, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)

Psalm 84 : 9ab-10, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints. Yet His salvation is near to those who fear Him, and His Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.