new covenant

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Sunday, 2 June 2013 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

1 Corinthians 11 : 23-26

This is the tradition of the Lord that I received and that in my turn I have handed on to you; the Lord Jesus, on the night that He was delivered up, took bread and, after giving thanks, broke it, saying, “This is My body which is broken for you; do this in memory of Me.”

In the same manner, taking the cup after the supper, He said, “This cup is the new Covenant in My blood. Whenever you drink it, do it in memory of Me.” So, then, whenever you eat of this bread and drink from this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord until He comes.

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Saturday, 25 May 2013 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor; Pope St. Gregory VII, Pope; and St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi, Virgin (Psalm)

Psalm 102 : 13-14, 15-16, 17-18a

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.

The days of mortals are like grass; they bloom like a flower of the field; but the wind passes over it, and it is gone, his field will not see him again.

But the Lord’s kindness is forever with those who fear Him; so is His justice, for their children’s children, for those who keep His covenant and remember His commands.

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(Good Friday) Friday, 29 March 2013 : Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Week (Scripture Reflection)

Our Lord Jesus Christ had died for us, and we commemorate this fact on Good Friday every year. Why did He choose to die? and why did He choose to suffer? Surely God has His ways to rescue us from our sins without having Christ suffer humiliation, mockery, and death? Surely He can just cleanse us from our sins through another way?

No, this is not simply the case. When Adam and Eve, our forefathers, sinned by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, by obeying Satan and his wish that they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. they were tainted by the taint of evil and sin. Because of this, they were banished from the presence of the Lord, just as Satan was banished due to his pride and sin that originated in his heart. Because the Lord is so holy and perfect that no one who has sinned can stand in front of God, in His presence and live.

Therefore, there is a need to rescue mankind, who was created by God in His own image, and brought to life by His own Spirit in the breath of life. God said to Moses that, in order to alleviate one’s sins, in the Book of Leviticus, He prescribed the burnt offering of the lambs and goats, which were offered by the appointed Levite priests, who offered them to the Lord, and in this offering, the temporal sins that the people have, were cleansed. But yet, this kind of offering is not worthy enough to completely redeem us from our death and sin.

That is because the blood of these lambs and goats are mere mortal bloods insufficient as the payment for our rebellions and our sins. Only Blood worthy enough, that is the Blood of the Lamb of God, that is worthy for the forgiveness and the cleansing of all the sins of all mankind, once and for all. This blood sacrifice also reestablished the bonds that mankind had with God, lost when our forefathers disobeyed God and listened to Satan and his temptations instead.

The Blood of the Lamb is the Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He freely poured down for us, just as the blood flowed down from the cross, and from his wounds. All of these wounds represent the reparations that Christ had paid for our sins and our faults. That through this holy and the only worthy blood, our defects that made us unworthy before God can be removed.

He washed us who believe in Him in His Blood, that we can once again be pure and as white as snow, just as said in the Psalm, but if we are truly repentant on our sins and sincerely seek the Lord and ask for His most gracious mercy.

Why today is called Good Friday? Because it is indeed a good day! We have to remember to put our faith constantly focused on the events that we commemorate on this day. For we are not Christians if we do not base ourselves on Christ, and we are not Christians if we do not believe in Christ who is not only glorified by God, but also was crucified on the cross, and who died a criminal’s death though He was sinless and faultless, all so that we ourselves can be freed from our sins, and have hope of a new life through Christ, who made all of this possible, hence today is a good day indeed.

He is the only one worthy of redeeming us from our faults, and out of His perfect and pure love for all of us, even for those who hated and rejected Him, He came to all of us, in our own mortal form, that through His mortality, and His life on this world, He could bring forth the full completion of the works of salvation God had begun with the prophets and since the days of Moses when He brought Israel out of Egypt, and even since the beginning of time.

Christ brought forth the commandments of love, that we are to love one another, just as He had loved us. He brought forth the perfect example of His own commandments, by laying down His life for all His friends, that is all of us. He humbled Himself and died on the cross, to die in humiliation that all of us can be glorified in Him, just as He was glorified in the glorious Resurrection, when God and mankind both triumphed in the ultimate struggle against evil, who first brought forth sin and taint on the first mankind.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us reflect, and reflect deeply on the humility that Christ had assumed, and in His great obedience to obey the will of His Father, that through His sacrifice, as the Lamb of God, brought without struggle to the slaughter that is the cross, and through the shedding of His Precious Blood, and the parting of His Precious Body, He had given salvation and life freely to us, if only we accept His precious gifts.

Therefore, let us pray that on this holy day, when Christ died for us, when He broke the chains of death and sin from us, that we can grow to love Him more and more, and be more and more courageous for the sake of our Lord crucified, and to continue preaching the good news on the Christ who was crucified but then was resurrected in triumph against sin and the evil one. When hope seemed lost, He turned a new chapter in life, through His resurrection.

Let us pray for one another, that the faith within us, will remain forever strong, and we will be able to carry our own crosses, alongside the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God. Amen!

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(Holy Thursday) Thursday, 28 March 2013 : Mass of the Lord’s Supper – Cena Domini, Holy Week (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus showed us that to be a leader, one must be ready to be a servant. For a leader is not appointed for the sake of the leader, but rather for the sake of the people over whom the leader is appointed for. Therefore, Christ too, who is the Lord and Master of all things, are also in service to all those things He is Master of, that is all the mankind and all those children of God to whom He come.

No better form of service that our Lord had rendered to all the people, other than the gift of Himself, the Lamb of God, as the lamb of sacrifice in the manner of the lambs of the Passover, since that first Passover in Egypt, when the Lord told Moses to celebrate the Passover to mark the salvation of the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt.

In Christ, there is a new salvation indeed, not just salvation from physical bonds, but indeed, the most important of all, the breaking of the bonds that had bound us since the time of our forefathers, from the time of Adam and Eve, the first mankind, when they rebelled against the Lord under Satan’s instigation and sinned. Thereafter, sin enslaved mankind, and made them do plenty of immoral things and things evil in the sight of God.

Yet Christ, the Son of God, who came into this world, out of the perfect love that God has for all of us, became the new Adam, who renewed mankind’s bonds with the Lord, by acting as the one and only bridge through which mankind, banished since the time of Adam onto the wild earth, to return back to God who loves them like a father loves his children. Christ broke the bonds of sin, and released mankind from slavery of sin, that is the spiritual slavery of the soul, much worse than any physical slavery.

For as long as we are enslaved by sin and the evil one, we have no hope of life in God, and we are doomed to death eternal with Satan and his fallen angels, to suffer the separation from the love of God for eternity. Christ ensured that this does not happen to us, as long as we are also welcoming of Christ’s love and redemption, that He offered freely to all mankind.

Christ poured out His Blood and His Body for all to eat and drink, through the bread and wine transformed into His Divine Presence in the Eucharist. Just like the unblemished lamb, whose flesh was eaten by the people of Israel, and whose blood marked the doorposts as a sign of salvation to God, that whoever marked by that blood, belongs to Him and deserves no death.

Therefore, similarly, Christ marked us through His Blood, and through His flesh, His Body. For no lamb is greater and more perfect than the Lamb of God Himself, and no blood or sacrifices are ever more worthy of redeeming one’s sins than that of the Blood of the Lamb itself. He gave Himself that we all may have hope of life, in Him! Such is the sacrifice and the service that He, who is Lord and Master, had rendered to all His people whom He loves.

Just like Christ who washes the feet of His disciples, He washes them clean from impurities, therefore the Blood of Christ too washes our sins away. Remember that in the Book of Revelations, John saw the large multitude of saints and martyrs who had washed their robes white in the Blood of the Lamb, that they be made holy and pure through their willingness to die for the sake of their Lord, and in defense of their faith.

Therefore, just like the martyrs and the saints, we too should wash ourselves clean through the Blood of the Lamb, which He freely gave to us. We are already cleaned externally as long as we bathe and ensure that all hygienic steps are taken, but what is much more difficult to clean is that of our interior, our heart, our mind, and our soul.

This is why we should bring the Lord into us, and we can do that by receiving worthily the Precious Body and/or Blood of our Lord. Just as the Church teaches us that either the Body or the Blood is already complete in itself, so it does not mean that if we only receive the Body then we receive the incomplete Lord.

No! This is not the case, and the most important things is to keep sacred the Temple of the Lord that is our being, our body, and our soul, that we make ourselves to be a worthy vessel, a worthy Temple, and a worthy Tabernacle in which our Lord resides. He who resides within us, through the Holy Spirit, and through his cleansing Blood, will purify us from our sins, if we are truly repentant and wish to be rid of such impurities.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, in the commemoration of this year’s Maundy or Holy Thursday, let us renew our commitment to the Lord, in order to receive Him into ourselves, and to partake in His Body and Blood, and welcome Him in our hearts, and humbly accepts His cleansing of our being and our soul, just as how He washed the feet of His disciples.

Let us all strive to be more faithful and be more loving, just as Christ had loved us to the point of death. May He shine over us and bless us with His grace, that we may have a great time in our celebration of the Easter Triduum, and will truly become the children of God, who values service to others, and to embody service in our leadership if we are chosen as leaders, and also to show God’s love through our actions, daily and even to the smallest of things that we do, that we show love in them. Amen.

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(Holy Thursday) Thursday, 28 March 2013 : Mass of the Lord’s Supper – Cena Domini, Holy Week (Second Reading)

1 Corinthians 11 : 23-26

This is the tradition of the Lord that I received and that in my turn I have handed on to you; the Lord Jesus, on the night that He was delivered up, took bread and, after giving thanks, broke it, saying, ‘This is My Body which is broken for you; do this in memory of Me.”

In the same manner, taking the cup after the supper, He said, “This cup is the new Covenant in My Blood. Whenever you drink it, do it in memory of Me.” So, then, whenever you eat of this bread and drink from this cup, you are proclaiming the death of the Lord until He comes.

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Saturday, 23 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Today we hear of the many conspiracies of those who were arrayed against Christ and His redemptive mission in this world. Those who had been blinded by their personal ambitions and greed, to be able to see God’s true mission through Christ, when He came into the world. Many gave in to their personal concerns on power and well-being to even block the works of salvation of Christ.

Such were the jealousy and the selfishness of the Pharisees and the chief priests at the time, that to preserve their position and their own honour, they chose to sacrifice a Man, for the sake of the ‘whole nation’, while in fact that they sacrificed Him for their own sake, and that this Man is not merely any Man, but Christ Himself, Saviour and Messiah, Son of God.

God however, remains faithful despite all of these shows of disobediences by His people, and He forgave all of them, even unto the cross on Calvary : “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing”. This is to show how great God’s love is that even to His constantly rebellious children, His people, He did not hesitate to show mercy, but to be shown mercy, ultimately, they too have to be humble and truly seek the Lord for forgiveness.

Despite their treachery and their wickedness, as God has shown through His remembrance of the covenant He made with Abraham in the days long past, God remembered His people, who had been brought to exile after the fall of their kingdom to Babylon. He brought them back to their ancestral land, and blessed them once again.

Through Christ, God fulfilled the promise He had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to King David, His beloved servant. That their descendants will thrive forever, and the throne of David shall remain in his house forever. For Christ is the descendant of David, and who but the Lord, who is eternal, can ensure that the kingdom that God had entrusted and given to David will be eternal? And through Christ, and His Good News, multitudes of nations now belong to God, indeed, all proclaiming Abraham as their forefather in faith.

Shall we then, renew our commitment to the new Covenant God had made with us? Yes, God had made a new, perfected covenant between all of us and Himself, sealed with none other than the worthy and Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, poured freely from Himself on the cross. So, it is entirely up to us, whether to accept God’s gift, freely given, with an open heart, or to spurn His gift like what the chief priests and the Pharisees did.

Today, we also celebrate the memorial of St. Turibius de Mogrevejo, an Archbishop of Lima, Peru in Latin America in the early 17th century, whom was well known for his great evangelising activities, and even more importantly, as the champion of the oppressed, the poor, and the natives at the time, against the tyranny of their Spanish masters. He sought to be close to his flock and make sure that they receive good care, just like how the Lord remain true to His covenant, and remain loving to all of us.

Let us pray, that today, God will strengthen in us, our love and dedication to Him, He who had died for us, He who suffered for our sins, but in the process, made us all whole once again, purified by the Blood of the Lamb, the Blood of Christ Himself, which purifies and made one whole. May God take care of us and bless all of us on this blessed day. St. Turibius de Mogrevejo pray for us.  Amen.

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Saturday, 23 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, Bishop (First Reading)

Ezekiel 37 : 21-28

You will then say to them : Thus says YHVH : “I am about to withdraw the Israelites from where they were among the nations. I shall gather them from all around and bring them back to their land. I shall make them into one people on the mountains of Israel and one king is to be king of them all. They will no longer form two nations or be two separate kingdoms, nor will they defile themselves again with their idols, their detestable practices, and their sins.”

“I shall free them from the guilt of their treachery; I shall cleanse them and they will be for Me a people and I shall be God for them. My servant David will reign over them, one shepherd for all. They will live according to My laws and follow and practice My decrees. They will settle in the land I gave to My servant Jacob where their ancestors lived. There they will live forever, their children and their children’s children. David, My servant, will be their prince forever.”

“I shall establish a covenant of peace with them, an everlasting covenant. I shall settle them and they will increase, and I shall put My sanctuary in their midst forever. I shall make My home at their side; I shall be their God and they will be My people. Then the nations will know that I am YHVH, who makes Israel holy, having My sanctuary among them forever.”

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Thursday, 21 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus, our Lord, has been the harbinger of a new covenant between us and God, just as God had established His covenant with Abraham in the days long past. He made the covenant with Abraham because of Abraham’s great faith and love for God, and obedience to the point that he was willing to offer his own son, the promised son God had promised him, to be offered as sacrifice without hesitation. For his great faith, love, and obedience, he has been rewarded with God’s promise that he will be the father of a great nation and that his descendants be as countless as the stars, and his descendants will last forever.

This covenant made the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through whom God repeatedly renewed and reiterated His covenant with Israel. Yet, despite the constant proof of His love and His obedience to the covenant that He had made, the people of Israel, after their liberation from Egypt’s slavery, constantly were in rebellion against God, and were unrepentant, despite the numerous prophets and signals He had brought to the people over the centuries.

They rebelled against Him, and murdered His prophets, and smeared their blood on the streets of Samaria and Jerusalem, that eventually made God abandoned the kingdoms that His people had chosen to make, starting with Saul, and ended with Zedekia in Judea, and were brought away to the seventy years in exile in Babylon. He, however, did not forget at all the covenant He had made all those years ago with Abraham. He remembered the covenant perfectly, and He brought His people back to their homeland.

Yet, they still rebelled and many years passed where the people of Israel abandoned God. Remember the Book of Maccabees, and the story of the struggle of the Maccabees against their Greek overlords who imposed pagan gods over the people of Israel, which saw many readily threw away their love and obedience to God and His covenant. Yet, God always remained true to His covenant at all times, and as we knew, that God has sent His one and only deliverance to His people, and this people counted it not only that of Israel, but that of all the descendants of Adam, all mankind He had created.

That salvation came through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Word of God, who is one with God the Father in perfect unity, and He is the only one worthy on heaven and earth, to end the chains of slavery of sin, to end the corruption of Satan and all his evil plans, and to bring all creation, all mankind, back towards God who loves them so much. Jesus Christ, is the harbinger of a new Covenant, in place of the covenant that God had made with Abraham.

No, not to replace that covenant, but rather to perfect that covenant. A new covenant not only to show God’s love and undying care for His people, but also to bring them to be once again fully reunited against Him. That love and that covenant came about and was fulfilled, as we remember it, in the events surrounding the Holy Week, in which the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is celebrated every year. Through Christ’s suffering, death, and finally resurrection on the third day in glory, He made the new covenant fulfilled, which He gave to us, through His Precious Body and Precious Blood.

Remember the words when the Blood of Christ in the chalice is elevated at the Mass at the consecration, “Take this all of you and drink for it, for this is the Chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins, do this in the memory of Me.” Indeed, the Body and Blood of Christ that He had offered through His sacrifice and death on the cross marked the new Covenant God made with all of us.

If we remain true to this Covenant and remain faithful to this Covenant, God will definitely also bless us, and will keep true to the Covenant, for He is ever faithful and ever loving. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today pray for one another, that we will continue to keep our faith, hope, and love in God, and remain true to our part in this new Covenant of Christ. Remember this every time we take in His Body and His Blood at the Mass. May God remain with us always, and bless us, with eternal life. Amen.

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Thursday, 21 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent (First Reading)

Genesis 17 : 3-9

Abram fell face down and God said to him, “This is My covenant with you : you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer will you be called Abram, but Abraham, because I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you more and more famous; I will multiply your descendants; nations shall spring from you, kings shall be among your descendants.”

“And I will establish a covenant, an everlasting covenant between Myself and you and your descendants after you; from now on I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you, for generations to come. I will give to you and your descendants after you, the land you are living in, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession and I will be the God of your race.”

God said to Abraham, “For your part, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.

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Saturday, 9 February 2013 : 4th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

God, is our shepherd, and He is the good shepherd who gave none other but Himself for the sake of His sheep, all of us here in this world, past, present, and the future. We do not entrust ourselves on simply any being, but the very Son of God Himself, whose Precious Blood redeemed us from our sins. Jesus as the good shepherd laid down His life for His sheep, and it is through His obedience of the Father’s will to die on the cross, that all of us today have hope of everlasting life. Without Christ and His Sacrifice, we cannot be so sure of our victory over sin and over evil. Christ, as our shepherd, bought us with nothing else other than His Blood, precious and priceless as it is.

The duties of a shepherd are many, and these include having to feed the flock, the sheep, and to guide them to avoid predators and seek good sources of water and food, for the multitudes of sheep in the flock. Therefore, Christ too, during His ministry in this world, was overcome with the great love He has for us, since above all, He as our shepherd truly loves His sheep, and not like those who are paid to take care of the sheep, Christ, as the good shepherd stood ready to give His life up for us, that all of us will have hope, that is of eternal life in God.

In our world today, there are many forms of temptations and easily, if we do not anchor ourselves strongly in faith in God, and in God’s divine love, we can be led astray by these temptations and succumb to worldly desires, rather than following the path the Lord wants for us. In that state, we are indeed likened to sheep wandering around without a shepherd, running around randomly, just following the current and the flow of the modern society, wherever it brings us to. No, we should strive to take up a stand, in order to stand up to our faith, and give testimonies of our faith in our good shepherd, that we, the sheep, love the Lord too, just as He loves us.

God is so selfless in giving Himself up to pay for our own rebellion against Him. We, who deserved death and eternal separation from Him, were not only given another chance, but were given also the very chance to be the part of creation into which the Lord was incarnated into, as Jesus, as a part of the great effort God has undertaken for the salvation of all mankind.

Despite our rebellious nature, just like the people of Israel, whom, if we read the Old Testament, were very difficult to satisfy and always caused troubles to our Lord by their worship of foreign gods and idols, the Lord was ever-ready to welcome them back if His beloved children are truly repentant, and willing to embrace Him again in love, and this, was sealed as a new Covenant, by the Sacrifice Christ made on the Cross, that justify all of us who believed in Him.

In our own lives, all of us can become shepherds too, to one another. There are many of our dear brothers and sisters, who are still lost and did not know their way, in the darkness of the world. They have yet to receive the light of the Lord, which will illuminate their path. Let us therefore, imitate the example of Christ as the good shepherd, who brought His sheep into good and fertile places, and ensured that they all have ample to eat.

Let us share with one another, the Word of God, our spiritual food, which when shared, we too share in the Lord’s ministry as a shepherd to our fellow brethren in Christ. Support one another in faith, and in love, and do not leave anybody behind in sorrow and hopelessness. Rather, help one another in our way towards Christ, that eventually, all of us, will be reunited with God, who is our Brother, our Good Shepherd, and our loving Father at the same time.

May God bless us all in our daily lives, and give us the courage to live according to our faith, and to share God’s love with all mankind. Amen.