new testament

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Friday, 22 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 14 : 1-6

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples at the Last Supper, “Do not be troubled! Trust in God and trust in Me! In My Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to Me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

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Friday, 22 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 26-33

Paul said to the Jews of Antioch in Pisidia, “Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham, and you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognise Jesus.”

“Yet in condemning Him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath but not understood. Even though they found no charge against Him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.”

“But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days thereafter He showed Himself to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become His witnesses before the people. We ourselves announce to you this Good News : All that God promised our ancestors, He has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm : You are My Son, today I have begotten You.”

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Thursday, 21 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 13 : 16-20

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples at the Last Supper, “Truly, I say to you, the servant is not greater than his master, nor is the messenger greater than he who sent him. Understand this, and blessed are you, if you put it into practice.”

“I am not speaking of you all, because I know the ones I have chosen, and the Scripture has to be fulfilled that says : The one who shared My table has risen against Me. I tell you this now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you may know that I am He.”

“Truly, I say to you, whoever welcomes the one I send, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One Who sent Me.”

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Thursday, 21 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Anselm, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 13 : 13-25

From Paphos, Paul and his companions set sail and came to Perga in Pamphylia. There John left them and returned to Jerusalem, while they went on from Perga and came to Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent this message to them, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the assembly, please speak up.”

So Paul arose, motioned to them for silence and began, “Fellow Israelites and also all you who fear God, listen. The God of our people Israel chose our ancestors, and after He had made them increase during their stay in Egypt, He led them out by powerful deeds. For forty years He fed them in the desert, and after He had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance. All this took four hundred and fifty years.”

“After that, He gave them Judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king and God gave them Saul, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, and he was king for forty years. After that time, God removed him and raised up David as king, to whom He bore witness saying : “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all I want him to do.”

“It is from the descendants of David that God has now raised up the promised Saviour of Israel, Jesus. Before He appeared, John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for all the people of Israel. As John was ending his life’s work, he said : ‘I am not what you think I am, for after me another One is coming Whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.'”

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Wednesday, 20 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 12 : 44-50

At that time, Jesus had said, and even cried out, “Whoever believes in Me, believes not in Me, but in Him Who sent Me. And whoever sees Me, sees Him Who sent Me. I have come into the world as Light, so that whoever believes in Me may not remain in darkness.”

“If anyone hears My words and does not keep them, I am not the One to condemn him; for I have come, not to condemn the world, but to save the world. The one who rejects Me, and does not receive My word, already has a judge : the very word I have spoken will condemn him on the last day.”

“For I have not spoken on My own authority; the Father, Who sent Me, has instructed Me in what to say and how to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life, and that is why the message I give, I give as the Father instructed Me.”

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Wednesday, 20 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 12 : 24 – Acts 13 : 5a

Meanwhile the word of God was increasing and spreading. Barnabas and Saul carried out their mission and then came back to Jerusalem, taking with them John also called Mark.

There were at Antioch – in the Church which was there – prophets and teachers : Barnabas, Symeon known as Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who has been brought up with Herod, and Saul. On one occasion while they were celebrating the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said to them, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul to do the work for which I have called them.”

So after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off. These then, sent by the Holy Spirit, went down to the port of Seleucia and from there sailed to Cyprus. Upon their arrival in Salamis they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogue.

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Tuesday, 19 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter, Eleventh Anniversary of the Pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 10 : 22-30

At that time, the time came for the feast of the Dedication. It was winter, and Jesus walked back and forth in the portico of Solomon. The Jews then gathered around Him and said to Him, “How long will You keep us in doubt? If You are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

Jesus answered, “I have already told you, but you do not believe. The works I do in My Father’s Name proclaim Who I am, but you do not believe because, as I said, you are not My sheep.”

“My sheep hear My voice and I know them; they follow Me and I give them eternal life. They shall never perish, and no one will ever steal them from Me. What the Father has given Me is above everything else, and no one can snatch it from out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are One.”

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Tuesday, 19 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter, Eleventh Anniversary of the Pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI, Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pontiff (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 11 : 19-26

Those who had been scattered because of the persecution over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message, but only to the Jews. But there were some natives of Cyprus and Cyrene among them who, on coming into Antioch, spoke also to the Greeks, giving them the good news of the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with them so that a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

News of this reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem, so they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he arrived and saw the manifest signs of God’s favour, he rejoiced and urged them all to remain firmly faithful to the Lord; for he himself was a good man filled with Holy Spirit and faith. Thus large crowds came to know the Lord.

Then Barnabas went off to Tarsus to look for Saul and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they had meetings with the Church and instructed many people. It was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we continue the discourse on the Lord as our Good Shepherd, our Guide and Leader through the darkness of this world, and He is gathering us all so that each and every one of us may find our way to salvation and find succour and grace in His embrace. This is what He is asking from each one of us, that we walk in His path and follow Him as our Shepherd and Guide.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us call ourselves as Christians, and yet do we know the reason behind all of this? Do we know the reason why we call ourselves as Christians? That is because all of us belong to Christ, and He is part of us. We follow Him, and He leads us, and this is why those who see us, by right they should have known that we belong to Christ our Lord and to no one else.

Remember what Jesus said in the Gospel today? That the sheep know the shepherd, and listen only to the shepherd, and not to the other thieves and false shepherds? That is what we should be, for we are the sheep and the flock of the Lord, belonging to God. That means, our way of life, all of our dealings, words, deeds and actions should reflect the nature of God, that is goodness, love, compassion and care for each other.

And yet, if we reflect on how we live our lives, we should realise just how far from the truth that is. How many of us actually do and act in the way that we believe in? How many of us truly walk in the way of our faith and act in the manner appropriate to our faith? It is important because, while the Lord our God gathered us into His flock, but we are still prone to falling into temptation and into the falsehoods and lies of the devil.

The devil will not just be quiet and leave us be, even as we proceed on with our lives. He will do all that is in his power and ability in order to hamper us and to obstruct our path towards salvation. He will not let us be and allow us to peacefully achieve our goal of salvation. Instead, he will harass us, tempt us and try to pull us away by various means, so that in the end, we will abandon our Lord in the hope of attaining something else more valuable or attractive to us.

What we have to realise is the fact that it is not always something that is good and enticing that is what we should choose. The false leads of the devil and his attempts to deceive us were meant to distract us and to mislead us into a way through which we shall be trapped and fall into harm’s path. The devil is hiding behind a facade of innocence and goodness in order to lure us away from the safety in God, and thus to destroy us. Just as wolves are trying many tricks to lure away the sheep away from their shepherds, thus in the same manner the devil is doing the same to us.

And therefore, all of us must be fully alert and be careful, that we would not fall into the trap of the devil. What is at stake here is nothing less than the fate of our eternal soul. Do we want to look forward to a good and blessed eternal life, in the presence of God? Or do we rather have the suffering and the eternal pain that is to come when we are cast out and rejected because of our sinful ways?

God will not abandon us to the darkness and to the damnation of hell. And yet, it is usually we ourselves that have abandoned the Lord and we walked away from Him. It is a conscious choice that we make if we are to follow God, or to follow the devil and all of his temptations. God calls everyone to be saved in Him, and the first reading showed all these very clearly.

Therefore, let us all spend some time to reflect on this, and let us all think about ways for us to help one another to reach out to God and to resist the temptations of the devil. Why is this so? Because all of us have to realise that each and every one of us who have called ourselves Christians, and who have become members and parts of the Church have that particular obligation, the obligation for us to be shepherds for each other, to help lead and guide one another in faith.

That is why I placed so much emphasis in the beginning on why it is important for us to know what does being a Christian mean to us. If we act as true Christians should act, then those who see us will also come to believe in the Lord as we have done, and our actions will inspire them greatly in serving the Lord our God. On the other hand however, if our actions do not reflect what we believe, or worse, even contradicting, then it is a great scandal of our faith.

Let us not bring one another to fall into eternal damnation, but instead let us help and support each other, so that together we may draw ever closer tor God our Lord and Shepherd, and let us commit ourselves to renew our faith in Him, and devote ourselves wholly to Him in body, heart and mind. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 18 April 2016 : Fourth Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 10 : 1-10

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “Truly, I say to you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. But the shepherd of the sheep enters by the gate. The keeper opens the gate to him and the sheep hear his voice; he calls each of his sheep by name and leads them out.”

“When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but rather they will run away from him, because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice.”

Jesus used this comparison, but they did not understand what He was saying to them. So Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, I am the gate of the sheep. All who came were thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not hear them. I am the Gate. Whoever enters through Me will be saved; he will go in and out freely and find food.”

“The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy, but I have come that they may have life, life in all its fullness.”