opposition to Jesus

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Friday, 23 March 2018 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 10 : 31-42

At that time, the Jews then picked up stones to throw at Jesus; so He said, “I have openly done many good works among you, which the Father gave Me to do. For which of these do you stone Me?”

The Jews answered, “We are not stoning You for doing a good work, but for insulting God; You are only a Man, and You make Yourself God.” Then Jesus replied, “Is this not written in your law : I said, you are gods? So those who received this word of God were called gods, and the Scripture is always true.”

“What then should be said of the One anointed, and sent into the world, by the Father? Am I insulting God when I say, ‘I am the Son of God?’ If I am not doing the works of My Father, do not believe Me. But if I do them, even if you have no faith in Me, believe because of the works I do; and know that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”

Again they tried to arrest Him, but Jesus escaped from their hands. He went away again to the other side of the Jordan, to the place where John had baptised, and there He stayed. Many people came to Jesus, and said, “John worked no miracles, but he spoke about You, and everything he said was true.” And many became believers in that place.

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Friday, 9 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There, a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, and put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He said with a deep sigh, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately, his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it; but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Thursday, 8 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome Emiliani, and St. Josephine Bakhita, Virgin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saints and Virgins)

Mark 7 : 24-30

At that time, when Jesus went to the border of the Tyrian country. There, He entered a house, and did not want anyone to know He was there; but He could not remain hidden. A woman, whose small daughter had an evil spirit, heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet.

Now this woman was a pagan, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter. Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies.”

But she replied, “Sir, even the puppies under the table eat the crumbs from the children’s bread.” Then Jesus said to her, “You may go your way; because of such a response, the demon has gone out of your daughter.”

And when the woman went home, she found her child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

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Wednesday, 7 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 14-23

At that time, Jesus then called the people to Him again and said to them, “Listen to Me, all of you, and try to understand. Nothing that enters a person from the outside can make that person unclean. It is what comes from within that makes a person unclean. Let everyone who has ears listen.”

When Jesus got home and was away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him about this saying, and He replied, “So even you are dull? Do you not see that whatever comes from outside cannot make a person unclean, since it enters not the heart but the stomach, and is finally passed out?”

Thus Jesus declared that all foods are clean. And He went on, “What comes our of a person is what defiles him, for evil designs come out of the heart : theft, murder, adultery, jealousy, greed, maliciousness, deceit, indecency, slander, pride and folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.”

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Tuesday, 6 February 2018 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 7 : 1-13

At that time, one day, the Pharisees gathered around Jesus, and with them were some teachers of the Law who had just come from Jerusalem. They noticed that some of His disciples were eating their meal with unclean hands, that is, without washing them.

Now the Pharisees, and in fact all the Jews, never eat without washing their hands, for they follow the tradition received from their ancestors. Nor do they eat anything, when they come from the market, without first washing themselves. And there are many other traditions they observe; for example, the ritual washing of cups, pots and plates.

So the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law asked Him, “Why do Your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders, but eat with unclean hands?” Jesus answered, “You shallow people! How well Isaiah prophesied of you when he wrote : ‘This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. The worship they offer Me is worthless, for what they teach are only human rules.’ You even put aside the commandment of God to hold fast to human tradition.”

And Jesus commented, “You have a fine way of disregarding the commandments of God in order to enforce your own traditions! For example, Moses said : Do your duty to your father and your mother, and : Whoever curses his father or his mother is to be put to death. But according to you, someone could say to his father or mother, ‘I already declared Corban (which means “offered to God”) what you could have expected from me.’”

“In this case, you no longer require him to do anything for his father or mother; and so you nullify the word of God through the tradition you have handed on. And you do many other things like that.”

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Thursday, 3 March 2016 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 11 : 14-23

At that time, one day Jesus was driving out a demon, which was mute. When the demon had been driven out, the mute person could speak, and the people were amazed. Yet some of them said, “He drives out demons by the power of Beelzebul, the chief of the demons.” Others wanted to put Him to the test, by asking Him for a heavenly sign.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them, “Every nation divided by civil war is on the road to ruin, and will fall. If Satan also is divided, his empire is coming to an end. How can you say that I drive out demons by calling upon Beelzebul? If I drive them out by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons drive out demons? They will be your judges, then.”

“But if I drive out demons by the finger of God; would not this mean that the kingdom of God, has come upon you? As long as a man, strong and well armed, guards his house, his goods are safe. But when a stronger man attacks and overcomes him, the challenger takes away all the weapons he relied on, and disposes of his spoils.”

“Whoever is not with Me is against Me, and whoever does not gather with Me, scatters.”

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Wednesday, 21 January 2015 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Mark 3 : 1-6

At that time, again Jesus entered the synagogue. A man, who had a paralysed hand, was there and some people watched Jesus : would He heal the man on the sabbath? If He did, they could accuse Him.

Jesus said to the man with the paralysed hand, “Stand here in the centre.” Then He asked them, “What does the Law allow us to do on the Sabbath? To do good or to do harm? To save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

Then Jesus looked around at them with anger and deep sadness, because they had closed their minds. And He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was healed. As soon as the Pharisees left, they met with Herod’s supporters, looking for a way to destroy Jesus.

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Friday, 26 December 2014 : Feast of St. Stephen, Protomartyr of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 10 : 17-22

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Be on your guard with people, for they will hand you over to their courts, and they will flog you in their synagogues. You will be brought to trial before rulers and kings because of Me, so you may witness to them and the pagans.”

“But when you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say, or how you are to say it; when the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. For it is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father in you.”

“Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of Me, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.”

 

Homily and Reflection :

https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/12/25/friday-26-december-2014-feast-of-st-stephen-protomartyr-of-the-church-homily-and-scripture-reflections/

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Thursday, 7 August 2014 : 18th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Xystus II/Pope St. Sixtus II, Pope and Companions, Martyrs and St. Cajetan, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Priests)

Matthew 16 : 13-23

After that, Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They said, “For some of them You are John the Baptist, for others Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus replied, “It is well for you, Simon Bar-jona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven. And now I say to you : You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it.”

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven : whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven.”

Then He ordered His disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Christ. From that day Jesus began to make it clear to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem; that He would suffer many things from the Jewish authorities, the chief priests and the teachers of the Law; and that He would be killed and be raised on the third day.

Then Peter took Him aside and began to reproach Him, “Never, Lord! No, this must never happen to You!” But Jesus turned to him and said, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle in My path. You are thinking not as God does, but as people do.”

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Friday, 18 July 2014 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we should grow to appreciate more the tenets of our faith, and not just to know and understand them, but also to put them into the deepest parts of our hearts and minds. It is only if we had done this that we may truly be good and faithful servants of our Lord, who follow Him not out of blind faith, but out of true understanding and appreciation of His precepts and laws.

The Pharisees of Jesus’ time are hardliners and ultra-orthodox purists who took up a very conservative and strict stance on how the people ought to live out their lives in accordance to the faith and to the laws of God as revealed to the people of God via Moses and the prophets who came after him. They criticised Jesus and His followers, and were constantly at their heels, trying to disturb and harass them at every opportunity because they failed to understand the true meaning of the law of God, and in doing so, they believed in God through blind faith and ended up causing greater harm than good.

Jesus today in the Gospel advocated and taught us the importance of understanding the words of the Lord found in the Holy Scriptures, and finding the true meaning of what our faith, and indeed of what our God is all truly about. And He highlighted that using the example of His own servant David, who out of hunger, were allowed to eat the bread of offerings in the Temple, normally reserved only for the consumption of the priests. David and his companions ate the bread.

All of this is to show that God is love, and all about love. He loves all of His creations, and in particular all mankind, the most beloved of all His creations. And the laws which He had given to them through His prophets, is just another form of His love and dedication which He showed them. Through the Law, He hoped that mankind would be able to find their way to Him and ensure that these beloved ones of Him did not fall along the way as they seek the way to reach out to Him.

Sadly, throughout the history of mankind, and the history of the people of Israel, the chosen people of God, they had grown corrupt in their ways, and even with the prophets to remind them about the love of God espoused and enshrined in the Law, they still chose to ignore the pleadings of the prophets even to the point of rejecting and murdering them to shut them up for good.

And even after God had rescued His people when He showed His mercy to the exiled ones of Israel, they still persisted in their unruly behaviour, as shown in the occasions of the apostasies during the time of the Maccabees, when many of the people of God chose to honour their own safety and well-being in exchange for abandoning their Lord and their faith. But the worst of all was indeed not the ways of the people who veered away from the Law of God, but the rise of those who took the Law for granted and used it for their own selfish and self-aggrandising desires.

The Pharisees and the Scribes were among these, and they used the Law to impose on the people a very strict and unbending set of rules and obligations that ended up mocking and ridiculing the Law itself, causing the people to forget the true meaning and intention of the Law, in exchange for a blind observation of the faith which they truly did not understand and misinterpreted, to the point that the Pharisees regarded themselves as being superior to others and casually condemned all those who were against them.

Jesus our Lord came as the Saviour of the world, and of all His beloved people. Therefore, as part of His great mission, He came to clarify all doubts and remove the layers of untruths and distortions which the people had made with the Law. He came to bring the Law into its perfection, the Scriptures and the prophecies of the prophets and servants of God into their complete fulfillment, and to bring love, the love of God Himself, into the world once again.

And to show that love, which God had shown mankind and all creations since the beginning of time, He showed that through His ultimate act of love, the sacrifice on the cross on Calvary, when He bared Himself and opened His own heart to all of His beloved creations. In that, He made the Law perfect and revealed the entirety of the meaning of God’s love and precepts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, even today there are still those who refuse to listen to God’s loving words and His calls for us to repent and to follow Him and instead, trusting in their own human wisdom and intellect and thinking that they know it all better than anyone else, walk on their own paths towards their own doom.

We must not end up being focused so much on ourselves, that we forget or ignore everything else, especially God and His love for us. Our fear of losing things precious to us and our attachments to the world can often stand in the way of truly becoming faithful disciples of the Lord. The concerns and worries of king Hezekiah of Judah, although a faithful servant of the Lord, was to become his taint and the blotch of ink that spanned through his otherwise immaculate record.

King Hezekiah was so distraught that he was to die young, that he begged the Lord for mercy, and kindly, the Lord heard him and extended his life. But later on, we found that if we read the Holy Scriptures, that King Hezekiah showed off his wealth and glory to the Babylonian ambassadors, priding in his own greatness and human power, all these while rejecting and refusing to listen to the word of God which He had spoken through His prophet.

King Hezekiah is an example of how attachments to worldly things and all other distractions that exist in this world may lead to our detachment from the Lord and His way, and end up being too caught up in our own concerns, worries and others, that we do not glorify God in our works and actions, but instead glorify ourselves and the evil one.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be mindful of all these, and let us be careful, lest our worldly attachments bring us into ruin. Let us all have a good and healthy relationship with our God, through devout prayer and obedience to the teachings of the Church, through which Jesus our Lord had made clear the purpose of the Laws of God, purified from all the corruptions of men, the Pharisees and others.

May Almighty God bless us and be with us always, that He may guide us to Him, and straighten our path and make it secure, that we may not fall into the darkness, but remain always in the light. Amen.