Ordinary season

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Sunday, 16 February 2025 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Blessed is the man who does not go where the wicked gather, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit where the scoffers sit! Instead, he finds delight in the Law of YHVH and meditates day and night on His commandments.

He is like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering. Everything he does is a success.

But it is different with the wicked. They are like chaff driven away by the wind. For YHVH knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.

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Sunday, 16 February 2025 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Jeremiah 17 : 5-8

This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH!”

He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness. Blessed is the man who puts his trust in YHVH and whose confidence is in Him! He is like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots towards the stream. He has no fear when the heat comes, his leaves are always green; the year of drought is no problem and he can always bear fruit.

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Saturday, 15 February 2025 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded of the love and mercy, the kindness and compassion which God has always had for each and every one of us, His beloved people. We must consider ourselves truly fortunate because even though we have frequently fallen again and again into sin, and kept on slipping back into the path of disobedience against Him, God has always loved us and His love for us endured even throughout all these times and moments, and even despite our constant rebelliousness and wickedness. Yes, He is indeed angry at our sins and disobedience, and He chastised us all for those sins and rebellions, but in the end, He did so because He desired for all of us to be truly and fully reconciled and reunited with Him.

In our first reading today, we heard of the continuation of the account of the beginning of time and Creation of the world from the Book of Genesis, focusing on the moment right after our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, had fallen into sin because they disobeyed God and chose to listen to the lies and falsehoods of the evil one, who took up the shape and form of a snake to persuade and coerce firstly Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and then that of her husband Adam to do the same as well. They became aware of their nakedness, and therefore as we heard, hid from God Who came looking for them. When God confronted them about what had happened, Adam and Eve ended up throwing the blame at each other, with Eve blaming the serpent, that was Satan in disguise, for having tempted her to disobey God.

It was by this conscious choice of our disobedience that we have ended up falling into sin and therefore become corrupted by our own doing. God has created us all out of His great love for every one among us, and yet, we have chosen to spurn and reject His love for the love of money and material possessions, choosing to follow the whim of our desires and ambitions, our greed and ego, giving in to the temptations to be more powerful, to know more and to receive more good things of this world rather than to obey Him, the One Who had created us all out of love. That was why mankind had fallen from grace, and as a consequence of our actions, as we heard from our first reading today, our ancestors had to spend time in exile away from the Gardens of Eden, where God had intended for us all to dwell in.

Our sufferings in this world are the results of our own choice, our own deliberate and conscious rebellion against God. And yet, God in His infinite love and mercy for us still desired for all of us to return back to Him, to be reconciled and reunited to Him. If God truly despised and hated us for our sins, He could have easily destroyed us and erased us from existence for having defiled the perfection of His Creation. Yet, this was not what He had chosen to do, as He showed us all His great magnanimity, showing us His generous mercy and love, offering us all the assurance of His love and guidance, revealing to us His intention, in opening for us the path to eternal life and redemption through His Son, the Saviour Whom He would send into our midst to save us.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist in which the account of how the Lord miraculously fed a large multitude of at least four thousand people when they had followed Him to listen to Him and His teachings, and became hungry after several days of journey and time with Him without any means of sustenance and eating food from nearby places. It was at that moment the Lord showed His great love, compassion and mercy towards each and every one of us mankind, His beloved ones, by showing how He cared for the needs of the people who were there to listen to Him and who were hungry for food.

The Lord showed them all that He could provide them with whatever they needed, giving them physical sustenance through the bread that He miraculously multiplied and broke for them, as well as the spiritual sustenance of the Wisdom of God that He has delivered to all of them. There were so many people gathered and yet, their hunger were all sated, from merely seven pieces of bread brought before the Lord, and not just that, but seven whole basketful of leftover bread were collected, showing symbolically how if we truly put our trust in the Lord, then we have nothing to fear, as He would provide for us what we need and even more than that. And this is not just limited to food and physical sustenance alone, but applying to all things in our lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do our best so that in everything that we do in our lives we will always glorify the Lord by our lives, our every actions and deeds, reminding ourselves of how much we have been loved and cared for by God at every opportunities and moments, throughout the history of our existence. We should indeed be ashamed at our sinfulness and how easily we have fallen into the traps and the temptations of the evil one, who sought our destruction and damnation, that we share his fate in Hell. This is why, as Christians, all of us who truly believe in God and have faith in Him, ought to truly show this faith and love we have for God in our everyday living and in each and every actions and deeds in our lives.

May the Lord, our ever loving God and Father, continue to strengthen us in His love, empower each and every one of us so that by His guidance and strength, His providence and help, He may strengthen our weak selves and allow us to overcome the temptations of the world, so that by our efforts to resist the temptations of sin, we may come to righteousness and virtue through Him. Let us all strive to renew our faith and dedication to the Lord, doing what we can to glorify God by our lives, shunning the wicked influence of the evil one in this world, embracing instead God’s love which He has patiently shown us ever since the beginning. May all of us continue to be good and faithful disciples and followers of God, as His beloved children, now and always. Amen.

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Saturday, 15 February 2025 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Mark 8 : 1-10

At that time, soon afterwards Jesus was in the midst of another large crowd, that obviously had nothing to eat. So He called His disciples and said to them, “I feel sorry for these people, because they have been with Me for three days and now have nothing to eat. If I send them to their homes hungry, they will faint on the way; some of them have come a long way.”

His disciples replied, “Where, in a deserted place like this, could we get enough bread to feed these people?” He asked them, “How many loaves have you?” And they answered, “Seven.” Then He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves and giving thanks, He broke them, and handed them to His disciples to distribute. And they distributed them among the people. They also had some small fish, so Jesus said a blessing, and asked that these be shared as well.

The people ate and were satisfied. The broken pieces were collected, seven wicker baskets full of leftovers. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand in number. Jesus sent them away, and immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

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Saturday, 15 February 2025 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Psalm 89 : 2, 3-4, 5-6, 12-13

Before the mountains were formed, before You made the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity – You are God.

You turn humans back to dust, saying, “Return, o mortals!” A thousand years in Your sight are like a day that has passed, or like a watch in the night.

You sow them in their time, at dawn they peep out. In the morning they blossom, but the flower fades and withers in the evening.

So make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. How long will you be angry, o Lord? Have mercy on Your servant.

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Saturday, 15 February 2025 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Genesis 3 : 9-24

YHVH God called the man saying to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I ordered you not to eat?”

The man answered, “The woman You put with me gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.” God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

YHVH God said to the serpent, “Since you have done that, be cursed among all the cattle and wild beasts! You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

To the woman, God said, “I will increase your suffering in childbearing, and you will give birth to your children in pain. You will be dependent on your husband and he will lord it over you.” To the man, He said, “Because you have listened to your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I forbade you to eat, cursed be the soil because of you! In suffering you will provide food for yourself from it, all the days of your life.”

“It will produce thorn and thistle for you and you will eat the plants of the field. With sweat on your face you will eat your bread, until you return to clay, since it was from clay that you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The man called his wife by the name of Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. YHVH God made garments of skin for the man and his wife, and with these He clothed them. Then YHVH God said, “Man has now become like one of Us making himself judge of good and evil. Let him not stretch out his hand to take and eat from the Tree of Life as well, and live forever.”

So God cast him from the garden of Eden to till the soil from which he had been made. And after having driven the man out, God posted Cherubim and a flaming sword that kept turning at the east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

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(Singapore) Friday, 14 February 2025 : Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today, the fourteenth day of February marks the anniversary of the Dedication or Consecration of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, the Mother Church of the Archdiocese of Singapore, which was dedicated in the Year of Our Lord 1897, about five decades after it was originally built and established as the first church in the land of Singapore. This year, it has been a hundred and twenty-eight years since its original Consecration as mentioned, and also eight years since it has been rededicated in the Year of Our Lord 2017 after the latest round of major restoration and renovation, bringing back the glory and the glamour in this great House of God, restored and renovated for the glory of God and for the good of the flock of the Lord in Singapore.

Now, as we all rejoice in the anniversary of the dedication of our Mother Church in Singapore, let us all spend some time to reflect upon the messages of the Sacred Scriptures that we have received today, which reminds us all of the significance of this Dedication of the Cathedral, as with the dedication of any other churches, the places which had been set aside for the purpose of sacred use and the worship of the Divine. All of us have to be aware that the celebration of the Holy Mass has to be done in a place that has been blessed and also dedicated to God, upon the Altar that had been dedicated and reserved for the sole use of Sacred and Divine Worship, which happened during the Dedication of this great House of God.

In our first reading today, we heard the customary reading from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel used for the dedication of churches, detailing the heavenly vision of the prophet Ezekiel who saw the great Temple in Heaven, the Temple of the Lord’s Holy Presence, from which came forth the spring of life-giving water, and the figure of a Son of Man Who guided him throughout the Temple, which was a prefigurement of the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, the Son of Man. This Holy and great Temple of God in Heaven is the model upon which all of our churches, God’s House in this world have been modelled upon, all consecrated and dedicated to the Lord, to be the same representation of the perfect Temple of God’s Holy Presence in Heaven, which has come into our midst, as God came to dwell among us.

As we all come to the churches, to come to worship and glorify the Lord, it reminds us all to come forth to God’s Holy Presence, seeking His love, kindness and mercy, while distancing ourselves from all sorts of wickedness and evils, keeping ourselves holy and worthy in all things. That is why each and every one of us are reminded to keep the sanctity of God’s House, to be at our best whenever we come to the Holy Mass and any other celebrations and liturgical events taking place in our churches, including in this Cathedral which dedication anniversary we are celebrating today. If we profane the sanctity of the Lord’s Holy Temple, then we will be made accountable for this act, and we will be judged and found wanting for this action that is unbecoming of us all as Christians.

Then, in our second reading passage today, we listened to the words of St. Paul the Apostle in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the city and region of Corinth where he spoke of the nature of all of us, the faithful people of God, as God’s Holy Temples, how our bodies and our whole beings are truly the Temples of His Holy Presence, the Temples of His Holy Spirit, and therefore all of us must always strive to keep ourselves holy and free from sin, or else, again, the sin of us having defiled the sanctity of this Temple of God, that is our own body, heart, mind and soul, our whole beings, will eventually fall upon us and we will have to account for our failure to keep this sanctity and purity of our bodies, our minds, hearts and souls, which God had graced upon and dwelled within.

Each and every one of us have received God Himself in the flesh, first of all through the life that God has given to each and every one of us, the Holy Spirit that He has given to us, dwelling within us, and the gift of the Holy Spirit through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, where the gifts of the Holy Spirit were affirmed in us, and through which we have been strengthened by God’s Spirit and Presence. And then, not only that, but through the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and as we all believe firmly that the Lord is truly and really present in the Eucharist, in our faith in the Real Presence and the Dogma of Transubstantiation, we believe that the Lord Himself, Who has made Himself available in His Most Precious Body and Blood, has come into us, through the Holy Eucharist that we have received and partaken at the Holy Mass.

Therefore, it is important that each and every one of us as Christians must realise that we have to keep ourselves truly holy and worthy in everything that we say and do, or else, we have to account for our failures to do so. In our Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus showed this by example, as He angrily cast out all those merchants, money changers and others peddling their businesses at the courtyard of the Temple of God in Jerusalem. First of all, the context of this event and the presence of those businesses were made necessary due to the many Jewish people which at that time had been living far away from the land of Israel, and since they would come to visit Jerusalem during festivals like the Passover, they would have to exchange the money and coins they brought from the lands they dwelled in for the coins issued by the local Temple authority, as foreign coins were considered unclean. And they would have to use those good and worthy Temple coins to buy the sacrifices to be offered to God.

However, what the Lord Jesus found issue with was the rampant practice of corruption and overcharging, where the pilgrims and many others coming to the Temple were overcharged for the services that those money changers and merchants did, and those people earned a lot from this practice. It was those immoral actions and behaviours, which were not allowed even according to the Law of God revealed through Moses, that led to the Lord Jesus to drive away all those merchants and money changers. The Temple officials and the chief priests had been turning a blind eye to those wicked actions because they themselves likely profitted from such activities as well, and therefore, the Lord also told them all as we heard, that the magnificent Temple which they had at that time, none of that would remain standing in just another few decades, as it would be destroyed by the Romans approximately four decades later.

What the Lord also wanted us all to remember is that this Temple of God is truly not just limited to any particular building. Yes, we designate and honour certain places and also this Cathedral of the Good Shepherd as God’s Holy House in this world, but even more importantly, the whole Church itself, the Body of Christ, the unity of all Christian believers are also where God is present and where He dwells in amongst us. Hence, as Christians, it is important that all of us strive to continue living our lives worthily and to continue to do our best in being the ‘living stones’ of God’s Holy Temple, to be good and faithful stewards and caretakers of this world that God has entrusted to us. Let us all also be active in our participation in the Holy Mass and in other events of the Church, and maintain always the sanctity of our churches and also our bodies, hearts, minds and souls as God’s Holy Temple in this world.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore as God’s faithful people in the Archdiocese of Singapore continue to do our best in all the things that we do in our everyday living, so that we may truly be evangelistic, missionary and faithful disciples of the Lord at every moments, doing our best to proclaim the Lord and His truth in everything that we say and do in our lives. Let us all be good examples and inspirations for the brothers and sisters in our midst so that together we may build the Living Church of God with Jesus Christ our Lord as its Head and founded upon the faith of the Apostles, and also our faith, which are the stones making up this Living Church of God. May God be with us always, and may He bless us all and all the churches in the world, particularly the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, the great Mother Church of the Archdiocese of Singapore. Amen.

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(Singapore) Friday, 14 February 2025 : Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 2 : 13-22

At that time, as the Passover of the Jews was at hand, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple court He found merchants selling oxen, sheep and doves, and money-changers seated at their tables.

Making a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the Temple court, together with the oxen and sheep. He knocked over the tables of the money-changers, scattering the coins, and ordered the people selling doves, “Take all this away, and stop making a marketplace of My Father’s house!” His disciples recalled the words of Scripture : Zeal for Your house devours me like fire.

The Jews then questioned Jesus, “Where are the miraculous signs which give You the right to do this?” And Jesus said, “Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then replied, “The building of this Temple has already taken forty-six years, and will You raise it up in three days?”

Actually, Jesus was referring to the Temple of His Body. Only when He had risen from the dead did His disciples remember these words; then they believed both the Scripture and the words Jesus had spoken.

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(Singapore) Friday, 14 February 2025 : Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Corinthians 3 : 9-13, 16-17

But you are God’s field and building. I, as good architect, according to the capacity given to me, I laid the foundation, and another is to build upon it. Each one must be careful how to build upon it. No one can lay a foundation other than the One which is already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Do you not know that you are God’s Temple, and that God’s Spirit abides within you? If anyone destroys the Temple of God, God will destroy him. God’s Temple is holy, and you are this Temple.

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(Singapore) Friday, 14 February 2025 : Feast of the Anniversary of the Dedication of the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 45 : 2-3, 4-6, 8-9

God is our strength and protection, an ever-present help in affliction. We will not fear, therefore; though the earth be shaken and the mountains plunge into the seas.

There is a river whose streams bring joy to the City of God, the holy place, where the Most High dwells. God is within, the city cannot quake, for God’s help is upon it at the break of day.

For with us is YHVH of hosts, the God of Jacob, our refuge. Come, see the works of YHVH – the marvellous things He has done in the world.