orthodox faith

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Saturday, 24 May 2014 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Mary Help of Christians and our Lady of Sheshan in China, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 15 : 18-21

If the world hates you, remember that the world hated Me before you. This would not be so if you belonged to the world, because the world loves its own. But you are not of this world, since I have chosen you from the world; because of this the world hates you.

Remember what I told you : the servant is not greater than his master; if they persecute Me, they will persecute you, too. If they kept My word, they will keep yours as well. All this they will do to you for the sake of My Name, because they do not know the One who sent Me.

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Saturday, 24 May 2014 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Mary Help of Christians and our Lady of Sheshan in China, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 99 : 2, 3, 5

Serve the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God; He created us and we are His people, the sheep of His fold.

For the Lord is good; His love lasts forever and His faithfulness through all generations.

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Saturday, 24 May 2014 : 5th Week of Easter, Memorial of Mary Help of Christians and our Lady of Sheshan in China, World Day of Prayer for the Church in China (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 16 : 1-10

Paul travelled on to Derbe and then to Lystra. A disciple named Timothy lived there, whose mother was a believer of Jewish origin but whose father was a Greek. As the believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him. So he took him and, because of the Jews of that place who all knew that his father was a Greek, he circumcised him.

As they travelled from town to town, they delivered the decisions of the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem, for the people to obey. Meanwhile, the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number every day.

They travelled through Phrygia and Galatia, because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia. When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to do this. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.

There one night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and begged him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” When he awoke, he told us of this vision and we understood that the Lord was calling us to give the Good News to the Macedonian people.

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Monday, 6 January 2014 : Monday after the Epiphany (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Only those spirits who acknowledge that Jesus is Lord and God, that truly belong to the Lord. Not all spirits and apparitions belong to the Lord, for some does belong to the devil and the falsehoods that he brings to us. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important for us to take note of this fact, so that we will not fall into deception and disobey the Lord and His will, even without us knowing it.

Prophets, seers, and visionaries appeared throughout the ages, even up to today, my brethren. We have those who received visions and apparitions of various origins, some of which are truly genuine and have been approved by the Church, but some others of more dubious origins and may even be an attention-seeking or popularity movement, if not immediately devil-inspired.

My dear friends, indeed we have much to gain from good visions and apparitions, through which the Lord continues to speak to us, either directly or through the intermediary of His saints, particularly that of His mother Mary. Through these the Lord had made His will known, and that particularly and often includes the call for mankind to return to Him and repent from their sins.

Remember brethren, that we ought to adhere strongly to the teachings of the faith through the Church, what the Church had taught us in our faith, which is the result of millennia of refinement and richness of God’s revelations made through the ages via His innumerable saints. Quite a few of the saints recognised by the Church were known to be mystics and visionaries, who often received messages from the divine. And our faith can only get richer because of them.

But we have to be careful lest we fall into the lies and falsehoods of Satan. Remember that our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, was deceived by Satan wearing the then noble form of the animal snake, posing to them as the good and benevolent being with good intent, but in fact having malice and evil deep inside. The devil, the prince and father of lies, deceit, and trickery certainly have no problem to deceive us by posing as a holy angel of God or the apparition of saints.

Hence, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is absolutely important for all of us to be properly educated on the faith we have in Christ, that we all will all have a solid foundation of faith, that not even the devil will be able to disturb. And the catechesis of our faith must be complete, that we leave no loophole which the evil one will be able to exploit to his advantage.

Thus, it is important for all of us to seek to always understand more about our faith, by putting our trust in reliable sources especially in the teaching authority of the Church, and trusting only in visions and apparitions approved and proven to be true by the authority of the Church. For the Church had been the great deposit of faith, defending the true and orthodox faith ever since the days of the Apostles until today.

Popular apparition or vision, or popular and influential individuals do not make up our faith brothers and sisters in Christ. If what they revealed to us is not in line or even contrary to our faith and the teachings of the faith in the Church, we can be almost certain that those visions, apparitions, and individuals did not come from God, but rather from men, or worse still, from the evil one.

The popular alleged apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Medjugorje in Serbia for example, had not been approved as a legitimate apparition of the faith and yet it remained very popular, drawing many pilgrims and believers. In the Medjugorje ‘apparition’, the Blessed Virgin apparently appeared daily and gave her messages in daily manner, almost as if she is responding to the prayers of the pilgrims, and as a result, drawing even more people to come and believe in the alleged apparition.

This is what we have to exactly be on guard for, to avoid putting too much emphasis on unverified visions of the spirits, so that we will not easily fall prey to the attempts of the evil one to deceive us, just as he had once deceived Eve, and many other people who had passed away before us. Be always on guard, and strengthen our faith. Read the Scriptures with understanding and deepen our knowledge of the faith through understanding the teachings of the Church.

May our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen our faith, and grant us the strength and courage to say no to the deceptions of evil, and that we may seek the Lord and. Him only, following what He truly desires of us. God be with us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 2 January 2014 : Weekday of Christmas Time, Memorial of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, many of us like to deny the Lord and those who had worked hard to bring God closer to us through their teachings. Instead we often let ourselves be swayed by the forces of this world, that we end up following the ways of the world instead of the ways of God. We doubt the presence of God in us, and put our trust instead in the weakness of men and the pleasures of the world.

Indeed, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we deal with the theme of the authority of teaching of the faith, and the truth about what had happened as the Lord had done, when He once came into this world as man, Jesus Christ our Lord. This truth had been told across generations through the prophets, before the Lord came, and after His death, resurrection and ascension into heaven, by the Apostles and the countless saints who stood up for their faith in God.

These saints and holy people stood up for the Lord, defending the faith they have in God, protecting the deposit of the faith that is in the one and only Church of God, the Catholic or Universal Church. These teachings were passed down to us today through the bishops and the priests who succeeded the Apostles and the other leaders of the early Church, through whom they passed down whatever had been revealed to them by Christ Himself and by the Holy Spirit.

These saints testified for the Lord who had come to save the world, and through their testimony and their teachings, again passed down to us through the Church. Through these teachings we are brought close to the Lord, and it is revealed to us what the Lord wants from us, that is to follow Him and be saved. But the devil certainly did not stay quiet and let everything go smoothly according to the Lord’s plan.

Just as he had tried so much to undermine the good works of the Lord by tempting Him directly, and when that failed, by opposing Him in every turns and corners, questioning His authority and teaching through the Pharisees and the scribes, and many other ways that he had employed to keep mankind away from salvation in God.

Satan opposed the Lord and all of His faithful ones, by sowing the seeds of dissension, jealousy, pride and arrogance in the hearts of the enemies of Christ. As in the Gospel today, the Pharisees and the scribes questioned the authority of John the Baptist, that is under whose authority he did all the baptisms and the teachings about the coming of the Messiah. They should have known about the coming of John the Baptist as the herald of the Messiah, because after all they are the learnt ones, the ones who knew the Scriptures inside out in their heart.

They instead gave in to their human vulnerabilities, that is they let Satan into their hearts, and they in essence, become the tools of Satan through which he tried to undermine the works of our Lord to save us. Such an irony indeed, and sad indeed, that the very leaders of the people, the supposedly pious and educated ones at that, were the very ones that betrayed the Lord.

This is because they gave in to vanity and human greed, the greed for authority, power, as well as the jealousy of human heart and desire, which is for power and influence within the society, within the society of the people of God. They resented those who they perceived to be undermining their own teaching authority, for the Pharisees and the scribes advocated a very strict observation of the laws of Moses and did not entertain any kind of dissent against what they taught.

And as you know, the Pharisees and the scribes continuously harassed Jesus and His followers, and right up to when they delivered the coup de grace, condemning Jesus to death with false witnesses, testimonies and accusations that led to the crucifixion of Jesus. And Satan surely rejoiced at that moment, for he thought that he had undermined the Lord’s plan to save us. And yet, what he had done was merely part of the Lord’s salvation plan, made fulfilled through the death of Jesus on the cross.

After that defeat, Satan did not give up. He continued to try to deceive the people  of God through his lies spread through many false prophets he sent to the world. Today we celebrate the feast of two great saints of the Eastern Church, who were brave and courageous defenders of the faith, fighting constantly against the heresies of the faith in the Church spread exactly by these false prophets.

They are St. Basil the Great, also known as St. Basil of Caesarea, and St. Gregory Nazianzen, also known as St. Gregory of Nazianzus. Both of them were renowned theologians and leaders of the faithful, living at the time of the fourth century after the birth of Christ, after Christianity had become the majority faith of the people of the Roman Empire.

A preacher named Arius spread unorthodox and heretical teachings about Christ. That Jesus Christ is not equal to the father as the Son of God. Instead of the true faith and teaching that God the Son is equal in all aspects to the Father and the Holy Spirit, one in unity and essence, existing before all ages, Arius preached that the Father is superior to the Son, and Jesus was created rather than existing with the Father, being begotten not created.

Arius’ teachings spread wildly across many parts of the Roman Empire, converting many people to this heretical teaching of the faith. He was wildly popular and swayed many to sin by believing in the falsehood of the devil. It was St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen who led the people of the true and orthodox faith in the campaign against the heresy of Arius, also known as Arianism.

We were warned by St. John the Evangelist on the presence of false prophets who would lead the people astray in their path towards the salvation in God, and the example of Arius had proven just to be the case, as much as many other heretics and false prophets who appeared both before and after him. St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen tirelessly championed the cause of the true faith, often in opposition even to the people whom they were shepherding and leading, who had been corrupted by the false teachings of Arius.

Yet they did not fear and continued to work hard, at times even they have to suffer persecution and suffering, as well as rejection and mockery by those who supported the false faith and the lies of the devil. Nevertheless, they continued to move on, and on, and on, until their death, they never ceased to work hard to purify the faith from these lies of the devil and all the seeds of falsehood that he has planted in the hearts of the Lord’s faithful through his false prophets.

Even today, brethren, false prophets can be abound, numerous, and we often may not know who they are. That is why, it is important for us to deepen the knowledge and understanding that we have of our faith in God. We cannot be idle or lest we risk to fall into the corruption of the lies of the evil one. Hold firmly on the deposit of faith, and the richness of the teachings that had been handed down to us from the Lord and His Apostles, through the Church.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us ask St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen to pray for us, that we will be protected by the Lord and His angels, so that we will not easily fall prey to heresy or succumb to the lies and temptations of the evil one. Let us also help one another, that we can keep all the faithful ones in God to remain faithful, now and till the end of time. God be with us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 21 December 2013 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Priests)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of one of the great saints of the past centuries, that is of St. Peter Canisius, also known as Peter Canis or Petrus Canisius. He was a German who joined the then growing and newly established Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Peter Canisius also happen to be the saint whose name, together with that of St. Peter the Apostle, I adopted as my own name at baptism, because both of them are truly inspiring role models to me.

St. Peter Canisius lived during a time of great difficulty for the Church, because at that time, numerous people were swayed under the heresy of Protestantism, which spread like wildfire, based on ignorant and fallacious teachings and ideas of men. These ideas were manipulated by some to gain followers and broke apart the unity of the Church. This was particularly bad in Germany, where numerous occurrences of the mentioned heresies happened.

Yet St. Peter Canisius was not to be daunted by challenges, and he put his full trust in the Lord and spearheaded the efforts countering the damaging effects of the Protestant heresy. He and several other leaders such as St. Ignatius of Loyola were crucial in the process of Counter-Reformation, where these courageous leaders fought to stem the tide of corruption on the faithful and return them to the one true faith in God.

The problem was that we have grown lax in our faith, and we no longer stay truly faithful to the Lord. And neither did we put our trust in the Lord, trusting rather more the forces of this world, and our own feeble abilities and desires. Faith is weakened when we no longer put ourselves completely in God’s hands, and evil may enter our hearts. The same, then, happened as it had, during the heresy, which sadly continues all the way until even today.

At that time, indeed, the Church had grown powerful, and it had gained many worldly properties and accumulated much influence and wealth. That was when human desires and the corrupting power of Satan entered into the Church. The Church became a nest of impurities, debauchery, and sinfulness, far from being the holy congregation of the Lord’s faithful ones. Popes, cardinals, bishops and priests were influenced by the forces of the world and quite a few of them were corrupted.

Indeed, many of those who had submitted themselves to Protestant heresies, would argue that the very reason why they broke away from the one and only Church of God was because of its impurities, such that as if the Church no longer had any legitimacy or spiritual authority over the faithful. They elected their own leaders and established their own so-called ‘churches’ in the delusion of righteousness that they experienced.

Yes, that delusion in fact served the purposes of the devil. Some of the proponents and leaders of the heresies had truly noble intents in their actions, but many if not all were eventually succumbed to the designs of the evil one. Instead of helping to reform the Church and purge the impurities out of the holy Church, they succumbed to their own human vanity, pride, and stubbornness, and broke apart the unity of the One Body of Christ, that is the Church.

Remember what the Lord had said, that He is the vine and we are the branches. In the unity of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one and only Church, that is our Church, we live in grace and love because of the love and life-giving strength that God bestowed upon us through that unity. Broken and torn apart from that unity, those splinters withered and died, just as history itself had proven to us.

“There were as many churches as there were heads.” Such was the sayings that time, when numerous churches were founded and established, and each with their own ideas and own way of interpreting the messages of the Lord, and therefore, confirming further the devil’s hold on many souls and on the hearts of mankind. Many of these ‘heads’ could not agree upon each other on what they were to believe in God and about God.

They quarrelled, fought, debated, and wasted much energy doing nothing but attacking each other and badmouthing each other, blaspheming that in doing so, they obeyed and followed God’s will. The devil sowed the seeds of distrust, division, and strife among the people of God. Instead of the intended good, only evil and division came out of the events.

That was what St. Peter Canisius was so eager to combat, the divisions within the Church and among the faithful ones. He championed both the reform within the Church as well as the deliverance of those who had lapsed and went outside of the saving grace of Christ in the Church. He led the Jesuit order to restore the faith in his native Germany. And he made great successes there, converting many thousands upon thousands back to the true faith.

St. Peter Canisius stemmed the tide of heresy, from what is an unstoppable wave into a controllable tide. He championed reaching out to those who had fallen away from the faith and explaining to them in great clarity and truth, the truth about the One and True faith, our Catholic faith. That was why St. Peter Canisius was also well known for his contribution to Catholic education. He educated the faithful of the future, as well as future zealous and dedicated teachers of the faith who would bring back the faithful back into the Church.

The Catechisms written by St. Peter Canisius helped many to return to their true faith in God, explaining the faith in clear terms to the people. His Mariology and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was also exemplary, and in fact laid the foundations of much of the devotion to the Blessed Mother of God as we know today. It was he who included the phrase, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners” to the Hail Mary prayer.

Indeed, seeing the examples of the life of this saint, St. Peter Canisius, we see how much we need to come closer to God, and dedicate ourselves even more intimately to Him. We cannot separate ourselves from the Lord, or we risk the corruption of evil, through the ways of this world. To keep ourselves close to the Lord, with the help of His Blessed mother, is to keep our faith pure and acceptable to the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we come even closer to the celebration of Christmas, and as we rejoice in this feast day commemorating the great Doctor of the Church and the Defender of the Faith, St. Peter Canisius, let us heed the lesson on the importance of our faith, and how important it is to make sure that we adhere to the teachings and to the will of God, putting aside our human ego, our human weaknesses, and all the temptations of the world.

Instead, let us open ourselves fully and completely to the Lord, and the Lord who loves us completely and dedicatedly will grant us His endless blessings and graces. Let us also follow in the footsteps of St. Peter Canisius, preaching the truth about the Lord, especially to our separated brethren. Proclaim the truth to them and reveal to them the fullness of the Lord’s saving power, and what is true faith in the Lord, that is in the teachings of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the one and only Church of God.

St. Peter Canisius, pray for us, and help us that we may be strong in our faith and remain vigilant against the powers and temptations of the evil one. May the Lord too watch over us, and love us dearly and tenderly as He had always done. May the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, Ut Omnes Unum Sint, that they all may be one, come true, that all the faithful ones in God can be reunited once again, purging themselves of all the errors of human judgments, emotions, and thinkings. Amen.

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Friday, 13 September 2013 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today Christ continued to remind us of the great need to remain humble and loving in our lives, avoiding all sorts of vices, and do only what is in line with the will of God. He cares for us very much, and wants us to be righteous and worthy of Him. He protects and provides for all of us, in the same way that a father cares for his children, and way more than that.

He gave second chances to those who repent, to those who realised the depth of their sins and iniquities as He had done with St. Paul, once the great enemy of the faithful and the Church, and the great persecutor of saints and martyrs, turned into the great champion and defender of the faith, the great missionary of the Lord. Therefore, sinners are great in the eyes of the Lord, because the Lord loves them and cares for them, and wants them to return to Him.

Even saints and holy men and women of God now in heaven were once sinners, great or small. What matters is that they had learnt to manage their human weaknesses and tendency for sin, and overcome the sins they had done, with the help of God and one another, with the love they have in their hearts, and with the faith that they have.

We must therefore not be quick to condemn others or judge on others, especially on their faults or shortcomings, as we have to remember that none of us are perfect or completely filled with good things. All of us have weakness one way or another. We are imperfect, ever since sin has entered mankind’s heart. Yet, some of us would not realise of our own faults, thinking highly of ourselves and our own achievements, and look down on others whom we perceive to be inferior to us.

That was what the Pharisees did, as well as the chief priests and the teachers of the Law did, looking down on others because they thought highly of themselves. They prayed in loud voice and wonderful gestures, and followed the rules of the Law strictly, observing everything to the most minute details, and yet, behind all that, lay a huge problem, a huge fault with them. They have not the Lord in their heart, not even deep within their hearts.

They condemned others and sought faults in others, while they themselves were even more faulty in themselves. That was exactly what Christ condemned them for, their failure to do what the Lord truly asked of them, and even worse that as the leaders of the people, they misled the people and brought them to ruin instead of salvation.

Today, we celebrate the feast of St. John Chrysostom, one of the original four great Doctors of the Church, as one of the most brilliant minds of the Church, the leader of the faithful in Constantinople, St. John Chrysostom was truly an upright man, who lived piously and with deep faith in the Lord their God. He preached often of the need to live in charity and love, that is to show love to one another, especially the ones in need, and he truly practice what he preached.

St. John Chrysostom did not have it easy, as he did face many oppositions, especially from those who followed the heretical teachings, like Arianism, Monophysitism, Nestorianism, and many others. He faced them with firm faith and dedication to God. He was fully aware of his own sins and weaknesses, and therefore he wanted to bring souls to salvation in God, showing his care as a fellow sinner who had been called to guide his lost brethren to the Father in heaven.

St. John Chrysostom did not even shy away or fear of rebuking the Roman Emperor, Arcadius at the time, for the improper behaviour of his wife, the Empress Eudoxia, who resented St. John Chrysostom so much that he was banished from Constantinople and from his post. Immediately God set out to punish those who had conspired against the servant of God, and the Roman capital faced terrible catastrophe. Not even the imperial family was spared, with the Empress dying from childbirth and the Emperor himself a few years later.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we should try to emulate St. John Chrysostom in his actions, in his life, and in his examples, that we should really look into ourselves first before we judge others, and reflect on our lives whether our words and actions had reflected God’s love in them. If we had not done so, then truly now is a good time to do so, while we still have the opportunity in this life. Let us have no fear and keep a steadfast faith like that of St. John Chrysostom, whom in his righteousness rebuked even an emperor and empress who went astray from the Lord.

Let us be always faithful to God, be loving both to Him and our brethren, and finally let us strive to give more of ourselves for the sake of others, the last, the lost, and the lonely, as St. John Chrysostom had done. Pray for us St. John Chrysostom! May God bless us always. Amen.

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Friday, 2 August 2013 : 17th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Eusebius of Vercelli, Bishop; and St. Peter Julian Eymard, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the Lord our God is great, and He is mighty. He is the ruler over all creation and has authority and power over all. From generations to generations He had shown His greatness to the people of Israel and all the other children of God. He had saved Noah from the flood by His enduring love, and brought Abraham, our father in faith into the Promised Land that He promised to his descendants.

He made his descendants into great nations, and to Jacob and his sons, he made them into His chosen people of Israel. He blessed them and protected them, and He made Joseph prosperous in Egypt when his brothers thought evil things for him. He blessed His people, made them prosper and multiply in foreign lands. When they were enslaved and persecuted, He rescued them and punished their enemies, bringing them out of the land of Egypt to the Promised Land.

It is His wonders, His infinite love, and His faithfulness that the people of Israel celebrate in the feast days appointed by the Lord and told to them through Moses, in the first reading today. The people celebrated His blessing in the Promised Land and all its wealth, by thanking Him and offering the first fruits of their labour in that blessed land, as a sign of their love and dedication to Him, their Lord and God. They also commemorate the Passover, their greatest feast, because on that day in Egypt long ago, the Lord had shown His might and saved for eternity, the people of Israel from the slavery under the Egyptians and the Pharaohs.

The Day of Atonement is also a special occasion for the Jewish people, because indeed, as much as the blessings that the Lord had given to the people, their ancestors had also rebelled and sinned against the Lord, by their disbelief and lack of faith, and by their doubt in the power and authority of the Lord, much like the people of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, which we heard today in our Gospel Reading. The Day of Atonement reminds them that they are sinful and they are nothing in the eyes of God because of their sins, and yet, in His infinite mercy and love, He embraced them and made them whole again, forgiving them from their sins.

It is not only the people of Israel who has feast days and days of celebrations in their annual calendar, my brothers and sisters, because we, the people of God, the chosen people of God, who believe in Christ, also have our feast days, not unlike that of the people of Israel of old. We commemorate Jesus Christ, the Son of God and Messiah, who had come into the world, the Word of God made flesh, for the salvation of all mankind.

We celebrate His birth on Christmas, the day when the Lord stooped down from His divine throne in heaven, and came down to be one of us, one like us, save for sin, so that we may have a new hope for salvation and deliverance from evil and death. We celebrate His ministries in this world in our daily and weekly Sunday Masses, when we listened to the readings of the Gospels, highlighting His good works and mission in this world, the teachings He had given to His apostles and from them, to us.

We celebrate daily and weekly, His most Glorious death on the cross, the ultimate sacrifice of the divine, the death of our own Lord and God, on the cross, for our sake, that we who believe in Him will not taste death but life. We celebrate this every time we have the Mass, when the ultimate sacrifice of Christ is brought closer to us, through the Eucharist, the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Christ, that Jesus Himself had given us and His disciples, that He will live in us, and we in Him.

During the time of the Holy Week and Easter, we celebrate the greatest works He had done in His mission, that is the Passover of the Lord, the Great Passover, not unlike the Jewish Passover of old. This time, however, the Lord did not just pass over the people of Israel and brought death to their Egyptian oppressors, but this time, the Lord passed over the judgment of death from those who have their faith in Him, and brought them, not just into any Promised Land, but into the eternal happiness and blessing of the Promised heaven, which Christ promised to all those who put their complete trust in Him.

That is why, brothers and sisters, we ought to take greater attention and commit ourselves more strongly and more vigorously to our Lord, by putting greater effort on our own part, to fully participate in the celebrations and feast days of our Lord, celebrating the memory of His wondrous work for our sake, celebrating the mysteries of His birth, His ministry, His suffering, death, and resurrection from the dead, for in Him lies our only hope and our salvation.

Today, we celebrate the feast of both St. Eusebius of Vercelli and St. Peter Julian Eymard. St. Eusebius of Vercelli was the bishop of Vercelli who lived in Italy in the late Roman Empire at the fourth century after the birth of Christ. St. Eusebius faced much difficulties during his ministry as the servant of God’s Gospel, facing many divisions in the early Church, between the various heretical factions trying to subvert the truth of the Lord’s Good News.

St. Eusebius persevered and despite the difficulties, he professed his faith and adherence to the true teachings of Christ reflected in the orthodoxy of the Church magisterium. He defended the faith against heresies and promoted reconciliation between the different factions of the faithful, and also urged people who had veered away from the true faith to return once again to their Lord and their God.

St. Peter Julian Eymard also did not have an easy time in his ministry, as he faced challenges in the increasingly secular France, at the start of the nineteenth century, just decades after the horrors of the French Revolution. Yet, he persevered and continued to do great works for the sake of the people of God, ministering to them with love. He championed the cause of the children receiving the Holy Communion at a young age, which would be approved by the Church through Pope St. Pius X in the early decade of the twentieth century.

St. Peter Julian Eymard established the order of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament, members of whom are devoted to the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord Himself, and in the service of His people, leading a prayerful and contemplative life filled with joy of the Lord. St. Peter Julian Eymard continued to serve the Lord in the best way he could, and he gave glory to God, the Lord who had come down from heaven to save us from death, and give us a new hope of eternal life.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, inspired by the examples of St. Eusebius of Vercelli and St. Peter Julian Eymard, we should also glorify the Lord our God and give Him our thanks, by devoutly following His teachings and proclaiming His life, death, and resurrection, particularly to those who had yet to hear the Word of God and thus the words of salvation.

May the Lord guide us in this journey through life, that we will always persevere regardless of the difficulties, and let us always remember of the love our God has for all of us, that He even was willing to suffer and die for us all, that we may live, and not just any life, but an eternal life of bliss and happiness with Him in heavenly glory. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 28 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast day of St. Irenaeus, who was a bishop and martyr hailing from the early Church. St. Irenaeus emphasized the teachings of the Apostles and the tradition of the faith in opposition to the numerous heresies of man born in the turbulent times of the second century Church. He especially defended the episcopacy and Church hierarchy, particularly the primacy of the successors of St. Peter, the Bishops of Rome.

He defended the teachings of the Church and the people of God from influences such as Gnosticism, which syncretic practices threatened to destroy the young Church from within. His role is therefore crucial in ensuring that the true, orthodox faith in the Lord can remain undisturbed and flourished in the next centuries after his death, while that of the heresies dwindling into oblivion.

He gave his full trust to the Lord, and steadfastly defended the faith. He believed in God who is loving and merciful, the Lord who healed the leper in the Gospel reading today, the Lord who gave Abraham the words of His promise, and kept fully to the promise, by granting Abraham his promised son, Isaac, through Sarah, even when she had been very old.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord and God wants to heal us, and grant us His blessings and grace, that is if we remain faithful to Him and show our love and dedication to our God and creator. Our Lord and God is kind, and He wants to bring all of us scattered throughout the world back to Him, like a shepherd tending to his sheep, and searching for the lost ones, to make sure that no sheep may fall to be prey of wolves.

That He had done through His teachings that He had passed down through the Apostles. The Apostles themselves and their successors are shepherds in God’s image of the Good Shepherd, ever ready to defend the faith, both from the pagans and the heresies that came from within the Church itself. They worked hard, like the way St. Irenaeus had done, to defend the sheep of the Lord from the wolves of heresy, and the wolves of this world.

We should indeed rejoice, because despite our sinfulness and our rebellious nature, God wants to save us through the covenants He had made, first that He made with Abraham, and one that was renewed into a new covenant by Christ, the Son of God, by His death on the cross in Calvary. That He gave Himself, His own life, His Body and His Blood for us, so that we can be saved, is testimony enough of His love for us, and proof enough why He is the only One worthy of praise and worship.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, emulating the example of St. Irenaeus, the valiant defender of the faith of the early Church, his contemporaries, the Apostles and the early Church Fathers, let ourselves be resolved to defend our faith in the Lord against all kinds of aberrant teachings that seek to diminish the divinity and the love of our God, teachings that are like wolves preying on weak and unsuspecting sheep, our very own brothers and sisters.

That is why there is an ever greater need to strengthen the faith within all of us, empowering ourselves so that all of us may remain steadfast in our faith, the true faith as beheld by St. Irenaeus and the Apostles, amidst the numerous currents in this world, the currents of heresy, the currents of worldliness, and the currents of evil. These currents corrupt mankind and will bring us away from God and salvation in Him.

Remain strong, brothers and sisters in Christ!  and pray for one another at all times, that God will defend us against the evils of this world. May God always be with all of us. Amen.

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Thursday, 27 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we learn from the readings, of the need to put our complete trust in the Lord and in His power and authority, instead of placing our trust in the falsehood and facade of the power of man. Not that man does not have any power, but any power that they have with them ultimately came from the Lord, and therefore no man should boast of his or her own abilities and powers, but instead should give due praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, who is the source of all power and authority in the universe.

When man begins to lose trust in the Lord and begins to put their trust in feeble man, that is when problems will rise, and even though initially not that apparent, the problems will certainly and eventually rise to the surface. Such was what happened with the case of Abraham, then Abram, who was kind of desperate of having a son to be his successor and heir to all the wealth he had in his possession.

The Lord promised Abram great wealth and affluence because of his faith and love for Him, but above all, He promised Abram that his descendants will number like the sands on the shores of the sea, and as numerous as there are stars in the sky. Such is the greatness of the descendants of Abram, so numerous that they would indeed fill up the entire earth with their presence. But Abram was growing old, and more importantly so was that his wife, Sarah, then Sarai, was also growing old, and had gone past the child bearing age.

That was when alternative methods were sought and then taken up by Abram, with the suggestion from Sarai, that he took Hagar, Sarai’s slave, to be his wife, and therefore act as a proxy to produce an heir for Abram. For in those times, slaves have little value for themselves, and therefore, the mistress, Sarai, had every right to claim the child birthed by the slave and claimed him as her own. Nonetheless, as we saw in the first reading, we can certainly note that tensions soon arose between Sarai and Hagar, as Hagar felt proud in her achievements in being able to bear a child for Abram, which her mistress could not do herself.

Pride and arrogance quickly become the order of the day if we put our trust in the powers and abilities of man, and do not give proper glory to the Lord, to whom we should give all glory to. The same had happened to Hagar, whom in her pride had brought about division and frictions within Abram’s family, and caused the diversion from the true plan of salvation that God had brought through His promised son to Abram, that is Isaac.

Abram did not wait for the promise of the Lord to reach its perfection and completion, but following the advice of Sarah and succumbed to human weakness, that is to distrust the promise and words of the Lord, and the result is the birth of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Later on, further conflicts between Ishmael and the newborn Isaac, the child of promise, would end up in Ishmael and her mother to be cast away from Abraham and his family. God indeed did not leave them to die, but provided for them and also made Ishmael a great nation, but it is not through him that God would make perfect His covenant with Abraham and mankind, but through Isaac and his descendants.

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we celebrate the feast day of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the bishop of the early Church, a Church Father and a Doctor of the Church, who fought ceaselessly against those who denied the divinity of Christ, the Nestorians, led by none other than the Patriarch of Constantinople himself, one of the most senior clergyman at the time. He chastised those who opposed the orthodox faith and those who had embraced the heresies of man.

Yes, just as the theme of today’s readings had indicated, those who rejected God in favour of man will not survive, and they will be condemned, because they did not place their trust in God. Therefore, following the example of St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his courageous defense of the faith in the Lord, let us follow him in defending our love and adoration for the Lord, and reject those who glorify themselves at the expense of the Lord.

May the Lord be with us at all times, and remind us that we belong to God, in the covenant He had made with all of us through Christ our Lord and Saviour. May He remind us that He alone is worthy of praise and glory, and that His love is everlasting and infinite. St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us sinners, and help to bring us closer to our Lord and God. Amen.