Palm Sunday sermon

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Sunday, 13 April 2025 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week, the holiest and most important of all weeks and periods in the whole entire liturgical year. This Sunday marks the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, in which the moments surrounding the Lord’s Passion or suffering is highlighted to us, in this most solemn week when the Lord fulfilled all of His promises of salvation to us, bringing unto us the fulfilment and perfect completion of everything that He had planned for us from the very beginning, the plan of bringing us all back to God’s loving embrace the moment that we fell into sin through disobedience and rebellion against Him. On this day we remember the Lord embarking on this most important mission which has been entrusted solely to Him alone in order to bring us all out of the darkness and back into God’s light and grace.

In our Gospel passage this Sunday, which was read before the triumphant procession with the Cross and the blessed palms, we heard of the account of the time when the Lord was about to enter into the city of Jerusalem for the last time prior to His Crucifixion, at the appointed time when He would accomplish everything that had been planned for our salvation. We heard how He sent His disciples to prepare the time of His triumphant entry into Jerusalem, getting a colt or a young donkey that had never been used or sat on before. This fulfilled the prophecy which God had made through His prophets, particularly the prophet Zechariah who prophesied about the coming of the Messiah or Saviour, the King of Kings, Who would come on a donkey to the Holy City of Jerusalem, marking the coming of God’s salvation for His people.

That is why by this action of this triumphant entry of the Lord into the city of Jerusalem, the people of God and hence all of us are shown God’s fulfilment of everything that He has promised to us, everything that He had said that He would do for those whom He dearly loved, and He came on a donkey instead of a great and fearsome warhorse, highlighting the manner by which He would accomplish this mission. He came into this world not to subjugate it to His will or to force us all to obey Him, but rather as our loving and compassionate King, Jesus showed us all this most generous love in restoring hope in our hearts, through His coming that fulfilled the prophecies of the prophets and the promises of God. And while Jesus came to Jerusalem with great pomp and celebration, it was all to obey the Father’s will and for Him to suffer for our sake on the Cross, to be the Source of salvation for all of us who believe in God.

Then, from our first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, the One Whom God sent to be with His people, the Saviour Who would suffer on behalf of all of mankind. This was indeed a curious and strange prophecy because the common understanding by many of the Jewish people by the time of the ministry of Jesus and His works, was that the Messiah would be a mighty, conquering King Who would restore the Kingdom of Israel as how it was during the glorious days of David and Solomon, and that He would be born into the House of David. But little did many of them realise that the Lord did not intend for that, as His plans and ways are truly beyond that of man’s comprehension. Firstly, He chose to be born into a poor family in Nazareth, the simple family of a carpenter, and then, He would accomplish His mission through suffering and not through war and conquest.

And that is how the narrative of the triumphant entry into Jerusalem then shifts to the sombre details of the sufferings and the trials that the Lord’s Saviour had to endure as we heard from the first reading today onwards to the Passion Reading, showing us what we are going to experience throughout this coming week, this Holy Week commemorating our Lord’s Passion, His sufferings and all that He had to endure in His mission to bring us all to salvation and eternal life. God has never forgotten about us and while we are suffering the consequences of our sins and wickedness, He has always persisted in loving us so generously and lovingly as a loving Father loving His children. And in order to save us all, He has given us all His own Son, manifesting His love in the flesh, so that by His perfect obedience and His ultimate loving sacrifice on the Cross, He might offer us the assurance of eternal life and true freedom from the bondage and domination of sin.

From the second reading this Palm Sunday taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful people of God in Philippi, in what is now part of Greece, we heard of the Apostle speaking about the obedience of Christ, the Son of God made Man, Who has come into our midst and revealed God’s love for us, and as just mentioned, how this perfect obedience of Christ, as the Son of Man, as the New Man, the New Adam, has for His Father’s will, counteracted perfectly the disobedience of our ancestors that had once led us all into our downfall. By acting as our High Priest in offering the perfect offering of His own Most Precious Body and Blood, and by His perfect obedience, His sacrifice has been accepted by the Father for the atonement of all of our innumerable sins and flaws, allowing us all to access His love and grace once again.

Therefore, as we remember then everything that the Lord Jesus, Our God and Saviour had done for us as we recall our long Passion reading today, the story of the sufferings which Our Lord had to endure in the midst of this ultimate show of His genuine love, all of us are reminded on why we celebrate this Holy Week with such great dedication and faith, and with such great effort and intensity, because ultimately, it was God Himself Who has loved us all so intensely first that He has done such a deed for us. And today as we recall the story of everything that happened in Our Lord’s Passion let us keep our gaze upon the Cross of Our Saviour, the Cross with the figure of Our Lord crucified on it, His wounds and everything that He had done for us. Each and every one of His wounds have been caused by our wickedness and sins, and He bore all these punishments for us.

That is why as we enter into this Holy Week with today’s commemoration of Palm Sunday and the beginning of the Lord’s Passion story and experience, let us all appreciate and internalise why we celebrate this most important series of events in the history of our salvation. Let us remind ourselves on how God has reached out to us, His beloved people, with love and generous mercy and compassion, that He was willing to forgive us all our sins even when we do not deserve such a nice treatment. We should have suffered eternity in Hell and be damned for all of our rebelliousness, disobedience and sins. Yet, by God’s mercy and His grace, and by Him extending to us this assurance of salvation through His Son, made available to us through the Church and the Sacraments, we have been led through the darkness and into the Light of Christ.

This Holy Week should be different from our past Holy Week observances and experiences, especially if we have not truly devoted ourselves, our time, attention and effort to focus ourselves and our whole lives to the Lord, to the One Who has overcome sin and death by His most painful and sorrowful death on the Cross. And by the glorious Resurrection that He has shown us at the end of this most Holy Week, the triumph of Our Lord over sin and death by His Resurrection reminds us all that if we put our faith and trust in the Lord our God, we will be truly be victorious in the end, sharing in His joy and majesty. We shall no longer be bound by the tyranny and power of sin, evil and all the things that had kept us separated and sundered from God’s fullness of grace and love for us. That is why we should strive our best to focus ourselves well this time of the Holy Week, to centre ourselves upon the Lord’s Passion, all the sufferings that He had to endure out of love for us all.

May the Lord our most loving God and Father continue to guide us all through our lives and especially through this upcoming celebrations this Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum so that each and every moments of this most solemn and sacred period be truly fruitful and faithful to Him. Let us all continue to do our best to follow the Lord ever more faithfully each day and let us continue to be good role models and examples in our faith and in how we live our lives so that our lives may truly be exemplary and be good beacons of God’s Light and truth to all mankind. May God be with us all and be with our every efforts and good works in all things, and may He bless our Holy Week observances and time. Amen.

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Sunday, 24 March 2024 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we enter into the most solemn celebration of the Holy Week, the holiest and most important week of the whole entire liturgical year when we mark the very important and crucial events that happened at the pinnacle of the Lord’s life and ministry in this world. We mark everything that happened when the Lord began the final part of His mission in gathering all of us together and bringing us all up close to the salvation and eternal life which He Himself has promised and reassured us. And we begin this solemn commemoration with this Sunday’s Palm Sunday celebration, when we remember the grand and triumphant entry of the Lord Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey and welcomed by the people of the city like a great conquering King.

This event had been foretold and prophesied by the prophets, particularly the prophet Zechariah, who prophesied that the Lord Himself, as King, would come to His people riding on a donkey, which the Lord’s triumphal entry perfectly fulfilled and accomplished. However, this glorious moment would soon give way to the much more sombre and sorrowful moments of the Passion of the Lord, the Crucifixion and all the sufferings that the same Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, would have to suffer and go through as He took up His Cross, bearing all of our sins, wickedness, faults and mistakes upon Himself and His own shoulders. Therefore, while this Sunday’s liturgy begins with a triumphant commemoration of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem with the procession with the blessed palms, it soon changed into the more sombre reminder of the true nature of this Week’s events that revolved around the Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross.

Essentially, we are all reminded that first of all, God’s love for us all is so great, so enduring and powerful, that He has given us all His beloved Son, as the perfect manifestation of His Love, extending unto all of us His love, compassion, mercy and forgiveness that He has offered freely to all of us, that His love for us is no longer intangible, and His Presence became truly felt, approachable and accessible to each and every one of us, without exception. He showed all of us His desire to come to us, and while He is truly our Lord and King, but we are all His beloved people, and He came to us to save us all, through none other than His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and what He would do for our sake through His Passion on the Cross.

Certainly some if not many of us may have been wondering in our hearts and minds, why is it that the Lord could not have just done it all so easily by erasing from us our sins, if He could have done it all simply because He is so all-powerful, almighty and great. He could have saved Himself the trouble and the sufferings of having to go through all the challenges, trials, rejections and difficulties that He had to go through, the humiliations and pains that He had to endure as He went through the moments of His Passion, His suffering on the Cross and His death. And yet, God did all these because not only that His love for us is truly great and enduring, but He also wants to show us through His Son, how we all can approach Him and be forgiven from our many sins.

We must realise first of all that sin is borne out of our disobedience against God, from our conscious refusal to obey Him, His will and Law, and our conscious choice to do what was contrary to the guidance and rules that He has established with us. Sin came to us, corrupting and dominating us because we have chosen to follow the falsehoods and the temptations that the devil has placed in our path to make us stumble, when we have the choice to remain faithful to God. God Who created us all and gave us life has also given us the free will and the freedom to choose our path and course in life. Should we choose to disobey God and sin against Him, it is by our conscious choice that we have done so, and if we want to return to Him, then we will have to choose to embrace the love and mercy, the compassion and forgiveness that He has freely offered to us.

And through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Himself, God has shown us the perfect example of obedience and faith, of what is needed for all of us to do in our own lives so that we may truly be able to follow God in each and every moments of our lives. The Lord, as the Son, faithfully obeyed His Father’s will, just as highlighted in our second reading from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Philippians. He faithfully embraced His mission, taking up His Cross and putting upon Himself all the punishments, sufferings and pains that are due to us, that we should have endured and suffered instead, all because He loved each and every one of us, and He wanted to show us all that love and the perfect obedience through which He can be the ultimate example and inspiration for us all to follow in our own paths in life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we begin this most solemn commemoration of everything that we remember in this Holy Week, let us all become ever more aware and attuned to our actions, words, deeds and every parts of our whole lives and existence. Have we been truly ready to commemorate this most important week in the whole liturgical year, marking the crucial events in the history of our salvation? Have we realised that it was our many sins, faults, stubbornness and wicked deeds that Our Lord Himself has taken up, as He carried His Cross onto Calvary? Otherwise, then this Holy Week will just end up becoming another regular week and event when we just go through the motion, going and attending the Masses and services, year after year, repeating the events but without true spiritual growth and without growing in relationship and closeness with God.

Therefore, let us all remember the great and ever enduring love which the Lord Himself has shown us, manifested perfectly through His Son, in His Passion on the Cross, in all the sufferings, pains, humiliations and everything that He had to endure for our sake, but which He willingly took upon Himself out of His ever generous and enduring love for us. We must never take this generous love for granted, and we must keep in mind that if we continue to remain in the state of sin, in disobeying God and His commandments, then there will be no path for us to come close to God and His salvation simply because it is by our own decision and conscious choice that we have decided to reject Him and refuse everything, all the love, compassion and mercy which He has shown us all these while. It was after all the same people who welcomed the Lord Jesus to Jerusalem as we commemorate this Sunday, who would also cry out on Good Friday, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all hence be aware of our many sins, wickedness, our unworthiness, and all the things in our lives which have kept us away from God. Let us all realise that every time we commit sin against Him, we have brought about hurt and pain for Him, all the wounds that have been inflicted upon Him and all the sufferings He bore, all these were due to our sins. He still bore all those sins, sufferings and pains because of His ever enduring and great love for us, but we must not take for granted all that He had done for us. That is because as long as we continue to walk in the path of sin, we will continue to fall deeper and deeper into the darkness, and in the end, if we continue to do this, we may end up being lost forever from God, because we ourselves have chosen to reject Him and decided to put our lot in the darkness and wickedness of the world, with Satan and all those forces of evil.

Let us hence make good use of this time we have been given, especially during this time of Holy Week, to renew our commitments to God, and to be ever more thoroughly committed to His cause. Let us deepen our relationship with the Lord, our most loving and merciful God, and let us all be the good role models and examples, inspirations and encouragement for one another, for our fellow brothers and sisters all around us. May the Lord continue to strengthen our faith, and help us in our journey of faith and life, especially as we embark on this most solemn journey this Holy Week, this time of intense commemoration of Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death on His Cross. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 April 2023 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday, also known as Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord marks the beginning of the Holy Week and the entry into this most solemn and important period of time when we commemorate the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world, the moment when He suffered for us all, bearing all the burdens of our sins and mistakes, our faults and iniquities, all the wickedness and evils we have committed, so that by His most generous and selfless love, shown to us in His loving sacrifice on the Cross, all of us may be saved and be brought into the assurance of eternal life and glory with Him. The Lord has willingly done all of these, in obedience to the will of His heavenly Father so that by His sacrifice offered most worthily on our behalf, each and every one of us may find the path to eternal life by the full reconciliation and the New and Eternal Covenant that He made, as our Eternal High Priest, all of which we commemorate during this most Holy Week.

In our Gospel reading today, which was read at the beginning of the Holy Mass, we heard the passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew detailing the time when the Lord was about to enter into the city of Jerusalem for His upcoming Passion as we all certainly well know of, that moment when the Lord rode on a donkey and welcomed into the city of Jerusalem with the people waving palm branches and putting their clothes for Him to pass through, as if He is the King that came in glory to enter into His City. This is why we call this Sunday’s celebration as Palm Sunday in the first place. It marks first of all the commemoration of the glorious entry of the King of Kings and the rightful King of Israel, the Son and Heir of David, entering into the City of His glorious inheritance and dominion, as the Lord has revealed in advance through His prophets and messengers, like that of the prophet Zechariah, who prophesied that the King and Messiah would come to His City riding on a humble donkey.

All of that had been fulfilled in the actions of the Lord Jesus that day, Who chose a donkey with its colt, or its young one, which had not borne any burden before. The donkey that had been tied on the pole itself is rich in symbolism, as it represents the first-called among God’s people, the Israelites, that had been burdened by many of the sins of their ancestors and by their enslavement in the hands of many rulers and oppressors, and the Lord freeing the donkey from its bondage has the symbolic meaning of His coming that is meant to bring true freedom to the people of God, beginning with the descendants of Israel, and then the colt, which represents the Gentiles, or the non-Jewish people, who followed along as the Lord rode on the donkey, representing His dominion and rule over not only the Jewish people, the descendants of the Israelites, but also over the Gentiles and hence over the whole world. His Kingship is Universal and inclusive, and all encompassing instead of just ruling over the Jewish people only.

Then, there is the symbolism of the donkey itself, as a humble beast of burden typically used as the means to carry the weight of cargo and objects that were not usually meant for carrying a human being, less so for One Who is a King, and less still supposedly for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the King of all the whole Universe, coming upon His City and people. Yet, the fact that the Lord rode into Jerusalem on a humble donkey and not on a mighty warhorse or other extravagant rides that other worldly rulers often rode on, highlighted the true nature of His Kingship and His mission in this world. He did not come to this world to conquer and to destroy, unlike what earthly and worldly kings usually do, and He did not come to lead His people in a war of liberation and resistance against the Romans or any others, unlike what many of the Jewish people in the past often mistakenly believed.

Instead, He came into this world and into our midst to bring His Peace upon us, to show us the love that He has always had for us from the very beginning, real and tangible in the flesh. He came into this world to serve and not to be served, to reach out to the least amongst us, and to every single one of us without exception. He does not discriminate against us, and He wants each and every one of us to be reconciled with Him, and that is why He came into our midst, to dwell and walk amongst us, and to show us His most generous love, so much so that He was willing to pay the ultimate price in order to do so. And that leads us to the second part of our celebration today, that as we proceed triumphantly with Christ to the Altar, entering with Him to the Holy City of Jerusalem, we then enter into a new phase of this Sunday’s events, as we remember what would take place within merely days after that glorious event.

That is when we remember how it was likely that many of the same people who have cried out with great joy and enthusiasm, ‘Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord’, were the same ones who later on cried out on Good Friday, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ and ‘We have no King but Caesar!’. Through that we can see just how the mood and the attitude of the people so quickly changed within just a matter of a few days, from one of jubilation and adoration to one of disgust and rejection. No doubt that there must have been some coercion, persuasion and jockeying going around back then, as the members of the Jewish High Council or the Sanhedrin, which were mostly against the Lord and some were even openly hostile, must have encouraged, coerced and persuaded many of the people that the Lord Jesus was the False Messiah and a traitor to the Jewish nation and people, for His supposedly blasphemous teaching and actions against God.

All of these had been predicted beforehand by God Himself as He revealed it through His prophets, in what we heard from our first reading today, as we progress from the glorious procession of palms into Jerusalem towards the true nature of our Lord’s ministry and what He would do for each and every one of us. The prophet Isaiah spoke curiously on the Suffering Servant, the One Whom God would send to be with His people, and how this Servant of God would suffer and endure grievous beating and hardships, torture and trials, as He obeyed perfectly the will of the One Who had sent Him to us. He would be humiliated and made to suffer for the sins of the people of God, a reading that we shall further explore on Good Friday, in which that passage refer to the same Servant, Who would be lifted up high and exalted, that by His wounds and stripes, all of us would be healed, a clear reference to what the Lord Jesus Himself would do for our sake.

We heard how the Lord humbled Himself and emptied Himself of all glory, as we heard from our second reading passage from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Philippi. The Apostle St. Paul spoke of how the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly, and humbled Himself such that He was willing to endure a most humiliating and painful death on the Cross, so that by His most selfless offering of Himself, and by His obedience, He became the Source of Hope and Salvation for all of us mankind, for the whole entire world. Through Christ, all of us have become sharers and partakers in the New and Eternal Covenant that He has established with all of us, as He is the Mediator of this Covenant, through which He has brought us into full reconciliation between us and the Lord God, our loving Father and Creator.

This is what we have essentially heard through the long Passion narrative this Sunday, reminding us all of everything that Our Lord had done for our sake, in Him enduring the worst of punishments for us. He has not ignored or abandoned our plight and suffering, and by His ever enduring love and compassion towards us, He willingly took upon His shoulders and embraced us fully, and in His sharing of our human nature and existence, He took it upon Himself to offer on our behalf a most worthy offering, the offering of His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood, as the Paschal Lamb of God, crushed and sacrificed for us, that He offered Himself on the Altar of His Cross at Calvary, He brought upon us the certainty of salvation and eternal life. All of us who believe in Him and in the truth that He has revealed to us, will receive from Him the gift of everlasting grace and life.

Thus, this Sunday as we mark the beginning of this most Holy Week, the Week celebrating and commemorating the most important events in the history of our salvation, let us all therefore immerse ourselves more deeply into the Lord’s Passion and all that He had done for us, as we remember how He began the final week of His most important mission, that is to offer and sacrifice Himself for our sake. Let us all remember the actions of our great and most loving King, Who has come into our midst to be with us, and to redeem all of us. Let us remember how He came humbly riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, hailed and adored by the people only to be cast out and rejected just barely a few days later, betrayed by His own disciple and condemned to death for sins and faults that He Himself did not commit. Yet, He had borne all of that upon Himself because He loves each and every one of us, and He wanted that by His selfless offering and sacrifice, and by His suffering and death, all of us may be saved, and has sure path to eternal life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore as we enter into this most solemn and important week, the holiest of all the weeks of the whole entire year, let us all spend some time to reflect on our Lenten journey thus far and how we have lived our lives in this world. Lent is a time for us to rediscover our true path in life towards God and to recalibrate and reconnect ourselves with God and His path especially if we have erred and wandered down the wrong path. And as we enter into this Holy Week of Our Lord’s Passion, each one of us are called to remind ourselves why our Lord has done all these for us, and that again, first of all, is because of His love for us. We have sinned against the Lord, and we should have deserved damnation and destruction for our faults and sins, and yet, God willingly came to us, and through His Passion, He showed us the path to a new life with Him, and by His sufferings, He shouldered the punishments of our own sins meant for us.

Let us all remember how God has been so patient with us and how much He has loved us, that He came into our midst to live amongst us and to suffer with us and for us. Let us all no longer harden our hearts and minds, and be no longer stubborn as many of our predecessors who have frequently and constantly rejected the Lord and His generous offer of love and mercy. Let us all look upon the Crucified Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, and see His loving gaze, ever always directed at us, so that we may indeed be ashamed by our many sins and wrongdoings, all of which had inflicted the many injuries and wounds that He had to painfully bear for our sake, and yet which He bore willingly and lovingly nonetheless because He truly and really loves us very much. Therefore, let us all deepen our appreciation of everything that Our Lord and Saviour had done for us, and deepen our relationship with Him.

May the Lord, our King and Saviour, our High Priest and our Paschal Lamb, He Who has done so much for us for our salvation, continue to be with us and guide us patiently as He has always done, so that we may grow ever more in faith in Him, and learn to love Him more and more, especially as we enter into this time of most solemn commemoration of His Passion, His suffering and death during this Holy Week and the upcoming Easter Triduum. Today, let us not just acclaim Him with our words and mouth only, but let us all acclaim Him from deep within our hearts. May He help us all to remain focused on Him and may He empower each every one of us so that we may persevere ever more against the many challenges, trials and temptations in life. May God bless us all in our every good works, efforts and endeavours, so that in everything we do, we may truly be ever more faithful to Him and be exemplary role models and good examples for others to follow, that through us and our actions, many more may come to believe in God and be saved. Wishing all of us a most blessed, holy and fruitful Holy Week. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 April 2022 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week, the most solemn time and occasion in the entire liturgical year, as rightfully we should turn away from all of our other matters and concerns, and spend more time with the Lord, reflecting and immersing ourselves deeply in the mystery and events surrounding Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering, death and eventual glorious resurrection from the dead. On this Sunday, which we celebrate as the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, we mark the beginning of this very important series of event in the history of our salvation.

For this Sunday marks the moment when the Lord entered into the moment of His Passion, beginning the final stage of His mission and work in this world. The Lord travelled to Judea and Jerusalem for the last time after approximately three years of His ministry, and this time, He knew that this was the moment of His greatest work, when He would have to suffer for the sake of all mankind. But at the same time, He willingly went through with it, obeying perfectly the will of His heavenly Father, and because all of us are truly beloved by Him, so much so that He was willing to endure all that for our sake.

Today we heard first of all the reading of the Gospel at the beginning, in which the celebration of the Lord’s glorious entry to Jerusalem is celebrated. The palms are blessed and we all gather together to celebrate and glorify the Lord, our Saviour and King, Who has come into our midst, as He came to Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of the prophets, that the King would come to His people on a humble and lowly donkey. The Lord Jesus came into Jerusalem upon the glorious cries and shout of joy, of people praising God, with the words, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord! Hosanna in the Highest!’

The people raised palm fronds and branches, putting their cloaks and clothes on the floor, welcoming the Lord with great pomp and circumstance, a welcome fit for a king. And indeed, the Lord is the King of all, and not just the King of Israel but also the King of Kings, the Lord and Master over all of creation. Yet, He came to His people not as a mighty conqueror or warrior, riding on a warhorse or carried on a golden throne, and instead, He came riding on a mere, lowly donkey, an animal which people at that time often derided and under-appreciate, for its demeanour and lack of majesty unlike that of a great horse.

But that was exactly where the real nature of our Lord’s Kingship is revealed to us. Our Lord is the King Who came not to seek to be served but to serve us. He is a King Who did not need to depend on all the pomps and glamour to boost His credentials and power. He is the true Source of all power and authority, the One true King over all the kings and lords of this world, the true Master of all creation. He came to us revealing the nature of His love for each one of us. Here is our Lord and King, Who has humbled Himself and obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly, that even as He entered Jerusalem with such great pomp and circumstance, it was also a reminder of what would happen within just merely within the same week.

For the very same people who had cheered on the Lord that day would likely be the same people who also cried out just a few days later, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ at the instigation of the members of the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council. The same people who welcomed the Lord as their King would also be the same people who denied Him just a few days later and said that they had no king except for Caesar, the Roman Emperor. We can see how quickly everything turned, and all of those things happening within just merely within the span of a week’s time.

That is why today on this Palm Sunday marking the beginning of Holy Week, we celebrate two distinct yet connected events, namely the triumphal entry of the Lord into Jerusalem and the Passion of Our Lord, meaning His suffering and death, the events surrounding the Last Supper and the condemnation of Jesus, and His crucifixion and death on the Cross at Calvary. That is why today we call the celebration as the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, because by His entry into Jerusalem, the Lord came to finally fulfil the promises He had made to His people, the salvation that He would bring into their midst.

He has already made it known on several prior occasions on what would happen to Him, how He would be rejected and persecuted, condemned to death like a criminal and be raised up before all to see, much like how Moses raised up the bronze serpent that saved many Israelites from the death due to their own sins. Thus, the Lord came to Jerusalem to fulfil everything as foretold and prophesied, that He would, in just a short time after, be raised up on His Cross, at the culmination of His ministry and the Passion He endured for our sake, out of His overflowing love, to save us from certain annihilation and destruction.

For through His death and resurrection, the Lord has established anew the Covenant between us and God, with His Cross as the Bridge that bridges the gap between us sinners and our Lord and Creator. Through sin we have been made unworthy of God and corrupted. We have been separated from God and should have been condemned to eternal damnation. There existed that uncrossable and impassable chasm between God and us, ever since we first fell into the traps of sin. However, God made the impossible into possibility because He Himself built the bridge that helped to reconnect us to God, by His Cross.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on the important events celebrated in this Palm Sunday, the glorious and triumphant Entry to Jerusalem and the Passion of Our Lord and the way of His suffering all the way to the Cross, we are all invited to spend more time this week, during this holiest of all weeks, the Holy Week, to be closer to God, to be more attuned to Him and to walk ever more faithfully in His path. All of us are called to make good use of this time of the Holy Week beginning today to prepare ourselves, if we have not yet done so, to be ever more worthy of celebrating the greatest mysteries of our salvation and liberation from sin.

Let us remind ourselves of the great love that God has constantly shown us, all these while, that He has always willingly reached out to us, embracing us with genuine love and ever-patient compassion and mercy, that despite our constant stubbornness and disobedience, He has come to be with us, dwelling with us and to gather us back to Himself, to be our Lord and King forever. And now, let us also ask ourselves, if we have responded to His love with the same love and the same commitment to the Covenant that He has established with each and every one of us. If we have not done so, then we have to ask ourselves, why we have not done so yet.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, one aspect of the Palm Sunday celebrations that we may easily overlook is the symbolic representation of the Lord riding on the donkey, in which the Lord specifically told His disciples to bring a tied colt that had not been ridden before to be His ride. It was this colt that would become His donkey as mentioned earlier. The tied colt represent the attitude of the people of Israel, who had tied themselves to the old ways, their past sinfulness and refusal to obey the will of God. Meanwhile, the untying of the colt represent the freedom that the Lord brought to them, and a reminder of how He had freed their ancestors from the tyranny of the Egyptians.

At the same time, the colt that had not been ridden before also serves as a the representation of the Gentiles, the non-Jewish people, who had not been burdened by the Law as interpreted by the Pharisees and the generations of the additions that burdened the Jewish people. The Lord taking this colt as His ride itself is according to the Church tradition and understanding serves to remind us that He came into this world to gather us all, His beloved people, to gather all His children, be it Jews or Gentiles. All are beloved equally by God, whether they belong to the race of the people called earlier by God and bound by the Law of Moses, or whether they were outside this chosen race. Everyone through Christ has become one united people in faith, not bound by blood, race, or any other artificial constructs or divisions that we often placed to divide us into ‘us’ and ‘them’.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King has brought us the assurance of hope and eternal life. All of us who believe in Him shall experience the fullness of His love and grace, the fullness of His inheritance and glory. All that remains is for us to answer His call and commit ourselves to follow Him. As we raise our blessed palms and praising the Lord, let us ask ourselves, ‘Is the Lord Jesus truly the King of our hearts, our minds, and indeed, the King of our whole entire beings?’ And if we consider Him as our Lord and King, then naturally we have to live our lives in accordance with His ways. Otherwise then we are behaving like hypocrites, who pretend to believe in something and yet act in an entirely different way in life.

As we enter into this solemn occasion of the Holy Week, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord that we may deepen our relationship with Him and spend more quality time with Him. Let us all turn away from our sinful paths and our stubborn attitudes, and let us truly recognise Him as our Lord and King, and welcome Him into our hearts and beings, into our houses and families. Let our Holy Week observance and actions be filled with rich faith and true desire to love the Lord more and more with each and every passing moments. We have to follow the examples set by Our Lord Himself, Who obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly and humbled Himself such that through Him, all of us have gained the assurance of eternal life. Follow Christ, and we will follow Him to eternal life.

Let us all be inspiration for one another in how we live our lives righteously and faithfully from now on, not only for the duration of Holy Week and Easter, but all through to the end of our lives. May God be with us all, and may He strengthen us in our desire to love Him and walk in His path, now and evermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 28 March 2021 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we mark the occasion of the Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord, and on this day we begin the solemn celebrations of the Holy Week. This marks the last week in which the culmination of the Lord’s mission in this world. Throughout this season of Lent, we have been preparing ourselves physically and spiritually to celebrate this most important moment in the history of the world and all mankind, the moment when God Himself came to save us.

This day we remember the moment when the Lord came down to Jerusalem hailed as a King, cheered on and praised by many who were there to welcome Him, just as prophesied in the Scriptures by the prophets of the Lord, as the King riding on a donkey entering into His city mentioned by the prophet Zechariah, ‘See Jerusalem, your King is coming to you, righteous and bringing salvation, riding on a humble donkey.’

This was not Jesus’ first time entering Jerusalem, as evidenced from the Gospels that He had been in Jerusalem a few times before, not least when He was consecrated to God at His circumcision and presentation to God, and when He was just twelve years old and was left at the Temple, and on other occasions during His ministry when He came and taught the people at the Temple and other places throughout Jerusalem and Judea.

However, that time, the Lord came to Jerusalem for the one last and final time, when He would embark on the final part of His mission in fulfilling what the Lord had promised us all mankind, His beloved ones, to save us and to rescue us from the bondage of sin and death, from the tyranny and the enslavement of the devil, which He had done by His Passion, that is His suffering and His death on the Cross.

The word Passion itself came from the Latin ‘passus sum’, which means to endure and persevere through something, and in this case, it is the sufferings, the trials and pain that the Lord has suffered and endured, all the humiliation and horrible treatment He experienced at the hands of His enemies and tormentors. All of these He had willingly done, because of the great love that He has, for each and every single one of us, without exception.

We remember that the Lord so loved the world, all of us mankind, that He sent us His only begotten Son, according to the Gospel of St. John, that through Him we are to find salvation and not perish, and through Christ, God’s own Son, we have been brought to the hope of a new and graceful existence, a way to eternal life, and to be reconciled with God, our loving Father, Lord and Creator.

In this we have seen the most wonderful love of God, presented to us through Christ, the One proclaimed as King and Holy One of God by the crowd of people in Jerusalem, welcomed with much festivities and with palm branches, the Son and Heir of David Who has come to claim the kingdom of His forefather David, king of all Israel. Yet, do we all realise that the same crowd who hailed Jesus as King and praised Him wonderfully with palm branches in hand were perhaps the same ones who then cried out, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ in just a few days afterwards?

For those who followed the Lord Jesus, like His disciples and others, it might seem that the moment of the entry to Jerusalem was indeed a triumphant moment as the Lord was hailed as King and many saw Him as someone who could liberate them from the rule of the Romans. But, the moment that they saw the Lord being accused of blasphemy and of sin against God and nation, they turned against Him and became His accusers instead. Those who remained faithful, like the Apostles, hid themselves in fear and were scattered.

The Lord knew exactly what would happen to Him, and He had already mentioned it on several occasions, how He would be betrayed even by those close to Him, one of His own Twelve would be the one to hand Him over to the Sanhedrin, be arrested and then condemned to death, suffering a most painful and humiliating death on the Cross. Knowing all these, the Lord Himself did agonise over it at the Gardens of Gethsemane just prior to His arrest, the weight of the whole responsibility that He was to bear, and yet, He obeyed completely to the will of His heavenly Father.

It is St. Paul spoke of in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Philippi, the Epistle to the Philippians, when he spoke of Christ, obedient unto death on the Cross, humbling Himself and emptying Himself of His divinity and glory, allowing Himself to be scourged, punished and to endure the greatest of pain, sorrow and suffering, bearing all the consequences and punishments that we should have suffered instead because of our many sins.

Christ, Our Lord, is the New Adam, the New Man, Who obeyed God so completely and dedicated Himself so thoroughly, in contrast with the old Adam, and thus, won for us all the victory against sin. While Adam fell into sin and corruption from that sin because he was unable to resist the temptations to sin, and thus fell by his disobedience, it was Christ’s obedience, emptying Himself of all glory, that led to our salvation.

For He offered Himself, as a worthy and perfect sacrifice, both as the High Priest of all, and as the Paschal Lamb to be sacrificed Himself, on the Altar of the Cross. And indeed, the Cross is also the Throne of our King, just as the title placed on the Cross, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, and also thus, King of all of us, King of Kings. There He is, on the Cross, suffering and dying for us, for as our King, He desires nothing less than our happiness and freedom from the tyranny of sin.

It was this that brings us to the Passion of Our Lord, as this Passion, the sufferings Christ suffered for us, shows us all His compassionate love. The word compassion itself again came from the root word of Passion, cum passus sum, meaning to endure and persevere together with us, to be with us through our sufferings, to sympathise with us not just through words but also through concrete action, as He was there up on the Cross, bloody and bruised, shedding His Blood and rending His Body for us all.

Through Christ’s obedience, and by bearing all of our sins to Himself, by uniting us all in our humanity to His own humanity, Christ suffered and died, so that by His death, we may gain access to new and everlasting life. And thus, today this Palm Sunday we mark the beginning of this intense culmination of the Lord’s ministry, the beginning of this great Passion of Our Lord, as we witness and are reminded yet again of all that the Lord had done for our sake, out of enduring love for us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we now enter into this Holy Week proper, are we going to celebrate it solemnly and properly, with clear understanding and appreciation? Or are we going to treat it just like any other week without any distinction? Let us think of how we can make our Holy Week meaningful and good, that we may benefit as much as possible, and become ever closer to God, being more faithful and dedicated to Him.

Let us all focus our attention on the Christ Crucified, and remind ourselves of what a wonderful grace and privilege we have received, to be beloved by God so much that He was willing to do all these for our sake. As we look on our Lord crucified, let us remember that His every wounds are our sins, our transgressions, our wickedness, and all that we have done which were in contradiction to the way of the Lord.

Christ endured all that pain and suffering, brothers and sisters in Christ. Are we still insisting on following the wrong path in life, in doing what is against God, and inflicting those wounds that we have seen on our Lord? The Lord did indeed suffer, in His humanity, and He did indeed die, suffering all these so that we may live. Let us all appreciate everything that He had done for us, and strive to do our best in life to be more and more committed, to be closer to God and to love Him more.

Let us all enter into this most solemn time of the Holy Week with clear focus on the Lord, on His Passion and suffering, His love and the great compassion He has shown to each and every one of us. Let us all be exemplary in our faith and be good role model to one another so that we may help our fellow brothers and sisters to find our way together to the salvation and eternal life in God. May God, our Crucified Christ, Our most loving Saviour, be with us all as we journey through this Holy Week, that we may come to share ever more deeply in the mysteries of His Passion, His suffering, death and Resurrection. Amen.

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Sunday, 5 April 2020 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers ands sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we begin the observation of the Holy Week, the holiest and pinnacle of the liturgical celebrations of the entire year, as we enter into the most solemn and important moments in the history of the salvation of mankind and the world. On this day we enter and experience together this very moment when the Lord finally put into place everything that He has promised to us, His people, heading to Jerusalem where He knew that the moments His Passion, suffering and death would come.

On this Palm Sunday, we heard two very discordant accounts from the time of the Lord’s triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem, as well as from the time when He was betrayed by Judas Iscariot, arrested, put on trial, handed over to the Romans, condemned to death and was crucified as a criminal. This represents a very distinct extremes between the glory and triumphant nature of the entrance procession into Jerusalem and the humiliating and painful nature of the crucifixion of the Lord at Calvary. And all these happened within just the span of a few days.

In our Gospel today read just before the Procession with the blessed palms, we heard of the Lord’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling the prophecy of the prophet Zechariah, speaking of the coming of the King on a donkey into His city. The people welcomed the Lord and sang praises, putting their garments and clothes on the ground for the Lord and His donkey to pass through on, and waving palm branches and leaves, a welcome truly fit for a great King.

The crowds sang ‘Hosanna to the Son of David!’ loudly, referring to the descent of the Lord Jesus from the much revered King David of Israel, the glorious kingdom and time of his kingship of old. The Lord Jesus had His descent as the Heir of David, through St. Joseph, His foster-father and also legal father, and therefore, Jesus is the One Whom God had promised to David that through Him, the kingdom and house of David would be glorious and strong forever. The Lord came to Jerusalem, the city of the King to claim His place as the one true King of Israel.

Certainly at that time, some people must have thought that Jesus would restore the old kingdom of Israel, defeat and drive out the Romans who were the overlords of Judea, and reign in a new era of glorious kingdom like that of the old kingdom of David and Solomon. Some of the people had tried to make Jesus as their King on several occasions, riding on the popular sentiment and the Lord’s immense following and popularity, only for the Lord to rebuff them by withdrawing every time they attempted to do so.

But as we then proceed into our first reading taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the prophecy of the Suffering Servant, of Whom the prophet Isaiah spoke about as One Who would bear the suffering and the punishments for our sins and faults. This is the revelation of the true purpose and mission of the Messiah’s coming, that His Kingship is achieved through not the glory of the world but through the glory of the Cross. He would have to suffer as part of God’s plan to save us mankind.

And this is what St. Paul spoke about in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Philippi, in our second reading today, as he spoke of the Christ, the Son of God Who humbled Himself completely and entirely, emptying Himself of His divinity and wonders, and willingly took up the Cross of suffering, filled with the mighty burdens and punishments due for our many and innumerable sins. He bore all of these on His own shoulders, and endured all of the pain, bitterness, rejections and ridicules because of His great and enduring love for each and every one of us.

God has loved us all so much that He was willing to do all these for our sake, and He endured all the humiliations as described throughout our Passion reading today, detailing how He was treated, ridiculed, condemned by His enemies and all those who sought to denounce and sentence Him to death. He was handed to the Romans, and rejected by the whole people who chose a criminal instead of Him to be freed. He was tortured and made to suffer such indignity, and endured the excruciating pain of nails driven into His hands and feet.

All these were what the Lord had been willing to go through for our sake. He has always been so patient and been so loving towards us. That is why today, at the beginning of this Holy Week, we are brought to focus our attention to the Lord’s Passion, His ever so great and wonderful love for each and every one of us that He was willing to go through all the sufferings for us. His love is so great that although He is King, but He desires not His own glory but instead, our own glorification, through His sacrifice on the Cross.

For through the Cross, by His obedience in His Father’s will, the Lord our Saviour has restored us to the glory that was ours before we fell into sin. He wants us to be reconciled to Him and to receive His saving grace. Unfortunately, it is often us who have been stubborn and rejected His generous offer for mercy and love. We have been like those who enthusiastically welcomed the Lord on Palm Sunday, and yet, shouted ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ on Good Friday just a few days later. We are also often like Judas Iscariot, who outwardly had faith in the Lord and yet, betrayed Him in the end.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we begin this solemn celebration of the Holy Week, let us make good use of this time and opportunities provided to us that we may redirect our lives and our focus and attention back towards God. This Holy Week, let us all spend more time with God in prayer, deepening our devotion through works of charity and through reading the Scriptures with greater clarity of purpose in mind. Let us all also spend some thoughts for all those who are suffering, sick and dying during these days, unable to rejoice and celebrate as how they have usually done.

Many of us these days are unable to celebrate as we usually do, and in many parts of the world, due to the current pandemic, the celebrations of the Masses publicly have been suspended, extending through to the Holy Week and possibly even through the Easter season. And even for some of us and our communities, much of this season of Lent had indeed been a time of spiritual desolation and sadness, as we have been in many ways deprived either the regular celebration of the Mass or access to the Eucharist.

However, this is probably a good time and reminder for us all that amidst all these darkness and uncertainties, all the despairs and terrible things all around us, we still have that very one hope, the hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, our King and Saviour. That is why we should still celebrate this Holy Week with much enthusiasm and faith, and we should try our best to bring forth this spirit of faith and enthusiasm to our fellow brothers and sisters. For we all should know that sin and darkness mo longer have permanent hold on us, as Christ has promised us freedom and liberation from these through His own suffering and death on the Cross.

Let us therefore enter into the Holy Week with an open heart and mind, welcoming the Lord to enter into our hearts and into our beings as gloriously and joyfully as the people of Jerusalem had welcomed Him with branches of palms and with great rejoicing and reverence. Let us all welcome the Lord into our beings that from now on, He may truly dwell in us, and be enthroned in our hearts, in our minds and in our whole beings, and that we may focus ourselves on Him from now on.

May God bless us all, and may He guide us through this blessed and most wonderful time of the Holy Week, that we may be filled with much faith and we may make good use of the time provided to us, to help us to draw ever closer to God, and to receive the fullness of God’s saving grace, forgiven from our sins and trespasses. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 April 2019 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, after going through five weeks and more of the season of Lent, a time of preparation and rediscovery of our faith, we finally come to the beginning of the Holy Week, when we celebrate the most important moments and mysteries of our faith, commemorating that very moment when salvation came into our midst, through none other than Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of all.

Christ was the Saviour promised by God to all His people, the culmination of the grand plan He has revealed to man, ever since the beginning of time, when man first fell into sin and because of that, sundered from the fullness of God’s love and grace. And God fulfilled His promises perfectly and completely in Christ, the One He sent into this world, bringing the salvation and true hope into our midst, that we may all be saved.

And this Holy Week, we enter into the most crucial moment in all the history of the whole world and our whole existence, the moment when God completed His plan of salvation, by none other than the Passion, suffering and death of His own Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. And on this Palm Sunday, the day that marks the beginning of Holy Week, we enter and immerse ourselves into the very important events that mark that moment of our salvation through Christ.

On this day, we heard from the readings of the Scripture, two very opposing and contradictory accounts, of what happened on the actual day when the Lord Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem in glory, which we commemorate with the blessing of palms and procession on this day, with the account of the suffering and death, the crucifixion of the same Lord Jesus on the cross, which happened just merely a few days apart.

In the Gospel passage which related to us what happened when the Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem for the time of the Passover, we heard how the people gathered to welcome the Lord Jesus as if He was a glorious and conquering King, entering the city of His reign, with palms raised and garments spread along the way on which He would enter on a donkey, as prophesied by the prophets. This event reminded us all that indeed, Jesus Christ is our Lord and King, the One Who has been promised to us, as our one and true Master.

But His kingship is not like any other kingship. He Himself mentioned on a few occasions throughout the accounts of the Gospels on the events of the Holy Week. He mentioned before His disciples, when they wanted to defend Him as He was being betrayed by Judas Iscariot and was about to be arrested, that had His heavenly Father wished it, He could have sent legions of Angels to protect Him. And before Pilate, Jesus Himself said that His kingdom was not of this world.

And this is why, many of the people abandoned Him, betrayed Him and rejected Him. And do we all realise that it was the very same people who welcomed, praised, glorified and sung ‘Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!’ that just a few days later cried out before Pilate, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ and ‘We have no king but Caesar?’. This is because many among them did not have true faith in God, but were following their own selfish, wicked and sinful desires.

Some certainly followed the Lord to be famous, while others misunderstood and thought of Christ and His kingdom as one like of this world, and therefore, hoped to gain popularity, power, prestige, and all sorts of other worldly recognitions and pleasures, as what two of His own disciples showed us, when St. James and St. John, the sons of Zebedee came up to Him with their mother asking for special favours over that of the other disciples.

And the others had various other reasons, many of whom were motivated by the desire of self-advancement, self-praise, self-gratification and other forms of worldly desires, that indeed quickly turned from one of apparent faith and dedication, into one of betrayal, as Judas did, and into apathy and lack of conviction to defend their faith, as what many of the people did, easily following the popular sentiment, of what was first the popularity of Christ in acclaiming Him as King and then condemning Him when the tide of events turned against Him.

Even Christ’s own disciples fled in fear and abandoned Him. And in the accounts, we heard how this King of ours, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, turned from complete glory into utter humiliation, that He was not just stripped from His dignity as even a human person, but even treated in the worst manner possible, and made to suffer the worst of the worst of injustices and treated as the worst and lowliest of criminals for sins and mistakes He did not commit.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, before we continue further, we ought to spend some time now to reflect on our own lives, on our own actions, on our own faith in God, on our own way of following the Lord and how we have lived our faith life all these while, especially as Christians, as those who profess to have faith in God. And we ought to remember that we are truly perhaps, just as terrible as those same people whom we just talked about earlier, all those who betrayed, abandoned and left the Lord behind for our own selfish desires, gain and purposes.

Many of us seek the Lord only to feel good and high, and perhaps seeking that spiritual satisfaction and fulfilment, or any other means to satisfy ourselves and to make ourselves feel good. And we often only remember the Lord when we have a vested interest, a desire that we want Him to fulfil, in our wishes and prayers, that when all those things have been fulfilled, or in the case when they were not fulfilled, we left the Lord behind and abandoned Him.

Many of us live our Christian life in most un-Christian like manner. Many of us only thought of fulfilling the barest minimum of our obligations as Christians, in coming for and attending the celebrations of the Holy Mass every Sundays of the year, and not more than that. And in this case, many of us even struggled to fulfil this barest minimum of what the Lord has called us all to do. We only hoped and wished what was best for ourselves, and not wanting to make the sacrifices for the Lord.

And even though we call ourselves Christians, how many of us continue to do what is wicked, sinful and unbecoming of ourselves as Christians? How many of us continue to act in manner that is selfish, greedy, condescending towards others, and being ignorant of the sufferings and troubles that others experience, often because of our own actions? How many of us continue to succumb to the temptations of the flesh and acted immorally, causing scandal within our own families and communities?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the sad and unfortunate reality of our world, and especially our Christian world today. Many of us profess to be faithful to God, and yet, our hearts and minds are not completely attuned and focused on Him. We are still so easily swayed by the many temptations of the world, of desire for power, glory, fame, renown, human praise and the pleasures of the body and mind, that we can easily abandon our faith or not having true faith in God, as how the Israelites and the people at the time of Jesus had done.

Yet, it is to all of us, these delinquents, rebels, stubborn and hardhearted people that Christ has come, to deliver us all from all these attachments to sin and our wickedness. He, Who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, willingly emptied Himself of all glory and honour, taking up not just the humble appearance of a Man, like us, but even more so, to be humiliated, ridiculed, rejected and made to suffer, enduring the worst of punishments, so that by all of that sacrifice and selfless giving of Himself, He may free us all from our sins and bring us to the salvation He promised us.

Every wounds that had been inflicted on Christ’s body, as He endured all the unimaginably painful suffering throughout the moments of His Passion, are in fact all of our imperfections, mistakes, our sins and rebelliousness, all of our iniquities and faults, all of our refusal to obey the Lord’s will and our selfishness. Every time we sin, we are causing that wound in the Body of Christ to fester and be even more painful, even as He endured it all and bore the burden of our sins on His cross.

Christ, in truth, showed us all, what it truly means for us to be Christians. First of all, all of us must be filled with love, the love for God and the love for our fellow brothers and sisters. It was love for His Father and the love that He has for each and every one of us, even the greatest and most wicked of sinners, that allowed Christ to endure the bitter and terrible pain of His suffering and death on the cross. Without His enduring love and compassion for us, God would not have done everything all the way to suffer death just that all of us may live.

And as Christians, we must be humble, and the greater we are, the humbler we are to be before God and men alike. For Christ Himself said, that He came not to be served, but to serve, and He showed His disciples at the Last Supper, what they ought to be doing to one another, loving one another as brothers and sisters, and to care for each other with true and genuine love. The Lord did not allow pride and ego to be in the way, and just as He rejected Satan’s advances through the temptations he attempted on the Lord, we too should cast aside our own pride and ego.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we journey through the Holy Week, let us all delve deeper into our understanding of our faith and our own relationship with God. If all these while, we have been distant and have not been spending our time with God, because of the many distractions and temptations we faced in life, then now is the perfect opportunity for us all to reorientate ourselves and to rediscover our true purpose in life, not for our own self-glory, but rather, for the greater glory of God.

Let us all grow deeper in our faith and in our conviction and dedication to love the Lord and to serve Him through our actions and deeds in life, that are pleasing to Him. Let us all also follow the Lord wholeheartedly from now on, carrying our own crosses with Him. He has called us and we should respond to His call. Let us all turn to Him with all of our hearts and with all of our might, and embrace the great love He has for us, that He was willing to suffer and die, just that we may live and not perish.

May the Lord continue to bless us all and may He continue to guide us as we continue to progress through this holiest of all periods and times of this year. May He sow in us all the seeds of faith, hope and love, so that we may grow ever deeper in faith, ever more hopeful in our lives, and be ever more filled with love at all times of our lives. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 25 March 2018 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we begin the celebration of the most important events in our faith, that is the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His final earthly mission, to complete everything that the Lord has planned for mankind, the salvation of us all, by the suffering and the death of the Messiah, Our Lord Jesus, on the cross at Calvary.

This Holy Week of important events of our faith begins today with the Palm Sunday, celebrating the moment when the Lord Jesus entered in glory into the Holy City of Jerusalem on a donkey, as we heard just earlier in our Gospel passage at the start of today’s celebration of the Holy Mass. The people welcomed the Lord Jesus and hailed Him as the Messiah and King Who was to come to His city in glory, saying loudly, “Hosanna in the highest! Hosanna to the Son of David!”

They waved palm branches and placed their cloaks and clothes in front of Jesus, welcoming Him as if He is the King of Israel. Indeed, He is King and Lord of all, and among the people at that time, as mentioned later by the disciples who walked to Emmaus just after Jesus’ death that they had hoped that He was the One Who would have restored the Kingdom of Israel.

Yet, it was the very same people who would shout loudly in just a matter of a few days, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” The same people who cheered and welcomed the Lord with much energy and spirit, were the same ones who would reject Him and call for His death, death at the hands of the Romans and a most painful death on the cross. How could this have happened, brothers and sisters in Christ?

The Scripture readings today show the nature of Our Lord’s plan of salvation, that He must suffer at the hands of His enemies and bear the cross on His own accord towards death and punishment for the crimes and sins that He Himself did not commit. But all of these are ultimately meant for our own good, for our salvation and liberation from the bondage to all of our sins.

The cross of Christ is the cross of our sins and faults, all of our shortcomings and rebellious attitudes against God. When the Lord Jesus bore that cross, He did not just bear the physical weight of the wooden cross, which according to historical data and research was already quite formidable in itself, but even more so, it was the massive and unimaginable burden of the combined weight of our sins, our shortcomings, our trespasses, our faults and all other things that should have been ours to bear.

All of us, each one of us are sinners, brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us have disobeyed God in one way or another, in small sin or in major sin. And each and everyone of us should have endured the consequences for all these sins and faults we have with us. What is the punishment of sin? Death, and also separation from God and eternal damnation in hell. That is what we should have suffered.

But God, Who loves each and every one of us, His beloved children so greatly, did not want this fate to befall us, as ultimately, as mentioned, He loved us all greatly, though not our sins and disobedience that creates those sins. Thus, He promised us all since the beginning, that He will save us, by the sending of a Saviour, or Messiah, He Who would reconcile all mankind, God’s beloved people with Him.

All of these were fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Whom the prophet Isaiah prophesied in the first reading we heard today, about the Servant of God Who would suffer, be rejected and be persecuted for doing God’s work. The prophet Isaiah prophesied about the Suffering Messiah Who would suffer, and it was this suffering that the prophet was speaking about. Christ was obedient that He took up His cross for our sake, for the salvation of His own beloved people, that because He died, we may live.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we enter into this most important moment in our liturgical year, the Holy Week, how are we preparing ourselves that we may worthily commemorate the events that will come in a few days’ time? This is where we need to spend time to reflect on our own lives, on our actions and how we have lived our lives thus far. Have we been living our lives in disobedience and sin, and have we refused God’s rich offer of mercy and forgiveness?

We should use this time and the opportunity given to us, to reflect on our lives and on our actions. Have we had a good relationship with God? And indeed, how much time in a day that we actually spend with Him? Or have we instead forgotten about Him in the midst of our busy schedules, in the midst of our pursuit for power, prestige, honour, worldly comfort, money, and many other worldly desires we have?

Instead of spending so much of our time in these ultimately meaningless pursuit, shall we then turn ourselves towards God and learn to put our trust in Him? Shall we spend more time with the Lord Who loves us so much that He gave us His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour? Remember, brothers and sisters, that if not for the cross of Christ, all of us would have lived our lives with no meaning, as everything would have ended in the eternity in hell.

But because of Christ, and His loving sacrifice on the cross, by His willingness to endure the effects and the consequences of our sins, all of our punishments, all of us who believe in Him and who are willing to put our trust in Him will receive pardon from our sins and justification before God, that we who were once unworthy because of our sins, will be worthy of God’s grace, and be able to receive the eternal life He has promised to us all.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let this day be a reminder for us all, that whenever we sin, we inflict the wounds and the pain on Our Lord Jesus, Who willingly bore those sins with Him on the cross. Let us all remember that we should turn away from sin, repent from all of our past wickedness, and ultimately, return to the Lord with an open mind and heart, that all of us will be reconciled completely with Him, and receive eternal life from Him.

May God be with us all throughout this Holy Week, and may He continue to guide us and bless us all the days of our life. Amen.

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(Holy Week) Sunday, 9 April 2017 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we mark the beginning of the Holy Week, the very significant and indeed holiest moment in the whole of the liturgical year, when we are commemorating and celebrating the final events in the earthly life, work and ministry of Jesus, the last week of His time when He endured all that He had to endure in order to fulfil God’s plan for our salvation to its perfection.

And it all began with the triumphal entry of Jesus into the Holy City of Jerusalem, when He was glorified and praised as a triumphant King, coming to enter His city, the city where God had made His dwelling, and He came riding on a donkey, much as the prophet Zechariah prophesied about the Messiah and King Who would come on the donkey into the city, thus fulfilling completely what God had promised His people.

And that is why we have the blessing of the palms and the procession of the palms, to commemorate that moment when the people of Jerusalem welcomed the Lord Jesus coming into the city, singing loudly and courageously, “Hosanna! Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!” They were welcoming the Messiah Who came to take up possession of His kingdom and His city, as the Heir of David, to whom God had promised that his kingdom would last forever.

Yet, we may wonder, why is it that we begin with the Gospel reading at the start of the celebration of the Holy Mass at the triumphal procession, and then suddenly, as we progress on to the readings, we then read about the Lord and Messiah Who would suffer for the sake of all people, as mentioned in the book of the prophet Isaiah, speaking about the suffering Servant of God, Who would offer Himself to be tortured and punished for our faults.

And in the second reading, in the famous passage from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians, the Apostle wrote about how Jesus had been exalted and given Name above every other names, because He has obeyed the will and the commands of His Father perfectly and completely, by taking up His cross and emptying Himself, allowing Himself to be the perfect sacrifice of love, to be the ultimate source of salvation for all of us mankind.

And we end up with the long Passion reading, when we heard one of the three accounts of the Passion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, which for this year is taken from the Gospel of St. Matthew. We heard how the Lord Jesus spent the last day from the time of the Last Supper, to His agony in the garden of Gethsemane, to His betrayal by Judas Iscariot, to His trial before the chief priests and before Herod, and how then He was tortured and put to death by false accusations before Pontius Pilate the governor of Judea.

We heard how the Lord Jesus took up His cross, having to walk the path of suffering from Jerusalem to the hill of Calvary among two other criminals. He was condemned to death like a criminal even though He was completely innocent. People mourned for Him, while many others mocked Him, jeered Him and rejected Him, throwing insults after insults, spittle after spittle on the way, and He ascended the cross, nailed onto it at Calvary, and died for all of us.

Why is it that a people who have greeted and welcomed the Lord Jesus as King and cried out, “Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!”, then within just a time span of less than one week, were also the ones who cried out, “Crucify Him!” and “We have no king but Caesar?” That is because we mankind, by our nature, are weak, brothers and sisters in Christ. We are all weak and vulnerable, easily falling into temptation.

Through falsehoods and false promises of pleasure and goodness, the devil, our great enemy, are planting in us the seeds of doubt, the seeds of evil and wickedness, and all these resulted in our lack of faith. Thus, the same people who believed in the Lord Jesus as Saviour and Master, easily turned away from Him and rejected Him, when they saw Him fallen from grace and arrested by His enemies. Those who would once call Him friends, left Him behind and abandoned Him.

Indeed, His own disciples abandoned Him when He was arrested, as they cowered in fear and were at loss on what to do. And one of His own twelve most trusted disciples betrayed Him for a mere thirty pieces of silver, tempted by the allure of money and worldly possessions. This is what had caused many of us to sin as well, to fall into darkness and wickedness.

Through this, all of us must realise that each and every one of us have sinned, be it small or great sin, but all of us have disobeyed God. At one point or more in our lives, we have walked away from our God, abandoned Him, betrayed Him and left Him behind for the pursuit of money, worldly temptations and all the false allures of the devil, which he had placed in our path to make us stumble, as what had indeed happened to all of us.

All of us have acted as the people of Jerusalem, as the disciples of Jesus, as Judas Iscariot, as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. We have been like them, in how we welcome the Lord and shout His Name for joy, praising Him and glorifying Him, but then, very quickly, when temptations come, when doubt entered into our hearts, when fear and other things arose, we abandoned the Lord and left Him behind.

Let us reflect, brothers and sisters in Christ, on what had happened throughout this Holy Week, this time when Jesus our Lord did all that He had done for the sake of our salvation. We have been the ones to condemn the Lord to His death, by our sins and by our faults. Yet many of us do not realise this fact and continue to carry on with our lives as if nothing had happened. We have often taken the love of God for granted.

If all of us can just come to the realisation that each and every sin that we ever committed in life are the wounds and the sufferings of Christ, Who has suffered and died for us, then all of us would have been very ashamed and would not commit any more sins. But the reality is that many of us have been oblivious and ignorant to the sins that we have committed, and some of us have even been desensitised to sin, because we have committed so many sins, that it feels just normal for us to sin.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all spend some time today, at the beginning of the Holy Week, to reflect on how fortunate we are, to have One Who loved each and every one of us so much that He was willing to give up His own life for us, He Who was willing to forgive us our transgressions and sins. He has called us to accept His mercy and to share in the burden of His cross, if we believe in Him and what He had done for us.

The question is, are we willing to be forgiven? Are we willing to accept God’s mercy and forgiveness? Are we willing to change ourselves and sin no more? The disciples may indeed have abandoned the Lord, but they all, except Judas Iscariot, turned back to God and sought His forgiveness. Peter, who denied Jesus three times, confessed his devotion and love before the Lord three times, as a sign of his atonement and commitment to be with God. Judas did not repent and change his ways, and that was why Satan used him as a tool to try and undo the good works of Jesus by betraying Him. God gave him chance but he refused to take it up.

Shall we choose to be like Judas or to be like the other disciples of Christ? That is a question that we need to ask ourselves. Let us ponder on this as we go on throughout this Holy Week celebrations, that whatever we do, we may do it with understanding and that we may benefit from them. May all of us find our way to the salvation in our God, and share in the love and mercy with which He had rescued us from death because of our sins.

May the Lord, our loving God, Who suffered and died for us, taking our place in suffering and bearing upon Himself our crosses, bless us all and keep us all in His grace and love at all times. May we all draw closer to Him and to His love, and may we find succour and redemption by the loving sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, and accept wholeheartedly the love which He had given us all. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

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Friday, 25 March 2016 : Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is Good Friday, and we all know that today marks the very special moment in the history of our faith and of our salvation, because on this day we celebrate together the love of our God, the great and infinite love which He had for every single one of us, by bearing our own sins and iniquities upon Himself, and ascending to the hill of Golgotha, He bared Himself before all to see, and though rejected and ridiculed, He persevered to the end for our sake. Yes, so that by His suffering and death on the cross, He may bring us all out from the darkness and into the eternal light.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, one might be asking, that given the gravity of the situation of the day, of what we commemorate, then why we do call this day Good Friday? Should it not be one of sorrow and sadness, remembering how our Lord and Saviour was hated, rejected, cast out and sentenced to death on the cross? But this is where exactly we have to understand the meaning of our Lord’s works and His greatest work of all, that by sacrificing Himself and offering Himself on the cross, He has brought us all a new hope, and as well as a new life. Today is Good for us, because if not for this day, all of us would have no hope, and our existence in this world would have been meaningless.

Yes, we have ever suffered in this world, suffered pain and bitterness, sorrow and sadness, and all the other forms of sufferings because of the consequences of our sins and disobedience against God. We have betrayed our Lord, broken our promises to Him, failing to keep His laws and covenants, and by listening more to the words of Satan the deceiver and also to our own human desires, pride, greed and submitting ourselves to sin, rather than to obey the Lord and to live in accordance with His will. It was our destiny and fate for us to face persecution and punishment at the end of our earthly lives, an eternity of suffering and separation from the Lord our God in hell.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God does despise our sins and He was angry at us with our disobedience. But we must not forget that just as much as He was angry with our sins and wickedness, He also still loved us with equal and even greater intensity, for all of us are beloved in His eyes, and He had created all of us out of love, to enjoy forever the blessings and graces that He had promised to all of us. Yet, because of our disobedience, we have been sundered from Him, separated from those blessings and graces intended for us, and that is why we suffered, because of our sinfulness.

And therefore to that extent of helping us and to keep us away from our fate of being destroyed for our disobedience, God Himself intervened for our sake, by sending to us His Deliverer, the Saviour Who would bring all mankind out of their sins and their misery, and bring them from the darkness of sin and into the light of righteousness in Him. And for this purpose He would send no mere man or any mere servant, but He sent to us His own Son, the very Lord God and Creator of all life and all the universe. He sent to us as a Redeemer, the Word of God, He Who is part of the Trinity, One God and Lord of all things, and yet, in all these, He was willing to empty Himself and came down to us in the form of a humble Man.

All these were done, so that by His humble and perfect offering before God His Father, the Lord God may accept His offering, and use it as the redemption and grace for all of us mankind who have ever lived, from the days of Adam to the days of the last man at the end of time. God offered Himself on the cross for us, that all of us who have a share in His suffering and death, may receive the gifts of eternal life and redemption from our sins. This was a sacrifice beyond all other sacrifices and offerings, for if in the past, the people of Israel offered the blood of goats and doves in order to absolve them temporarily from their sins, but God Himself offered His own Flesh and Blood, the perfect and spotless offering beyond all others, which was the only one worthy to redeem the whole multitude of our sins, every single taint of original sin that had held us back from our salvation and reunion with our loving God.

And if He had loved us so much, then what are we all supposed to do, brothers and sisters in Christ? Christ had chosen to die for all of us, for all mankind, from the least of sinners to the greatest among them, and from the humblest and smallest person, to the great and the mighty. He did not choose from us, and neither was He biased against a certain group or towards a certain person, but He offered His love, mercy and salvation to all. It is our choice now then, whether we are to accept that rich offering of love and mercy, or whether we want to reject them and instead continue to proceed on with our own lives.

Today we are all reminded that the cross that our Lord bore on His way to Calvary, and the cross on which He was nailed to, and hung between the heavens and the earth is a cross of love, the cross of mercy, the cross of forgiveness. For it was through that cross, that God made His love evident to all, and it was through that love, that He endeavoured to gather all of His beloved children to Himself, and took for us, for our sake, the punishments intended for us. And that cross is also the cross of victory, of the triumph against evil and sin, and of the triumph against death. For we know that His death was not forever, and neither did death had any power over Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, but we also have to realise that the cross of Christ is also a cross of suffering, as well as a cross of responsibility. Jesus Himself had said to His disciples, that all those who want to follow Him ought to take up their own crosses and follow Him. So, all of us mankind also have the same obligation to carry up our crosses with us, if we are to follow Him. This is what Jesus told us about how by becoming His followers and disciples, life will be difficult for us, because of all the opposition by the world, and by all the forces of darkness that did not desire to see us saved from our fated destruction.

And just how do we carry our crosses, brethren? It is by remembering that the cross itself is a symbol of love, a bridge between God and mankind, which our Lord Jesus had built for us. For once because of our sins, a great and wide chasm had existed between us and God, and none of us could go to the Lord without crossing that chasm, which was impossible. But our Lord Jesus made it all possible by His death on the cross. For we all who share in His cross, dying to ourselves and our sins, share with Him the glorious joy of His resurrection and brought into a new life of righteousness worthy of our Lord. It was through this that God Himself made the bridge between Him and ourselves, that is the cross of Christ.

Therefore, in order to carry our crosses, we ought to remember that the cross itself is a joining between two components, the vertical bar and the horizontal bar. The vertical bar represents the love and the relationship we have with God, while the horizontal bar represents the love and the relationships we have with one another, with our fellow men. And hence, if we are to be faithful to the Lord, and to be worthy of the salvation which He had offered us through His cross, we ought to remember to obey His covenant and His laws, that is by loving Him with all the might of our bodies, minds, hearts and soul, and do the same to our fellow brethren around us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all use this opportunity to reflect on our own lives. Have all of us been faithful to the Lord, and obeyed all of His laws and commandments? Or have we instead been more faithful to our whim and desires? Have we been loving and merciful in our interactions with our brethren around us, showing them acts of love and mercy, of care and compassion, of tenderness and justice? Let us all do so, if we have not done so yet. Let us all go forth in celebrating this Easter Triduum and the whole joyful season of Easter, by bringing forth the joy that God brought us, and share it with others who have little or none. May God bless us and keep us, and may through His holy Cross, He brings us to eternal life in Him. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.