parable

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Wednesday, 24 July 2013 : 16th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Charbel Makhluf, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 13 : 1-9

That same day Jesus left the house and sat down by the lakeside. Many people gathered around Him, so He got in a boat, and sat down, while the crowds stood on the shore; and He spoke to them in parables about many things.

Jesus said, “The sower went out to sow and, as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground where there was little soil, and the seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was not deep. But as soon as the sun rose, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no roots.

Again other seeds fell among thistles, and the thistles grew and choked the plants. Still other seeds fell on good soil and produced a crop : some a hundredfold, others sixty, and others thirty. If you have ears, then hear!”

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Sunday, 14 July 2013 : 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Luke 10 : 25-37

Then a teacher of the Law came and began putting Jesus to the test. And he said, “Master, what shall I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus replied, “What is written in the Scripture? How do you understand it?” The man answered, “It is written : You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind. And you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

Jesus replied, “What a good answer! Do this and you shall live.” The man wanted to justify his question, so he asked, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus then said, “There was a man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him, beat him and went off, leaving him half-dead.”

“It happened that a priest was going along that road and saw the man, but passed by on the other side. Likewise a Levite saw the man, and passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan also was going that way, and when he came upon the man, he was moved with compassion. He went over to him, and cleaned his wounds with oil and wine, and wrapped them in bandages. Then he put him on his own mount, and brought him to an inn, where he took care of him.”

“The next day he had to set off; but he gave two silver coins to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him, and whatever you spend on him, I will repay when I return.'”

Jesus then asked, “Which of these three, do you think, made himself neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The teacher of the Law answered, “The one who had mercy on him.” And Jesus said, “Then go and do the same.”

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

Matthew 7 : 21-29

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My heavenly Father. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not speak in Your Name? Did we not cast out devils and perform many miracles in Your Name?’ Then I will tell them openly, ‘I have never known you; away from Me, you evil people!'”

“So then, anyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts accordingly, is like a wise man, who built his house on rock. The rain poured, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew and struck that house, but it did not collapse because it was built on rock. But anyone who hears these words of mine, and does not act accordingly, is like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain poured, the rivers flooded, and the wind blew and struck that house; it collapsed, and what a terrible fall that was!”

When Jesus had finished this discourse, the crowds were struck by the way He taught, because He taught with authority, unlike their teachers of the Law.

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Tuesday, 4 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Mark 12 : 13-17

They sent to Jesus some Pharisees with members of Herod’s party, with the purpose of trapping Him by His own words. They came and said to Jesus, “Master, we know that You are truthful; You are not influenced by anyone, and Your answers do not vary according to who is listening to You, but You truly teach God’s way. Tell us, is it against the Law to pay taxes to Caesar? Should we pay them or not?”

But Jesus saw through their trick and answered, “Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a silver coin and let Me see it.” They brought Him one and Jesus asked, “Whose image is this, and whose name? They answered, “Caesar’s” Then Jesus said, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” And they were greatly astonished.

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Monday, 3 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Sts. Charles Lwanga and Companions, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Mark 12 : 1-12

Using parables, Jesus went on to say, “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press and built a watch tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenants and went abroad. In due time, he sent a servant to receive from the tenants his share of the fruit. But they seized the servant, struck him and sent him back empty-handed.”

“Again the man sent another servant. They also struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent another and they killed him. In the same way they treated many others : some they beat up and others they killed. One was still left, his beloved son. And so, last of all, he sent him to the tenants, for he said, ‘They will respect my son.'”

“But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let’s kill him and the property will be ours.’ So they seized him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. Now what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

And Jesus added, “Have you not read this text of the Scriptures : ‘The stone which the builders rejected has become the keystone; this is the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it?'”

They wanted to arrest Him, for they realised that Jesus meant this parable for them, but they were afraid of the crowd; so they left Him and went away.

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Sunday, 10 March 2013 : 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday, 2nd Scrutiny for Baptism (Scripture Reflection)

Forgiveness. Something that is easy to be said, but difficult to be done. Something that we want to do, but hard to do, because either we lack love in our hearts, or have the hatred and darkness in our hearts that block us and prevent us from carrying out acts of forgiveness and mercy.

Today, our Lord Jesus Christ showed us the virtues of forgiveness and mercy, just as what God the Father had done for us, through the parable of the prodigal son. It shows the extent of God’s boundless and infinite love for us, who are sinners, but yet He is willing to take all of us as His children. After all, are we not His most beloved of all creation? The very beings created in His image? Though indeed, we were marred by our rebellion, beginning from the rebellion of our foreparents Adam and Eve, who fell into Satan’s temptation.

But God again shows that no sinner is beyond His mercy and salvation. That is why, out of His great love for all of us, the only One worthy to redeem us, His Son, Jesus Christ, was given to us as a ‘Sacrificial Offering’, the perfect offering that redeemed us every single cents of our debts, that is our sins and faults.

We who had been saved by Christ through His Sacrifice, and through our baptism, either when we were infants or when we were already adults, when God took us to be His sons and daughters, are like the elder son of the father in the parable, who had already had a share in the wealth and all the properties of the father, who is God represented. We should not act like the Pharisees, who thought themselves of worthy, and that others who had ‘erred’ in their eyes, they labeled as sinners and unworthy to share their salvation and faith.

For the Pharisees in the blind man case, represented exactly the sentiments of the elder son, where pride, arrogance, and power trumped over humility, love, and compassion. Just like the elder sons of Jesse, whom the Lord asked the prophet Samuel to visit to appoint the new king of Israel, they had been rejected although they were strong, powerful, and has that aura of command, being the elder and thus more mature sons according to the society’s norms.

No, the Lord seeks not these kind of strength, pride, and power, for these things often corrupted men and deviates their heart from their true love for God, and instead to love mankind, the world, and all the temptations of power and glory that Satan offered through the world. God desires indeed the qualities found in David, whom he chose as the new king of Israel to replace the disobedient Saul.

For David is humble and loving, and he truly loved the Lord with all his heart and after his anointing, he set out to do good throughout all his life, for God’s sake. And except for the sin he committed in murdering the husband of his future wife (he is still like us after all, a sinner), he was committed to a life of dedicated love to God, and to all his fellow men, whom he ruled justly.

It is through humility and love that we can learn the true nature of God, that is love, mercy, and compassion. For if we let ourselves be blinded by our pride, jealousy, our hatred, and all things of evil and sin, we blind ourselves, not only from the truth in our fellow men, but also blind ourselves from God. This is exactly what happened to the Pharisees and the people gathered, who condemned the blind man, cured by Jesus, failing to see God’s work in Jesus, and failing to listen to the testimony of the blind man, which is truth.

For they are too embroiled in their own self-vanity, pride, and preservation, and jealousy against all who intruded into their sphere of control and power (who was indeed Jesus), that they rejected God directly, out of these sheer darkness in their hearts. For them, these had closed their hearts from God’s love, but still, God gave His life to save all, including them, and He forgave them in the end at Calvary. This is how great the love that God has shown us, that He gave Himself for us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us strive that we will not be like the ungrateful and arrogant elder son, who think highly of himself and failing to see God’s love in all, and for all, even for the greatest sinners, represented by the younger son. Because he has been always with the Father as we are with the Father through Christ and through our baptism, but we have to reach out and help out those who are still struggling, and those who had lost their way to God.

Help one another, strengthen one another in faith, and bring the Good News to others who had yet to receive it. Let us, brothers and sisters in Christ, as One community, One Church in Christ, do our best to show God’s mercy, forgiveness, and love, through our charity and our actions, which will make God’s love manifest in this world. That more can be saved, through our action, not out of jealousy, not out of pride, but out of love, and humility, and let us rejoice together when anyone returns or comes to the Lord, acknowledging Him as their Saviour.

May God bless us all, and bless those who had rejected Him, those who had hated Him, and those who had closed their hearts to His love. Amen.

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Saturday, 9 March 2013 : 3rd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Frances of Rome, Religious (Gospel Reading)

Luke 18 : 9-14

Jesus told another parable to some people, fully convinced of their own righteousness, who looked down others : “Two men went up to the Temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself, and said, ‘I thank You, God, that I am not like other people, grasping, crooked, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and give the tenth of all my income to the Temple.'”

“In the meantime, the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’ I tell you, when this man went back to his house, he had been reconciled with God, but not the other. For whoever makes himself out to be great will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be raised up.”

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Saturday, 2 March 2013 : 2nd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

The parable of the prodigal son is indeed a well-known parable and story, that many have heard, which symbolises God’s eternal love for us and His great mercy. Do not be mistaken however, that God will simply just overlook any kind of error and sin because of His love for us. For God first and foremost is Holy and therefore He hates sin in all its forms. He hates evil and things that marred the holiness of His creations. He does have mercy, and His great and the incomprehensible degree of His love allows Him to forgive us, just like the father of the prodigal son.

But how does this forgiveness come about? It is not by being idle and wait for God’s forgiveness. If we stay idle, or worse if we continue to dwell in the world of sin, God will not forgive us, but rather condemn us for our continued rebellion against His love. Remember, that, in the parable of the prodigal son, it is the son, who in great humility and repentance, decided to turn back home and seek his father.

Instead of being haughty and proud, he lowered himself and even declared his unworthiness before the father. The father forgives him first because the younger son is back after being lost into the world, and then because he so humbly had submitted himself to the father’s judgement and in full humility even declared his unworthiness, which made the loving father to love him even more.

Forgiveness is not easy, but the Lord is willing to forgive as long as His children who have sinned, and thus rebelled against Him just like the prodigal son, are to humbly seek His mercy and love. God is kind as He is just, and He will show us great blessings and graces if we are obedient and try our best to remain in His favour, by first listening to the Word of God, and the commandments of love as brought by Christ, and to make our faith manifest through our good works and service for the good of all mankind, starting from those around us.

But do not forget, that God in His great mercy, do not just forgive us like that, for if we are forgiven but we ourselves continue to accuse others who had made mistakes to us, is it not contradictory? Just as Christ had said, love one another as I have loved you, and do upon others as what you wish to be done to you.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us first forgive one another first, forgive those who had made you hurt, those who had ostracised you, and then let us ourselves not hurt others, not ostracise others, and not made others’ lives to suffer. Only then, let us offer ourselves, our sinful beings in humility at God’s feet. He, who is our Father, will lift us up again, and makes us whole again, and once again worthy of Him.

If only love, kindness, and forgiveness can be ever present in everyone in our world today, that world would have been much nicer, is it not? All of us Christians, are just like the elder son of the father in the parable, as we had been brought closer to God through our baptism, and had been taught the faith and the love of God through our priests and our fellow brethren in faith. However, let us not be like the elder son who in jealousy became angry with the father because he seemed to overlook him due to the return of the prodigal younger son.

Because, we, who are like the elder son, have been saved in Christ, provided that we remain faithful to Him and practice our faith through our works and service for others as the Lord commanded us. However, there are many out there, who have yet to listen and receive the Good News of the Lord, and many still are also former believers in Christ, who had lapsed in their faith along the way, and had fallen into the traps of evil, through worldly pleasures, consumerism, secularism, and many others. They are the younger son, the lost prodigal son.

Rather than be annoyed and be jealous of them, when the Lord welcomes them into His kingdom like what the elder son did, let us instead help the Father, in seeking these lost sheep, these lost children of God, for through us, God can work wonders in our world. Let us help one another, particularly these lost ones, in finding together our way to the Lord, who will welcome all of us with His love and outstretched hands, the hands which had been pierced with nails on the cross to redeem us from death and eternal damnation, and into eternal life and union with Him.

Let us pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that first we will always remain faithful to God, obey His commandments, and do what we can, and whatever is within our abilities to help one another, to love one another, and to reach out especially to those who hunger for God.

Then, let us also pray for our Holy Church, which is now without a shepherd, that God will appoint soon a new shepherd to guide His holy people, that through the Church, God’s work will be made manifest and real in this world, guiding all peoples back towards the Lord from their sinful past. May God, who is our loving Father, bless us all, and remain with us, and always be ready to welcome us back if we had gone astray and then humbly seek His mercy. May God place into our hearts the heart of mercy, the heart of love, and the heart of compassion for others. Blessed be God, forever and ever! Amen.

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Saturday, 2 March 2013 : 2nd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Luke 15 : 1-3, 11-32

Meanwhile tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus, all of the eager to hear what He had to say. But the Pharisees and the scribes frowned at this, muttering, “This Man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus told them this parable.

Jesus continued, “There was a man with two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Give me my share of the estate.’ So the father divided his property between them. Some days later, the younger son gathered all his belongings, and started off for a distant land, where he squandered his wealth in loose living.”

“Having spent everything, he was hard pressed when a severe famine broke out in that land. So he hired himself out to a well-to-do citizen of that place, and was sent to work on a pig farm. So famished was he, that he longed to fill his stomach even with the food given to the pigs, but no one offered him anything.”

“Finally coming to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will get up and go back to my father, and say to him, Father, I have sinned against God, and before you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me then as one of your hired servants.’ With that thought in mind, he set off for his father’s house.”

“He was still a long way off, when his father caught sight of him. His father was so deeply moved with compassion that he ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. The son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.'”

“But the father turned to his servants : ‘Quick!’ he said, ‘Bring out the finest robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Take the fattened calf and kill it! We shall celebrate and have a feast, for this son of min was dead, and has come back to life; he was lost and is found!’ And the celebration began.”

“Meanwhile, the elder son had been working in the fields. As he returned and approached the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what it was all about. The servant answered, ‘Your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father is so happy about it that he has ordered this celebration, and killed the fattened calf.'”

The elder son became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and pleaded with him. The son, very indignant, said, ‘Look, I have slaved for you all these years. Never have I disobeyed your orders. Yet you have never given me even a young goat to celebrate with my friends. Then when this son of yours returns, after squandering your property with loose women, you kill the fattened calf for him.'”

“The father said, ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But this brother of yours was dead, and has come back to life; he was lost, and is found. And for that we had to rejoice and be glad.'”

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Friday, 1 March 2013 : 2nd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 21 : 33-43, 45-46

“Listen to another example : There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a hole for the winepress, built a watchtower, leased the vineyard to tenants, and then went to a distant country. When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.”

“Again the owner sent more servants, but they were treated in the same way. Finally, he sent his son, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they thought, “This is the one who is to inherit the vineyard. Let us kill him, and his inheritance will be ours.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.”

“Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?” They said to Him, “He will bring those evil men to an evil end, and lease the vineyard to others, who will pay him in due time.”

And Jesus replied, “Have you never read what the Scriptures say? The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and we marvel at it. Therefore I say to you : the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you, and given to a people who will yield a harvest.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard these parables, they realised that Jesus was referring to them. They would have arrested Him, but they were afraid of the crowd, who regarded Him as a prophet.