penitential season

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we mark the beginning of the forty days of the season of Lent. On this Ash Wednesday, as we celebrate it every year, blessed ashes are imposed on the foreheads or heads of the faithful, reminding them of the penitential nature of this season. The time of Lent is a time of preparation for us to prepare ourselves in our hearts, minds and our whole being for the upcoming celebration of the mysteries of the Holy Week and Easter.

Ash Wednesday mark the beginning of this wonderful season and time, a time to turn inwards into ourselves and reflect about our lives, our actions and deeds thus far, whether everything has been going on well and whether we are in good standing with God, or whether we have lapsed and fallen along the way, due to the temptations we face in life, and due to our inability to resist the allures of the devil who is constantly trying to undermine us and drag us into sin.

On this day, the ashes are imposed on our heads with the words uttered by the priest, ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ These words remind each and every one of us that we are mortals and mere creation, and that we were created from dust and had the breath of life given to us by God, as mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Without God we are nothing, and without His love and grace, our existence is empty and meaningless.

Yet, many of us have forgotten about God and His love for us, and instead, we were busy with our many concerns and pursuits in this world. We spent most of our time trying to earn ourselves more money, more prestige, more worldly goods, praise from others, more pleasure and other things that led to our further slide deeper and deeper into sin.

Many of us are also too proud to admit that we have been wrong and mistaken, sinful and unworthy. We think that nothing can go wrong in our own lives, and that we are in control of everything we do. We think that we are the masters of our own lives and everything have to go in accordance to what we desire it to be, and when things do not go according to our desire, we end up becoming angry, jealous and negative.

In the world we live in today, we are inundated and often overwhelmed from every possible sources with the subliminal and often hidden messages, which are the ways that the devil tempt us with, of the materialistic and hedonistic way of life many of us are familiar with. We are presented with a way of life centred on our very selves, on the ‘I’ and ‘Me’ at the main focus, and we are conditioned to be selfish, to put our needs and desires ahead of others.

But let us ask ourselves, what does gaining more power, more wealth, more glory in this world, more prestige and status and all the other things we often desire in our lives can do to us? Can all these things last forever? Can all of them withstand the test of time, fire and all other things that often cause us sorrow because they can destroy all these things we deem to be precious to us?

Can any of those things I mentioned extend our life in this world for even a single second, or even a small fraction of a second? No! None of these will come to any use when the time appointed by the Lord for each and every one of us come upon us, the time of our death. That is the fact and reality which all of us must understand and be aware of, that all man must die. Death is the only certainty in life, and nothing else is less certain than the time of death.

That is why beginning from this Ash Wednesday and throughout the season of Lent, we are all invited to take a break from our daily schedules, business and all the things that have preoccupied us all these while. Year after year, the season of Lent represent a time for us to prepare ourselves, in mind, heart and body, to be able to celebrate the most important mysteries and aspects of our faith with proper disposition and understanding.

We must realise that we are mere mortals, and we will one day die, and we have to face this fact. Many of us are in fact obsessed and desiring to find ways to prevent death, or at least postpone the onset of death. We spent many hours and much money trying to find ways to keep ourselves healthy and looking young, some even resorting to medicines and physical surgeries and modifications, in order to make ourselves look younger and healthier, but how do all these things benefit us?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as I have mentioned earlier, our existence and life has no meaning without God, for it is God Who gave us our life, the breath of life He has given to each one of us. And just as He has freely given this life to each one of us, He is also free to take back the life at the time of His choosing, and it is not for us to decide when we are to die. Today, we all receive the ashes on our foreheads as reminders for our mortality and our sins.

For sin has corrupted us all, as the disease that is slowly consuming us from within. Sin is caused by our disobedience and refusal to follow the Lord’s will, and instead, following our own desires and wants, we rebelled against God and sin entered into our hearts. And unless if we do something about our sinful and corrupted state, we will not be allowed to enter into the new life and the eternal glory which God has prepared for us, His people.

We must be purified and cleansed before we are considered worthy of the Lord, and in order to achieve this, we must be willing to repent and turn away from all the sins and wicked things we do in life. Some of us are afraid to do so, because we are afraid that God is angry with us and therefore we hide from Him, and pretend as if everything is going fine. But if we do so, we are only lying to ourselves, and just as He knew about the sins committed by Adam and Eve, who pretended at first not to know anything about what they had done, God Who knows everything also knows every single sins we have committed, from the smallest to the greatest.

God knows that we have sinned, and He is disgusted and angry at all the sins we have committed. But His great love for us is far greater than His anger and disgust at us, and instead of being angry, He is rather more worried about us, on what will happen to us should we continue to walk in our path of sin. He is always ready to give us another chance, to show us the way back to His embrace and to love us once again fully with all of His most loving heart. However, it is us mankind who have always been stubborn and rejected His attempts to reconcile us with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, as we enter into this sacred and contemplative season of Lent, and as we receive the blessed ashes on our forehead, let us first and foremost recognise that we are sinners and we are in need of help. And there is no one else we can turn to besides the Lord Himself. He is ever ready to welcome us back and to love us back fully as He had done before, but are we willing to open ourselves to accept His free offering of love and forgiveness?

During this season of Lent, we practice fasting and abstinence, as ways for us to restrain our human desires and to open ourselves to contemplation and direct our thoughts towards the Lord. However, when we fast and abstain from certain pleasures in life, we must also keep in mind that we must do them with the right reason in mind, or else, as mentioned in the Gospel today, we will end up falling back into sin. Do not fast or abstain for the sake of being praised by others, but rather because we want to return to God’s loving embrace.

Let us all then renew our faith in God, and commit ourselves to a new life, turning away from all the past sins we have committed, discarding from ourselves, the anger, the jealousy, the greed, the worldly desires and all that have thus far been obstacles in our journey back towards the Lord. May this time of Lent be a turning point in our lives, that we may reorientate ourselves towards God, to He Who loves us and reconcile ourselves with Him. May God be with us always, throughout this journey of faith. Amen.

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 6 : 1-6, 16-18

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Be careful not to make a show of your righteousness before people. If you do so, you do not gain anything from your Father in heaven. When you give something to the poor, do not have it trumpeted before you, as do those who want to be seen in the synagogues and in the streets, in order to be praised by the people. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.”

“If you give something to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift remains really secret. Your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you. When you pray, do not be like those who want to be seen. They love to stand and pray in the synagogues or on street corners to be seen by everyone. I assure you, they have already been paid in full.”

“When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father Who is with you in secret; and your Father Who sees what is kept secret will reward you. When you fast, do not put on a miserable face as do the hypocrites. They put on a gloomy face, so that people can see they are fasting. I tell you this : they have already been paid in full.”

“When you fast, wash your face and make yourself look cheerful, because you are not fasting for appearances or for people, but for your Father Who sees beyond appearances. And your Father, Who sees what is kept secret, will reward you.”

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

2 Corinthians 5 : 20 – 2 Corinthians 6 : 2

So we present ourselves as ambassadors in the Name of Christ, as if God Himself makes an appeal to you through us. Let God reconcile you; this we ask you in the Name of Christ. He had no sin, but God made Him bear our sin, so that in Him we might share the holiness of God.

Being God’s helpers we beg you : let it not be in vain that you received this grace of God. Scripture says : At the favourable time I listened to you, on the day of salvation I helped you. This is the favourable time, this is the day of salvation.

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 50 : 3-4, 5-6a, 12-13, 14 and 17

Have mercy on me, o God, in Your love. In Your great compassion blot out my sin. Wash me thoroughly of my guilt; cleanse me of evil.

For I acknowledge my wrongdoings and have my sins ever in mind. Against You alone have I sinned; what is evil in Your sight I have done.

Create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit. Do not cast me out of Your presence nor take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Give me again the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. O Lord, open my lips, and I will declare Your praise.

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Wednesday, 14 February 2018 : Ash Wednesday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Joel 2 : 12-18

YHVH says, “Yet even now, return to Me with your whole heart, with fasting, weeping and mourning. Rend your heart, not your garment. Return to YHVH, your God – gracious and compassionate.” YHVH is slow to anger, full of kindness, and He repents of having punished.

Who knows? Probably He will relent once more and spare some part of the harvest from which we may bring sacred offerings to YHVH, your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, proclaim a sacred fast, call a solemn assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the community, bring together the elders, even the children and infants at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his bed, and the bride her room.

Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, YHVH’s ministers, weep and say : Spare Your people, YHVH? Do not humble them or make them an object of scorn among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples : Where is their God?

YHVH has become jealous for His land; He has had pity on His people.

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Sunday, 29 December 2013 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Today brethren, as we continue through the Christmas Octave, we celebrate a great feast day, that is the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. The Holy Family symbolises the perfect family, of which we should based our families and indeed our lives on. Our families must be modeled like that of the Holy Family, filled with love, hope, and in total faith and devotion to the Lord our God.

The Holy Family is holy because of Jesus, the Holy One of God is in their midst, but also because the holiness and piety of both Mary and Joseph, who devoted themselves in their own ways, to God, through their lives and their actions, and ultimately through their respective roles in the Holy Family. They were the ones who gave human love, care, and attention to Jesus, who was born into this world, as a weak and fragile Baby, as weak and fragile as we were when we were still infants.

Jesus is the Son, both as the Son of God, the Word of God made incarnate as humankind, made from the divinity and emptied Himself into our humanity, but He is, as mentioned, also the Son of Man, after making Himself to be one of us, sharing in our humanity through Mary, His mother. Jesus is truly the role model for all children, and for all sons and daughters, that they should follow.

Jesus is obedient to His parents, and He listened to them and their words. He obeyed them and was a truly dutiful son. He learnt about this human life and culture of His people from both His father and mother, that is Joseph and Mary. His family showed Him love, affection, and genuine care. He listened to their advices and words, like when Jesus was left behind in the Temple when He was twelve years old. Despite Him wanting to stay behind in the House of His true Father in heaven, He obeyed to their parents and followed them back home to Nazareth.

The family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph might not have been a perfect family from the values and perspectives of our modern world, but they are perfect and they are our role models in family building, because they have love in them. They may not be rich or endowed with wealth, and they did not have a big and marvellous house to live in, but they have love in them. And that is, brethren, what our families should all emulate.

These days, we tend to forget the true values of a family, and instead think and follow in the ways of the world, and of how the world perceives family today. Families are often no longer based on love, and neither did they instill in them the examples and values of the Holy Family, that we had heard today in the first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Sirach, as well as from the letter of St. Paul in the second reading.

People tend to take family lightly and treat it without honour. And this is well-linked to the decline in respect towards marriage and devotion between husbands and their respective wives. Marriage, which forms families, should be based on love and true dedication between the parties involved. Yet, these days, it is quite often that people are not married for love, but instead for lust, for money, and for material benefits rather than true love.

And this can be linked to the continuously increasing rate of divorce between couples, even among those who had just recently married and also among those who had been married for many, many years. In out faith, divorce is sinful before the eyes of God and it is an abhorrence.

Why so? That is because as God had said, that He had made us men and women, that when we join ourselves with one another, and make the solemn vow before God, we are made one by the Lord, and what the Lord had united as one, no one should ever divide. Yet, the reality is that the number of divorces just keep on increasing year after year.

And who is suffering from all these? It is the children, the fruits of the love of marriage. It is the children who suffer when the parents broke their commitment of love and chose to separate the holy bond placed by God between them. They suffer because they can no longer see their parents in their loving unity, and instead what they see is just division and the bitterness between their parents.

This is why it is very, very important for us to consider deeply the true meaning of marriage. We cannot base our marriage on the basis of lust or money, for these are the things that always end up taking advantage of us and destroying relationships more often than they do not. Love is the basis of a happy and loving marriage, as well as that of a happy family. And this is what we should really base our families on, like that of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

Joseph, as the saying goes, was a much older man compared to Mary, who was then just a young virgin betrothed to Joseph to be her husband. And yet, despite their age difference, both of them truly loved one another. And even though Jesus was not technically his son, because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit as God Incarnate, Joseph still loved and cared for Jesus as if He was his own.

Joseph was a role model to all fathers, in his upright life, that he did not engage in licentious acts or any act of wickedness in opposition to the way of the Lord. Joseph offered protection to both Mary and the Child Jesus, when they were in difficulty, providing support to Mary throughout her pregnancy with Jesus, and then led them to Egypt when he was warned that King Herod wanted Jesus dead.

Joseph worked hard as a carpenter, in order to provide for both Mary and Jesus. Even though he was a poor carpenter, he did not complain. That is why St. Joseph, besides as the foster father of Jesus, is also known to be the patron saint of workers. He also dutifully fulfilled his role as the father figure to Jesus.

And Mary, as we all know, is totally devoted to her Son. She followed Him through many places, and in many important moments of His life. Ever since Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit in her womb, to His birth, and through His suffering and path towards Calvary, Mary is always at the side of Jesus, her Son.

Indeed, all these showed how a family should function, that is in togetherness, in unity, and in love. The father loves the mother and the child, the mother loves the father and the child, and the child loves the father and the mother. Everyone in the family should be dedicated to each other and give no way for dissensions or disunity to happen. That is why, from the example of the Holy Family, we too should follow what Jesus and His family had done, and implement it in our own.

And lastly, indeed, our families should be holy, just as the Holy Family is holy. We must base our family in love, as well as in prayer and in faith. Our families cannot be separated from God nor can we build a lasting family without the presence of God in each and every member of the family. The reason why many families did not last is because they never pray together, and they do not even sit down together to talk, or eat together, or do activities together as one family.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rejoice in the festivities of Christmas, let us also heed of the examples of Christ and His family as we celebrate this feast of the Holy Family. Treasure our families and make sure that we keep faith and love at the centre of our families. Pray together as a family, that is important. Keep God at the centre of our family lives, and be assured that our family lives will be transformed such that we will be truly be grateful.

May the Lord our God, Jesus Christ, bless us that our families too can be like His own family in this world, with His mother Mary and Joseph His foster-father. May the Lord bless our families and let His love be within our families, each and every day of our lives. God be with us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 29 December 2013 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 2 : 13-15, 19-23

After the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Get up, take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon be looking for the Child in order to kill Him.”

Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. In this way, what the Lord had said through the prophet was fulfilled : ‘I called My Son out of Egypt.’

After Herod’s death, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Get up, take the Child and His mother and go back to the land of Israel, because those who tried to kill the Child are dead.”

So Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother and went to the land of Israel. But when Joseph heard that Archilaus had succeeded his father Herod as king of Judea, he was afraid to go there. Joseph was given further instructions in a dream, and went to the region of Galilee.

There he settled in a town called Nazareth. In this way, what was said by the prophets was fulfilled : ‘He shall be called a Nazorean.’

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Sunday, 29 December 2013 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Colossians 3 : 12-21

Clothe yourselves, then, as is fitting for God’s chosen people, holy and beloved of Him. Put on compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience to bear with one another and forgive whenever there is any occasion to do so. As the Lord has forgiven you, forgive one another.

Above all, clothe yourselves with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony. May the peace of Christ overflow in your hearts; for this end you were called to be one body. And be thankful.

Let the word of God dwell in you in all its richness. Teach and admonish one another with words of wisdom. With thankful hearts sing to God psalms, hymns and spontaneous praise. And whatever you do or say, do it in the Name of Jesus, the Lord, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as you should do in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not get angry with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, because that pleases the Lord. Parents, do not be too demanding of your children, lest they become discouraged.

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Sunday, 29 December 2013 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Out of the depths i cry to You, o Lord, o Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears pay attention to the voice of my supplication.

If You should mark our evil, o Lord, who could stand?

But with You is forgiveness, and for that You are revered. I waited for the Lord, my soul waits, and I put my hope in His word.

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Sunday, 29 December 2013 : Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Sirach 3 : 3-7, 14-17a (Greek version 2-6, 12-14)

Whoever honours his father atones for his sins; he who gives glory to his mother prepares a treasure for himself.

Whoever honours his father will receive joy from his own children and will be heard when he prays.

Whoever glorifies his father will have a long life. Whoever obeys the Lord gives comfort to his mother. He serves those who brought him to birth as he would serve the Lord.

For kindness done to one’s father will never be forgotten, it will serve as reparation for your sins. In the day of adversity the Lord will remember it to your advantage; for just as ice melts in the heat, so will your sins melt away.

The man who abandons his father is like a blasphemer; he who annoys his mother is cursed by the Lord. My son, conduct your affairs with discretion.