perseverance

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Monday, 25 November 2013 : 34th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Virgins) or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are taught, from the readings we had heard, on the importance of keeping a holy life in God. We had listened to how Daniel was chosen with his comrades, out of many, endowed with wonderful intellect and abilities, because he was truly blessed by God. Daniel did not abandon the laws and keep perfect obedience to the will of God, despite opposition and challenges that came his way.

We are reminded that in our service and dedication to the Lord, we cannot be half hearted, and neither can we be compromising in our dedication, by trying to accommodate to the demands and the desires of this world. Such was what the Lord had praised from the charity of the old woman, who gave to the Lord everything that she had possessed.

Our Lord did not mean for us all to sell everything we have literally and give it to Him. But what He truly wanted is the complete and full dedication of ourselves, without straying away to the left or right, or making any compensations to the demands and temptations of this world. That was the faith of Daniel, of his companions Hananiel, Mishael, and Azariah. And that was also the faith of the old widow.

For the Lord Himself has not spared anything in giving of Himself to us. In Jesus His own Son, the Word incarnate into flesh, the flesh of mankind, He had given His own Body and essence, for us all, that through these gifts given freely from His sacrifice on the cross. He has no wealth and no money, but He gave what is most precious to Him, that is His own life, so that we may have a new life in Him.

Yes, it is just like the offering of the poor widow, who gave the Lord all that she had in offering, no matter how small it was. And the Lord who sees all and knows all, rewarded her for her dedication and took kindly to her dedicated offering. The same too happened with Jesus, who offered Himself as a sacrificial victim for the purification of our sins.

He offered His life for our sake, and He endured the most painful of sufferings, bearing all the sins of mankind, of those who had passed, of those who were alive at the time of Jesus, and of those who were yet to be born then, including all of us, every single one of us without exception.

That is how much our Lord has given Himself for our sake, without even hesitation or second thoughts. He did face great tribulation that night in the gardens of Gethsemane before He was captured, but He submitted in perfect obedience to the will of His Father, and in perfect harmony with His love for us all.

Can we dedicate ourselves in the same way as the poor widow had done? Giving all that she had for the Lord? Or as Daniel had done? In how he risked his life and position in the court of the king of Babylon, by refusing to follow the king’s provision for food, so that he would not disobey the commandments of the Lord. Can we then dedicate ourselves to the Lord in the same way that Jesus Himself had done? Remember how much our Lord has given us in Jesus His Son? That is what we too should be expected to do.

Jesus gave His own life so that we may live. Indeed, we may not be able to give our lives to the Lord, but what we can do is truly simple, yet hard. It is to change our ways and our actions, that we will be more attuned to the ways of the Lord rather than our own ways or the ways of the world. It may seem easy, but there will be many challenges so it will be a challenge indeed.

So, are you all ready to commit yourselves, me included, to the Lord? If we are, then let us from now on, always remember the readings today, and follow the way that the people mentioned, have dedicated themselves to the Lord. And today, we also see yet another person who had dedicated herself in the similar way, that is of St. Catherine of Alexandria, a martyr of the faith who lived in the present day Egypt during the later years of the Roman Empire.

St. Catherine of Alexandria was born a pagan, but she learnt about the faith in Christ as she grew up, and was converted in her youth. St. Catherine kept her faith zealously and she gave herself in total devotion to God, even to the point of keeping herself pure and immaculate, without any human relations, so that she can give herself entirely and totally to the Lord.

St. Catherine even tried to convert the Roman Emperor at the time, Maxentius, one of the last of those who persecuted the faithful. The Emperor was adamant and remained indignant in his persecution of the faith and in his wicked ways. But in his attempts to debate with St. Catherine on the faith, those he brought to challenge St. Catherine were themselves converted instead. Even some of the Emperor’s own family, including his own wife were converted.

The Emperor ordered all of these people to be killed, and therefore they became martyrs of the faith. Yet, they remained faithful to the end. In the end, even the Emperor himself tried to court St. Catherine in order to detract her from her stubborn adherence to her faith in God, without avail. Not even the enormous wealth and power the Emperor might offer could detach St. Catherine from her complete devotion to God. In the end, she too met her end in martyrdom.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, after seeing all these great examples, are we all now more capable of devoting ourselves to God? Let us work, and work hard, to dedicate ourselves to He who had Himself given His own life in perfect dedication to us, no matter how rebellious and disobedient we are.

May our Lord Jesus Christ, with the intercession of the saints and the holy people of God, continue to strengthen our resolve and dedication to Him. Amen.

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Saturday, 23 November 2013 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Clement I, Pope and Martyr, and St. Columban, Abbot (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Abbot and Mass of our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the fact on the lack of faith that mankind has in the Lord. Mankind has grown feeble in the faith that they have in God, preferring their own reasoning, their own ideas and their own wisdom rather than putting their trust and faith in the One and True God. They refused to believe and hardened their hearts against God.

Yes, that was what the Sadducees had done, when they opposed Jesus and tried to test and challenge Him with questions about the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees are the moral and theological opposite of the zealous Pharisees, being influential Jews that in our modern terms can be equated as being secular in nature, even to the point of atheism, that is disbelief in the presence of the divine God.

They refused to believe in anything spiritual and otherworldly, preferring to trust in their own human senses and judgment. They did not believe in angels, in saints, and in the resurrection of the dead, and believe indeed that their lives in this world is to be savoured in its entirety, that they ought not to worry about the life that is to come. They thought of death as the end of our lives, a definitive end.

But to us, brothers and sisters in Christ, we know and believe that death is not the end of all things. Indeed, death marks the beginning of a new and eternal life in God. That is proven by none other than Jesus Himself, the One who rose from the dead in glory, and in the process, gaining mankind to Himself, and releasing them from the slavery of sin, providing them with an exit from death’s grasp.

For death is the fate of us all mankind, who had disobeyed the Lord and went astray from His laws and His precepts. Beginning from Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, mankind had been trapped in the cycle of death. Death is the punishment for disobedience, for our waywardness have led us away from God and His love. But the Lord loves us so much, that He would not let death have the final word.

He sent deliverance into this world, pretty much as what He had done as witnessed in our first reading, from the Book of the Maccabees, which retells the story of how a people was saved from the hands of evil. The forces of the world struck against the faithful ones of the Lord, through the hands of the Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes. And yet, the Lord raised up the Maccabees family, beginning with Judas, who led the people in a sort of holy war, in order to preserve their purity and sanctity against the forces of evil arrayed against them.

They rose up, cast out the forces of the Greeks, and regained their righteous freedom. And in the same way therefore, the Lord has come as the source of deliverance for all, through Jesus Christ, the Word of God made flesh. He led the salvation of all and dealt the forces of evil a final defeat, and gained a final victory for all creations. And this, most importantly will not happen, without resurrection.

For resurrection is the Lord’s answer to death, and therefore, is His answer to sin, and to evil that had engulfed our world, and all of us, that through the resurrection of Jesus, which happened on the Easter Sunday, three days after His death on the cross, the sovereignty and power that death has over us is cast down. Without the resurrection, there is no hope for all of us. With it, and the with the Risen Christ, we have a new hope, that at the end of our journeys in this world, if we keep faith in God and attach ourselves to His ways, we will be saved.

Today, we celebrate the feast of Pope St. Clement I, one of the early and direct successor of St. Peter the Apostle as the leader of the entire Universal Church. He was also a holy martyr and a dedicated leader of the faithful, who dedicated his life in the complete service to the Lord. And in him today, we rejoice. That is because, if not Pope St. Clement I’s death in holy martyrdom would have been in vain, if there is no life after death.

Pope St. Clement I was one of the great early leaders of the Church, leading the faithful through difficult times, both against external oppositions and challenges, as well as internal disputes and rivalries. Pope St. Clement I wrote extensively many letters to the Universal Church, giving them encouragement and directions to keep strong and true the faith in God. And the core of that faith in God is the faith in the resurrection, for it is from the resurrection that our Faith is born.

Pope St. Clement I faithfully served the people of God, and he followed them even into custody, prison, and persecution. He was tortured by the Roman authorities who persecuted Christians, sent him into exile, and finally he was executed by drowning. Pope St. Clement I did not back down, and he kept his faith to the end, the faith in the Risen Lord. For he knew that there is hope in the Risen Christ, and through his hard works he had been rewarded with life eternal in the fullness of the glory of God.

St. Columban is another saint whom we commemorate today. He was an abbot and a pious worker of the faith who travelled across different areas and territories for many years, spreading the Good News and the teachings about the faith in those areas. St. Columban is a great missionary, who went around many areas of Western Europe, converting many to the cause of Christ, and bringing people closer to the salvation in the Risen Lord.

St. Columban worked hard and laboured for the faith, across the modern day France, and went on to many parts of Celtic Europe in the British islands. St. Columban worked in the islands and spread zealously the word of God as far as Ireland, where he spent significant amount of time in. He led the example for many to follow a dedicated religious life to God, giving of oneself in prayerful service to God and the fellow men.

Both the saints we celebrate today, in their own ways, proclaim the greatness of the Lord and testify for His glorious resurrection, through which the salvation of this world came about, delivering many souls from their intended path towards doom and eternal death. Through the hard works of these two saints therefore, the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is therefore brought even closer to us, as Pope St. Clement I himself showed through his martyrdom, how he did not fear the suffering at the hands of men nor death, because he knew that, as St. Columban and all the other saints and holy men and women knew, that the glory of God and all the rewards are awaiting us at the other end of the tough road, if they remain faithful to the end.

We are shown how, death did not have the final say. For Jesus had made His appearance and through His own death, He had definitively proven to the entire creation, that the One with all the authority and power over life and death is God, and just as God did not intend us for death, for we have been made for perfection, so for those who remain true to His ways, God will grant everlasting life, if we will just believe, and keep on strongly to that faith. Amen.

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Friday, 22 November 2013 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Cast out evil! Purify ourselves! Throw out the devil that is in us! Draw closer to the Lord and make ourselves worthy of Him!

Brethren in Christ, that is the essence of what we had heard in the readings of the Holy Scripture today. At the centre of it all, drawing parallels between the purification of the Temple of Jerusalem by the Maccabeans, after it had been defiled by the pagan idols of the Greek king Antiochus Epiphanes, and the purification of the Temple, by Jesus our Lord, from the crooked merchants and cheaters of the people, is the importance for us to keep the purity of our souls and our bodies, which are the Temples of the Divine Presence, from all sorts of corruptions and evils.

The Lord showed His righteous anger, which He poured without mercy against those who had defiled the holiness of God’s Temple on earth, the Temple of Jerusalem. He whipped them and refused them from His presence, shunning them to the place prepared to them, outside of His salvation. That was what He had shown in the Gospel today, and what the disciples rightly pointed out, that the love Jesus has for His Father, has brought Him into a great wrath against those who defiled the House of the Lord.

The profanation was removed, and holiness returned to the House of God, in the same way that the Temple was purified by the Maccabees. The merchants profaned the House of God by the vile practices and other vices, by their dishonest practices and blatant cheating against the genuinely faithful worshippers of the Lord.

The Greeks under the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes profaned the temple with idols and pagan practices. These were cast out of the House of God and the House was in both instances, made worthy again to be the dwelling of the Lord Most High. Then, one may ask, how does this relate to all of us? Is not the Temple as a building cleansed of vices and made worthy once again for the Lord?

That is because, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us have often not realised that in each one of us, who believes in Christ our Lord as our Saviour, we all are the House of God, the divine Temple where He resides and dwells. How so? Remember that we are all receiving the Lord regularly whenever we attend and participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, the bread and the wine turned into our Lord’s own Precious Body and Blood.

The Lord who comes to us in His Most Holy and Real Presence in the Eucharist dwells within us, just as He takes us to dwell unto Him. And since the Lord has come upon us and dwell within each one of us who had received His Body and His Blood, we have been made to be just like the Temple of Jerusalem, because God dwells within us! Remember that Jesus is also known as Emmanuel, which means God is with us!

That is why, brothers and sisters, as we lived this life given to us by the Lord, we have to be always aware, that our actions have great implications. Remember always that the Lord dwells in us, and His Spirit is living inside of us. We are the Temples of the Holy Spirit, the Temples of the Holy Presence of God. Therefore, we cannot be complacent, and allow the influences of evil to corrupt our bodies, our minds, and our souls, since we are the places where the Lord Himself had dwelled in.

If we corrupt our bodies, our minds, and our souls with evil, that is by keeping our sinfulness without check, be assured that the Lord will cast us all out of His sight, just as what He had done with the corrupt merchants who had set their stalls on the holy grounds of the Temple of Jerusalem. He will not welcome us if we do not keep our body, mind, and soul to be always worthy of Him. He will cast us out in the same way He had cast out the merchants from the Temple of God.

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Cecilia, one of the greatest saints of the Church. And we all know her well, as the patron saint of music, of our choir and of all who dedicate themselves to the commitment of beautiful hymns aimed at praising the Lord our God. Yet, St. Cecilia is also a pious and a holy martyr, one who did not allow the corruption of this world to touch her, resolving to keep herself pure and immaculate, despite the temptations and good offers from the lord of this world, that is evil.

Instead, St. Cecilia, defending her true faith unto death, received in the Lord, the assurance of eternal life and eternal glory. This is our faith, brothers and sisters, and do not let it to be corrupted by the lies of the devil. St. Cecilia lived an upright and just life, dedicated to her faith in God. She staunchly resolved to maintain the purity of her soul in an era filled with wickedness, by holding up her chastity.

St. Cecilia devoted herself and her entire life to God and therefore maintained the purity of her Temple, and she did not give up her purity for the comfortable life, and instead give it up for the sake of the Lord. Her purity is truly exemplary to all of us. And this is the kind of attitude that we need to have towards our faith in the Lord. Maintain always the purity of our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our bodies, just as St. Cecilia had done.

St. Cecilia is a role model for all of us, and I hope that today, we all will be more empowered and strengthened, to follow the Lord our God without moving away to the left or right. Let us now then resolve, and say to the Lord, that we all will honour Him and keep holy our selves, our bodies and souls, that we will ever be worthy to be His dwelling, and that on the last day, through the intercession of St. Cecilia, we will join her in singing the hymn of praise to the Lord, for eternity.

May the Lord our God give us strength, perseverance, and willpower, in order to keep the Temple of the Lord, the House and residence of our Lord in us, pure and worthy, as the beloved children of God, to whom He has sent Jesus His Son. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 20 November 2013 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Maccabeus 7 : 1, 20-31

It happened also that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king had them scourged and flogged to force them to eat the flesh of a pig which was prohibited by the Law.

More than all of them, their mother ought to be admired and remembered. She saw her seven sons die in a single day. But she endured it even with joy for she had put her hope in the Lord.

Full of a noble sense of honour, she encouraged each one of them in the language of their ancestors. Her woman’s heart was moved by manly courage, so she told them : “I wonder how you were born of me; it was not I who gave you breath and life, nor I who ordered the matter of your body. The Creator of the world who formed man in the beginning and ordered the unfolding of all creation shall in His mercy, give you back breath and life, since you now despise them for love of His laws.”

Antiochus thought that she was making fun of him and suspected that she had insulted him. As the youngest was still alive, the king tried to win him over not only with his words, but even promised to make him rich and happy, if he would abandon the traditions of his ancestors. He would make him his Friend and appoint him to a high position in the kingdom.

But as the young man did not pay him any attention, the king ordered the mother to be brought in. He urged her to advise her son in order to save his life. After being asked twice by the king, she agreed to persuade her son. She bent over him and fooled the cruel tyrant by saying in her ancestral language : “My son, have pity on me. For nine months I carried you in my womb and suckled you for three years; I raised you up and educated you until this day.”

“I ask you now, my son, that when you see the heavens, the earth, and all that is in it, you know that God made all this from nothing, and the human race as well. Do not fear these executioners, but make yourself worthy of your brothers – accept death that you may again meet your brothers in the time of mercy.”

When she finished speaking, the young man said, “What are you waiting for? I do not obey the king’s order but the precepts of the Law given by Moses to our ancestors. And you who have devised such tortures against the Hebrews, shall not escape the hands of God.”

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Tuesday, 19 November 2013 : 33rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Maccabees 6 : 18-31

Eleazar, one of the prominent teachers of the Law, already old and of noble appearance, was forced to open his mouth to eat the flesh of a pig. But he preferred to die honourably than to live in disgrace, and voluntarily came to the place where they beat him to death.

He spit out bravely the piece of meat, as should be done by those who do not want to do things prohibited by the Law, even to save their life.

Those in charge of this impious banquet took him aside, since they had known him for a long time, and tried to convince him to pretend to be eating the meat, but in reality, to eat something allowed by the Law and prepared by himself. In this way, he could escape death, and be treated with humanity for the sake of their long-time friendship.

But he preferred to make a noble decision worthy of his age, of his noble years, of his shining white hair, and of the irreproachable life he had led from childhood. Above all, showing respect for the holy laws established by God, he answered that he would rather be sent to the place of the dead.

And he added, “It would be unworthy to pretend at our age, and to lead many young people to suppose that I, at ninety years, have gone over to the pagan customs. If I led them astray for the sake of this short life I would bring disgrace to my old age. Even if I could now be saved from mortals, I cannot – whether living or dead – escape from the hands of the Almighty.”

“I prefer to bravely sacrifice my life now, as befits my old age. So I shall leave an excellent example to the young, dying voluntarily and valiantly for the sacred and holy laws.” Having said this, he gave himself over to death. Those who escorted him considered his words foolishness, so their previous gentleness turned into harshness.

When he was almost at the point of death, he said groaning, “The Holy Lord, who sees all, knows that though I could have saved myself from death, I now endure terrible sufferings in my body. But in my soul, I suffer gladly because of the respect I have for Him.”

In his death, he left a noble example and a memorial of virtue and strength, not only to the young but to the whole nation.

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Sunday, 10 November 2013 : 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Maccabees 7 : 1-2, 9-14

It happened also that seven brothers were arrested with their mother. The king had them scourged and flogged to force them to eat the flesh of a pig which was prohibited by the Law.

One of them, speaking in behalf of all, said, “What do you want to find out from us? We are prepared to die right now rather than break the law of our ancestors.”

At the moment of his last breath, he said, “Murderer, you now dismiss us from life, but the king of the world will raise us up. He will give us eternal life since we die for His laws.”

After this, they punished the third. He stuck his tongue out when asked to, bravely stretched forth his hands, and even had the courage to say : “I have received these limbs from God, but for love of His laws I now consider them as nothing. For I hope to recover them from God.”

The king and his court were touched by the courage of this young man, so unconcerned about his own sufferings. When this one was dead, they subjected the fourth to the same torture. At the point of death, he cried out, “I would rather die at the hands of mortals, and wait for the promises of God who will raise us up; you, however, shall have no part in the resurrection of life.”

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Thursday, 17 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded of God’s saving power, which He had made truly manifest, through the coming, the life, the ministry, and the death of Himself through Jesus crucified on the cross. That was truly the culmination of God’s long planned salvation for mankind, which He had promised to mankind even as they fell into sin, and even as they were enslaved by Satan through sin and death.

The Lord hates sin and all things evil, and yet at the same time, He loves all, particularly all of us, who are the greatest and most beloved of all His creations. And also especially so because we had fallen away from Him and were cast away from His presence because of our rebellion and our sinfulness, our disobedience. In fact, brethren, if we feel the loss of our Lord and desire to return back to

His loving embrace, even greater is the feeling He has for us, and the greater is the desire that He has to see us reunited completely with Him once again.

The Lord our God desires noone to be lost from Him forever through death. He desires that we do not fall into hell, but arise to meet Him in heaven. Yet, it is often we ourselves who spurned His love and rejected His forgiveness, preferring the false promises of Satan and the pleasures of the world, to the true and everlasting happiness with God in heaven.

That is precisely what the ancestors of Israel of the time of Jesus had done, those ancestors whose stories were told to us through the prophets of the Old Testament. These are the people who slaughtered God’s prophets and messengers, because they turned deaf ears to their warnings, advices, and heeding, preferring to remain in their state of sin, and continue in their life of debauchery.

That is why the Lord punished them and scattered them all over the nations, to be an example to all, as what would happen to those who stray from the path of righteousness and venture into the path of sin and evil. The Lord did this, however, not because He hates them, but in fact because He truly loves them, and yet, as a just and righteous Lord, He cannot just overlook their sins and stubbornness. He is just to all, even to those whom He loves.

These people did not have God in their hearts, and they sold themselves and their souls to the pagan gods of their neighbours, that the worship of the Lord was replaced with the worship of Baal, Asherah, and other pagan gods and goddesses. They loved not God but silver and gold, and all the pleasures this world could give.

That is why Jesus rebuked the chief priests, the scribes and teachers of the Law, and the Pharisees, because of their hypocrisy. Outwardly, they look pious and perfect, and they seemed to have obeyed the Lord’s commandments even to its smallest details. And yet, the fact is that, despite all of those appearances, their hearts do not have the Lord in them. The Lord’s words did not take strong root in them, because the faith they have is an eventual faith, depending on the Lord and His words, which they forgot after their liberation from sin.

They put their own vanity above anything else, and rebuked those whom they considered to be inferior to them. They sought the glory of men, instead of praising the glory of God. They are bad shepherds who do not love those who had been entrusted to them, and led them into darkness instead of into the light.

In this way, they are even more sinful and irresponsible than before. They who had blocked the path to salvation for many, and even tried to prevent the very Messiah, from completing His missions in this world. That is why Christ cursed them, both for their sins, for their lack of repentance, and for their apathy towards the suffering of the people of God.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Antioch, one of the first bishops of Antioch, a great early Christian cities, as the place where Jews and Gentiles lived together, and where the faithful lived with the Jews and the Gentiles, and great evangelisation works were done.

St. Ignatius of Antioch was a faithful servant of the Lord, who devoutly helped to spread the words of the Lord and the works of salvation, converting many to the cause of the Lord. He lived during a time of difficulties and persecutions, when the Roman Emperor at the time was obsessed with the idea that he was divine, and ordered all the people and subjects of the Empire, including Christians, to worship him as a living god.

Obviously, St. Ignatius of Antioch and the faithful refused to do so, because to them, there is only one and only God, that is the Lord our Father, who had come upon this world as Jesus Christ, His Son. This is the only God that both St. Ignatius during his time and we today profess as the only one we will worship, and this brought about a great wrath of the Emperor, who arrested St. Ignatius and many Christians, bringing them to Rome to be martyred in the Colosseum.

Despite being captured and knowing of his fate of martyrdom in painful death, St. Ignatius continued to care for the sheep entrusted to his care, sending letters and encouragements to the people. St. Ignatius was brought to Rome, the capital of the Empire, and was tortured and then thrown into the arena of the Colosseum, to be fed to the lions and the beasts. Despite all the sufferings, St. Ignatius remained faithful and encourage all the fellow Christians being tortured to look towards God and keep their faith strong, even in the face of death.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, with the inspiration of the life of St. Ignatius of Antioch, let us commit ourselves to God with all of our hearts, that we will not go astray from the path He had prepared for all of us. That we will, like St. Ignatius of Antioch, be brave and courageous in standing up for his faith in God and be fully dedicated to the service of the Lord, never fearing any man nor any powers of the world, with God foremost in our heart. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 16 October 2013 : 28th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Hedwig, Religious and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious and Virgins)

Romans 2 : 1-11

Therefore, you have no excuse, whoever you are, if you are able to judge others. For in judging your neighbour, you condemn yourself, for you practice what you are judging. We know that the condemnation of God will justly reach those who commit these things, and do you think that by condemning others you will escape from the judgment of God, you who are doing the same?

This would be taking advantage of God and His infinite goodness, patience and understanding, and not to realise that His goodness is in order to lead you to conversion. If your heart becomes hard and you refuse to change, then you are storing for yourself a great punishment on the day of judgment, when God will appear as just judge.

He will give each one his due, according to his actions. He will give everlasting life to those who seek glory, honour, and immortality and persevere in doing good. But anger and vengeance will be the lot of those who do not serve truth but injustice.

There will be suffering and anguish for everyone committing evil, first the Jew, then the Greek. But God will give glory, honour, and peace to whoever does good, first the Jew, then the Greek, because one is not different from the other before God.

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Monday, 30 September 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to a lesson on humility, and its importance, when we become the disciples of Christ, not to boast of our own glory, but rather boast of the glory of God, made evident in Jesus the Christ. That is because it is indeed the Lord who is worthy of all praise and glory, for His might, and even more importantly for the extent of the love that He had shown us through Christ.

The Lord wanted to teach His disciples, and through them, all of us, on the value and importance on humility and being humble, as the way to be a good and upright person, a good child of God. And Christ did not just preach and do nothing about what He taught, because in fact He truly practiced what He had preached.

How so? Jesus is truly humble and unassuming, although He is truly great, as the King of all kings. He is divine and omnipotent, and all creation is under His power and authority, as the Lord of all the universe, and yet, for our sake and our salvation from death, He is willing to make Himself small and insignificant, as small and unworthy as we are, to be man like one of us, although without sin.

In His humility too, He was born in a small stable, rejected by others, from inns and houses, that He had to be born among the animals and shepherds. He lived as a carpenter’s son and was ridiculed by His own people, the people of Nazareth, when He revealed the truth about Himself to them. He was humble in all of His ways and loving in all of His actions.

There is nothing that exemplifies His humility better than that of His ultimate sacrifice on the cross. That He lowered Himself to die a death of a slave, the death on the cross, condemned to death despite His innocence, for the sake of all of us. But that is also where the Lord’s words came true even more. That is because the symbol of the cross was transformed forever, from the symbol of shame to be a symbol of hope and victory.

Christ rose up from the dead in glory on the third day after His death, and He took His rightful place as the Lord of all things, having saved mankind through His death, that they will not die but live. On the other hand, the prideful and arrogant Satan was cast down in great shame, and forever he is condemned to the punishment prepared for him, for his prideful rebellion against the Lord.

With humility, we will go a long way, because with humility in our heart, we will be more ready to open it to the love of God, to the wisdom of God, and to His saving power. We will be more ready to listen to Him and take in all the teachings that He had told us, the commandments that He had given us to follow, that we become truly faithful and obedient to He who created us.

Humility allows one to understand one’s faults and weaknesses more readily, and also the understanding, that one’s sins had prevented one from reaching the Lord and eternal joy in heaven. That this will likely make one to atone for one’s own sins and do things that help to overcome those sins as well as doing good for others. That is how important humility truly is.

Without humility, we tend to be prone to fall into our own pride, and end up shutting the Lord and even our other beloved ones from our heart. We will tend to build up our ego, to the point that we think only about ourselves, and not for others, at all. We tend to do things for our own glory, and praising ourselves for our own greatness, without realising that, without God we are really nothing.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Jerome, a great writer of the early Church, and one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, as one of the original Four, together with St. Augustine, St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. as strong pillars of the Church. St. Jerome lived at a time when the faith has begun to take hold over the entire Roman Empire after it was no longer persecuted.

St. Jerome’s contribution to the Church is truly great, especially to the Church in the western parts of the Empire. The Roman Empire was a vast Empire spanning from Britain and the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Middle East and Egypt, encompassing the entire Mediterranean Sea basin. The western part of that Empire spoke primarily Latin and its dialectic derivatives, the official language of the Empire.

The eastern part however, spoke primarily Greek and a variety of other ancient languages, and because the faith came and arose from that region, much of the Scripture that we know today was written in Greek or in the other eastern languages. It is St. Jerome who opened the doorway to the Scripture in the west, and therefore to us, by being the first to translate the Septuagint, that is the Greek Scripture, into the Vulgate, the Latin Scripture, written by St. Jerome himself.

St. Jerome also courageously defended the true and orthodox faith, defending it against every kind of aberrations and heresies that threatened to split the Church apart at that time. Through his writings and other works, St. Jerome kept the Apostolic faith alive and strong even in difficult times.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, as we celebrate the feast of this great saint, St. Jerome, let us also strive to be more like him. St. Jerome is an ascetic, one who withdrew from the pleasures of the world and reject worldly glories, putting the Lord above everything else. He is also humble, and he did his work with great humility, and yet he bore much fruits.

That is why, brethren, we too should emulate him, in doing good works in our own ways, even in small little ways. Because even in little things, good can eventually come in abundance. In humility too, we can become great, not in the way that the world sees it, but instead in the eyes of the Lord. Humility bears love, and that love will bear much good. Even in his ‘humble’ work as a writer, St. Jerome’s good works still affect us even until this day. All the Bibles that we read today eventually had their roots from the works of St. Jerome.

May St. Jerome intercede for us and pray always for us sinners, that we can remain in the grace of God, and receive His heavenly blessings. May God be with us and remain with us always. Amen.

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Saturday, 28 September 2013 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Wenceslaus, Martyr, and Saints Lawrence Ruiz and Companions, Martyrs (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Mass of our Lady)

Beloved brother and sisters in Christ, today we continue to listen to the reality of the Lord’s mission in this world, that is to be betrayed by His beloved, to be forsaken, rejected, and finally to suffer death although He is innocent, that through His death, all may gain eternal life in Him.

The Lord had come to be the Saviour of all, the One who bring forth the light of God into the darkened world, and into the darkened hearts of men. Through His coming and saving works, He had brought the hopelessness of mankind in the face of death and sin, into a new dawn of hope, the hope in He who died for all that they may live.

Dear brethren, as the Lord Himself had said, He came into the world to ransom His people, to deliver them from the fate they were to suffer for eternity, all for following the devil and listening to his lies instead of the truths of God. He ransomed all of us, from the hands of the devil, our slavemaster, not through gold, silver, or any form of material possessions and money, but through His own Most Precious Blood, the Blood of the Lamb.

That Blood is blood that saves and purifies, and which washes us clean from the filth of our sins and faults, making us perfect again in the eyes of God. That once we who were unworthy of God and His kingdom, now be made worthy and ready to be accepted again. The Blood shed from the innocent and purest lamb of all, the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

He did not resist at all when the chief priests and the Pharisees captured Him and tortured Him. He was indeed like a lamb being led to the slaughter, never complaining and in complete obedience to the will of God, the Father of all. Jesus is our Paschal Lamb, the One who offered Himself as the perfect and acceptable sacrifice to the throne of God.

That He was willing to suffer in place of us for the punishments intended to us, to bear that cross for our sake, and to bear all the humiliations imaginable, just that we may have hope and be saved, should have awakened us from our slumber, from our ignorance, yes, ignorance from the love of God most kind and forgiving,

Without Him, there can be no hope, and without His suffering, all of us will suffer, suffer from the consequences of our sins and of our wayward ways, away from the Lord our God. It is in the suffering of Christ that He shared our sufferings and bore it upon Himself, that we are freed from the weight of that yoke, the yoke of sin. And in His glorious resurrection, He lifted us all up from our old ways, from our old slavery to death, into a new life that He guaranteed through His own resurrection, as One who had conquered death.

Today, we celebrate the feast of several saints, first of which is St. Wenceslas or Wenceslaus, one of the first kings of Bohemia in the early Medieval era Germany, one of the first converts to the faith in that nation, which just a generation before was the nation of pagans and barbarians who ransacked many of Christendom’s countries. Even at the time of St. Wenceslaus, there were still strong pagan elements in the country, opposed to him and his rule as a Christian ruler.

Nevertheless, St. Wenceslaus remained faithful and committed to the cause of the Lord, and was known to be a good and caring ruler, who cared especially for the poor and the oppressed among his people, and worked hard to help spread the faith in the country where he ruled. This of course resulted in opposition to build up from the pagan elements in the society and among the nobles.

St. Wenceslaus was martyred for the faith, when he was murdered on his way to the church by his brother and his noble supporters. While his brother was a Christian himself, but many of the nobles who supported him were not, and they resented St. Wenceslaus’ attempts to bring the faith to them. Therefore, in the defense of his faith, St. Wenceslaus had given his life, and his blood, for the sake of the Lord, for the spreading of the Gospel and the salvation of his people.

St. Lawrence Ruiz or Lorenzo Ruiz and his companions are the other saints whom we commemorate on this day, also as martyrs of the faith, shedding their blood for the sake of the Lord. St. Lawrence Ruiz is the first saint of the Philippines, who was martyred with several others in Japan. He was born in the Philippines during the early seventeenth century, when Spain owned the Philippines. He lived a relatively normal life until he was falsely accused of a crime, which prompted him to hide in exile, which happened to be in a ship bound for Japan.

St. Lawrence Ruiz arrived in Japan at a time of very great difficulty for any of the faithful of the Lord. Although just decades before Japan was truly a ripe ground for evangelisation, which saw hundreds of thousands converted into the faith, during the time of St. Lawrence Ruiz in Japan, the new Tokugawa shogunate government had changed their policy against Christians from tolerance and warmth into an open and vicious persecution.

Christians everywhere in Japan were threatened to abandon their faith or lose their lives through harsh torture and pain. Many recanted their faith following these threats, but equally many persevered in their faith and ended up being martyred, through various methods like crucifixion, beheading, and burning, many of them cruel and painful in nature.

St. Lawrence Ruiz and his companions were also captured and subjected to these torturous methods, and were asked to abandon their faith in God. They resisted and remained staunch in their undying faith to God. They forsake their earthly life in order to obtain the life in heaven, which is eternal, from the Lord.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, after listening to the life stories of these courageous and faithful martyrs of the Lord, who did not shy from even risking their lives for the true faith, and recalling the very sacrifice Jesus had endured on the cross for our salvation, let us then, brethren, be proactive in our faith, no longer sitting down and let what God has given us go to waste, and instead, let us bravely take up our crosses, as the martyrs and saints had done, and go to proclaim to the whole world, the salvation of our Lord, offered to all those who believe in Him.

May the Lord continue to empower and strengthen us, in our mind, body, and speech, that we will be able to be strong and courageous bearers of His holy Gospels, the bearer of the Good News of salvation, inspired by the examples of the holy saints and martyrs, St. Wenceslaus, St. Lawrence Ruiz and his companions. God bless us all. Amen.