Pillars of the Holy Church

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Friday, 1 July 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 9 : 9-13

At that time, as Jesus moved on from the place where He cured a paralytic man, He saw a man named Matthew at his seat in the custom house, and He said to him, “Follow Me!” And Matthew got up and followed Him.

Now it happened, while Jesus was at table in Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners joined Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is it that your Master eats with sinners and tax collectors?”

When Jesus heard this, He said, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. Go and find out what this means : What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

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Friday, 1 July 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 118 : 2, 10, 20, 30, 40, 131

Blessed are they who treasure His word and seek Him with all their heart.

I seek You with my whole heart; let me not stray from Your commands.

My soul is consumed with desire for Your ordinances at all times.

I have chosen the way of truth; I have set my heart upon Your laws.

Oh, how I long for Your precepts! Renew my life in Your righteousness.

I gasp in ardent yearning for Your commandments that I love.

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Friday, 1 July 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Amos 8 : 4-6, 9-12

Hear this, you who trample on the needy to do away with the weak of the land. You who say, “When will the new moon or the sabbath feast be over that we may open the store and sell our grain? Let us lower the measure and raise the price; let us cheat and tamper with the scales, and even sell the refuse with the whole grain. We will buy up the poor for money and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

YHVH says, “On that day I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight. I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into wailing. Everyone will mourn, covered with sackcloth and every head will be shaved. I will make them mourn as for an only son and bring their day to a bitter end.”

YHVH says, “Days are coming when I will send famine upon the land, not hunger for bread or thirst for water, but for hearing the word of YHVH. Men will stagger from sea to sea, wander to and fro, from north to east, searching for the word of YHVH, but they will not find it.”

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Thursday, 30 June 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate together the feast and memorial of the very first martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, those who have given their lives in the defence of their faith in God, refusing to bend down to the pagan gods and idols and remaining true to the Lord their God to the very end. These martyrs showed us what it meant to be true to our Lord and to remain to God in all the things we do in this life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, those martyrs risked their lives to walk through the streets, helping the poor and those who were willing and wanting to listen to the word of God. They fearlessly followed the way of the Lord amidst even the many challenges they faced, just as the prophets of old. The prophet Amos was among these prophets, who preached about God to the wayward people of the northern kingdom of Israel.

The prophet Amos was reviled, mocked, ridiculed and rejected. He was treated with wickedness and was deemed as a doomsayer and as a bringer of evil and wicked news, as he was preaching about the punishments which God was about to bring to the people of the northern kingdom for their disobedience and lack of faith against God. For their sins and disobedience had brought about the anger of God, and their punishment is because of their own doing.

But they refused to listen to his words and instead, they rejected him and made his life very difficult. The same things had been done by the pagans and the enemies of the people of God as they rejected the message of salvation which the holy martyrs and saints brought to them, and they persecuted these holy people thinking that by doing so they would finally be able to get rid of these troublesome people who irked them with their preaching and words.

In that manner therefore, those who made the servants of God to suffer have committed sin before God, but not all of them had done what their fellow people had done. There were quite a few among the pagans themselves who were inspired by the example of the Christians whom they tortured and persecuted, and some of the persecutors even eventually became Christians themselves, and faced martyrdom on their own.

We also recall the examples of St. Paul, who once as Saul also persecuted the faithful harshly and without mercy. He hunted them down in many places and brought them to great sufferings. They feared him and cowered in fear when he approached their cities. And yet, God had a different plan for him, called him on the way to Damascus, and revealed His truth before him. And he had a complete transformation of his life.

These examples should inspire us all, brothers and sisters in Christ, for God Himself had spoken that He shall be with all of His faithful ones, and He will not abandon them to their enemies. Those who keep their faith to God will not be disappointed. And it is important that we ourselves also remain true to Him even though we face great difficulties and challenges from those who refused to believe in God.

Let us all heed the examples of the holy martyrs and saints, the holy Apostles and disciples of our Lord who had been so courageous and brave in defending and standing up for their faith, and hope that we ourselves may also do the same too. May all of us be stronger in our faith and devotion to God, and be ever more committed to God through our actions filled with faith and love for God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 30 June 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Matthew 9 : 1-8

At that time, Jesus got back into the boat, crossed the lake again, and came to His hometown. Here they brought a paralysed man to Him, lying on a bed. Jesus saw their faith and said to the paralytic, “Courage, My son! Your sins are forgiven.”

Then some teachers of the Law said within themselves, “This Man insults God.” Jesus was aware of what they were thinking, and said, “Why have you such evil thoughts? Which is easier to say : ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Stand up and walk?’ You must know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”

He then said to the paralysed man, “Stand up! Take your stretcher and go home.” The man got up, and went home. When the crowds saw this, they were filled with awe, and praised God for giving such power to human beings.

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Thursday, 30 June 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Psalm 18 : 8, 9, 10, 11

The Law of the Lord is perfect : it gives life to the soul. The word of the Lord is trustworthy : it gives wisdom to the simple.

The precepts of the Lord are right : they give joy to the heart. The commandments of the Lord are clear : they enlighten the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is pure, it endures forever; the judgments of the Lord are true, all of them just and right.

They are more precious than gold – pure gold of a jeweller; they are much sweeter than honey which drops from the honeycomb.

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Thursday, 30 June 2016 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs)

Amos 7 : 10-17

Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, then sent word to king Jeroboam of Israel, “Amos is conspiring against you in the very centre of Israel; what he says goes too far. These are his very words : Jeroboam shall die by the sword and Israel shall be exiled from its land.”

Amaziah then said to Amos, “Off with you, seer, go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there by prophesying. But never again prophesy at Bethel for it is a king’s sanctuary and a national shrine.”

Amos replied to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet or one of the fellow prophets. I am a breeder of sheep and a dresser of sycamore trees. But YHVH took me from shepherding the flock and said to me : Go, prophesy to My people Israel. Now hear the word of YHVH, you who say : No more prophecy against Israel, no more insults against the family of Isaac!”

“This is what YHVH says : Your wife shall be made a harlot in the city, your sons and daughters shall fall by the sword, your land shall be divided up and given to others, and you yourself shall die in a foreign land, for Israel shall be driven far from its land.”

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Wednesday, 29 June 2016 : Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, Great Feast of the Church of Rome and the Universal Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great feast day of our Church, the commemoration and celebration of the Solemnity of the two main patron saints of the Church, that is St. Peter the Apostle and St. Paul the Apostle. Both of them had their respective contributions to the Church and to God’s people, especially to the people and the faithful in the Church in the great city of Rome.

Both of them once led very different lifestyles, and they had their own works and careers before them. St. Peter, originally known as Simon, son of John, was a humble and simple fisherman hailing from the region of the Lake of Galilee. He went out to catch fishes everyday from his boat and did so for a living. But Jesus called him and gave him a new charge, to be the steward of His Church and as His representative on earth.

Meanwhile, St. Paul was once also known Saul, the great enemy of the Church and the faithful people of God as he went around many places to persecute and to bring harm to the faithful. He caused great harm, suffering and sorrow for the people of God, and by his hands, he brought harm and persecution to many, even including the women and children, with the aim to destroy the Church of God. But Jesus our Lord also called him and gave him a new command, that is to bring forth His words and His truth to the pagan nations.

In this manner, we see how God called and made worthy those who were seemingly unlikely to become His champions and servants. He called a simple fisherman and one who wanted to destroy His Church and destroy the memory of His Name to be those to whom He entrusted His care of the people whom He loved. He transformed them to be His greatest servants through whom many people were brought to the salvation in Him.

If we think that God chose the great and the mighty to be His servants, then we should go no further than looking at what God had done in calling those people whom He chose to be His disciples, to be the Apostles, the foundations of the Church which He Himself had established in this world. And He built this Church upon the foundation of the rock of faith, that is upon St. Peter, to whom He had said that he is Peter, and upon that rock, as Peter in Aramaic is Cephas or Rock, God would build and establish His Church.

And through the Gospels, we could see that Peter was not a perfect person. He was doubtful and although he showed bravery and courage in faith, but no sooner that trouble came, that he trembled and fell. When the Lord Jesus came walking on the water amidst the great storm in the lake, St. Peter was the first one to dare to step on the water towards the Lord, but in his fear, he almost sank into the water.

And in another occasion, St. Peter professed that he would even lay down his life for the Lord, only for the Lord to say to him that before the cock crowed the next morning, he would have betrayed and abandoned the Lord not just once but three times, a story which all of us must be very familiar with. St. Peter in his moment of fear, anguish and uncertainty, chose to abandon the Lord and denied that he ever knew Him when the enemies of the Lord closed in on Him and His disciples.

This has certainly had happened to us and many others as well. How many of us in our moments of fear and uncertainty ended up turning our backs to the Lord and turned away from His ways? How many of us compromised with our faith and the ways of the Lord for the sake of saving our own selves? This is what happened to St. Peter, who in fear abandoned Jesus his Lord and Master to save himself.

However, what differentiated him from someone like Judas Iscariot the betrayer was that, while Judas did not truly repent for his sins, and chose the easy way out by committing suicide, St. Peter chose the hard path of repentance and suffering, choosing to seek His forgiveness and love, and to commit himself anew to the works and the commands which He had entrusted to him.

It is this quality that our Lord saw in Peter, and that was why He chose to honour him with such a great position and with such a responsibility. He chose those whose faith were trembling and were tested, so that when they emerged triumphant and stronger from the trials they faced, they might become examples for all others to follow. After all, brethren, none of us are perfect, as we always have imperfections in us. It is by striving together with God that we are made stronger.

And it is the same with St. Paul, who was once a great enemy of the Church and the faithful. Once his name was uttered with great fear by the faithful and they all were terrified of the day when he would ransack and destroy their communities and handing them over to the Jewish authorities to be punished. But the same person became the source of much goodness and the source of salvation as he made a turnaround in his life and embraced God as his Lord and Saviour with all of his heart.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, St. Peter and St. Paul showed all of us that God chose sinners and sinful men to be His servants, to follow Him and to do His will, that through His hands and His guidance, they may be transformed to be great servants and great tools through which God made evident His will in this world. By the works of the two holy Apostles, the Church has become what we know it today, and countless, billions and more souls have been saved.

St. Peter and St. Paul were known for their great devotion and work for the sake of the whole Church. St. Peter was the foundation upon which the whole Church had been built. He was the rock upon which God Himself had built the Church upon. He was the centre of the Church, and to him, as God Himself mentioned, the authority over all things on earth has been given to him, as the Vicar of the Lord, the Head of the Church.

Meanwhile, St. Paul was crucial in his evangelising and missionary works, through which he established numerous communities of the faithful, the seeds of the Church in many cities through the Roman world at the time, courageously going forth to the pagans and the Gentiles or the non-Jews, while others were reluctant or even refused directly to go to them to preach the Good News of God.

Both of them encountered many difficulties during their missions, and they were persecuted, imprisoned, had to endure torture and rejection, just as the evidences in the Acts of the Apostles and the other sources told us. They were the shepherds of God’s people, and the wolves of this world who were looking for the prey among God’s flock were striking at them, and they suffered, but God was with them.

Both of them went to Rome, where they ended their works of evangelisation. And both St. Peter and St. Paul built the strong foundation of the Church there, and as the first Bishop of Rome, St. Peter also institutionalised the hierarchy and structure of the Church, through his successors, the Popes, who led the Universal Church through the authority which has been passed down to them through St. Peter from God Himself.

And they shed their blood in martyrdom at that city, the heart of the Roman Empire, the centre of the world at that time. They died in suffering, standing up firmly for their faith. And through their great courage and commitment, they showed to the whole world and to all the faithful, that in God there is hope for eternal life and salvation.

These brave and courageous servants of God has become the strong pillars of the Church and the Faith. They helped the whole Universal Church to grow strong despite of persecutions, and their examples inspired their successors to be strong and to devote themselves all the more to the Lord and to the evangelisation of the peoples. And today, all of us are called to reflect upon their examples and follow in their footsteps.

The works of the Apostles are not done. They are still ongoing, and the command which God had given His Apostles to go forth to the nations and to preach to them the Good News, and to baptise them in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is still true to this day. There are still many people who have yet to hear of the word of God, and they are still waiting for those who will bring them the word of God’s salvation. And it is truly up to us to do so.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we then devote ourselves to the Lord, and follow in the footsteps of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul? Let us ask them to intercede for us and for the whole Universal Church, that the works of the Lord done through His Church will continue unabated, and through these works, may more people come closer to the salvation of God and receive eternal life.

May God bless us all, and may He strengthen our faith as He has strengthen the faith of St. Peter and St. Paul, the pillars of our Church and our Faith. May His Church remains strong amidst the challenges and the persecutions of the world, just as God Himself had said that not even the gates of hell would be able to stand against the Church. May God remain with us always and bless us now and forevermore. Amen.

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Wednesday, 29 June 2016 : Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, Great Feast of the Church of Rome and the Universal Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 16 : 13-19

At that time, after Jesus spoke to His disciples about the Pharisees and the Sadducees, He came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They said, “For some of them You are John the Baptist, for others Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “It is well for you, Simon Bar-Jona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.”

“And now I say to you : You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven : whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven.”

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Wednesday, 29 June 2016 : Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, Apostles, Great Feast of the Church of Rome and the Universal Church (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

2 Timothy 4 : 6-8, 17-18

As for me, I am already poured out as a libation, and the moment of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness with which the Lord, the Just Judge, will reward me on that day; and not only me, but all those who have longed for His glorious coming.

But the Lord was at my side, giving me strength to proclaim the Word fully, and let all the pagans hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will save me from all evil, bringing me to His heavenly kingdom. Glory to Him forever and ever. Amen!