Pope Benedict XVI

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Saturday, 14 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop, Patron Saints of Europe (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 8 : 1-10

At that time, soon afterward, Jesus was in the midst of another large crowd, that obviously had nothing to eat. So He called His disciples and said to them, “I feel sorry for these people, because they have been with Me for three days and now have nothing to eat. If I send them to their homes hungry, they will faint on the way; some of them have come a long way.”

His disciples replied, “Where, in a deserted place like this, could we get enough bread to feed these people?” He asked them, “How many loaves have you?” And they answered, “Seven.” Then He ordered the crowd to sit down on the ground. Taking the seven loaves and giving thanks, He broke them, and handed them to His disciples to distribute.

And they distributed them among the people. They also had some small fish. So Jesus said a blessing, and asked that these be shared as well. The people ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the broken pieces left over, seven baskets full. Now those who had eaten were about four thousand in number.

Jesus sent them away, and immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and went to the region of Dalmanutha.

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Saturday, 14 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop, Patron Saints of Europe (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 105 : 6-7a, 19-20, 21-22

We have sinned like our ancestors; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. When they were in Egypt, our ancestors had no regard for Your wondrous deeds.

They made a calf at Horeb and worshipped the molten image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of a bull that eats grass.

They forgot their Saviour God, Who had done great things in Egypt, wonderful works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Sea of Reeds.

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Saturday, 14 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop, Patron Saints of Europe (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Kings 12 : 26-32 and 1 Kings 13 : 33-34

Jeroboam thought, “The kingdom could return to the house of David. Should this people go up to offer sacrifices in YHVH’s House in Jerusalem, their heart would turn again to their master, Rehoboam king of Judah. They would kill me and go back to him.”

And so the king sought advice and made two golden calves. Then he said to the people, “You have been going up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, o Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” He put one of these in Bethel, the other in Dan. This caused Israel to sin; the people went to Bethel and Dan to worship the calves.

Jeroboam also built temples on high places, appointing priests who were not from the Levites. Jeroboam also appointed a feast on the fifteenth day of the eighth month in imitation of the feast in Judah, and he himself offered sacrifices on the altar. This he did in Bethel; and sacrificed to the calves that he had made. There he placed priests for the high places he had made.

After this, however, Jeroboam did not abstain from doing evil. Instead he made priests for the high places from among the people. He consecrated anyone who wanted to be a priest for the high places. And this became the sin of the family of Jeroboam for which it was to be cut off and destroyed from the face of the earth.

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Friday, 13 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are reminded through the readings of the Sacred Scriptures of the need for all of us to follow the Lord faithfully in our lives and distance ourselves from sin, which can lead us astray and lead us down the path to ruin if we are not careful about it. This is why we are all reminded of the dangers of sin and the harm that can be caused by us indulging in our worldly pleasures and desires, which can prevent us from realising that we have not been living our lives well and worthily in the manner that the Lord has called each and every one of us to do in His own purposes and distinct ways. All of us are reminded that after all, as Christians, we must always be full of love for God and also for our fellow mankind at all times.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Kings of Israel and Judah, we heard about the story of Jeroboam, a man from the tribe of Ephraim who was a superintendent working under King Solomon. Through the revelation given to him as we heard from the prophet Ahijah and through his own discovery of the growing discontent of the people of Israel against the increasingly oppressive and exploitative reign of Solomon, Jeroboam eventually took up plans to rebel against Solomon, and later on when this was found out by Solomon, Jeroboam had to hide in Egypt until Solomon has passed away. Back then, Solomon in the later years of his reign has become lax in his ways and obedience to God, allowing himself to be swayed by worldly ambitions and other temptations which led to the downfall of the kingdom.

One of such actions that Solomon had done was to tax his people heavily and to exact lots of demands from them such as manpower for his armies and the labours needed for his many magnificent building projects, of palaces, fortresses and other infrastructure buildings, which although all those things seemed to benefit the kingdom as a whole, later on in Solomon’s reign, this became a sign of megalomania and obsession with power and glory that Solomon had grown accustomed to as he grew further in might, stature and wealth among the other nations. Essentially, his ego and pride, his desires and ambitions became his undoing in preventing him from truly obeying the Lord and acting responsibly and faithfully as his father David had done.

That was why the Lord was angry at Solomon and wanted to teach him and his descendants a lesson by breaking up all the glory and majesty that was the golden age of ancient Israel, Solomon’s glorious and wealthy Kingdom. It is not because Solomon had many wives or all sorts of that, but because first and foremost, he had forgotten to put the Lord first and foremost in his life, and instead indulging in seeking more wealth and glory, and at the same time, he also caused misery and hardships for those whom the Lord had put in his care and entrusted under his rulership as king. That was why the Lord was angry against Solomon, because he had misplaced the trust that the Lord has entrusted to him, and committed grievous sins against not just Him but the people of God as well.

Then, our Gospel passage today speaks about the moment when the Lord Jesus encountered a deaf and mute man at the region of Decapolis, and He took pity on the man, opening his ears and mouth with the famous word, ‘Ephphata!’ which means ‘Be opened!’ and thus the man could speak and hear once again. In that instance we saw how God rescued His beloved people who had been suffering and enduring difficulties, showing them His constant caring love and compassion, which He has never ceased showing unto each and every one of us, each and every moments, wanting us to be freed and liberated from all the darkness surrounding us, which has kept us all separated from Him and His love.

I am referring to the condition which we all also share, a condition which caused us all to be also in a sense ‘blind’, ‘mute’ and ‘deaf’, that is our sins. The man suffering from the physical muteness and deafness was healed by the Lord, and he could hear and speak once again, and in the same way, the Lord also has the power to heal us from our sins. In fact, it is only the Lord alone Who can do this, as He is the only One Who can forgive us all our sins and therefore make us truly whole again, in body, spirit and in all of our whole beings. That is why even when we may be physically very fit and without any defects unlike that man who was deaf and mute, but we are all suffering from this spiritual affliction of sin which is even more dangerous.

At our baptism, traditionally this ‘Ephphata’ rite was carried out by the celebrant and officiant of the baptism, where the same actions of the Lord was done by the priest upon the person to be baptised, to show symbolically that the person that embraced the Lord through his or her baptism had indeed been brought from their past of sins and wickedness into a new life where their senses and whole bodies are no longer afflicted, blinded, impeded by sins. And all of us have received the wonderful love and grace of God, in which we have been equipped and strengthened amidst all these darkness with the light of God’s Hope and Love, calling upon all of us to follow Him ever more wholeheartedly from now on.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do our very best to live our lives ever more faithfully in the manner that the Lord has called and shown us to do. Let us not allow ourselves to be swayed and deluded by the temptations of worldly glory and ambitions as Solomon had fallen into and as many of our predecessors had done. Let us instead embrace the Lord wholeheartedly and do our very best to be good examples and inspirations to one another in faith. May the Lord bless us all and may He strengthen each and every one of us always in the faith, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Friday, 13 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 31-37

At that time, again Jesus set out : from the country of Tyre He passed through Sidon and, skirting the sea of Galilee, He came to the territory of Decapolis. There, a deaf man, who also had difficulty in speaking, was brought to Him. They asked Jesus to lay His hand upon him.

Jesus took him apart from the crowd, and put His fingers into the man’s ears, and touched his tongue with spittle. Then, looking up to heaven, He said with a deep sigh, “Ephphata!” that is, “Be opened!”

And immediately, his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly. Jesus ordered them not to tell anyone about it; but the more He insisted, the more they proclaimed it. The people were completely astonished and said, “He has done all things well; He makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.”

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Friday, 13 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 80 : 10-11ab, 12-13, 14-15

There shall be no strange god among you, you shall not worship any alien god, for I, YHVH, am your God.

But My people did not listen; Israel did not obey. So I gave them over to their stubbornness and they followed their own counsels.

If only My people would listen, if only Israel would walk in My ways, I would quickly subdue their adversaries and turn My hand against their enemies.

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Friday, 13 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 11 : 29-32 and 1 Kings 12 : 19

Once, when Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah of Shiloh found him on the road. The two of them were alone in the open country when Ahijah, who had a new garment on, clutched and tore it into twelve pieces.

He then said to Jeroboam, “Take ten pieces for yourself for this is the word of YHVH, the God of Israel : ‘I am about to tear the kingdom from Solomon’s hands to give you ten tribes. Only one tribe shall be left to him for the sake of My servant David and Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.’”

So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to the present time.

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Thursday, 12 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures we are reminded that each and every one of us can always fall into the temptations of sin and the corruptions that come along with it. And if we are not careful, we may end up falling deeper and deeper into the wrong path, and hence, we need the power of God, His mercy, love and compassion to help us overcome this obstacle in our respective paths towards the Lord and His salvation. That is why we are being reminded again today through these passages so that we can always be vigilant and ready against all the obstacles facing us in our journey of faith and life.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Kings of Israel and Judah the continuation of the story of the old Kingdom of Israel. And if in the previous days we heard about the glorious days and times of the reigns of David and Solomon, and how King Solomon inaugurated the Temple that he built for the Lord with a lot of great fanfare and celebration, and how the whole people and all the country rejoiced greatly on the great deeds that the Lord had done for them, then today we heard the unfortunate story of how in his old age, Solomon became lax in the manner of how he lived his life and reigned as King of Israel, likely swayed by his many accomplishments, glory and power that made him to forget and overlook what his responsibilities were as the King appointed and chosen by God.

We were told that King Solomon was swayed by his many wives and concubines which numbered in the hundreds, as was common practice at that time and in many cultures even to the present day. But regardless of that, what matters was that Solomon allowed worldly concerns and considerations to affect and influence his decisions and choice of actions. That was what the Lord was disappointed with and that was why He told them that all the glory and power that was Solomon’s, the glory and golden age of Israel, all would be taken away and shattered, all because of his hubris, pride and ambitions, which distinguished him from his father David. David himself was not a perfect man, as he had his own share of faults and mistakes. But David always tried to rectify them and he always kept the Lord as the priority in his life and reign as King.

Then, from our Gospel passage today, we are reminded through the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, of the interaction between the Lord Jesus and a Syro-Phoenician woman, who had come to the Lord seeking Him, begging Him and beseeching Him to heal her very sick daughter. And the Lord was seemingly very dismissive and rude towards her, not listening to her pleas and requests, and even as we heard, uttered words such as the food should not be given to the dogs, which literally degraded her as being less than a human being. At a glance, it might seem that the Lord was out of His character and was very mean and degrading in what He said to the Syro-Phoenician woman, but in truth, He was making a statement about the then common prejudice among the Jewish people about their non-Jewish neighbours.

For at that time, many among the Jewish people, especially the Pharisees among them and some others, had carried on from their ancestors a rather prideful and haughty attitude, full of arrogance and ego, thinking that because they were the chosen people of God, then they assumed that they were better than all the others particularly their neighbouring peoples whom at that time did not believe in God and typically worshipped pagan gods. They looked down on all those and also historically, because during the reign of the Greek kingdoms and rulers, such as the Seleucids, their ancestors had been persecuted for practicing Jewish customs and practices. Hence, some of them took their practices and ways to the extreme.

And in doing so, they had forgotten what it truly means to be genuinely faithful to God, focusing so much on the externals which led to the criticism that the Lord raised against them, forgetting that all the rituals, steps and details in their faith practices were not what truly mattered. To many of the Pharisees, if one did not follow the Law exactly in the manner they prescribed, to the letter and the sequence, to the details such as how they washed their hands right all the way to their elbow, it was considered unlawful and wicked. They missed entirely the point of the Law being guiding principles and means to help the people to regulate their lives and way of living them so that they could truly be worthy of their Lord and Master, and be the worthy recipients of all that He has promised to them.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us should also not be swayed in the same manner by our many egoistic and ambitious desires in life, all the things which may distract us from being able to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and genuinely. We must remember that the path of the Lord requires all of us to resist the worldly desires, ego and all the worldly pleasures and its excesses that can lead us astray. We have to strike a good balance between living a faithful life to the Lord and in fulfilling our responsibilities in this world, while not giving in to the extremes such as the indulgence of worldly desires, or in neglecting our responsibilities, and that is what we are all called to do as Christians.

May the Lord, our most loving God and Father continue to guide each and every one of us, so that we may continue to faithfully obey His commandments and ways, and to do what is right and just in our lives, resisting the temptations of worldly glory and desires, so that we do not end up falling into sin as how King Solomon and the Pharisees had experienced and suffered from. Instead, let us all trust ever more in the Lord our God, and do our best to live our lives with great humility and faith from now on. May God bless us all in all things we do, now and always. Amen.

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Thursday, 12 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 7 : 24-30

At that time, when Jesus went to the border of the Tyrian country. There, He entered a house, and did not want anyone to know He was there; but He could not remain hidden. A woman, whose small daughter had an evil spirit, heard of Him, and came and fell at His feet.

Now this woman was a pagan, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter. Jesus told her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies.”

But she replied, “Sir, even the puppies under the table eat the crumbs from the children’s bread.” Then Jesus said to her, “You may go your way; because of such a response, the demon has gone out of your daughter.”

And when the woman went home, she found her child lying in bed, and the demon gone.

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Thursday, 12 February 2026 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 105 : 3-4, 35-36, 37 and 40

Blessed are they who always do just and right. Remember me, o YHVH, when You show favour to Your people; rescue me when You deliver them.

They mingled with these nations and learnt to do as they did. In serving the idols of the pagans, they were trapped.

Into sacrificing children to demons. The anger of YHVH grew intense and He abhorred His inheritance.