prayer

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Saturday, 13 April 2013 : 2nd Week of Easter, Memorial of Pope St. Martin I, Pope and Martyr (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the words of the Acts of the Apostles, in the first ever creation of the office of deacons in the Church, which became the primary servants of the apostles and the Church, in providing for the community of the faithful in Christ.

It was because the task of leading worship and ministering to God’s people in spirit, and at the same time, having to provide and minister over distribution of food amongst the disciples was too tough for the apostles to do on their own, due to the rapidly growing number of the believers. Therefore, they would require helpers who would aid them in their ministry, and in this, the office of deacons was created.

Deacons then were men chosen by the apostles, and then filled with the Holy Spirit and commissioned by the apostles through the laying of hands. This laying of hands is the method through which the authority that Christ had given to the apostles is passed down to our present day priests and bishops, who received their laying of hands from their consecrators, in an unbroken chain from the apostles themselves.

Deacons today are also ordained ministers just like priest, with a prime difference that they are not allowed to celebrate the Mass and the Eucharist, as they do not have the full faculties of priesthood. Deacons are indeed helpers of priests, who were then represented by the apostles, who needed help in their ever growing ministry and service to the growing number of the people of God.

Deacons today proclaim the Word of God in the Gospel, and also assisted the priests in the Mass. They also help the priests in ministering to the people, presenting an outreach to many people whom the priests alone cannot reach effectively. They complement the priests and make the Church ministry ever greater for the praise and glory of God.

Today, we also commemorate another holy man of God raised to the holy priesthood, that is Pope St. Martin I, elected as the Successor of St. Peter as the Bishop of Rome in the seventh century. Pope St. Martin I was a holy man, and a man of strong faith and principles, standing his ground against the Emperor of the Roman Empire at the time, who was technically his superior, but espousing heretical ideologies, which the Pope refused to give assent to.

Pope St. Martin I stood his ground and remained steadfast to the faith, even if that meant going against the Emperor, who was the most powerful secular leader of Christendom at the time. He condemned the Emperor and his beliefs, which deviated from the orthodox Christian faith of the Apostolic Fathers. He suffered abduction, incarceration, and persecution for his opposition to the Emperor, and until his death in exile, he remained faithful to God without fear.

Deacon St. Stephen, the first martyr too faced death with joy, testifying his faith in Christ in front of all the Sanhedrin and the Jewish priesthood, even though in doing that he faced certain death. He chose death rather than betraying Christ and his faith in Him. This was the quality of men chosen to be deacons by the apostles, to assist them. Holy men indeed, men of principles, which was again shown in Pope St. Martin I in his steadfast faith. Men who placed their faith and fear in God ahead of the fear and praise of man.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. Today, let us pray and indeed pray hard for our deacons, priests, bishops, all the ordained and chosen ministers of Christ, who worked hard for the sake of the Gospel, for God, and for our sake, that we too can be saved in Christ, and share in His love through their hard labour and their shining faith. Let us pray that their faith in God will remain firm, and that they will ever be courageous in defending their faith against attacks just like St. Stephen and Pope St. Martin I had done.

St. Stephen and the holy deacons of God, pray for us. Pope St. Martin I, pray for us. Pray that we too can follow in your footsteps and defend our faith to the best of our abilities. Amen.

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Wednesday, 10 April 2013 : 2nd Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today in the Gospel reading, we heard the passage which many of us surely knew very well, that shows the degree of the love our God had shown us, that in His infinite love and mercy, He sent down to us a helper, a salvation, none other than His own Son, part of His Godhood, Jesus Christ, to be our Messiah and Saviour.

Yet, even though God loves us so much to this extent of allowing His only Son to descend to this world as a humble man as we are, and even unto death, persecuted and condemned by His own people, the Jewish people, God did not back down, and continued with the plan of salvation. On the hill of calvary, on that fateful day, when Christ was crucified, lifted high between the heavens and the earth, He completed the plan of salvation and snatched the final victory from the evil one.

But sadly, many still reject the words of our Saviour and His teachings, which He passed to the apostles, and from them to us through our priests and bishops who are their successors. The opposition to Christ was evident in the first reading that we heard today, on the capture and arrest of the disciples when they taught in the Temple on the truth about Christ and our salvation in His Resurrection.

The chief priests and the Sadducees represented the very words mentioned in the psalm, that despite the light sent by God to us, through Christ our Lord, who is indeed the Light of the world, many people still live in darkness, and prefer darkness to light. They preferred the entitlements and enticements made by the evil one, who offered them worldly glory, wealth, and honour, that in gaining these, they rejected Christ who is the true font of glory, honour, and salvation.

Even in our own world today, many people hate Christ, and hate the truth that He had brought upon us. They prefer to be mastered by the devil, and rejected the offer of eternal life that Christ had offered, for the sake of temporal enjoyment and temptations that this world has to offer them. Not only content on corrupting them, but the evil one is always at work, and they even entice many against those who believe in Christ, and ridicule us for our faith in God.

But fear not, dear brothers and sisters in Christ! For remember that the Lord is always with us, and He will always protect us from harm. Remember that in the first reading, we were told that the disciples were aided by God through the angels who released them from their captivity, that they can continue to work the mission God had entrusted to them.

Let us therefore, today, pray for our brethren in faith, who risked themselves and even their lives for the sake of the Gospel, and for the sake of our God. May God be with them and protect them against harm and the devices of the evil one. And may we also grow strong and courageous in our own faith, that we too can follow the footsteps of the apostles, in delivering the Good News of our Lord to all mankind, without fear, especially of the evil one. Amen.

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Thursday, 4 April 2013 : Thursday of the Easter Octave (Scripture Reflection)

The Risen Christ is truly risen, our Messiah, and our Lord. He is not dead anymore, because God had given to Him a glorious life, to conquer death, that in Him, if we believe in Him, we would also find the same life, that is life eternal in God, and with God. He is truly risen, and truly has been raised from the dead, in body and in the spirit, that He is truly, bodily, our Risen Lord. That is why He said to His disciples when He first appeared to them. Why are you afraid? Why fear? It is I, Christ, and I am truly risen! My body is real, and I am not a spirit of the dead, unlike your ancestors!

Yes, while all mankind died in death that is our punishment for our rebellion against God, that from dust we had come, and into dust we would return, Christ was not worthy of death, because He is perfect and spotless, as He is without sin, and yet He suffered sin and death for our sake, and was unjustly punished and condemned for our faults. All these so that it would not be us who would have to bear the burden of our rebellion and that of our forefathers, but through Christ we would gain eternal life, that is our reward, if we would repent, believe in Christ, and put our hope in Him.

Through Christ lay forgiveness for our faults and our rebellion against our loving God, and through Him lay the only path to life, for is He not the way, the truth and the life? Yes, only if we put our complete trust in Christ, and put in Him all our beings and our dedication, that we can be brought from eternal death and separation from God, back into God’s favour. He offered all these freely as He hung from that cross on Calvary. His Blood He offered freely for all of us, as the blood of the new Covenant that would seal all who believe in Him and save them all.

Yet, many of us remain blind to Christ’s mercy and kindness, and blind from His redemptive works. The same happened to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, and to all the disciples gathered in fear of the authorities, because all of them had lost their hope and pivot on Christ. Their faith and heart had wavered, and they had let the evil one to sow seeds of fear and uncertainties and let them grow within their hearts, that they were frozen with lack of faith when Christ appeared to them. Yes, to all of us it may seem that if Christ is to appear before us, given if we have no knowledge of Christ’s resurrection, which had been prophesied by the prophets, we may also not believe in Him.

But the disciples had listened directly from Christ Himself, that He was to suffer, and to die, and then to rise again from the dead in glory on the third day, which He had mentioned frequently to the disciples, especially as He approached the time of His Passion. It is the inflexibility and the hardness of their hearts that prevented them from truly understanding what Christ had said to them, and that also made them, and so many other people of Israel at the time, especially the Pharisees and the chief priests, that Christ is truly the Messiah, the suffering Messiah, through whom the world’s salvation was to come.

Yet Christ did not give up on them, and He opened their minds and hearts to His truth, just as He revealed Himself to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. Therefore brothers and sisters in Christ, will we then also welcome Christ into our hearts? That He will then come in and open the doors of our hearts and our minds, and also remove the veil of fear and doubt from our eyes, that we will see Him? in the great glory of His resurrection? Keep our prayer life strong, that we will always have the Lord within our hearts.

Remember, that our works and actions will not reflect God’s work if we do not keep a strong faith in Him, which can only be built up and maintained through prayerful life. Pray at all times, that God will always be with us, and strengthen us, and speak to us, to lead us into the path that God had desired for us, for the good of all of us. Let our faith in God shines within us, and with this great faith and strength, may all of us be courageous and strong, to carry out God’s mission to spread His words and love to all mankind, through service and love.

May God bless all of us, and may we make best use of this most holy season of Easter, to renew our commitment to our Lord and to our fellow mankind, to love ever more, and to be ever more faithful. Amen.

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Faith, prayer, and service (Fides, Ora, et Labora)

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You man of little faith, why are you afraid? (Add : ‘That’s why you’re sinking!’), as Jesus said to Peter when He appeared to the disciples in the storm, as the disciples feared they would sink, and Peter sank while he attempted to reach to the Lord on the water.

That’s why, keep your faith strong! Prayers, service, and love for God and our fellow men, but most importantly, before we go out and serve others, make sure that our prayer life is good and strong. There is no Ora et Labora without the Ora, and without the Ora ‘prayer’, our service is meaningless, since we then tend to associate our actions with ourselves, becoming object of self glorification rather than give glory to God, even if we are doing good things to others.

Appreciate the beauty of prayer and worship, and seek out to learn more about our worship, our Mass, from your priests, or any qualified liturgists around, who can help all of us understand about how beauty of the liturgy of the Mass can bring heaven closer to earth, and bring God’s divine glory closer to us, unworthy men.

In our worship we bring glory to God, and we profess the glory of the Risen Lord, victorious and triumphant, and in service, we bring glory to God, the humble and suffering Lord, who through His death on the cross, brought the ultimate service and love to all.

Non nobis, Domine, sed Nomini tuo da gloriam – Not to us, o Lord, but to You, we give glory.

Yours in Christ,

Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam
(That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God)
+Peter Canisius Michael David C. Kang
Servus Servorum Dei

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Wednesday, 3 April 2013 : Wednesday of the Easter Octave (Scripture Reflection)

Christ is risen and He lives! Yes, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we all know, this Easter season, we celebrate Christ who is not dead, and who does not suffer the penalty of death in hell, but who rose in glory, that through Him all mankind may have hope of eternal life through His resurrection.

Yet, many of us are like the disciples on their way to Emmaus, blinded in their spiritual eyes to see God’s presence in their midst, and the doubt that evil had sown in their heart shook their faith, when they knew and saw Christ crucified and died on the cross. Their fear and doubt prevented them from recognising and proclaiming that Christ is alive, and that He is not dead.

Yes, the suffering and death of Christ formed a great part of our faith, where we see the Messiah carrying the cross of sin and suffering that is due to mankind and took it upon Himself that all of us can be saved. It is through the suffering and death of Christ that our death may be averted, not in the sense of the death that will indeed claim us all in the end of our lives, but the eternal death in which we are completely separated from Christ.

This will not happen since Christ did not remain among the dead, for just as God is the God of the living, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who did not stay dead, but arisen again to live forever with Him in heaven, therefore Christ too, as God’s greatest servant, the Son of Man, was arisen in glory, that all who bask in His Resurrection may have hope of eternal life through Him.

Our faith is based upon the centrepiece of Christ’s mission in this world, that is His Resurrection. For without the Resurrection, our faith in Him has no base, for He stayed dead just as others did, but because He returned to life in glory, He became the first to be risen, that we too someday may be risen ourselves with Him.

Jesus is calling upon us to follow Him, and to follow His teachings and examples. He is calling on us to cast away the veil of doubt and fear from our hearts. He came to save us, and saved we are, if we remain firm and strong in our faith in Him. Do not fear, and do not fret, for God is with us, all the times of our life. He is there to share our joy in times of happiness, and to help us bear our burdens in times of sorrow and fear.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray, that God will strengthen us, in faith, hope, and love, that we will become shining beacon of truth and the love of God in this world. May through our hands, God will do great wonders in our broken and darkened world, to make it anew and bright once again. Amen.

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Monday, 1 April 2013 : Monday of the Easter Octave (Scripture Reflection)

Christ is risen! He has risen from the dead!

That is the key to our faith, that is our faith in God. God who has loved us so much since the time of creation till now, and his everlasting love made Him to give us the only means to salvation, that is through Christ who died and then returned to life in the glorious Resurrection, which we commemorate in this Easter season. Such is the joy that our joy overflowed and lasted the entire fifty days since Easter Sunday to the day of Pentecost.

For in Christ, the keys to the kingdom of heaven is finally available to us, for Christ destroyed evil’s hold on us and sin’s slavery of mankind through His death. He descended into hell though He was sinless and pure, all because He did so out of pure love for us, and to release our forefathers who had died before us, who had been righteous but were still enslaved by the power of sin, because of mankind’s rebellion against God.

That was why Christ came into this world, to be the servant of our Lord who sent Him. He was rejected, vilified, and eventually was condemned to death like a criminal on a cross. That was so that the servant of God would be glorified, and lifted up high for all to see. For in Him, lies the salvation of this very world. As I had often mentioned, the Most Precious Blood which He offered to all of us through the Last Supper with His disciples, was poured down the wood of the cross, as a cleansing font of salvation, in which, if we choose to do so, we can cleanse ourselves and purify our beings in the blood of the Lamb.

Yes, Christ who is our Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, who did not resist, and pure as He was, He bought off our sins into Himself, that in His purity, our sins will be destroyed. And yet, as King David had mentioned, that God will not suffer His Son to suffer for such great injustice, that He suffered no corruption, because He who suffered for our sins was indeed still and always will be unblemished. This is why God brought Him up again on the third day as Christ Himself had mentioned.

If Christ died on the cross and remained dead, we would then have no hope, since Christ Himself succumbed to that same power of death which had enthralled us all this while. Death is our just punishment for our rebellion against God who is good and perfect. But Christ, through His Resurrection, showed His triumph over death, and He, who is the first to be risen from the dead in glory, through His own glory, conquered death, and threw a final rebuke against Satan, releasing all of us from the same bonds of death.

His victory gave us a new hope and indeed, the hope in Him, He who conquered death, and conquered evil in the same time. Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us, in this Easter season, strive to put our trust and hope in Christ, our Lord, and strive to grow deeper in our faith in our God, and also our love for Him and for our neighbour. That we will grow ever stronger in faith, hope, and love, the three virtues that mark us as truly belonging to God, our Lord. Pray for one another as well.

Amen.

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Eighth Anniversary of the death of Blessed Pope John Paul II the Great

Blessed Pope John Paul II, also called the Great, passed away in Rome at the Apostolic Palace, on 2 April 2005 at 9.37 pm Rome time (21.37) or 9.37 pm UTC+1.

It has been 8 years since his passing, and therefore let us join in the moment of prayer, in our own homes and at the time of his passing wherever we are. Pray for his Canonisation as a Saint, and most importantly, pray for our Catholic Church and all of God’s beloved people.

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25,000 views. Another milestone had been passed on Holy Thursday. Praise to God and pray for me

My blog has received its 25,000th view on this past Holy Thursday. Since I had been very busy during the Easter Triduum, I had not been able to update this blog with this news earlier. Nevertheless, I thank God who has guided me all these while, and allowing me to persevere, and still be able to update my blog as best as I can, despite my busy Holy Week schedule.

Pray for me, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and pray for our Holy Catholic Church!

 

Statistics (As of Sunday, 31 March 2013 at 4.32 pm Singapore time)

Total view : 27,170

Total visitors : 17,377

Days since beginning : 74

 

View Statistics by Country (Total listed : 26,697)

1. United States of America : 11,726

2. Singapore : 3,736

3. United Kingdom : 1,790

4. Canada : 1,357

5. Philippines : 1,271

6. Italy : 773

7. Australia : 543

8. Germany : 425

9. Poland : 307

10. Ireland : 295

11. France : 278

12. India : 253

13. Malaysia : 238

14. Netherlands : 231

15. Indonesia : 173

16. Belgium : 164

17. Hungary : 142

18. Brazil : 127

19. Austria : 119

20. Portugal : 115

21. Mexico : 115

22. Spain : 112

23. Switzerland : 108

24. Hong Kong : 100

25. New Zealand : 91

26. Sweden : 91

27. Croatia : 77

28. Finland : 76

29. South Africa : 73

30. Nigeria : 72

31. United Arab Emirates : 67

32. Slovakia : 65

33. Saudi Arabia : 65

34. Thailand : 64

35. Malta : 62

36. Japan : 61

37. Czech Republic : 61

38. Romania : 59

39. Norway : 57

40. Greece : 53

41. Russia : 51

42. Argentina : 47

43. Taiwan : 42

44. Vietnam : 41

45. Botswana : 38

46. Lithuania : 36

47. Puerto Rico : 36

48. Sri Lanka : 34

49. Colombia : 32

50. South Korea : 32

51. Lebanon : 27

52. Denmark : 27

53. Slovenia : 27

54. Trinidad and Tobago : 26

55. Israel : 25

56. Vatican City : 23

57. Ghana : 23

58. Mauritius : 21

59. Egypt : 19

60. Uganda : 19

61. Tanzania : 17

62. Costa Rica : 16

63. Bosnia and Herzegovina : 16

64. Kenya : 15

65. Latvia : 14

66. Senegal : 14

67. Cyprus : 13

68. Bulgaria : 12

69. Ukraine : 12

70. Guam (USA) : 12

71. Serbia : 12

72. Kuwait : 11

73. Dominican Republic : 11

74. Guatemala : 11

75. Luxembourg : 10

76. Brunei Darussalam : 10

77. Chile : 10

78. Cameroon : 10

79. Pakistan : 10

80. Panama : 10

81. Venezuela : 10

82. El Salvador : 9

83. Cambodia : 9

84. Jamaica : 9

85. Jordan : 9

86. Zimbabwe : 8

87. Belarus : 8

88. Qatar : 8

89. Turkey : 8

90. Rwanda : 8

91. Bolivia : 8

92. Bahamas : 8

93. Bangladesh : 7

94. Djibouti : 7

95. Namibia : 7

96. Gibraltar (UK) : 6

97. Nepal : 6

98. Moldova : 5

99. Peru : 5

100. Estonia : 5

101. Macau : 4

102. Northern Mariana Islands (USA) : 4

103. Nicaragua : 4

104. Albania : 3

105. Honduras : 3

106. Laos : 3

107. Ecuador : 3

108. Lesotho : 3

109. Ivory Coast : 3

110. Cayman Islands (UK) : 3

111. Haiti : 2

112. Fiji : 2

113. Mozambique : 2

114. Marshall Islands : 2

115. Sierra Leone : 2

116. Uruguay : 2

117. Bermuda (UK) : 2

118. Grenada : 2

119. Zambia : 2

120. Papua New Guinea : 2

121. Timor-Leste : 2

122. Martinique (France) : 2

123. Monaco : 2

124. Oman : 2

125. Turk and Caicos Islands (UK) : 2

126. Ethiopia : 2

127. Saint Lucia : 1

128. Guernsey (UK) : 1

129. Togo : 1

130. Iraq : 1

131. Belize : 1

132. Swaziland : 1

133. Iran : 1

134. Armenia : 1

135. French Polynesia (France) : 1

136. Dominica : 1

137. Greenland (Denmark) : 1

138. Macedonia : 1

139. Montenegro : 1

140. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines : 1

141. Libya : 1

142. Uzbekistan : 1

143. Isle of Man (UK) : 1

144. Paraguay : 1

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(Good Friday) Friday, 29 March 2013 : Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Week (Scripture Reflection)

Our Lord Jesus Christ had died for us, and we commemorate this fact on Good Friday every year. Why did He choose to die? and why did He choose to suffer? Surely God has His ways to rescue us from our sins without having Christ suffer humiliation, mockery, and death? Surely He can just cleanse us from our sins through another way?

No, this is not simply the case. When Adam and Eve, our forefathers, sinned by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, by obeying Satan and his wish that they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. they were tainted by the taint of evil and sin. Because of this, they were banished from the presence of the Lord, just as Satan was banished due to his pride and sin that originated in his heart. Because the Lord is so holy and perfect that no one who has sinned can stand in front of God, in His presence and live.

Therefore, there is a need to rescue mankind, who was created by God in His own image, and brought to life by His own Spirit in the breath of life. God said to Moses that, in order to alleviate one’s sins, in the Book of Leviticus, He prescribed the burnt offering of the lambs and goats, which were offered by the appointed Levite priests, who offered them to the Lord, and in this offering, the temporal sins that the people have, were cleansed. But yet, this kind of offering is not worthy enough to completely redeem us from our death and sin.

That is because the blood of these lambs and goats are mere mortal bloods insufficient as the payment for our rebellions and our sins. Only Blood worthy enough, that is the Blood of the Lamb of God, that is worthy for the forgiveness and the cleansing of all the sins of all mankind, once and for all. This blood sacrifice also reestablished the bonds that mankind had with God, lost when our forefathers disobeyed God and listened to Satan and his temptations instead.

The Blood of the Lamb is the Precious Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He freely poured down for us, just as the blood flowed down from the cross, and from his wounds. All of these wounds represent the reparations that Christ had paid for our sins and our faults. That through this holy and the only worthy blood, our defects that made us unworthy before God can be removed.

He washed us who believe in Him in His Blood, that we can once again be pure and as white as snow, just as said in the Psalm, but if we are truly repentant on our sins and sincerely seek the Lord and ask for His most gracious mercy.

Why today is called Good Friday? Because it is indeed a good day! We have to remember to put our faith constantly focused on the events that we commemorate on this day. For we are not Christians if we do not base ourselves on Christ, and we are not Christians if we do not believe in Christ who is not only glorified by God, but also was crucified on the cross, and who died a criminal’s death though He was sinless and faultless, all so that we ourselves can be freed from our sins, and have hope of a new life through Christ, who made all of this possible, hence today is a good day indeed.

He is the only one worthy of redeeming us from our faults, and out of His perfect and pure love for all of us, even for those who hated and rejected Him, He came to all of us, in our own mortal form, that through His mortality, and His life on this world, He could bring forth the full completion of the works of salvation God had begun with the prophets and since the days of Moses when He brought Israel out of Egypt, and even since the beginning of time.

Christ brought forth the commandments of love, that we are to love one another, just as He had loved us. He brought forth the perfect example of His own commandments, by laying down His life for all His friends, that is all of us. He humbled Himself and died on the cross, to die in humiliation that all of us can be glorified in Him, just as He was glorified in the glorious Resurrection, when God and mankind both triumphed in the ultimate struggle against evil, who first brought forth sin and taint on the first mankind.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us reflect, and reflect deeply on the humility that Christ had assumed, and in His great obedience to obey the will of His Father, that through His sacrifice, as the Lamb of God, brought without struggle to the slaughter that is the cross, and through the shedding of His Precious Blood, and the parting of His Precious Body, He had given salvation and life freely to us, if only we accept His precious gifts.

Therefore, let us pray that on this holy day, when Christ died for us, when He broke the chains of death and sin from us, that we can grow to love Him more and more, and be more and more courageous for the sake of our Lord crucified, and to continue preaching the good news on the Christ who was crucified but then was resurrected in triumph against sin and the evil one. When hope seemed lost, He turned a new chapter in life, through His resurrection.

Let us pray for one another, that the faith within us, will remain forever strong, and we will be able to carry our own crosses, alongside the cross of our Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God. Amen!

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(Good Friday) Friday, 29 March 2013 : Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, Holy Week (Second Reading)

Hebrews 4 : 14-16 – Hebrews 5 : 7-9

We have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God, who has entered heaven. Let us, then, hold fast to the faith we profess. Our High Priest is not indifferent to our weaknesses, for He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sinning. Let us, then, with confidence approach the throne of grace; we will obtain mercy and, through His favour, help in due time.

Christ, in the days of His mortal life, offered His sacrifice with tears and cries. He prayed to Him who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His humble submission. Although He was Son, He learnt through suffering what obedience was, and once made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for those who obey Him.