preaching the faith

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Sunday, 8 September 2019 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are called to reflect on the importance of trusting and putting our faith in the providence of God, and all of us are encouraged to discern more deeply about how we can be better disciples and followers of the Lord in our daily living. We are called to discern carefully what it truly means for us to be a disciple of Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

To be a disciple of Christ, which means as Christians, all of us must be willing and committed to accept the cross of Christ as He Himself mentioned to His disciples in our Gospel passage today, that those who follow Him must carry their crosses in life. This cross that they carry is the cross of suffering united to the cross of Christ’s suffering, on which He has borne all of our punishments for our sins and died for our sake.

Through all of these that God had spoken to us through His words in the Sacred Scripture today, God wants each and every one of us to know that following Him is not going to be something that can easily be done or something that will be all pleasant and good. In fact, the reality is such that to be a follower of Christ will often mean that we will endure the same kind of rejection and suffering that the Lord Himself has suffered.

And that is why He put it plainly before all of us without sugarcoating any of the details. He put it clearly and plainly that being His disciples will often lead us to be in difficulty, in moments of trials and challenges, in rejection and persecution, all of which will lead us to doubt, or question or even wanting to give up our faith entirely. But we must not give in to those temptations and pressures, and instead we must learn to put our trust in God.

In our second reading today, in the letter which St. Paul had written to Philemon, this servant of God addressed himself as a prisoner of Christ, which highlighted the plight and suffering that he was then going through as someone being persecuted for his faith and dedication to the Lord. St. Paul has endured a lot of trials and challenges throughout his ministry as an Apostle during his evangelising missions.

He has been rejected by many people just as there were many others who accepted him and listened to him and his message of God’s truth. He has been cast out of towns and cities, ridiculed and almost stoned to death, persecuted and almost killed by his enemies and those who despised the Lord and the Christian faith. He has been betrayed and made to suffer pains in the physical, mental and spiritual dimensions, and yet, he remained true to his faith.

And why is that so? That is because St. Paul united his sufferings and trials to the very sufferings of Christ. He did not carry his cross all alone by himself, or just by carrying them with some others. In fact, as I have mentioned earlier, he carried his cross in union with Christ Himself, knowing that for everything he had suffered, the Lord has suffered infinitely a lot more, having had to endure the punishments for all of our sins.

There were also many other saints and holy servants of God who have suffered in the same manner as St. Paul or even more. Throughout the history of the Church there had been countless men and women who endured willingly those many pains and sufferings in the defence and witnessing of their Christian faith. They committed themselves to God, again knowing that they carried out their crosses in their respective lives and circumstances being united with Christ’s own sufferings.

There must have been a lot of questions that would have arisen amidst all those sufferings. Just as is in our human nature, it is bound for us to doubt, or to question or to wonder why is it that we have to suffer in this world, especially as those who believe in God and considered as God’s own beloved ones. It is common for us to hear questions such as ‘Why is there suffering if God is so good and loving?’ or ‘Why does God let His people suffer if He loves us all so much?’

This is where then we need to understand first and foremost why we have to suffer and carry our crosses in life as we follow the Lord in His path. Our sufferings come about because of the abuse of human freedom and our own stubbornness in refusing to listen to and to accept God’s truth. All of us are all beloved by God, every single one of us without any exception. Thus, by that nature, all of us ought to enjoy God’s full grace and love for eternity as He has intended.

Unfortunately, because we refuse to obey Him and chose freely to embrace the tempting fruits of sin and wickedness that Satan has presented to us, that we become corrupted and attached to those sins and temptations. And therefore suffering comes because we willingly chose to abandon God’s fullness of grace, love and providence, and preferred to walk down our own path to ruination. We chose the path of sin and disobedience and in doing so, we become reluctant to follow the Lord.

That is also why those who remained in sin and refused to believe in the Lord ended up persecuting their brethren who chose to believe in God. They refused to listen to the truth often because the truth pointed out to the defects and what are lacking in their hearts. Their pride and ego, their greed and desire for acknowledgment and superiority and unwillingness to let go of those negative things led them to persecute those who believe in the truth, that is us as Christians.

But, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where then each and every one of us must truly contemplate what we should be doing with our lives from now on. Again in our Gospel reading passage today, God spoke to the people with regards to a parable He chose to portray and deliver His message to them. He spoke of a person building a house who ought to be thinking of what would be needed in order to build the house and complete it thoroughly or else, the house cannot be completed and the builder would be shamed.

Similarly then, the Lord spoke using the example of a king who was about to go into war with another king, who ought to discern and examine carefully the prospects of victory before engaging each other in battle. Essentially, using these two examples, the Lord wants us to discern carefully on our own respective lives as well, given that He has presented to us the truth of everything, and how each and every one of us have been given the free will to choose between following Him or to follow the path of the devil and the world.

Following God, as I have mentioned earlier, will often mean for us to suffer and to have to endure difficulties and challenges for His sake. Of course the extent of sufferings, trials and challenges will be different for each and every one of us, and no two same people will encounter the exact same conditions and sufferings as each other. Nonetheless, it is a fact and reality that the path that we have to take as faithful Christians will be an uphill one.

On the other hand, it is often so much easier for us to take the other path, that is the path of disobedience and sin, the path which Satan and his fallen angels, our tempters have presented to us all the time. This path is likely to be much more appealing and enticing to us than the path that God has shown us. Yet, the Lord also made it very clear and had revealed to us, that those who choose the path of sin and willingly and constantly going down that path has nowhere else to go but the damnation in hell, while those who persevered in the path of faith will receive the eternal and true glory of God.

Now, all of us have been given the wisdom and the ability to discern carefully what our course of action in life should be, that we have known what the two possible ultimate outcomes are. But a lot of times, we end up being distracted and fall into indecisiveness because we tend to worry, be concerned about ourselves and our worldly well-being, about being accepted by others and by the community.

This is where our first reading passage today from the Book of Wisdom should enlighten us and help us in our decision, as it was mentioned there that ‘our human reasoning is timid and our notions are misleading’ and how our ‘physical body weighs down on the active mind’. All of them reminds us of our own mortality and our own vulnerability to the temptations of the body and the flesh, the weakness of our body that become obstacles in our journey of faith.

That is why, because of our own weaknesses and inability to understand many things around us that we have to learn to put our trust in God and to focus our whole attention and our whole being on Him. The more we try to comprehend things or make decisions by considering all the concerns and thoughts we have, the more we will be confused and easily be trapped by the devil and his snares.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us all pray and spend more time building a healthy and good relationship with God from now on, and trust in Him with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, knowing that He has provided us with everything that we need, and despite the sufferings, trials and challenges we may encounter in life, let us remember that He Himself has endured those same sufferings and worse, all for the love He has for each and every one of us.

Let us all therefore spend this time and moment to grow ever stronger in our faith, and to walk ever more faithfully in the path towards God. Let us be ever closer to God with each and every passing moment. May the Lord continue to guide us and journey with us, as we strive to carry up our crosses with Him, entrusting ourselves completely in His hands. May God bless us all and all of our good works and endeavours. Amen.

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Saturday, 7 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of God speaking to us about the need for us to understand fully what God has intended for us through what He has given to us and through what He has done for us all these while. We must not lose focus on what is important just because we are distracted in life by the many temptations and distractions present all around us.

In our Gospel passage today we heard of the encounter and the disagreement between the Lord Jesus and those Pharisees and teachers of the Law who followed Him and questioned Him and His disciples along the way, doubting and refusing to believe in what He has done and in what He has taught the people. And in today’s passage, the focus was on the matter of the Law of the Sabbath.

For the context, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were those who preserved the customs and practices of the Law of Israel, educated and intellectual, and also strove to impose strictly the laws and rules of the Law to the people of God. They were very particular on how the rules and the precepts were to be observed and they took great pride in themselves being supposedly the role models for the people that they showed off their piety publicly.

But the Lord pointed out to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law when they criticised the actions of His disciples which supposedly broke the strict provisions of the Law, in particular the law of the Sabbath when they picked grains of wheat in a field as they were all hungry at that time. The true purpose of the Sabbath law has been forgotten by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who saw the Sabbath law as merely a letter of law to be obeyed.

In fact, the Sabbath day was meant to be a day kept holy for God, as He Himself revealed in the Ten Commandments, in the third of the ten commandments, ‘Keep holy the day of the Lord’. And the intention of the Sabbath was to remind God’s people that they are truly obliged to spend time for their Lord and Master, and to focus themselves and reorientate themselves from time to time especially when they have been led astray.

The Sabbath day was meant to allow the people to stop themselves from being overly busy and preoccupied, which was easily the case when the people were busy with their daily work, their daily pursuit for worldly glory and power, for fame and influence, for glory and satisfactions of the world, which prevented them from truly being able to focus their attention and hearts on God.

And that is why even in the Church, we have always kept the day of the Lord, the Sundays to be sacred, in the same spirit as how the Sabbath day had been kept sacred. But we must be very clear with the intention and purpose of the rules and regulations pertaining to this because just as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done, they misunderstood that the Sabbath was not meant to restrain the people of God with rules and strict ordinances, but rather to redirect them towards God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remind ourselves that God truly is the focus and the heart of all of our actions, words and deeds. Let us all not be distracted by other things and by all those obstacles that try to keep us away from God. Let us all turn towards God wholeheartedly from now on and seek to glorify Him through our every actions, and grow ever stronger in our faith and dedication towards Him, each and every days of our lives. Amen.

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Friday, 6 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us of the importance of following and putting our trust in God in everything, for He is the very reason of our existence and our lives, and He is the One through Whom everything is made possible for us. God is the centre of our lives, whether we realise it or not, and He is the Head of the Church as mentioned in our first reading today.

As St. Paul made it clear in his Epistle to the Colossians, Christ is the Head of the Church, which is His Body, composed of all of us God’s faithful people brought together and united by the common virtue of our Baptism. Through baptism we have been made the members of this Church and are united in Communion with one another, sharing the grace of God which He had given us all through Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

And because of this, we have all been called into a new way of life, a path that God Himself has shown us, to leave behind our old, sinful and wicked way of life and embrace fully His truth and love. And this is made even clearer through what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in the famous parable that the Lord taught His disciples, the parable of the new and old cloths with their respective new and old patches, and new and old wineskins with the new and old wine.

In that parable, the new and old cloths, as well as the new and old patches, and the wine and wineskins represent our way of life at present and the way that the Lord has shown us. And when I am speaking about our way of life, it is about the way of life as how we commonly know it, as how the world always shows us, and not the way that God wants us to take in our lives. And from what we have heard in the parable, the two ways are not compatible with each other.

The Lord used the parable to bring forth this point clearly to the people, showing that old things cannot be matched with the new or else both items will be spoilt or destroyed. Similarly therefore, the path that the Lord has shown us and which all of us Christians ought to follow is not compatible with the way of life as we commonly know it in this world today. And God is calling on us to turn away from our sinfulness and to embrace His ways.

But are we willing and able to make that commitment, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we committed to walk down the path that God has led us into, or are we instead more comfortable in being distracted by the many temptations present in the world today, all sorts of temptations that have kept us away from God and His path? Are we able to make the sacrifices and take the efforts needed to follow Christ with all of our strength?

Let us all discern carefully our path forward in life, thinking of what we can do in order to serve God with ever more faith and commitment from now on. God has given us all the means for us to follow Him, and now what we need is just the change in our heart and mind, in our orientation and focus as what we have heard in the parable of the Lord, that a new wine needs a new wineskin, and a new cloth piece is needed to patch a new cloth.

It means that each and every one of us need to turn towards God with all of our hearts and minds, and we need to make Him the very purpose and heart of our every words, actions and deeds from now on. Let us no longer be distracted and tempted by all sorts of worldly temptations, of greed for worldly power, for fame and wealth, and for all sorts of things that often mislead us from the path of God’s righteousness. Let us all be truly faithful and be genuine in our love for God from now on, just as He Himself has loved us all with all of His loving heart all these while. Amen.

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Thursday, 5 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Teresa of Kolkata, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Religious)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day each and every one of us are reminded of our calling as Christians to be involved and to be active in the works and the missions of the Church, in our respective capacities and in whatever way that God has called us to. For God has given each and every one of us distinct and unique gifts and blessings that we can use to glorify God and to serve Him.

However, unfortunately, more often than not, we are reluctant to make good use of the gifts and talents, the abilities and blessings which God has given to each and every one of us. We even ended up misusing them and abusing the gifts and blessings that God has granted us. We often find excuses and reasons how we can avoid our responsibilities and duties as what the Lord has entrusted to us all as Christians.

We are often too preoccupied and too busy with worldly matters that we fail to recognise God’s calling and His words speaking in the depths of our hearts and minds. Our busy schedules, our many concerns and desires in life, our preoccupations prevented us from opening ourselves to God and from listening to the words that He wants each and every one of us to hear and to know. That is why we ended up going down the wrong path in life and making the wrong choices and decisions.

Today, in the Gospel passage we have heard, we listened to the story of the Lord Jesus and His disciples, who were at the Lake of Gennesaret. While the Lord was speaking to the people and taught them, the disciples went fishing on a boat and they did not manage to catch any fish all night long. The Lord came to them and spoke with them, asking them to put out their nets into the deep waters that they would be able to catch the fishes.

Initially, the disciples hesitated and asked the Lord, as they had not caught any fish during the entirety of the night. Thus perhaps they had doubts that they would be able to catch anything if at all if they listened to the Lord and did what He had asked them to do. They obeyed eventually regardless and as soon as they did what the Lord had asked, they caught so many fishes that the nets almost broke.

Through what the Lord has revealed to His disciples, we are therefore reminded of the primary mission that God has entrusted to His Church, and that is the salvation of souls, the souls of mankind, all those who have lived in the darkness of this world, the corruption of sin and the ignorance of God. Those fishes in fact symbolise the people of God and the lake represents the world we are all living in today.

The disciples on the boat represent all of us Christians whom God had called from this world to be His followers and disciples. The boat they were in represents the Church, into which all the people who believe in God are gathered in. That is why the Lord called His disciples to be the ‘fishers of men’, as they were tasked to gather all of God’s people and call them to the salvation through faith and through the Church.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, what is the significance of today’s Scripture readings and what we have discussed thus far? It is the need for us all to realise that as God’s people, as Christians, all of us have also been entrusted by God with the same mission that He has provided for us, the evangelisation and conversion of the world. And just as the disciples listened to the Lord and put out into the deep waters, it is often that we too must ‘put out into the deep’.

What does it mean? It means that often we may have to make sacrifices and extra effort in serving the Lord and in doing what we are supposed to do as Christians, in reaching out to others and all those whom we care for, in how we live our lives with faith and following the examples of the saints. It means that we may have to suffer and endure difficulties along the way, and we may have many obstacles that we will have to overcome.

Today, we also celebrate the feast of a great and renowned saint of recent years whose life certainly embodies this attitude. I am sure we are familiar with St. Teresa of Kolkata, known well as Mother Teresa during her life. Born as an Albanian Catholic by the name of Agnes Bojaxhiu, St. Teresa of Kolkata heard the calling of God and joined the religious life early in her life and went on to India as part of her mission.

And while initially she had a comfortable life as a religious and educator in a missionary run school, she was called to a higher and greater purpose when the terrible poverty being present in the city of Calcutta (or Kolkata) moved her to establish a new religious congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, of those who also want to dedicate themselves to the care of the least fortunate, the least privileged, the ostracised and those who had none to love them.

We have heard how St. Teresa of Kolkata reached out to many of the poorest, those who suffered grievously and treated in many ways less than how a human ought to be treated, and returned human dignity to them in how she cared for them and provided for them. St. Teresa of Kolkata showed us all how she truly lived out her faith in her life, and evangelise the faith through real and concrete actions.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to follow in the footsteps of St. Teresa of Kolkata and many other saints who have shown such great faith and sincerity in following God throughout their lives? Are we able to listen to God and His calling, in how He shows us the path forward that we should take in living our lives with faith? Let us all truly ‘put out into the deep’ and be truly faithful in all things, and do our very best with all of our hearts and with all of our strength to serve God and to love our brethren from now on.

May the Lord continue to guide us and may He bless all of our good works and endeavours, that by our witnesses for our faith and by the sincerity of our words and actions, many more come to believe in God and receive His salvation. Amen.

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Wednesday, 4 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded yet again of God’s ever-present and wonderful love for each and every one of us, by what He has done for our sake, in giving us the means for our salvation through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. In our Gospel passage today we continue to hear the works of the Lord and His disciples as He healed many people with various sicknesses and cast out demons from those who were possessed.

Through what we have heard and learnt in our Scripture readings today, we have heard the love which the Lord has brought into this world, by what He has done and by what He has revealed and taught to us through His disciples and through the Church. It is truly a fulfilment of God’s many promises and the wonders He has given us all as our promised inheritance, all of us who are faithful to Him.

He ministered to the people and cared for them, in their physical and spiritual well-being, healing those who were sick and casting out evil spirits from those who were possessed. And in another occasion of His ministry not covered in today’s Gospel passage, He fed five thousand men and countless other women and children, and four thousand in yet another occasion when all those people who followed Him were hungry.

We have seen therefore how God loved us all so much, that His love became evident and real in our midst, because He Himself has entered into our world and become the very personification of perfect Love. God loves each and every one of us so much that He gave us nothing less than His own Beloved Son, Whom He had made to be our Saviour. By His ultimate sacrifice of love, made out of perfect obedience to the will of His Father, Christ saved us.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, what then is the significance of what we have heard in our Scripture passages today? It is the fact that each and every one of us have been called to be the disciples and followers of Our Lord by our faith in Him. And if we truly have genuine faith in Him and profess our love for Him, then we ought to walk in the path which He has set before us, in following Him and His examples.

What it means is that, in our world today, there are so many opportunities for us to reach out to many more people who have not yet heard about Christ and His salvation, and those who are still living in the darkness of sin and ignorance, and also all those who hunger for the truth of God, and also many of those who are suffering and less privileged, those who are oppressed, ostracised and rejected by the society.

When we look at the examples of what the Lord has done throughout His ministry, His ever loving presence and actions, His constant effort to love us all, by serving His beloved ones, caring for them and providing for their needs, therefore, we are all as part of the one and same Church of God have to support the many works and missions of the Church, which are truly expansive and ever growing.

Are we able to dedicate and commit our time, effort and good works for the glory of God through His Church? Are we able to work together to be witnesses of our faith through our every words, actions and efforts, done out of love for God and for our fellow men? Are we able to give our best in serving the Lord through our service to those who are suffering, those who hunger for God’s truth and those who have no one to love them?

Let us all discern our paths in life carefully, and let us turn to Him, putting our complete trust in Him and following Him in loving our brothers and sisters and in being part of the missionary and evangelical ministry of the Church from now on. May the Lord be our strength and may He also bless us all in our every endeavours. Amen.

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Tuesday, 3 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we are reminded through what we have heard from the Sacred Scriptures that we all need to escape from the darkness present in this world, and find the true Light and salvation that can be found in God alone. For too long we have dwelled in the darkness and God has come to us to free us from this darkness and bring us into the light.

The Lord blesses us all and protects us because of His great love for us. He does not want us to be destroyed and be condemned because of the darkness that are all around us. He is always ever vigilant in watching over us and in being concerned with us. And that was why He sent us His Saviour, His own beloved Son to us in the first place. If He did not love us as He does, then He would not have done whatever He had done for our sake.

I am referring to His work and ministry among us, how He went about from places to places to save His people and deliver them from the darkness of their sins, ministering and caring for them and their needs. In our Gospel passage today we heard about how He taught among the people in Capernaum in the synagogue and then healed a man who was tormented and possessed by evil spirits, casting those demons out of him.

He showed all the people that He has power and authority over all things, including even over the evil spirits, who had to obey Him and get out of the man they possessed when He commanded them to do so. He is the One Whom every being on earth, in heaven, in hell and indeed in all places and in all creation had to obey and bend to knee to worship, even Satan and all of his allies, the fallen angels and demons.

All of these forces are trying their best to bring about our downfall, striking at us constantly with temptations and efforts to turn us away from God and leading us down the path of sin. But what the Lord intends with us has been made clear as St. Paul wrote it in his Epistle to the Thessalonians in our first reading passage today, as he said that “God has not willed us to be condemned, but to gain salvation, through Christ Jesus, Our Lord.”

Through what the Lord has done, we can see just how much He truly loves each and every one of us without exception, as we are after all, His most precious and beloved creations. He did not go through so much suffering on the Cross for no reason, and that reason that He loves us all and wants us to be reconciled completely with Him is good enough for Him to bear and endure the burden of our sins and to suffer and die for our sake and for our salvation.

Yet, unfortunately, the sad reality is such that even though God truly loves us all and desires nothing but our liberation and salvation from certain destruction, but it is often that we mankind refuse to accept His generous offer of mercy and love, His compassion and willingness to reach out to us, to heal us and to make us whole again. We are often tempted and swayed by our desires and by all the worldly things present all around us, our busy schedules and preoccupations with them that prevented us from truly loving and knowing God as we should.

Today perhaps all of us should look at the example set by a holy man of God, whose feast we celebrate, namely Pope St. Gregory the Great, a great and holy servant of God, dedicated and ever committed to the service of God. Pope St. Gregory the Great was remembered for his many contributions to the Church, in the vigorous reforms he carried out, in his works of evangelisation, most prominently by sending St. Augustine of Canterbury to re-establish the Church in England among many others.

Pope St. Gregory the Great truly loved God and devoted himself to the many works to bring greater glory to His Name, in allowing the Church to grow even more and in stabilising the foundations of the Church, strengthening the leadership and rooting out corruptions and heresies from within the Church. He was also credited with the reforms in the Church music for worship, which eventually led to the famous Gregorian chants being named after him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we can see just how much this holy servant of God dedicated himself to God, each and every moments of his life. Now, are we able to do the same with our own lives? Can we be inspired to do what Pope St. Gregory the Great had done with his own life, a life of total service and commitment to God? Let us all learn to resist the many temptations present in our lives, and resist the allure and distractions of our busy life in this world.

Instead, let us all turn towards God, in our hearts, minds and indeed, in our whole being, that we are no longer being distracted by those thoughts and distractions, of worldly ambitions, pride, greed and vainglory. Let us instead be true Christians, true disciples of the Lord from now on, knowing just how much He has loved us all, all these while. Let us all love Him dearly in the same way He has loved us from the Cross, giving our whole lives to

Him just as He has given everything to us. Amen.

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Monday, 2 September 2019 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are reminded to be faithful to God and to put all of our hope in Him, trusting in Him completely as the one and only source of our salvation, the very reason for our existence and the true Light through Whom we shall be freed from the darkness of our lives and by Whom we shall enter into the glorious kingdom of His heavenly glory.

In our first reading today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the city of Thessalonica reassured them all that God would always be with them, and trusting in God would bring them eventual happiness and glory, as the Lord will reward all those who remain true and faithful to Him, and even in suffering and death, God will always be with His beloved ones. The promise of resurrection and eternal life in God is mentioned in the same passage to reassure all the people of God.

And that is important because at that time, in the earliest days of the Church, even as more and more people came to believe in God, there were increasingly more and more tensions within the community as those who refused to believe in God persecuted and rejected those who have accepted the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. As a result, some among the faithful were wavering in their faith in the face of opposition and persecution.

Then, as we also heard in the Gospel passage today, all of us are reminded that just as Christians have been persecuted for their faith all throughout time and ages, we must not forget that first and foremost, the Lord Himself, Our Lord and Master have been rejected first, persecuted first and made to suffer, ultimately leading to His sacrifice and most painful death on the Cross, by which He saved us all and brought the fulfilment of all of God’s promises.

In that occasion, as the Lord Jesus returned to His hometown of Nazareth in Galilee, He preached the word of God, as prophesied through His prophet Isaiah about the coming of God’s salvation through His Messiah, and how, at that very moment, the salvation of God was revealed for Jesus Himself was finally already in our midst. He is the fulfilment of God’s many promises to us, and which He had shown and proven to us through what He has performed while He walked on this earth.

However, as the passage continued on, many among His own townspeople rejected Him and refused to believe in Him. They must have thought that just because they knew Him and His family, the family of a humble and likely poor carpenter, then the Lord Jesus could not have been the One for Whom they have been waiting for. They judged Him and became prejudiced against Him, preferring to believe in themselves rather than God.

And the Lord showed them all how they were doing exactly what their own ancestors had done when those people struck at the prophets of God, rejecting them and refusing to believe in them, even though they brought with them the truth and wisdom of God. And the Lord Himself received the greatest rejection of all, in the end, when on the moment of His Passion, they condemned Him to die, death on the Cross.

Yet, the Lord continues to love us all regardless, despite all of our sins, our stubbornness and persistent refusal to believe in Him. He is ever faithful to the Covenant which He had made with us and sealed by His own Most Precious Blood on the Cross at Calvary. The Lord wants us all to be saved, and He wants us all to put our trust in Him, because after all, He has loved us so much that He willingly endured all the sufferings for our sake, for our salvation.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we able to dedicate ourselves and commit ourselves to God fully from now on? Are we willing and wanting to love Him all the more for the way He has loved us and cared for us all these while and for securing for us the path to eternal life and glory with Him? Let us all discern this carefully in our hearts and let us all truly turn to Him wholeheartedly from now onwards. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 September 2019 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we are contemplating on a topic which many of us often find difficult to practice in our daily lives and as Christians, especially in this world which is often filled with many temptations and desires that prevent us from practicing this very important. Christian virtue that can lead us to be closer to God. And what is this virtue, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is humility.

Humility is something that we often profess to have and preach as Christians. We always like to say that we have humility in us, and yet, very often and more than not, we do not practice humility in our daily lives, and we do not act humbly in how we interact with one another and in how we utter our words and in reaching out to others. On the contrary, we are often tempted by the pride within us, and acted with ego, pride and arrogance.

In our Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus Himself presented to us what is the problem with ourselves in how we act in our daily living. He mentioned how people often jostled and even fought over the places of honour in events and banquets, seeking places of greater honour and exposure, so that one may gain more prestige or satisfaction from having a position of greater honour and esteem than that of another person.

And yet, as the Lord Himself said, there will always be bound to be others who have greater esteem and honour than us, and it is bound that we will be displaced by another who is of greater rank and honour than us, and as Our Lord said, those who want to glorify and honour themselves will end up being humiliated and dejected of having been asked to step aside for those with greater power and honour.

In the end, for all of our pursuits of glory, power, fame and influence, what do we all gain, brothers and sisters in Christ? We gain nothing, and indeed, we end up losing as Satan will have a great time trying to persuade us to take revenge and be angry, to be jealous with one another and to strive to be more powerful and more famous than another person. We spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves more beautiful or handsome, more attractive and more acceptable to others as a result.

In fact, we also cause a lot of sufferings to one another because of our pride and our greed, our inability to resist the many temptations of power, of glory, of fame, of wealth and worldly pleasures. Many conflicts and wars have been caused by the insatiable desires of man who desired more power, more prestige, more wealth and everything else that often corrupted us mankind into the path of sin and wickedness.

The Lord has given us many blessings and good things in life, and yet we mankind are always hard to be satisfied. In truth, we will never be satisfied as long as we try to seek satisfaction in all these worldly things, in all the glory and wealth and riches of the world. The Lord has blessed us with what we need but we seek more than what we need and succumb to the temptations of the flesh, and we therefore fell into sin.

Today, all of us are called as Christians to look deep into our own lives and reflect on every actions, words and deeds we have done and spoken all these while. We are called to contemplate on how we have lived our lives thus far, and most importantly, whether we have truly put God at the very heart and centre of our whole being, and as the whole reason and purpose of our every words, actions and deeds.

Surely, more often than not, as we have discussed just earlier, we have lapsed from this path and fell into the path of pride, the path of greed and the path of sin. We fell into this state because we are weak in the flesh, and temptations are always plenty all around us. And unless we take the concrete action and efforts to resist those temptations and grow stronger in our relationship with God, we will likely end up continuing down this slippery path towards damnation.

Now, let us look at the impetus for all these temptations and for all the wickedness we have committed. In truth, everything leads to one thing, and that is pride or ego. Pride and ego is the greatest and most serious of all forms of sins, just as Satan himself was once the most brilliant and greatest among the Angels of God who was tempted by pride and fell from grace, and ended up in perpetual rebellion against God because of that same pride.

Similarly, pride has entered into our hearts and minds, corrupting our whole being and pushing us deeper towards sin. Pride is the source of all other sins, just as greed and gluttony comes about because of our own pride and ego, that desire to satisfy ourselves and our ego, sloth and lust that come about because of the same desire and want to please ourselves and gain things for ourselves, often at the cost and suffering of others, and many others.

That is why pride and ego are such dangerous enemies that we constantly have within ourselves, which become a great obstacle to us in our journey of faith towards God. How do we then resolve or counter this? The answer lies in what we have discussed earlier today and throughout today’s Scripture readings. It is humility that is the greatest weapon we have in our constant battle against pride and ego within us.

And the Lord wants us all to grow deeper in this humility, a most difficult and rarest of all Christian virtues in my opinion, as it is always very difficult for us to go up against our pride and ego, the ambition and arrogance and the selfishness that are present within us. But humility can be cultivated and it can grow within us, brothers and sisters in Christ, if only that we make the conscious effort to grow in humility and in our relationship and faith in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remember what the prophet Sirach mentioned in our first reading passage today, that the greater we become, the more humble we should be, and how we should submit ourselves to the power of God and not seek for things beyond our means, or as I have mentioned, causing even suffering and pain to others in our endless pursuits for power, glory, fame and worldly things.

Then, in the second reading today, I want all of us to remember what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews pointed out in the passage, that God truly is great and Almighty, far beyond our comprehension, full of power and glory. In how God was shown as the Lord of lords, King of kings, with innumerable Angels glorifying and serving Him, the Master and Lord of all the universe, it serves to remind us all, that no matter how great we are, how glorious we are, how famous and powerful we may be in this world, we are truly nothing before the Lord.

Therefore, for all our pursuits for more power, fame, influence, glory and all worldly things, all of these are truly meaningless and futile because after all, we must realise that all these things do not last, and will not last into eternity. These are the treasures of this world that the Lord has told us to be false treasures, as distractions for us in our pursuit for the true treasure, which is truly found in God alone.

Today, henceforth, all of us as Christians, we are all called to be more humble in our lives and in how we act, in how we interact with one another, in how we live out our lives in this world today. And even more importantly, humility is something very important that we must have in today’s world, especially because today we also mark the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

On this day, we remember our roles as the Lord’s stewards of creation, which means that this world we are living in today, we have been entrusted to its care, just as God entrusted the world in the very first chapters of the Book of Genesis to the first men, the whole world with all of its living creatures and the whole earth itself to our care. And this is truly a very great responsibility for us all to bear.

In this regard, we need to be humble in knowing how God has entrusted with this great responsibility and duty, because He trusts us all to perform our responsibility with the best of our abilities, making use of the many gifts and talents that He has provided us with. Instead of exploiting and bringing harm to this world by our ego, by our greed and insatiable desire for wealth and worldly glory, why don’t we love what God has created for us instead?

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, from now on let us all be truly devoted to God in all things and strive to be faithful always to Him, and show our faith and dedication through our every words, actions and deeds. Let us all be filled with humility in every actions, knowing that we are truly nothing without God, and all the glory and the wonders of this world are nothing and meaningless if we are not in God’s loving grace.

May the Lord continue to bless us all with His love and tender compassion, and may He grant us all the strength and conviction to live our lives faithfully from now on, with all humility and resisting the many temptations of this world, especially that of pride within our hearts. May the Lord bless us all and our good works, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Saturday, 31 August 2019 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day the Lord continues to remind us all through the words of the Sacred Scriptures of the need for us to be truly faithful to Him, not just by formality or by empty faith, but through genuine commitment and dedication, through our very actions and deeds, our efforts and all that we do in our daily living that we are truly being faithful to God in all things.

In our Gospel passage today, the Lord spoke of the parable of the silver talents in which He spoke of a master who entrusted part of his properties to his servants, giving them varying amounts of silver talents to be made use of and invested so that when he returned from his travel abroad, he could gain back the investment with much returns from the efforts of his servants.

And we saw how the servants who were given five and two silver talents each made use of the wealth entrusted to them and invested them until their master’s return, when they could return him the original five and two silver talents and doubled the original investment. The master was pleased and entrusted them with even more things. And the servant who had one silver talent and hid his silver talent was rebuked by the master for his laziness and unwillingness to make use of his entrusted wealth.

What is the significance of all of these, brothers and sisters in Christ? The silver talents in fact represent the many gifts, talents, abilities, blessings and wonders that God had granted to us all mankind, each one of us having been given unique gifts from God. But many of us have not realised or appreciated these wonderful gifts and in fact many of us even made use of the gifts and blessings in the wrong way.

Take for example the many sufferings present in our world today. Many of us suffer because we have misused the gifts and the talents we have received, in order to satisfy our own selfish desires, our own greed and wants for more of this world’s goods and temptations. Those with power and wealth, influence and achievements became greedy and filled with desire for more of what they already have, and instead of doing what the Lord has asked them to do, they chose to follow their own way, much like what the lazy servant had done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we must be aware that as Christians, meaning as those whom the Lord had called to be His own and that by our faith we have taken Him as Our Lord and Saviour, we have been entrusted by God with responsibilities and duties over His creation, that is over this world in various capacities. Each and every one of us are stewards of God’s creation, and at the same time we are also charged with the care of one another, our fellow brothers and sisters in faith.

Are we able then to live our lives with good responsibility in our every actions, words and deeds then, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we able to put our effort to be exemplary in our respective capacities and callings in life, and do whatever we can within our power and ability to serve God to the best of our abilities, and do all within our power to bring greater glory to God and to serve Him with love.

Let us all be true and devout Christians from now on, and be inspiration for one another in how we live our faith life. May the Lord continue to guide us through this journey of life, and may He strengthen our resolve and give us the courage and perseverance to endure the difficult challenges we may face, the many temptations that we have to endure, and may He bless all of our good endeavours and works for the greater glory of His Name. Amen.

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Friday, 30 August 2019 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us and reminding us the importance for us to be ever prepared and ever ready for the Lord, whenever it is and not to take our lives and the many opportunities which God has given us for granted. The Lord has blessed us with numerous chances and opportunities, wanting us all to find our way to Him, and be reconciled with Him fully.

However, many of us chose to remain indifferent and obstinate, refusing to believe in God and in the love and mercy which He has generously given to us, and despite all the reminders which we have received all these while. We gave in to our temptations and to the many allures of the devil and the fallen angels, leading us to be complacent in life and in continuing to live in the state of sin all these while.

And that is why the Lord is reminding us through today’s Gospel passage, when He Himself told His disciples to be prepared and be wise as the five women in the parable He chose to teach them with, the five bridesmaids who were prepared with extra oil for their lamps that when the groom was held up in coming, they still had enough oil for their lamps and unlike the five other bridesmaids who did not prepare beforehand and were caught off-guard.

This parable in fact is a very important reminder to each and every one of us, as the bridesmaids truly represent all of us mankind who are awaiting the coming of the bridegroom, which is none other than Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. In the Book of Revelation of St. John the Apostle, God Himself made it very clear that He will come back and claim us all, and He is depicted as the Lamb of God, the Bridegroom of the Church, the bride of the Lamb of God.

And He will come again as He has said, as certain as it can be. However, the timing of His coming will be most unpredictable and most uncertain as it can be uncertain. No one in this world know of the exact moment of His coming, and the Lord Himself had said that the moment will catch many by total surprise and it will end up being too late for those who have always tarried and delayed, and refused to do what they should have done.

How should we all prepare ourselves then, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is by heeding what St. Paul had written to the Church and the faithful in the city of Thessalonica, in which he urged the people to live righteously and to devote themselves to God to the best of their abilities, to follow God’s ways and to walk in His path following what He has taught them and revealed to them through the Holy Spirit.

And the same calling therefore has been made to all of us, to follow God’s path and to obey His will, to listen to Him and to dedicate ourselves to Him as best as we are able to. The Lord has taught us and revealed to us what we should do, as He has passed it on to us through His Church, and therefore, we should follow the teachings of the Church and do our very best to live our lives as how He has taught us.

Let us not wait any longer and be complacent in our lives, but instead be ever vigilant and sincere in living our lives with faith. Let our every actions, our every words, deeds and interactions with one another be filled with true faith, with genuine love for God and with true love for our fellow brothers and sisters, showing care, compassion and concern for all those who are needy and who are suffering.

May the Lord, our loving God, He Who has promised to come again to be reunited perfectly with us, show us His love always, and may He strengthen us all to be able to live courageously in His presence with faith, now and always. Amen.