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Thursday, 18 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflection)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we see the truth behind the love that God has for all of us. He is a Father to all of us, for He had created us all. And just as all fathers love their children, therefore, He too loves all of us, and even more than fathers do love their children. And He will not abandon His children in times of need, but He will succour us and protect us from everlasting harm.

And Jesus in the Gospel today made clear of this fact, that God will care for His children well, and He will not bring them to harm or bring them into trouble. If we only would ask when we are in trouble, and sincerely opening ourselves and our hearts to Him, then He will succour us and help us for sure. If we seek Him and try to find help in Him, then help will be given to us.

In the first reading today, we heard about the Queen Esther of Persia, a Jew who became the queen of the Persian Emperor, at the time when the enemies of the people of God were trying to bring about their destruction. The people of Israel were in very dire straits indeed, as the order of death and destruction had been placed on them, under the laws of the Persians and the Medians, which could not be revoked, and the enemies of the Lord and His people were then rejoicing for the coming destruction of Israel.

Therefore, at that time, Queen Esther sought the help of the Lord, praying and seeking His divine protection, beseeching the love which God has for His people and begging for Him to intercede for their sake, in tears and in in humble supplications, in mourning and in sorrow, and the Lord heard the prayers of Esther and the people of Israel, doomed to death and destruction, and yet God Who loved them would not let that fate to befall them.

How are these relevant to us, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is very relevant as all of us in our own respective lives on earth, and as we continue living on in this world, we all have our own troubles, difficulties, challenges and obstacles. And we all have no one better to turn to in case of difficulties, than our Lord Himself. He is the only One Who shall not abandon us in times of difficulties. Friends and even families may abandon us, but not God.

And yet there is one thing that all of us need to remember and take note of, and that is the need for us to reach out to the Lord, to be proactive, seeking Him, asking Him and finding Him, and we should not forget that while we must humble ourselves before Him, but we should not be afraid to approach Him, as He loves us all, and there is nothing worse than us being lost just because we are afraid to bring about God’s anger if we seek Him.

This season of Lent is the perfect time and moment for our conversion and for our renewal. Let us draw closer to God, and let us be courageous to speak to Him and to ask Him for His mercy and help, but at the same time, let us all also be committed fully to change ourselves for the better, abandoning our sinful ways and finding our way to the Lord. Let us all be saved and be freed from our sins, and find our way to the Lord, our loving God and Father. Amen.

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Wednesday, 17 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent, Memorial of the Seven Holy Founders of the Servite Order (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the story from the prophet Jonah, where he was sent to the city and to the people of Nineveh, the great city and capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire, the world superpower at the time. The Assyrians conquered many nations, and they enslaved many of the peoples around them, and they grew mighty and proud with their achievements.

But the Lord knew of their pride and haughtiness, and he sent Jonah to them to warn them of their impending destruction because of whatever sins and wickedness that they have committed. And the prophet Jonah did just as what he was told to do, and preached the word of God to the people of Nineveh. He told them that catastrophe and destruction would soon come to claim the whole city and all who dwelled in it.

What was remarkable and noteworthy was how the people of Nineveh, from the king and the greatest nobles, to the humblest and the smallest of the people, all turned from their evil ways and repented, hoping that God would spare them the destruction He had intended for them. And so sincere was their desire to repent and to change their wicked ways, that God had mercy on them, forgave them and gave them a new chance.

God did not carry out the sentence which had been intended for them, and He spared them from the destruction which He had designed on them because of their repentance, and He had mercy on them. God forgave them their sins as an example to all mankind, that if they too, are to turn their back to the sins and wickedness of their past, they have a chance at salvation and redemption in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Lord Jesus Christ rebuked the people in our Gospel today, and chided particularly the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law because of their refusal to believe in what the Lord Jesus Himself had come into this world to reveal to them, and despite all the good things and the miraculous wonders He had performed before their very own eyes.

And the people of Nineveh who did not even see what Jesus or what God Himself had done, and they neither saw anything performed by Jonah, as it was not mentioned that Jonah performed any miraculous deeds in that city, and yet they all believed, repented and changed their ways. They did not see and yet they believed, and for their faith, they were justified by God.

Remember what Jesus told one of His disciples, Thomas, who initially did not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, when He appeared to him on one occasion? Thomas had not believed until Jesus had risen from the dead and Jesus said that while his faith was indeed good, as he believed, unlike those who had seen all the miracles Jesus had performed and refused to believe, but better still are those who have not seen and yet believed.

And the people whom Jesus rebuked did not believe, no matter what, and they asked for signs from Him. And Jesus replied that the only sign He would show is the sign of Jonah, and we knew how Jonah was swallowed by a whale for three days and three nights, before he was then released at the seashore. In the same way therefore, Jesus had died and then was buried in the earth for three days before on the third day He rose from the dead.

And how is this significant for us, brethren? This Lent, we are all called to be believers, and not just any believers, but true believers of our Lord in faith and in action. Let us be inspired by the examples of the holy saints whose feast we celebrate today, namely that of the seven Holy Founders of the Servite order, who were faithful servants of God, who devoted themselves to the service of God and of His people.

The seven holy founders were once merchants of the city of Florence, during the height of the medieval era, who left everything they had, that they might discover the Lord, and they led a new life of poverty and penance, withdrawing and turning their backs completely against the sins and wickedness of their past lives. They led a life of virtue and purity justified by God.

Many people followed their examples, and they helped establish what would be known as the Servite order. They obeyed the Lord and served Him faithfully, helping to lead the people of God back to Himself. They did not have a smooth journey however, as challenges and rejections came their way, but they remained faithful and they met the challenges with full faith in the Lord.

Through these examples, the dedication and commitment of the founders of the Servite order, let us all also follow in their footsteps, and let us all renew our own commitment to God, and let us all in this season of Lent be ever filled more and more with the righteousness and justified actions, that we will draw ever closer to God and to His mercy and love. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about God Who came into this world to bring it to salvation, and we heard about God Who is indeed our loving Father, Who always look down at us from heaven above, and He Who does not abandon us in times of distress. God is our Father, Who cares for us all just as all fathers care for their children.

God does not let us all to suffer alone in the darkness, and He Who created us with love, wants all of us to be reunited with Him and to be gathered back into His embrace and into His presence, no longer scattered and lost, but reunited and be freed from our bonds of sin and from our attachment and defilement by wickedness and by the darkness of this world.

And through Jesus, God had made His love evident and real in this world. He was the Son of God, Whom He had granted to the world, that all of us mankind might be saved through His works and intercession. And Jesus then showed us all how to pray to our Lord and Father, Who is always listening to us and to our petitions and words, because He is indeed longing to speak with us, to converse with us and to communicate with us.

And in this season of Lent, all of us should spend more time with our Father in heaven, praying to Him and speaking with Him, spending our moments with Him and withdrawing ourselves for a while from the daily business and the daily occupations we had, that we may discern and reflect from our encounter with the Lord in prayer. That is the problem with many of us, that we have spent way too short a time in prayer.

But whenever we pray, do we pray in the proper way, brethren? Or were our prayers filled instead with litany of wishes, petitions, desires, wants, or even demands? This is what our prayers tended to be, and many of us might even have the misconception that when we pray, we are asking the Lord to do us a favour, or even that He would listen to us and grant us what we asked of Him.

That is why when we do not get what we wanted, then we become angry at God, and we even abandon Him for some other things which we think as those that can provide us with what we wanted. But this is not what we ought to be doing, brothers and sisters in Christ. In this season of Lent, a season of renewal, repentance and forgiveness, it is a time for us to understand what it truly means to pray to our Lord and God.

To pray to God means to open ourselves, our hearts, minds and entire being to God, so that He may come in us and speak deep in our hearts. God is always trying to contact us, to touch us and to impact us with His words, and He desires always to communicate with us, for that is what prayer is, that is communication between us and God. And just as in our communication with each other, we talk and at the same time also listen to another person we are talking to, we should be doing the same with the Lord our God too.

That is why we should see how our Lord Jesus prayed to His Father in heaven, which we know now as the Lord’s Prayer, or the Pater Noster, the prayer addressed to God Who is our Father. When we pray, we should first give glory to God, and thank Him for all the blessings which we had received from Him, and even if we are in the direst and the most difficult of moments, we should still always be thankful for the very life which He had given to us.

Let us all rediscover our faith in this time, the time of mercy and forgiveness, and let us approach our Lord, God our Father, and spend more time with Him, communicating and talking with Him in prayer, a pure prayer not made up of our petitions, wishes and wants, but rather a prayer of the love and desire which we have to be loved by our Lord, and to receive His everlasting mercy.

May God bless us and strengthen our resolve to lead an ever more righteous life in this season of Lent and beyond, and may He keep us strong in our faith as always. May He keep us on the path to salvation and everlasting life. Amen.

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Monday, 15 February 2016 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the Scripture readings which told us about the Last Judgment, where Jesus told the people about what would happen at the end of time, when the Lord will come again to judge all creation and all mankind, both the living and the dead. And the fate of those who are to be judged, including all of us, will depend on what had been done and what had not been done.

In the first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, we heard about how God through Moses His servant, reminded His people of the importance of obeying the Law in their actions and deeds, and not to do things that lead to sin and to disobedience against Him. They were reminded not to commit sinful things before the Lord, such as being oppressive and show injustice to one another.

What we heard about is the reminder God gave His people not to commit the sins of action, namely, the actions that show disobedience to God, such as stealing, murder, jealousy, hatred, adultery and many other forms of wicked things that mankind often do, in disregard of God’s commandments. And indeed, all of us should make sure that we keep ourselves free from such actions, and resist the temptation to do those abominable things and acts.

However, we also have to take note what our Lord Jesus Christ said to the people in the Gospel today. The Lord Himself, the Great Judge revealed to the separated people, the good and the wicked, what He looks for in finding righteousness and worthiness to receive the eternal inheritance and grace He promised to all those whom He deemed to be worthy.

We often forget of the fact and reality that sin is not just about what we have done and committed. And it was not just the bad things we committed that brought us to sin, such as murder, stealing, lust and all the other forms of sins, but also things that we have failed to do, especially if we are fully capable of doing them, and yet we consciously ignore them and choose not to do what we ought to do.

This is the sin of inaction, the sin of apathy and sloth, the sin caused by our refusal to take action and to do something, when it is clearly possible and available for us to do good deeds for the sake of others who are around us. And this is just as bad and wicked as doing something that is vile and detestable before God.

Just imagine how many people have been deprived of good things, or have suffered because of our refusal to act, because of our ignorance and apathy. Imagine that in this world itself, if there are just more people who would share their blessings with each other, and care for those who have little or none, then there would be so much fewer cases of hunger, sickness, death and all the things that inflict the poor and the destitute among us.

We mankind have been given the capacity by God, through the blessings He had granted us, through the gifts and talents He had given to us, and through the opportunities that He had laid on our path, to be light, shepherds, and guide to our brethren, helping one another in their earthly lives, and guiding one another on our path together to reach out to the Lord our God.

If we do not do what the Lord had commanded us to do, and which He reminded us all yet again in today’s readings, then we can have no part in His inheritance, and that is why those who have failed to do as the Lord had taught us to do, failing to love, to care, to give our love to the poor and to the less fortunate, shall suffer the fate of those whom God had rejected and cast out from His presence into the eternal damnation.

Let us all therefore, during this season of Lent, make use of the opportunities which have been given to us, so that we may become ever more committed to become faithful servants of God, not just in mere words alone, but also through real and concrete actions. May the Lord our God strengthen the faith in each one of us, and awaken in us the strong desire to be courageous in standing up to our faith through action and good works, especially in this time of Lent. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 February 2016 : First Sunday of Advent, Memorial of St. Cyril, Monk and St. Methodius, Bishop, Patron Saints of Europe (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate our first Sunday in the season of Lent, we always hear about the temptation of Jesus Christ our Lord in the desert by the devil, who tried to tempt Him three times without avail, and who then retreated, trying to undermine the works of the Lord in another way. This temptation of our Lord Jesus Christ is tied closely to our own observation of this Lenten period, and also to the history of our faith.

Mankind, ever since the days of Adam and Eve, our forebears and ancestors, had been afflicted with the disease of sin, as Satan managed to tempt them to disobey the Lord and by making use of our human desires to subvert us and to turn us against God, by disobeying His commandments, and by selfishly giving in to our desires. Satan had many weapons, and his greatest one is our pride, our greed and our insatiable desire to fulfil ourselves and our wants.

In the Gospel, as we heard about Jesus being tempted three times, we are heeded to take note of our weaknesses, and our vulnerabilities, which Satan and his agents can easily take advantage of, in their attempt to destroy us and bring us into the eternal darkness with them. First of all, is the temptation of our stomach, the needs and wants of our body, our flesh, the temptation of food and greed.

We all know that all living things require food in order to continue living and to survive, and without food we will eventually die of starvation and hunger. But we should also be aware of the distinction and the growing gap between the rich and the poor in our world today. All of us are indeed aware, and we should have indeed heard about how many of the poor people in places and parts of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even in the developed countries and regions, who had not enough food even to sustain themselves, less still for their children and for their families.

And yet, we also know that there are many excesses that people in our time today had committed, squandering much money and wealth in pursuit of good food and good lifestyle, a lifestyle of hedonism and excess, where a lot of waste and a lot of injustice are being done to those who have little or even none for themselves, even to keep themselves alive. And yet, there are those who rejoice, revel at themselves and feast on top of the suffering of others.

This Lent, we are fasting because we ought to resist the temptation of our flesh. Our human needs and wants is such that, hunger and starvation can lead men to hurt or even kill one another, in order to get what we need and want. If we do not restrain ourselves, then surely we shall fall into the deep trap of sin that Satan has prepared for us. Thus, let us heed what Jesus said, that we do not live on bread or food alone, as these give us just what we need in this earthly life, but we should put our trust in the word of God, our true sustenance, for it is through the Word that we can find our way to salvation.

But we have to be careful, lest the devil used our lack of understanding of God’s words in order to deceive us and tempt us further. We saw how the devil was trying to use the verses from the Scriptures to tempt Jesus to show Himself to the people, by jumping off from the pinnacle of the Temple. Indeed, the verse meant that God will protect His people, and He will send His Angels to protect us from harm, but if we test God and try to see if He really will protect us, that means we have no faith in Him.

And the second temptation was also the temptation of pride, for we mankind are all inherently vulnerable to this trait, the pride and haughtiness in each and everyone of us. We see in many people, the desire to be recognised and to be praised, so that someone will praise us and recognise us for what we have done. But at times, we can be so desperate or our desire for such things may be so great, in the end, we lose sight and focus on what we ought to do, and again, we bring harm to others.

We see how people fight and jostle with one another, either with cunning, or trickery, with words of mouth, or even through physical violence, just so that they can have an edge over another people, and gain what they desire, that is power, honour, glory, fame and many others. And this is what the devil tried to tempt Jesu with, in his third attempt, as he brought Him to the highest mountain, offering all the kingdoms of the earth if Jesus would only worship him as lord.

But Jesus was not swayed, and He was not tempted. He knew that power, human praise, fame and glory, all forms of other temptations in the world were superficial and illusory in nature. They do not give lasting satisfaction and happiness, which can only be truly found in God alone. Power in particular is very dangerous, as the saying goes, that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This means that if we allow ourselves to be tempted, and to seek more things for ourselves, in power and all the goods the world is offering us, then we will only get ourselves dragged deeper and deeper into the darkness, and we will never be satisfied ourselves. We should already know that, it is our tendency that once we have something that we desire, we tend to desire even more.

And this is why we abstain, and do penitential works, during this season of Lent. It was not just a mere obligation or something we have to do as part of our observation of the laws of the Church and the faith. If we look at it as that, then our focus is wrong, and what we have done will avail little at helping us to strive for God’s salvation.

Instead, we have to do what we must do in this period of Lent with proper understanding and with good faith, so that whatever we do, we do it because of our love for the Lord, and the deep and burning desire in our hearts to be cleansed of our sins and wickedness, and the desire to reject Satan and all of his lies, and be freed from our enslavement to our pride, to our greed and all forms of the temptations of the flesh and the heart.

Let us all follow our Lord Jesus’ examples, resisting the devil and all of his temptations, and through our actions during this time of Lent, let us all grow stronger in faith, and spiritually, so that we will grow more capable of resisting the advances of evil and all of its forces in the time to come. Let us all love one another, giving alms and helping those who are less fortunate than us during this time, sharing whatever goods, food or care that we have, so that all of us will be able to live comfortably and harmoniously in this world.

May Almighty God bless us and forgive us our sins, and may this season of Lent be a fruitful one in the salvation of our souls. Amen.

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Saturday, 13 February 2016 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all presented with God Who loves us all mankind, all sinners and unworthy before Him, and yet, He decided to pick us up, and bring us from the darkness where we were lost in, and bring us back into the light with Him. He went forth into this world, looking for sinners and all those who have been afflicted by the sickness of sin.

Yes, sin is a disease, as I have often mentioned, that it strikes at the depth of our soul, afflicting everything from our mind, our hearts and our bodies, ending up corrupting our beings, that in such a state, we are not worthy of the Lord, because we have been defiled by the sins that we committed, by the slander that we have uttered, and by the disobedience and betrayal which we have done against the Lord our God.

But lest all of us should be dismayed or lose our hope in despair, let us all know that despite all of our sins, and despite the fact that God despises all forms of sins, which are abominations and wicked things before Him, but His love for us is even greater than all that. And this is why He was willing to show mercy to us, even to the greatest of sinners, seeking them out and bringing them out of darkness.

We should heed how Jesus called Levi, the tax collector, whom He called from his tax office, and Levi indeed heeded the call, leaving everything behind, his occupation, his money, career, family and all that he had, and followed God from then on. And from then on, he served God faithfully, and became whom we know as St. Matthew, the Apostle and Evangelist, the writer of one of the four Holy Gospels through which we would come to know the truth of our Lord.

And in another occasion, I am sure that we would have heard about how Jesus our Lord also healed and cast out demons from the woman who had seven demons in her, who then left everything behind in order to follow Him. It was believed that St. Mary Magdalene, the faithful woman who followed Jesus, and to whom He first showed Himself after His resurrection, was this woman.

And there are many other occasions where Jesus healed people who were sick, possessed by demons and filled with sin, exhorting and reminding them not to sin again, and urged them to henceforth walk in the path of the Lord. And many of these people were to later on suffer persecution in the Name of the Lord, and dying in the defence of their faith.

We can see through all these, how even saints themselves were once sinners, just as we have sinned against God. No one was born perfect, and all of us, in one way or another, have committed errors, be it big or small, before the Lord our God. But what differentiates those who were condemned and those who received the glory of heaven in sainthood, is that the action of those who have received God’s glory have justified them.

And this action is that, they chose righteousness and justice over sin, over wickedness, and selflessness over selfishness. They have turned their backs to sin, and they abandoned all the past mistakes that they had done, and turned completely to the Lord their God, and from then on, doing only what was pleasing to God. Then, we too should indeed follow in their footsteps and be inspired by what they have done.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore today renew our commitment to God, and in all of our ways, let us all be ever closer to Him and obey Him in all of our dealings and actions. Let us in this period of Lent, turn ourselves away from evil and wickedness, and open the doors of our heart to the works of mercy and to the love of our God. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.

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Friday, 12 February 2016 : Friday after Ash Wednesday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the matter of fasting and abstinence, which are what we are required to do throughout this season of Lent. In the first reading and the Gospel we heard about the kind of fasting that the Lord does not want from us, and what He truly wanted from us, that is fast that comes from the heart, and fast and abstinence done with good faith and intention.

As we heard in the first reading today from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah spoke about how many people were hypocrites in their faith, and how these people did not understand their faith appropriately, and how they fulfilled the commandments of the Law on one hand, but then at the same time, also contradicted the same commandments with their actions, filled with sins and unworthiness.

This is to remind us that we cannot believe in the Lord with mere empty faith, or believing just on the surface, or doing things for the sake of appearances, as people have done in the past, just so that they could be praised for their supposed faith and receive worldly approval and acceptance for doing so. Those who fast and abstain, or fulfil God’s commands simply because they thought that they had to do them, were not doing what God wanted from them.

In the Gospel, we heard how the disciples of John the Baptist, and also the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law on another, separate occasion often harassed Jesus and His disciples, and ridiculed them for not having obeyed the commandments of the Law as they had, because they did not fast, and they did not wash their hands properly in accordance with the laws of Moses. And for these reasons, the disciples of John and the Pharisees looked down on Jesus and His disciples.

But did they themselves know what they are fasting for? Many of them fasted because they were told to do so, or that they were told that the laws of Moses told them to do so, and if they did not obey them, then punishment would await them, or that they would not be able to remain a disciple or a follower. But they did not understand what they are doing all that for.

Are we like that, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we doing things without proper understanding and faith? If we do so, then we are not doing ourselves a good service, and this great time and opportunity of Lent will be lost and wasted. Fasting and abstinence should not be done just for the sake of satisfying the Law of God or be seen as an obligation to be fulfilled. Rather, they should be the tools to help us on our way as we seek God’s salvation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all in this time of Lent, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the glorious time of Easter and rejoice, let us all be properly attuned and aligned to God, understanding that our fasting is meant to restrain ourselves, and to rein in our greed and desire, so that these will not lead us into harm and into the wrong paths, and our abstinence will further strengthen our resolve to reject all that is evil and wicked, and seek what is good in God.

May we commit ourselves anew in this season of Lent, committing ourselves to a renewed faith in God, and to rediscover the love which we ought to have for the Lord our God, and may our fast and abstinence be fruitful, in helping us to persevere against the temptations of the evil one, that we may all reject his false promises. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 11 February 2016 : Thursday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of our Lady of Lourdes (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of our Lady of Lourdes, based on the apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord and God, in the grotto of Lourdes in southern France to the young woman, now St. Bernadette Soubirous about a century and a half ago. Our Lady appeared to her, stating on the need for mankind to repent from their sins and to be reconciled to the Lord their God.

On that blessed and glorious occasion, our Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord and Saviour appeared to St. Bernadette to deliver the reminder and the message to mankind, so that we the people who have long been immersed in the darkness of this world, and who have been tainted for long by the taint and corruption of sin, the sickness and disease of the flesh and the soul may be brought to healing in God through His blessed mother.

Our Lady of Lourdes appeared to St. Bernadette on one of her series of apparitions there to her, asking her to dig up a spot on the ground that she had pointed out to her, and from the ground sprang forth a spring of clear water that gushed out forth, and this water is now known by many as the water of the grotto and spring of Lourdes, which is held to have curative and healing properties, and year after year, month after month and day after day, many sick people and people seeking spiritual healing came flocking to Lourdes on pilgrimages.

But we have to be careful lest we think of these as amulets or idols through which we can gain healing or fulfilment, as all these are nothing more than means through which the Lord brought about healing on all of us mankind. And why do we need healing, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we sick or something has happened to us? Are we not healthy, those among us who have no afflictions at all?

Today we commemorate the day of prayer for all the sick, where we commit the petitions for the healing of our body, our mind, heart and soul from all the afflictions, diseases and disabilities that had assailed us. And what are these sickness? We may be thinking only in the terms of the health issues that afflict many of us, such as cancers, diabetes, asthma, allergies and all of these problems, but we cannot forget that each and every one of us, even the healthy ones in the body are afflicted.

And what is this affliction? It is the most dangerous of all of them, that is the affliction of sin. Ever since mankind disobeyed God, sin had entered their heart, and because of sin, our souls had been tainted and corrupted, and the corruption of sin prevented us from being truly reunited with God, for sin is evil and wicked, and there can be no evil or wickedness before God.

And sin if not checked or purified from us, will become a great hurdle, a great obstacle on our path to reach out to the Lord, as it is difficult to resist the temptation to sin, and if we continue to live in the state of sin, the more difficult it is for us to escape its grip. But we do not have to worry, since our Lord Himself had provided the path for us to get to Him and escape from the threat of sin and death.

In the Scripture readings today we are all reminded of the choice we have, the choice between righteousness and wickedness, the choice between good or evil, the choice between hope and despair, the choice between light and darkness, the choice between humility and pride, the choice between temperance and greed, and ultimately, between God and ourselves, and between God and the devil.

God has shown us His mercy and His ways, and He has revealed His path and truths, and taught them to us through His Apostles, who passed down the words and teachings of our Lord Jesus through His Church, and now we all who belong to God’s Church are called to recall His goodness and mercy, and even more importantly, to remember what He had said in the Gospel today.

What is it, brothers and sisters in Christ? Jesus said that all those who are faithful to Him must take up their crosses and follow Him. If we do not take up our crosses and follow Him, then we are not His true disciples, and we cannot have any part in Him. To follow the Lord and to be a faithful Christian requires effort and the understanding that our path will not be an easy one. The world has always been against Christ, and it will be against us too.

Therefore, on this day, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, and through the help of His blessed mother Mary, our Lady of Lourdes, may all of us find healing in Him, and through our hard works and efforts in faith, carrying and bearing our crosses in life, and through righteousness may we be healed from our afflictions, of sin and wickedness, that God will find us worthy and bless us forevermore. God bless us, now and forever. Amen.

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Wednesday, 10 February 2016 : Ash Wedneday, Memorial of St. Scholastica, Virgin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we begin the season of Lent, the time of preparation before the great and glorious celebrations of Easter, a time for repentance, for forgiveness, and when the faithful and the whole Church unite together in fasting and abstinence, to remind ourselves that we are all sinners, unworthy and had been tainted by our disobedience against God.

The ashes today symbolised the nature of our sins, and how small we are before God, despite all of our greatness, our achievements, our talents and all the things we have accomplished and all the properties and goods we possess in this world. Remember the words of the priest, as he places the ashes on our foreheads or on our heads, that we are all man, mortal and sinners, and from dust we have come, and so to dust we shall return.

Ashes has been used since a long time ago, and also by the people of Israel as a sign of penitential intention, the desire of one to repent from one’s mistakes, as a symbol of humility and of unworthiness one feels because of one’s actions and misdeeds. And today the ashes we receive came from the palm branches used in the last year’s Palm Sunday celebration, which we also use for the same purpose, that is to remind us all that we are all penitents, all sinners seeking God’s ever loving mercy.

In the first reading today, we heard the prophet Joel who called the people of God to repent from their sins, casting aside their sinful ways and to repent before God, making a genuine change in their lives, and therefore receive the forgiveness from God, and a time of mercy when God would reunite all His people to Himself. Through the prophet Joel, we are reminded that God is compassionate and willing to forgive those who have sinned against Him.

And we must have heard about the prophet Jonah, who was sent to the city of Nineveh and its people, the capital of the mighty Assyrian Empire, to bring the words of the Lord that the city and all of its people would be destroyed because of their sins and their iniquities. And even though it was not mentioned what their sins were, but it was likely to be pagan gods, debauched lifestyle, and all the sins that the mighty Assyrians had done, in killing and causing harm to others.

And we heard how the people of Nineveh, all from the king to the lowest servants and people, all immediately stopped in their track, and they repented before God, regretting their wicked ways and asking for God to spare them the destruction and the punishment which He had intended for them. And God Who saw their sincere repentance, withheld His anger and showed His mercy to them, sparing them from the destruction which should have come their way.

In this, we see how God is loving and merciful to all of His people, even to the pagans and sinners. What is important however, is that this requires great effort and work in order for this to come into effect. Indeed, God offers His mercy generously and freely to all sinners and to all those who have wandered away from His path. But those to whom mercy had been shown, have they accepted God’s offer of mercy and have they done something to show their acceptance in sincerity?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in these days, as we often talk about mercy, and indeed, in this year, during this special Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, many of us often have a misconception about mercy and forgiveness. And there are even those who have espoused the thoughts that God’s mercy requires no effort from those to whom mercy have been shown, or that we should show mercy to others without requiring the other party to change their way or do something about their faults.

No, this kind of mercy is false mercy, and it is not what today’s Ash Wednesday celebration is about. For true mercy requires us indeed to show genuine mercy that is accompanied with the demand for sincere and genuine effort from the penitents to change their ways, sin no more and follow the Lord with all of their heart and might from now on.

Do we remember what Jesus did with the woman who was caught by the Pharisees and the elders having committed adultery with another man than her husband? In that, we heard how Jesus confronted those who desired to see her dead and those who wanted to stone her, by reminding them Himself, that as fellow sinners, for all of us have sinned be it in small or great degree, they have no right to judge others on their sins, and only God truly have the right for judgment.

But Jesus also said to the woman to sin no more and urged her to follow God’s path from then on. He did not let the woman go on with her old life and with her adulterous ways, but He showed her, and also all of us, that while we cannot be judgemental and condemning upon those who have sinned, but not doing anything to bring sinners back into the light of God is also something that is very wrong.

This is why, this season of Lent is the perfect time and opportunity for all of us, the reminder that we are all sinners who have committed sin before God, and how God wants to show us His mercy and love, but many of us remained adamant in our sinful ways, and how some can be obstinate and how they can turn a deaf ear against God’s loving mercy.

This is the time for us, to help one another to seek God’s mercy and to accept His offer of mercy with the sincerity from the heart. It is our duty and obligation, brothers and sisters in Christ, to bring one another closer to the throne of our Lord’s great mercy, and to inspire one another in seeking and having genuine repentance, turning away from all of our sins, abandoning all the sinful ways we have done, and beginning a new life blessed by God.

And the Church is helping us to do this, by providing us with this time and opportunity of Lent, to prepare ourselves, body, mind, heart and soul as we head towards Easter, the season of joy and renewal. And this is why we also fast and abstain during the time of Lent, to discipline ourselves, our bodies and minds, from the temptations of the evil one, and to genuinely seek the salvation of our God through our good works and efforts in faith.

We fast on this day, to remind our bodies, that desire and greed lead us to nowhere. And rather than seeking earthly and worldly pleasures, which is temporary and preventing us to find true joy, we should restrain ourselves and use the opportunity to find the way to reach out to God, to repent from our sins and change our ways. And this is why we also abstain from the bad things that we often do as well, to remind us that while sin and sinful things may seem to be good, but they lead us nowhere else but condemnation and hell.

And as Jesus said in the Gospel today, this day is not a day of gloom and sorrow, for we indeed do not fast or abstain to gain man’s approval. It is also not to show off our own abilities and greatness. Instead, this day should be a day of great joy, but tempered with the understanding and the desire for all of us to change our ways for the better, that indeed, God had been merciful to us, and because of that, we are saved.

Therefore, let us not be gloomy today, and let us not be shy to wear the ashes on our heads. Today is the day when our faith truly goes to the open, where everyone can see the sign of the ashes on our forehead or on our heads. Wear the ashes with joy, and with the understanding that the time of mercy has come. And let us not scandalise the Lord and our faith, that in our actions today and from now on should show our sincere efforts to be forgiven from our sins. Otherwise, we will be hypocrites, and there is no place for hypocrites save for hell.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us change our ways of old, our sinfulness and wickedness. Let us all change ourselves for the better and get rid of our past unworthiness, all the darkness that had covered the true light inside each and every one of us. Let us show the faith and love we have for God, and let us all go forth in being good disciples and followers of our Lord, preaching His Good News through our efforts and deeds wherever we are.

May God bless our observation of Lent, that it will be a great time of renewal for us all, and may He ever strengthen the desire in our heart to love Him and to be forgiven of our sinfulness. God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

by

Tuesday, 9 February 2016 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are presented with the prayer of Solomon, the king of Israel, asking God to bless His people and to forgive them from their trespasses, and to welcome them back whenever they have erred and wandered away from their path. He praised God for the love which He had shown to them, so great is that love, that it is unprecedented and nothing is like the love which God showed us.

And Solomon thus praised the Lord for His love and care for His people, even though they were sinners, delinquents and frequently disobeyed His laws and precepts. This love that God has for all of us is great and boundless, and it is why He gave us opportunities, chances, and the paths through which He could help to bring us closer to Him, by providing us with the Law and with the commandments that help us to find our way to Him.

Yet unfortunately, as we saw in the Gospel, that Jesus our Lord rebuked the Pharisees, the elders of Israel, the scribes and the teachers of the Law, because instead of understanding the need for the people to love God with sincerity from the heart, and with true devotion and commitment guided by the precepts of the Law, the leaders of the people had misguided the people of God through their own laws and commandments.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, they have become lost in the attempt to fulfil the laws and commandments that they have made themselves. Their concerns became whether they fulfilled the law in the right ways and manner, in the rites and rituals they prescribed from the law, and they punished those who have not obeyed in the way that they wanted the people to obey.

In that way, not only that they have misunderstood the intentions of the laws and ordinances which God had given to His people, but they also misled the people who have been entrusted under their care, guidance and leadership. Instead of bringing the people of God closer to Him through love and dedication, they caused these people to fear the Lord, thinking that He is an angry God Who will punish and destroy all those who did not obey the entirety of the Law.

And the Pharisees and the elders of Israel themselves were also mistaken in their approach, as they used the Law as an opportunity to showcase themselves to the other people, and to indulge in their pride and hubris, and to cultivate the desire of their human ego. They prayed in the public places, showed how faithful they were in obeying God’s ordinances and commandments in everything, and criticising and persecuting those that did not do so, all for the sake of being seen and praised, and not for the sake of the glory of God, save for some of the Pharisees.

Therefore, today, what Jesus said to the Pharisees, to the people and to His disciples should be a reminder to all of us, that we all should not have faith without understanding, or obey without true conscience and knowledge of the will of God, which He made clear through the Law He gave to us mankind. We have to discern the will of God, that is His love, and not to think that obeying the Law merely means just fulfilling what the Law requires of us.

In the same manner therefore, as we live our lives and in obeying the teachings of the Lord through the Church. We cannot go through it with just blind obedience or by merely trying to fulfil them as an obligation and stop at that. If we stop at that, then we are not doing anything truly beneficial for ourselves, and we are no closer to salvation as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Instead, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us devote ourselves, our time and attention, our effort and our focus on the Lord our God, and let us all realise the love which He has for us all, that He was willing to show us the way to reach Him, and to guide us step by step on this path, littered with difficulties and challenges. Let us all renew today our commitment to the Lord.

And tomorrow we shall begin the season of Lent, the season of penitential and repentance, the season of mercy and forgiveness. Thus, let us all draw ever closer to God’s mercy and love, and let us all be ever more devoted and committed to Him in all our lives. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.