promise

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Thursday, 27 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Cyril of Alexandria, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we learn from the readings, of the need to put our complete trust in the Lord and in His power and authority, instead of placing our trust in the falsehood and facade of the power of man. Not that man does not have any power, but any power that they have with them ultimately came from the Lord, and therefore no man should boast of his or her own abilities and powers, but instead should give due praise and thanksgiving to the Lord, who is the source of all power and authority in the universe.

When man begins to lose trust in the Lord and begins to put their trust in feeble man, that is when problems will rise, and even though initially not that apparent, the problems will certainly and eventually rise to the surface. Such was what happened with the case of Abraham, then Abram, who was kind of desperate of having a son to be his successor and heir to all the wealth he had in his possession.

The Lord promised Abram great wealth and affluence because of his faith and love for Him, but above all, He promised Abram that his descendants will number like the sands on the shores of the sea, and as numerous as there are stars in the sky. Such is the greatness of the descendants of Abram, so numerous that they would indeed fill up the entire earth with their presence. But Abram was growing old, and more importantly so was that his wife, Sarah, then Sarai, was also growing old, and had gone past the child bearing age.

That was when alternative methods were sought and then taken up by Abram, with the suggestion from Sarai, that he took Hagar, Sarai’s slave, to be his wife, and therefore act as a proxy to produce an heir for Abram. For in those times, slaves have little value for themselves, and therefore, the mistress, Sarai, had every right to claim the child birthed by the slave and claimed him as her own. Nonetheless, as we saw in the first reading, we can certainly note that tensions soon arose between Sarai and Hagar, as Hagar felt proud in her achievements in being able to bear a child for Abram, which her mistress could not do herself.

Pride and arrogance quickly become the order of the day if we put our trust in the powers and abilities of man, and do not give proper glory to the Lord, to whom we should give all glory to. The same had happened to Hagar, whom in her pride had brought about division and frictions within Abram’s family, and caused the diversion from the true plan of salvation that God had brought through His promised son to Abram, that is Isaac.

Abram did not wait for the promise of the Lord to reach its perfection and completion, but following the advice of Sarah and succumbed to human weakness, that is to distrust the promise and words of the Lord, and the result is the birth of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Later on, further conflicts between Ishmael and the newborn Isaac, the child of promise, would end up in Ishmael and her mother to be cast away from Abraham and his family. God indeed did not leave them to die, but provided for them and also made Ishmael a great nation, but it is not through him that God would make perfect His covenant with Abraham and mankind, but through Isaac and his descendants.

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, we celebrate the feast day of St. Cyril of Alexandria, the bishop of the early Church, a Church Father and a Doctor of the Church, who fought ceaselessly against those who denied the divinity of Christ, the Nestorians, led by none other than the Patriarch of Constantinople himself, one of the most senior clergyman at the time. He chastised those who opposed the orthodox faith and those who had embraced the heresies of man.

Yes, just as the theme of today’s readings had indicated, those who rejected God in favour of man will not survive, and they will be condemned, because they did not place their trust in God. Therefore, following the example of St. Cyril of Alexandria, in his courageous defense of the faith in the Lord, let us follow him in defending our love and adoration for the Lord, and reject those who glorify themselves at the expense of the Lord.

May the Lord be with us at all times, and remind us that we belong to God, in the covenant He had made with all of us through Christ our Lord and Saviour. May He remind us that He alone is worthy of praise and glory, and that His love is everlasting and infinite. St. Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us sinners, and help to bring us closer to our Lord and God. Amen.

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Wednesday, 26 June 2013 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Psalm 104 : 1-2, 3-4, 6-7, 8-9

Give thanks to the Lord, call on His Name; make known His works among the nations. Sing to Him, sing His praise, proclaim all His wondrous deeds.

Glory in His Holy Name; let those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and be strong; seek His face always.

You descendants of His servant Abraham, you sons of Jacob, His chosen ones! He is the Lord our God; His judgments reach the whole world.

He remembers His covenant forever, His promise to a thousand generations, the covenant He made with Abraham, the promise He swore to Isaac.

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Monday, 24 June 2013 : Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our God loves us, and He loves all of us so much that He is willing to save all of us from the damnation of hell. He sent us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour, the One who redeemed us from the sins of our forefathers, from their rebellion against the love of God. Through Him we are saved, if we accept Him as our Lord, and His free offer of salvation to all of us.

To prepare for the Messiah, the Lord sent His messenger, in the person of John the Baptist, the precursor and the preparer of the way for Christ. His dedication to the mission for which he had been chosen for, and his tireless work had indeed straightened the way for Christ and paved the way for salvation.

Today we celebrate the feast of this great messenger of God and saint, John the Baptist, whose baptisms called the people back towards the Lord through repentance. Repentance allowed the people to set their hearts and minds right, so that they would be in the correct state of heart and mind to be receptive of the Lord and His message that is brought by none other than Christ, His Son and our Saviour.

St. John the Baptist had dedicated his whole life to the Lord, as someone set aside for the works of God, through whose hands God had worked His wonders to the people of Israel, the last of the prophets before the coming of the Messiah, who would eventually liberate God’s people from the tyranny of evil, sin, and therefore death.

God is faithful, and He remembered His covenant that He made with Abraham years ago, with the promise He had made that the descendants of Abraham, all of us, will be fruitful, and will be blessed. Even when the descendants of Abraham, as shown through Israel did not stay faithful entirely to the Lord, but fell into rebellion, in the similar way as their forefathers, God did not give up on us, just as He did not give up on mankind after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors.

We are all precious to God, so precious that despite the covenant broken by our rebellion and our stubbornness against God’s love and compassion, He was willing to forge a new covenant with all of us, and this covenant will never be broken, because this covenant is not made just by God’s words alone, but sealed with none other than the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who shed His blood from up there on the cross, flowing from His holy wounds, pierced by our sins and our rebellion.

St. John the Baptist had a great part to play in this plan of salvation, not only as the one who helped to bring God’s mission to perfection, and helped to convert many to the cause of the Lord through repentance, but also through his direct role in the initiation of Jesus’ ministry on this world. Through his baptism of Christ on the Jordan, he initiated Christ on His ministry, which began after that baptism, when the Lord proclaimed to the world, that Jesus is indeed His Son, and that His favour is on Him.

His humility that he showed when he declared the identity of Christ to his own disciples, so that He would increase while John himself would decrease in importance is an example for all of us, that whenever we do things, let us remember that we should do it for the greater glory of God, and not to our own personal human glory, and seek the praise of the Lord, and not the praise of man.

We can follow the many examples of Saint John the Baptist, my dear brothers and sisters, that we should emulate him in our lives. To love and serve the Lord with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our being, that we truly become the children of God, and people beloved by the Lord our God. May the Lord guide us at all times in our lives, that we will not be led astray in our path towards Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 15 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today Christ taught us through the Gospel, how to be truthful to ourselves, and to keep truth enshrined within our hearts, and to be sincere, in our dealings with our fellow man and with God. That we should speak out sincerely what is within our hearts rather than resorting to oaths and promises, that we cannot be certain to uphold, and end up becoming false oaths and empty promises.

That was why Christ told us to be sincere and truthful to ourselves, rather than being liars because we lie about our true intentions through false promises and oaths, and even as betrayer because we are seen as unfaithful to those promises and oaths we had made, worse still if these oaths and vows were made in the Name of the Lord, or His Holy City, heaven and earth, as the falsehood will certainly sully the Holy Name and the divinity of our Lord. Certainly God will not take kindly to that.

God has all the authority over all heaven and earth, and all things are His own, and He is the only One who is ever truthful to all of His promises and His vows, ever since He promised to Abraham that his descendants will be as plentiful as the stars, and the promise of salvation through the Messiah, in which He gave Himself through His own Son, Jesus Christ, as the Messiah and our Redeemer. He is always true to His words.

He promised salvation to all of mankind, whom had been under slavery of sin, and the punishment of death for our rebellion and the rebellion of our ancestors. Yes, as we heard in the first reading today, and as we know it, our Lord Jesus Christ is the pure and spotless lamb of sacrifice, and none other than the very Lamb of God, who was blameless and sinless, but was made into the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, to bear all our sins, that through His Blood, the Blood of the Lamb, we are made whole and clean of our faults, and therefore once again worthy of the Lord, a fulfillment of His promise.

That is why, my brothers and sisters in Christ, that we should not make vows, oaths, or promises, unless we are absolutely certain and sincere about the choices that we make, so that we will not be lying both to God, to ourselves, and to those around us who are witnesses to the oaths, vows, and promises that we had made. Only if we are dedicated to the choices we made, just like Christ obeying the promises of God’s salvation to mankind and pushed forward all the way to the very end at Calvary, enduring sufferings upon sufferings, that we can endeavour to make such promises, oaths, or vows.

Otherwise, just be sincere about our feelings and our opinions. If we disagree upon a certain matter, do not be afraid to say no to that matter, and to say yes to a matter if we agree with it. In doing that, we are being sincere and truthful to ourselves, and to others, and we will remain righteous and just in the eyes of our brethren and most importantly, in the eyes of the Lord our God.

Sincerity and truth can go a long way, my brothers and sisters in Christ, and if used appropriately, they will certainly be a boon in relationships, and will help to bring about peace, harmony, and love among the peoples. Is that not a good thing to do? Let us reflect on our own lives, on our own words and actions, whether we have remained true to ourselves, or whether we have always lied to ourselves, to God, and to our neighbour, by hiding behind layers of false promises and oaths.

Let us be ever faithful to God, be ever truthful to Him and to our neighbours, and hide nothing from God, and in our sincerity, our God who is truth and who loves truth, will reward us. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 15 June 2013 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 5 : 33-37

You have also heard that people were told in the past : ‘Do not break your oath; an oath sworn to the Lord must be kept.’ But I tell you this : do not take oaths. Do not swear by the heavens, for they are God’s throne, nor by the earth, because it is His footstool, nor by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.

Do not even swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. Say yes when you mean yes, and say no when you mean no. Anything else you say comes from the devil.

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Wednesday, 29 May 2013 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Sirach 36 : 1-2a, 5-6, 13-19

Have mercy on us, Master, God of all, and look on us; make every nation stand in fear of You. Take action against pagan nations.

Give new signs, do fresh wonders, stretch out Your hand and be glorified in Your strength. Kindle Your fury and rouse Your anger, destroy Your opponents, crush Your enemy.

Fill Zion with the fame of Your wonders, and Your people with Your glory. Confirm the promises made to Your people long ago and fulfill the promises made in Your Name. Reward those who wait for You and fulfill the words of Your prophets.

Hear the prayer of Your servants, Lord; hear Your priests giving Aaron’s blessing to Your people. So that all on earth may acknowledge that You are Lord and everlasting God.

The stomach takes in all kinds of food but one food is better than another. Just as the tongue can distinguish the flavour of meat, so does the alert mind detect lies.

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 13 : 26-33

Brothers, children and descendants of Abraham, and you also who fear God, it is to you that this message of salvation has been sent. It is a fact that the inhabitants of Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognise Jesus. Yet in condemning Him, they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath, but not understood.

Even though they found no charge against Him that deserved death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed. And after they had carried out all that had been written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb.

But God raised Him from the dead, and for many days thereafter He showed Himself to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They have now become His witnesses before the people. We ourselves announce to you this Good News : All that God promised our ancestors, He has fulfilled for us, their descendants, by raising Jesus, according to what is written in the second psalm : ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You.’

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Thursday, 21 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflection)

Jesus, our Lord, has been the harbinger of a new covenant between us and God, just as God had established His covenant with Abraham in the days long past. He made the covenant with Abraham because of Abraham’s great faith and love for God, and obedience to the point that he was willing to offer his own son, the promised son God had promised him, to be offered as sacrifice without hesitation. For his great faith, love, and obedience, he has been rewarded with God’s promise that he will be the father of a great nation and that his descendants be as countless as the stars, and his descendants will last forever.

This covenant made the people of Israel, God’s chosen people, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through whom God repeatedly renewed and reiterated His covenant with Israel. Yet, despite the constant proof of His love and His obedience to the covenant that He had made, the people of Israel, after their liberation from Egypt’s slavery, constantly were in rebellion against God, and were unrepentant, despite the numerous prophets and signals He had brought to the people over the centuries.

They rebelled against Him, and murdered His prophets, and smeared their blood on the streets of Samaria and Jerusalem, that eventually made God abandoned the kingdoms that His people had chosen to make, starting with Saul, and ended with Zedekia in Judea, and were brought away to the seventy years in exile in Babylon. He, however, did not forget at all the covenant He had made all those years ago with Abraham. He remembered the covenant perfectly, and He brought His people back to their homeland.

Yet, they still rebelled and many years passed where the people of Israel abandoned God. Remember the Book of Maccabees, and the story of the struggle of the Maccabees against their Greek overlords who imposed pagan gods over the people of Israel, which saw many readily threw away their love and obedience to God and His covenant. Yet, God always remained true to His covenant at all times, and as we knew, that God has sent His one and only deliverance to His people, and this people counted it not only that of Israel, but that of all the descendants of Adam, all mankind He had created.

That salvation came through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Word of God, who is one with God the Father in perfect unity, and He is the only one worthy on heaven and earth, to end the chains of slavery of sin, to end the corruption of Satan and all his evil plans, and to bring all creation, all mankind, back towards God who loves them so much. Jesus Christ, is the harbinger of a new Covenant, in place of the covenant that God had made with Abraham.

No, not to replace that covenant, but rather to perfect that covenant. A new covenant not only to show God’s love and undying care for His people, but also to bring them to be once again fully reunited against Him. That love and that covenant came about and was fulfilled, as we remember it, in the events surrounding the Holy Week, in which the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is celebrated every year. Through Christ’s suffering, death, and finally resurrection on the third day in glory, He made the new covenant fulfilled, which He gave to us, through His Precious Body and Precious Blood.

Remember the words when the Blood of Christ in the chalice is elevated at the Mass at the consecration, “Take this all of you and drink for it, for this is the Chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant, which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins, do this in the memory of Me.” Indeed, the Body and Blood of Christ that He had offered through His sacrifice and death on the cross marked the new Covenant God made with all of us.

If we remain true to this Covenant and remain faithful to this Covenant, God will definitely also bless us, and will keep true to the Covenant, for He is ever faithful and ever loving. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us today pray for one another, that we will continue to keep our faith, hope, and love in God, and remain true to our part in this new Covenant of Christ. Remember this every time we take in His Body and His Blood at the Mass. May God remain with us always, and bless us, with eternal life. Amen.

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Thursday, 21 March 2013 : 5th Week of Lent (First Reading)

Genesis 17 : 3-9

Abram fell face down and God said to him, “This is My covenant with you : you will be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer will you be called Abram, but Abraham, because I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you more and more famous; I will multiply your descendants; nations shall spring from you, kings shall be among your descendants.”

“And I will establish a covenant, an everlasting covenant between Myself and you and your descendants after you; from now on I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you, for generations to come. I will give to you and your descendants after you, the land you are living in, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession and I will be the God of your race.”

God said to Abraham, “For your part, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.

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My oath of obedience to our new Pope, Pope Francis. God bless our Pope!

God, the Lord of the Universe, who through Jesus Christ Your Son, has brought salvation upon this world. Hear me now I pray, with Your holy angels and holy saints as witness before Your Holy throne in Heaven.

I promise and offer my full and unconditional obedience on Franciscus, our Pope Francis, whom through the Holy Spirit You have inspired the Cardinals to elect, as the one to continue the mission of Peter, Your Apostle, upon whom You entrusted the keys to Your Kingdom, and upon whom You built Your very own Church, that is Your Most Precious Body, in union with all who believes in You, now led by Francis, as one indivisible union, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

I call upon the angels and the saints as witness on this promise, and I ask them too to pray for our Holy Father, that he will be strengthened in his new ministry, not just as the Bishop of Rome, but also the Successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, as the leader of the Universal Church, all over the world.

May he be strengthened in faith, hope, and love, and exercise great charity as his namesake St. Francis of Assisi had done, and at the same time, profess to defend the Sacred Tradition of the Holy Apostles, and the orthodox Catholic faith, as it is, unchanging, since the beginning, now, and ever shall be, forever and ever! Amen!

On this Holy Gospel I make solemn my oath and promise, and I hope that not only that I will remain faithful to it, but also help our dear Holy Father, Pope Francis, in his mission to evangelise the Word of God to all corners of this world, through whatever means I can, including this humble blog of mine.

Ad multos annos, Papa Franciscus! Pontifex maximus et Beati Petri Apostolorum Principis succesori, Episcopus Romanus.

Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam, et portae inferi non praevalebunt adversus eam, et tibi dabo claves regni caelorum. Quodcumque ligaveris super terram, erit ligatum et in cælis, et quodcumque solveris super terram, erit solutum et in cælis.

(You are Peter, and on this Rock, I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against It, and I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on this earth, it will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loosen on this earth, it will be loosened in heaven).

 

+Peter Canisius Michael David Kang

(Ut Omnes Unum Sint, ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam – That they all may be One, for the greater glory of God)