redemption of mankind

by

Tuesday, 15 March 2016 : 5th Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 8 : 21-30

At that time, again Jesus said to the people, “I am going away, and though you look for Me, you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” The Jews wondered, “Why does He say that we cannot come where He is going? Will He kill Himself?”

But Jesus said, “You are from below and I am from above; you are of this world and I am not of this world. That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. And you shall die in your sins, unless you believe that I am He.”

They asked Him, “Who are You?”; and Jesus said, “Just what I have told you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the One Who sent Me is truthful and everything I learnt from Him, I proclaim to the world.”

They did not understand that Jesus was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He and that I do nothing of Myself, but I say just what the Father taught Me. He Who sent Me is with Me and has not left Me alone; because I always do what pleases Him.”

As Jesus spoke like this, many believed in Him.

by

Monday, 14 March 2016 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to the long story from the Old Testament, of the encounter between Daniel, the faithful servant of God in the land of exile in Babylon, with another exile, Susanna, a very pious and Godfearing woman, who refused to live in sin and to compromise her own faith to God. And we heard how she was tested when the two elders entrusted with rulership and judgment over the people, wanted to sin with her, and she refused to listen to them or to give in to them.

And even though she had to go through even the risk of death for refusing the attempts of the two elders, but she kept herself strong and deeply anchored in the knowledge that God would come to the rescue of those who placed their trust and faith in Him. And indeed, God did not abandon her to die at the hands of those who would bring her to harm. She was framed and blamed for something that she did not commit, and God would not let His faithful ones to suffer and die in such a manner.

And thus He aroused His Spirit inside Daniel, and made him to speak up and stand up for the sake of the beleaguered Susanna. And in the end, as we heard, the wisdom of God made clear to all through Daniel, managed to overturn all the wicked plots and conspiracies, and all the shrouds of lies that the wicked elders had put in place in order to safeguard themselves at the expense of an innocent, an excuse to get them out of the responsibility for their own sins.

There are indeed a few lessons that we can bring away from all that we have heard today. First of all, it is a reaffirmation by the Lord, a very strong and firm reassurance to us that all those who placed their trust and keep our faith in Him, and who walk faithfully and with commitment upon His ways. We shall not falter and fail, as long as we are faithful to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, if we put our trust in our human strength alone, we shall fail. Susanna did not worry about whether she could endure all the persecutions by herself, as she was not alone, and God was with her in all of her tribulations. And in fact, God was fighting for her and through His mighty works, He condemned the wicked who conspired against her and tried to push her to sin against her will.

And this brings us to the next thing that we ought to learn. This is that we should be responsible over whatever it is that had been entrusted to us. If we have been entrusted with power and with care over others, our fellow men, then we really should not abuse such power and use it for our own benefit. This is one place where many of us mankind have failed to do, and many of us fell into sin because of this.

The two elders were unable to restrain themselves and they gave in to their lust, their heart’s desire for earthly and worldly pleasures and gain for themselves, even if others were to suffer because of them. In this season of Lent, we practice to control our urges and desires, holding back our greed and the desires of the flesh, so as not to sin further and to be more righteous in all of our actions.

But more importantly, those two elders used their position as the judges and rulers over the people, the position of leadership and great esteem over the people to gain for themselves such wicked pleasures, trying to even cover up their tracks by condemning others who were innocent, with false accusations that brings about death and suffering.

This is a lesson for all of us, that with power and privilege comes responsibility and great burden for us to bear. We must use power responsibly, and we have to realise that whatever God had entrusted to us and given to us, they are nothing more than to bring all of us closer to Him, and to help one another in our lives in this world, and not to make ourselves better at the expense of others.

We have to realise that in this season of Lent, it is a time of great renewal for us, that if we have once allowed ourselves to be corrupted by power and by whatever have been given to us, now we should open ourselves to the opportunity to love and to care for one another, and to give of ourselves freely to those who need our help, especially the poor, the sick, the unloved and all those rejected by the world.

May God help us in our path that we may persevere through the temptations of life, and may we be able to reach out to Him and be saved in the redemption and forgiveness which He had offered us. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Monday, 14 March 2016 : 5th Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 22 : 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters, He restores my soul.

He guides me through the right paths for His Name’s sake. Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I fear no evil, for You are beside me : Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of my foes. You anoint my head with oil; my cup is overflowing.

Goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

by

Sunday, 13 March 2016 : Fifth Sunday of Lent, Third Anniversary of the Election of Pope Francis, Supreme Pontiff and Vicar of Christ (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s Scripture readings spoke clearly to us the fact, the reality and the truth that in God alone there is hope, there is life, and there is the path to our future, and elsewhere, we can only find death, destruction and eternal desolation away from God and His light. In God alone can we find the help and the rescue from the darkness and the sins that are swallowing us whole and trying to pull us deep into the damnation of hell.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God does not desire the destruction and damnation of His most beloved creation, that is all of us mankind. He wants all of us to be redeemed from our sins, be freed from all the chains and bonds of sin that separated us from Him and be made righteous and just, worthy once again to be in His presence and to receive from Him the gift of everlasting life with Him forever.

And He does not blame us or condemn us for our sins, as long as we are willing to change ourselves and be freed from those sins that are plaguing us. God is in fact giving us plenty of opportunities for us to turn away from our sinful ways and to reject all forms of wickedness and evil, and follow a new path and a new life founded on faith and love for the Lord.

In the Gospel reading we heard today, we heard how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were working together to trap Jesus and to find blame in Him so that they might arrest Him. And therefore they brought upon Him an adulterous woman who had been caught in the act hoping that Jesus would side with her and thus they would find a reason to frame Him, or if He sided with the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law instead, then they could discredit His teachings as an attempt to usurp their authority and as a mere copycat.

But Jesus did not entertain their attempts to trap Him, and He did not budge even though these people stubbornly tried to disturb and undermine His works openly in many occasions. And He plainly and simply mentioned a basic and simple truth, that many of them failed to see themselves, that they are all sinners, big or small, young or old, without exception. And as sinners as they were, they had no right to judge or condemn others for their sins, because then they themselves would be judged according to their own sins.

And this is why when Jesus told the people wanting to stone the adulterous woman, that the one who is without sin may cast the first stone, everyone eventually left the place, beginning from the older one and last to leave were the younger ones. The more years we live in this world, the more sins, unfaithfulness, wickedness and vile things we have committed before God and men alike.

And just as the adulterous woman was condemned to suffering and painful death, certainly the people wanting to stone her to death also felt the pangs and pain in their hearts knowing that for all that they have committed in life, either openly or secretly, they would be judged in the same manner, and thus fear appeared in their minds and they fled, knowing that if they judged her and cast the stone at her, then they would just add even more sins to themselves, and that would make them to be judged even more.

This is an important lesson for all of us, that no matter how wicked someone we know are, we should not be quick to judge and to dismiss that person as hopeless. We should remember that we ourselves were without hope and were certain of damnation before the Lord Jesus came into the world and showed us that there is indeed a path out of the darkness and into the light.

And just as the Lord had shown mercy on all of us, then we too, imperfect and sinful as we are, all the more that we should show mercy on one another too. God had shown mercy on His people, even though they were sinners, dirty, corrupted and unworthy in the presence of He Who is perfect and all good. And He did not give up on us, no matter how far it was that we have fallen into sin.

But are we all realising what we must do in order to accept God’s rich offer of mercy? He has given us so many opportunities and paths through which we may find our way to Him, but many of us have yet to realise the urgency of such a move as is necessary for us to attain salvation and liberation from the fate of destruction that is awaiting all those who are still living in the state of sin.

We cannot be passive or be ignorant about our sins, and we have to do something if we are going to free ourselves from the trap of sin. This means that we have to take heed of what Jesus had said to the adulterous woman, that while He does not condemn her but she must sin no more. If she continues to live in sin and refuse to change her ways, then eventually she has to bear consequences for her sins and be responsible and accountable for it.

That is why in this season of Lent, the Church is helping us to control ourselves and to make ourselves more disciplined in our lives. Through fasting we control the desires of our body, by learning to control our desire for food and for pleasures of the flesh. And through abstinence, we limit and control the urges our bodies, our minds and our hearts have, to do things that are not in accordance with the Lord.

In the Gospel which is read today when there are catechumens or candidates preparing to receive the Sacrament of Baptism, it is about the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead, when Jesus our Lord brought him back from death into life, and restored hope to his sisters, Martha and Mary, and brought joy to many others. Jesus showed clearly in this example, how He is the Lord of life, the Source of all living things.

Therefore, if we only put our trust in our own human strength, in our desires and in the strength of our bodies and minds, we will surely fail, for without God, we are truly nothing and without true life. And when we sin, we make ourselves go further away from the Lord, and we distance ourselves from the life that we can only gain in Him. And if we do not turn around, we shall be lost forever, and endure eternal death and suffering in hell.

In this season of Lent, thus, let us all reflect on our own lives, on our actions, words and deeds. Have we been faithful to God in all things? And have we devoted our time to God and obey Him in all of His laws and commandments? This means that have we been truly faithful in our actions, through which we can bring good things or pain and suffering for others? It is the choice that we now have, and the opportunity we cannot afford to miss.

Let us all renew our faith and commit ourselves to God once again, and let us turn ourselves into a new life, that with the approaching celebration of Easter, we may celebrate it with full vigour and with full faith in our Lord, and be made righteous by our faith, and by our actions and deeds that validate that faith we have in God. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Saturday, 12 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we heard today the opposition which the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the elders of the people presented against Jesus, as they tried to convince everyone that Jesus was not the Messiah, that He was a fraud and a heretic, and that He had blasphemed against God by His many teachings that seemingly ran contrary to what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had uphold.

Of course it did not mean that all the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were wicked and without good. It did not mean that all the Pharisees were adamantly against Jesus, as the Gospel passage itself reminded us that Nicodemus was one of the Pharisees who believed in Jesus and accepted His teachings. And Joseph of Arimathea was another one of these Pharisees who also believed in Him.

But this opposition against Jesus came about not so much because of what Jesus had taught, as compared to what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law perceived about Him. They saw Him as a rival and a threat to their influence, because what He taught the people seemed to be different from what they were teaching the people, and He rebuked them in various occasions for their supposed lack of true faith.

The Pharisees, the elders and the teachers of the Law were at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of the society of the people of God at the time, they were the ones who interpreted the Law for the people, and they determined how the people would come and worship, and managed the rites and the celebrations at the Temple, regulating all forms of rules in the society.

In such a privileged position and in such a position of honour, it can be easily seen how they were gathering together heaps upon heaps of praises and honour, and therefore, as what is in our human nature, we tend to gloat in such pleasures, being pleased and satisfied by those adulation, and therefore, we grew in our ego and pride, and the same thing happened to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

And thus, they were not willing to let go of all the honour, the fame, the position of honour they have achieved in the world, to listen to the truth of Jesus speaking to them and all the people. They shut the doors of their heart tight and they refused to listen to the Lord speaking to them. To them, the Lord Jesus was someone Who came to destroy all that they have gained in the world.

And this was why the Lord was so critical on His criticism at them. These people have misused and abused their authority, and they have even misled the people of God into the wrong path. And instead of guiding the people of God to come closer to Him through a greater understanding of God’s laws and commandments, and through a greater desire to love the Lord, they have oppressed the people with numerous obligations that were really unnecessary.

It is a lesson for all of us then, as we progress through this season of Lent, for us to reexamine ourselves and our actions. Have we been truly faithful in God, and have we been walking in His path all along? This is the time for us to realise how that there is still so many things we can do to prove our faith to the Lord. We should not follow the path of the Pharisees who placed themselves first before God, and who sought to satisfy their own needs first before obeying God.

Let us all learn through fasting and abstinence, the habit to resist our own selfishness, our pride, our hubris, our greed and all the things that are pulling at us and tempting us to abandon our path towards the Lord. Let us all put the effort to become ever closer to the Lord and to be more faithful to Him. Let us follow Him with all of our heart and find our way to His grace, the life everlasting. Amen.

by

Saturday, 12 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 7 : 2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12

O Lord, my God, in You I take shelter; deliver me and save me from all my pursuers, lest lions tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

Proclaim, o Lord, my righteousness; You see that I am blameless. Bring to an end the power of the wicked, but affirm the just, o righteous God, Searcher of mind and heart.

You cover me as a shield, o God, for You protect the upright. A righteous judge is God, His anger ever awaiting those who refuse to repent.

by

Friday, 11 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about the plotting of the wicked against the Righteous One, as predicted in the Book of Wisdom written before the time of Jesus, and how all of that which had been written came true in Jesus, when He came into this world bearing His truth upon the world. Jesus came revealing the truth to all mankind, and He came to save us from our own downfall in sin.

And yet, from what we have seen in the Scriptures, mankind, we ourselves are resistant to God’s attempts to rescue us, and instead of wanting to embrace God and to be forgiven from our sins, we tend to persist instead in our wicked and mistaken behaviours, disobeying God in all things, and we continued in our ways and paths of sin and darkness.

This is because we have this natural tendency to love sin and wickedness, simply because these things make use of our desires and our hearts’ corruption by our greed and by our human tendencies to sin. We like to do things that bring us pleasure, happiness and joy, even if these joy and happiness come about at the expense of others. And this is why mankind can at times be very cruel to one another. And this is sin.

And worst of all is our pride, the pride in each one of us, the ego that engulfs us and swallows us whole. It is pride that had brought Satan down from his position once as the greatest and mightiest Angel in heaven, and it is the same pride that will also destroy us and bring us to our downfall. It is the pride of the wicked that we saw in the Book of Wisdom that brought them to plot against the Righteous One.

And thus, just as it had been prophesied, the wicked represented the Pharisees, the elders and the teachers of the Law who throughout the Gospels showed great resistance against the teachings and works of Jesus in this world, plotting at every possible opportunities to thwart His work, to disturb the works of mercy and salvation, and to mock and ridicule all that He had brought into this world, His truth.

They did so because for long they had enjoyed a position of great privilege, and unable to take on the criticism and the rebuke which the Lord had blatantly showed them as He came through Jesus, they continued deeper in their disobedience, and rather than repenting and seeing the truth in Jesus and His words, they found Him as a threat to their own worldly influence and legitimacy, and thus tried hard to destroy Him.

And when they have failed to thwart Him even by condemning Him to death, as He rose into glory and ascended into the glorious Heaven, they tried to persecute His Church and made life difficult for His followers and disciples. All these were caused by their jealousy, their pride and their inability to tear themselves away from all the negativities, from all the desires, and all the corruptions of sin that had eaten away at their hearts.

Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard of all these, all of us should reflect on our own lives. How many times have we disobeyed the Lord as we listen more closely to our own hearts’ desires and to our pride? How many times have we betrayed the Lord, and betrayed our own fellow men just to serve and to satisfy our own selfish needs?

Let us all use this opportunity given to us by God to reflect on our own actions, and see what we can do in order to gain salvation through God. Let us all change our ways and repent for all of our sins, that by turning over a new leaf, we may find ourselves in a new life blessed by God. May the Lord keep us and bless us, and may He bring us all into everlasting life. Amen.

by

Friday, 11 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 7 : 1-2, 10, 25-30

After this Jesus went around Galilee; He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews wanted to kill Him. Now the Jewish feast of the Tents was at hand. But after His brothers had gone to the festival, He also went up, not publicly but in secret.

Some of the people of Jerusalem said, “Is this not the Man they want to kill? And here He is speaking freely, and they do not say a word to Him? Can it be that the rulers know that this is really the Christ? Yet we know where this Man comes from; but when the Christ appears, no one will know where He comes from.”

So Jesus announced in a loud voice in the Temple court where He was teaching, “You say that you know Me and know where I come from! I have not come of Myself; I was sent by the One Who is true, and you do not know Him. I know Him for I come from Him and He sent Me.”

They would have arrested Him, but no one laid hands on Him because His time had not yet come.

by

Friday, 11 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 33 : 17-18, 19-20, 21 and 23

But the Lord’s face is set against the wicked to destroy their memory from the earth. The Lord hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught. Many are the troubles of the just, but the Lord delivers them from all.

He keeps all their bones intact, and none of them will be broken. But the Lord will redeem the life of His servants; none of those who trust in Him will be doomed.

by

Thursday, 10 March 2016 : 4th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God Who was angry at His people when they betrayed Him and went for the worship of the pagan idol, in the form of a golden calf, in a story that all of us are surely familiar with, as we must have heard it during our catechism classes. We heard how God became angry and how He punished them for their wrongdoings, by destroying those who have led the people to sin, and those who have refused to repent and follow God.

But many of us would not know or remember the part saying that Moses pleaded with God to spare His people from His anger and from the destruction He intended for them because of their sins. Many of us would not remember how Moses pleaded before God to think of the covenant which He had established with His faithful servants, and to remember of the great love which He had for all of mankind, His beloved creations.

In this story, we see the same narrative of sin and redemption which we often hear during this season of Lent, a time of penitence and repentance, where we are all called to change our wicked and mistaken ways, and to turn away from all these, following once again the path towards God our Lord and Saviour. In the story which we heard today, we hear a very important message for us all, that there is hope for us as long as we are willing to repent and commit ourselves to God.

But it will not be an easy path for us to take, for the path towards redemption and salvation in God is likely to be filled with challenges and obstacles, and Satan who is trying to tempt and lure us away from God, will certainly not remain passive or quiet while we are being drawn into the Lord’s salvation. He is actively trying to pull us away from God and to bring us down into the deepest depths of hell.

Shall we then follow his path or the path of the Lord? Satan’s path is apparently easier for us, more enticing, and more pleasurable, and indeed, more exciting than the path that God offers us, but at the end of that path is a great cliff, from which if we fall, we can never rise back up. On the other hand, God’s path, is a path of challenges, difficulties and also filled with many sufferings, and yet at the end of the journey is our eternal rewards in God.

The people of God in the desert chose the easy way out, when they thought that Moses and God had abandoned them after he ascended for forty days at Mount Horeb. They were too quickly tempted by the temptations of their flesh, and they did not have patience in them. They placed their trust in the gold and in all the wealth that they received when they left Egypt. The love for God was not in their hearts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a reminder to all of us, that through this season of Lent, and indeed throughout our lives, we should endeavour to resist the temptations of our flesh, and abandon the false idols that had kept us away from truly being devoted and faithful servants of the Lord our God. Are these false idols the same as the idols of Israel at that time? Maybe, and maybe not.

If we are talking about idols from stone, wood or anything else carved in the images of animals, beasts, and other worldly things, then we may not have these common in our world today, but if we talk about the false idols and gods of money, of wealth and human desires, then we can see indeed, how these, the pursuits of wealth, the greed of men for more and more, are keeping us away from God.

Let us all therefore learn and strive to keep faithfully God’s laws and commandments, and let us be disciplined in our lives, so that we may resist all the temptations of the devil and all of his seducers, and remain true in love to the Lord our God. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.