redemption

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Monday, 31 March 2014 : 4th Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 65 : 17-21

I now create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind again. Be glad forever and rejoice in what I create; for I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in My people.

The sound of distress and the voice of weeping will not be heard in it any more. You will no longer know of dead children or of adults who do not live out a lifetime. One who reaches a hundred years will have died a mere youth, but one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant crops and eat their fruit.

 

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Sunday, 30 March 2014 : 4th Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or Rose (Laetare Sunday)

1 Samuel 16 : 1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Fill your horn with oil and be on your way to Jesse the Bethlehemite for I have chosen My king from among his sons.

As they came, Samuel looked at Eliab the older and thought, “This must be YHVH’s anointed.” But YHVH told Samuel, “Do not judge by his looks or his stature for I have rejected him. YHVH does not judge as man judges; humans see with the eyes; YHVH sees the heart.”

Jesse presented seven of his sons to Samuel who said, “YHVH has chosen none of them. But are all your children here?” Jesse replied, “There is still the youngest, tending the flock just now.” Samuel said to him, “Send for him and bring him to me; we shall not sit down to eat until he arrives.”

So Jesse sent for his youngest son and brought him to Samuel. He was a handsome lad with ruddy complexion and beautiful eyes. And YHVH spoke, “Go, anoint him for he is the one.”

Samuel then took the horn of oil and anointed him in his brothers’ presence.

 

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Saturday, 29 March 2014 : 3rd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

The love and mercy of God know no bounds, and there is no limit to His grace for us. He determined that He wants to see us saved and blessed, freed from the chains of sin that had bound us since the time of Adam and Eve, our ancestors. That was why He sent so much help towards our way, that we may find a way to return to His blessing, love and mercy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is important to remember that God loves us, and despite our transgressions, He is willing to overlook them and welcome us back to His embrace, so that we will not perish in the destruction destined for us because of our sins. But, there is a limit to God’s patience and mercy, and we should not test Him by continuously defying Him.

Yet, sadly many of us are blinded by our own sense of pride and human arrogance that we refuse to listen to God and to His call for us to repent from our sins. We assume that we are able to take charge of our own lives and our destiny, that we disregard His love and reject His care. We immerse ourselves in our stubbornness and carry on with our life, no matter how debauched it is.

Even among us the faithful, we often forget that we ought to be humble before God, for we have sinned. Instead we boasted about our achievements and what we did in the favour of the Lord. We even become judgmental and condemning those whom we deem as less worthy than us for grace and salvation. That was exactly what the Pharisees had done.

Jesus reminded us that the prayer of the proud and haughty worth less than the prayer made by the humble in genuine humility. The humble seeks the Lord with all of their heart and strength, because they know of their fragility and weaknesses, seeking God to help them rectify that issue and reunite them with Him. Brethren, again it is important for us not to judge others and be haughty over others just because of our achievements.

Instead we should assist one another, giving a helping hand to those in need. Particularly those who are lost in sin and darkness are of the greatest priority for us to help with. We cannot ignore or pretend to not see or hear their plight, for this kind of ignorance show the lack of true love and faith within us.

Do not be judgmental and do not think of anyone less than ourselves, just because we think that we are better or more righteous than they are. Let us not praise our own achievements, less still use them to put down others like what the Pharisee had done. We have to be more like the tax collector, understanding the sins we have and committing ourselves to change our own ways.

Never think that we are always worthy of salvation, but we have to continue to work hard and not be complacent. We have to continue to be vigilant and avoid being consumed by our own human insecurities and emotions. Seek the Lord who will definitely help us, and ask Him for His help and protection, that we will always be strong as we walk in His ways.

Let us never be separated from Him, and let us be able to see our own sinfulness, understanding the limitations and fragilities of our own selves, and humbly asking God for forgiveness for all our trespasses, and that we may always remain in God’s grace. God bless us all. Amen.

 

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Friday, 28 March 2014 : 3rd Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Mark 12 : 28b-34

So a teacher of the Law came up to Jesus and asked Him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is : ‘Hear, Israel! The Lord, our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.'”

“And after this comes a second commandment : ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandments greater than these two.'”

The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master, You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”

Jesus approved this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.

 

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Sunday, 23 March 2014 : 3rd Sunday of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Be not stubborn and put our trust in God. Open our hearts and listen to God speaking in the depths of our hearts. Let Him come to us and make us once again to be worthy of Him. Be open to the words of God and do not harden our hearts against Him, and our salvation will surely come upon us and we will rejoice with God.

Do not be like the Israelites but rather be like the Samaritans, this is the message that we need to learn today. Not to be prejudiced over one race of people against another, so that is why we need to understand first the context and background that made up the scene in our Gospel reading today.

At that time, and ever since the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, about seven centuries before the birth of Christ, the remnants of the Israelites, commonly called the Jews since then, had been at odds with the people who lived at the former territories of the northern kingdom.

These people had been brought in by the Assyrian conquerors to replace the people of the northern kingdom who had been mostly deported to the far away territories of the Assyrian Empire, and these people intermingled with the remnants of the people of the northern kingdom to form the people called the Samaritans, because they lived in the region of Samaria, the former capital of the northern kingdom.

The Jews despised the Samaritans because ever since their exile in Babylon, they had been largely faithful to the law of God, and under the leadership of the Pharisees, they became rather puritans in faith, that is they were very zealous and proud of their faith in God as well as their heritage of the faith and full observation of God’s laws. And the Samaritans stood in contrast to this, as they mixed their ancestors’ pagan rites with the faith of the Israelites in God.

So essentially the Jews and the Samaritans worship the same God, but they were at odds because of their differences, in how they worship the Lord their God. And in particular because the Jews and their faith believed that they were the only ones worthy of salvation because they were of God’s chosen people, and exclude others as pagans and unworthy of salvation, refusing to deal with them as much as possible.

Well, as we see from the Scriptures, we know that Christ was first sent to the Jews, to the chosen people of God, to tell them of God’s Good News of salvation. Yet, as we know, they refused to listen to Him, or just believed superficially without real substance of the faith.

Jesus’ own neighbours in His own hometown rejected Him, the Pharisees and the chief priests rejected Him, and the same people who believed in Him and put their faith in Him because of His miracles and healings called for His death and crucifixion on the cross. Yet, the Samaritans believed in what He said and followed Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Jesus Himself said, that all who believes in Him will receive eternal life, we too will receive what He promised to the Samaritan woman if we genuinely believe in Him. And we should not be prejudiced against anyone based on their background either, and worst of all we should not claim to be righteous over another and condemn them for their supposedly ‘lesser’ faith.

Instead, let us help one another to believe more and more in God, and let us help one another to reach out to the Lord, that all of us may together be saved and may one day be together in heaven, all as the same children of the same God. Let us go together and worship the Lord as one. May God guide us and help us on our way. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 March 2014 : 3rd Sunday of Lent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Romans 5 : 1-2, 5-8

By faith we have received true righteousness, and we are at peace with God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Through Him we obtain this favour in which we remain and we even boast to expect the Glory of God.

And hope does not disappoint us because the Holy Spirit has been given to us, pouring into our hearts the love of God. Consider, moreover, the time that Christ died for us : when we were still helpless and unable to do anything. Few would accept to die for an upright person; although, for a very good person, perhaps someone would dare to die.

But see how God manifested His love for us : while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Saturday, 22 March 2014 : 2nd Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Today we heard the well-known parable of the prodigal son, which I am certain that at some point of your life, you have heard it at least once. In this parable, God is compared to a loving and forgiving father, whose younger son had gone wayward and lost, and when that son returned to him, the father rejoiced and welcomed him back with full of love.

And indeed our God is like that, and He is indeed our Father, who loves us and cares for us, whose thoughts are centred ever on us every day and every moment in time. He looks always onto us, and wants us to be once again reunited with Him. And we are the prodigal sons, and also like the elder son of the father.

For we all have sinned before God, and committing what is evil in His eyes, and very often in our lives, we have disobeyed His law and His will, and instead following our own desires and our own forged path, which we built on our desires as well as on the foundations laid down by Satan. We were corrupted by the world and brought away from the way of truth.

It is easy for us to relate with the younger son, for we know that in this world, there are plenty and indeed almost limitless availability for human pleasures and goodness to satisfy our desires and our greed for such things. And that was exactly what happened to the younger son, who squandered the hard-earned wealth of his father, which was his inheritance, on loose living.

I am sure that in one way or another, this also happened to us. We gave in to the increasingly aggressive world, which indeed increases its attacks on us and our faithful living, by multiplying the number of pleasures and goodness that it tries to bring to us, seducing us to a lifestyle that is signified by excessive consumption and blatant disobedience of God’s will.

In this world, it is increasingly difficult for us to live without being bombarded daily by the increasing amount of advertisements and promotions on the good things of this world, the amenities and joys of life, all the components of a materialistic and hedonistic lifestyle. How many of us are not aware of the offers on the latest gadgets and jewelries? How many of us are not aware of the lucrative deals being offered?

But the key message that we ought to know today is that, regardless of all these, we all have hope, because God who is our Father is always waiting for us, like the father of the prodigal son, ever eager to see his long lost son to return to his side. The prodigal and sinful son realised that he had sinned against God and his father, by committing all that he had done. And this is indeed a very important moment that we all have to note.

It is this realisation, and coupled by the desire to return to his father, which propelled the prodigal son on his difficult journey home, to return to the love of his father. But had the son not realised his sinfulness, even in his difficult times, he would just be dead in that foreign land, and his death would not have been mourned by any. He would have died among the animals, without honour and be shamed forever in darkness.

The same therefore will happen to us, if we do not realise the depth and gravity of our sins, and if we continue to walk in the path of the wicked, following our hearts’s desire rather than following the Lord our God. We will suffer for eternity in shame, regret and hopelessness in hell, where there will be no light, no pleasure, and no happiness but only sorrow, regret and darkness.

So it is important for us to realise our sins, know them, and seek God for absolution and forgiveness, humbly asking Him to forgive us and promise to change our ways and sin no more, just as the prodigal son sought the forgiveness of his father, and then be received back into the fullness of love that his father has prepared for him, which God too had prepared for us.

And lastly, we who have been saved by our baptism and faith in Jesus Christ, are also like the elder son. We have been deemed as righteous and we remain in the house of the father, God our Father because of our faith in His Son. But that does not mean that we have the right to condemn all those who are still wayward. Remember that we are all sinners who still need to be saved by the grace of God through our actions.

Instead, let us help one another, especially those who are still in the darkness. Let us bring them to the light of God, by showing it through our own deeds and actions, that they may believe in us, children of the light, that they too will follow our path, to become children of God.

May our Lord who loves us, and who forgives and welcomes His prodigal sons back to His side, continue to love us, watch over us, and guide us that we may always walk righteously and faithfully on His path. Amen.

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Wednesday, 19 March 2014 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Today we celebrate the feast day of one of the greatest saints in the Church, none other than St. Joseph himself, the protector and head of the Holy Family, husband and spouse of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and the foster-father of Jesus Christ our Lord. Today is a great feast day because we are celebrating the feast of an important persona, whose role in our salvation in Jesus is perhaps second only to the Blessed Virgin Mary herself.

St. Joseph wedded the Blessed Virgin and became her protector and guardian. He was a carpenter at the small village of Nazareth in Galilee, and as history told us, he was already quite old at that time of her marriage to Mary, who was still very young, and it may be likely that it was not his first marriage. And Joseph was initially hesitant to marry her when he found out that she was with Child Jesus in her womb.

Even here the quality of St. Joseph was clearly visible, as he was an upright and virtuous person, who did not wish evil upon others but only good. He wanted good on others, even on Mary after she somehow ‘cheated’ him by being pregnant even before their marriage. But after Joseph discovered the truth through the angel of God, he married her and protected both her and her Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

St. Joseph certainly taught our Lord Jesus many things, just as other fathers do. St. Joseph, even though as a sort of stepfather to Jesus, loved Him as if He is his own son. With the guidance of St. Joseph, Jesus grew to a strong and loving man, as a well-mannered and God-loving Son of God.

Most likely, by the time Jesus began His ministry upon His baptism, St. Joseph had passed away due to his old age. Yet, what he had taught Jesus certainly helped Him during His ministry, and He knew about the world and its situation at the time, also likely through the tutelage of St. Joseph, who taught Him about it.

The example set by St. Joseph still inspires us today, first is to be obedient and have a strong faith to the Lord, as what he showed, obeying the Lord and playing his part in the scheme of God’s salvation. He obeyed the angel’s warning to bring Jesus out of harm when King Herod tried to kill Him. He was a loving father and an upright man, who followed God’s will and did his best to show it in his actions.

He certainly worked hard to provide for his family, for Mary his wife and for Jesus his adopted Son. That is why St. Joseph is also the patron saint of workers, showing them how to work hard and yet remain devoted to the Lord in his actions and deeds. He is truly a role model to all of us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, the challenge to us now is that are we able to follow and walk in the footsteps of St. Joseph? Are we able to follow what he had done, in his virtue and righteousness? That is the challenge for all of us now. We do not have to emulate entirely what he had done, as it will not be easy to us. But we have to at least make the effort, is it not?

So, brethren, let us use this opportunity to reflect on our own life and our own actions, whether we have done what is righteous in the eyes of God, or whether we have failed to do so, either by ignoring His commandments and staying idle, or by committing sins and what is evil to God.

Let us change our ways for the better, that from now on we may live in God’s grace and be blessed by His presence among us. Let us resolve to remain always in the light of God and reject the darkness of Satan and the world. May God help us all and guide us to Himself. Amen.

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Tuesday, 18 March 2014 : 2nd Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)

Psalm 49 : 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23

Not for your sacrifices do I reprove you, for your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I need no bull from your stalls, nor he-goat from your pens.

What right have you to mouth My laws, or to talk about My covenant? You hate My commands and cast My words behind you.

Because I was silent while you did these things, you thought I was like you. But now I rebuke you and make this charge against you. Those who give with thanks offerings honours Me, but the one who walks blamelessly, I will show him the salvation of God.

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Wednesday, 12 March 2014 : 1st Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Today brethren, we see how even a people, who were often prejudiced against by the faithful, as the pagan nations, and a pagan people, with their pagan practices and pagan idols, can turn their back to their sinful ways, and sincerely asking and begging God for forgiveness. That was why Jesus used them as an example to the wayward people of God.

The contrast between what the pagan people of Nineveh had done, with the lack of faith in the supposedly righteous and faithful chosen people of God can be seen very clearly in the two readings. The faithful people of God did not listen to the words of Christ, or at most did not take His message very seriously.

They continued in their debauched and misled way of life, and they even doubted and questioned the authority of Christ in His teachings, by asking Him for signs and miracles, as if what He had done all that time He had spent with them were not enough to them. They refused to believe because they had hardened their hearts against the Lord and closed their ears to His words.

On the contrary, the supposedly pagan and therefore condemned people of Nineveh, the capital of the powerful and all-conquering Assyrian Empire, when they heard the warnings of Jonah the prophet, immediately, from their king to the lowest of the people bowed themselves down, very, very low before God, and humbled themselves with fasting and penitence, showing their genuine regret and repentance for their past sins.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, an important lesson that we ought to take from today’s readings is that we must never judge on others based on our prejudice or any preformed opinions, and we must never be judgmental in general. We have no right to judge others because we too will be judged with them as one people of the same God.

And God wanted to teach us that no one is beyond redemption or help. What matters is not nationality, race, or any other categories of peoples that will help us to achieve salvation. What matters is how genuine we are in our faith and devotion to the Lord and in following His commandments and teachings. If we are true to our faith and be fully devoted to the ways of the Lord, then we will be considered righteous.

What the Lord wants from each one of us is not blind obedience or empty profession of faith, not substantiated by the action that makes our faith truly genuine and real. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us keep in mind of what God wants from us, that is our love and devotion! We cannot be half-hearted in our dedication to Him and certainly we will have to live up to our faith.

We cannot be like the people of Jesus’ time who professed outwardly as faithful and religious and yet did not show it in their actions which in fact showed the contrary. We should rather follow the example of the people of Nineveh, who showed their genuine faith and that they believe, not by empty words but through real and concrete actions.

We too, brothers and sisters, ought to show our love for God, by listening to Him, accepting Him in our lives and acknowledging at all times, the love He has for us, and the unworthiness of our sins, which we made and tainted ourselves. And yet our loving God is willing to forgive us from all of that and allow us to be reunited once again with Him.

Let us now therefore pray, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we may be like the people of Nineveh and be sincere in our faith, that we may give a hundred percent of our devotion to God and nothing else. May God too guide us as we make our way towards Him. God bless us all and be with us always. Amen.