Reflection of the Bible

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Thursday, 25 March 2021 : Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, marking the exact nine months before the date of Christmas as we recall that moment when Our Lord and Saviour was incarnate in the womb of His beloved Mother, Mary, right upon her acceptance of the will of God and her total and complete entrustment to God. By her positive response to the Good News delivered to her through the Archangel Gabriel, Mary has completed and heralded the long awaited coming of the Messiah.

On this day we rejoice in the memory of the Good News that was brought by the Archangel Gabriel, announced to Mary in Nazareth, the coming of God’s long awaited salvation, the fulfilment of all of His plans in saving us mankind. Mankind has long awaited the coming of the salvation which God had in fact proclaimed from the very beginning, right from the very moment that mankind fell into sin because of the temptations of Satan.

Right at that moment the Lord proclaimed that while Satan would strike at the heel of the children of men, but the Woman shall crush Satan himself under her feet. That Woman referred to by the Lord was Mary, the one who would indeed come a long time later as the proof and the fulfilment of God’s many promises to His people, that in the end, He is always still with them and never abandoned them to destruction and evil.

He renewed His promises and as we heard in our first reading today He made the same commitment through His prophet Isaiah, speaking to Ahaz, the king of Judah. The king refused to ask for a sign from the Lord which the Lord then rebuked the king for his false humility and faith, as although he said that he did not want to put the Lord to the test, in his actions and rule as king, he did quite a lot in misleading the people down the path of sin and wickedness, and hence, God again reiterated that the Woman would bear a Child.

Through that exchange between Ahaz and God, we heard the clearest yet of the prophecy of what was to happen, as Mary, the Woman mentioned and promised by God, would indeed bear a Child, Who is the Son of God Most High, the Word of God, Only Begotten Son of God, incarnate in the flesh becoming Man, the Son of Man. He is the Emmanuel mentioned by the Lord to king Ahaz, as His coming into the world meant that God Himself has then dwelled in this world, in our midst, among each one of us.

Today therefore on this great Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, all of us rejoice in the Lord and His love for us, that He has fulfilled the promises He made to us, and gave us all His Good News, through the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, soon to be Mother of God, of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Through Mary’s obedience to the will of God, her faith in God and her humble acceptance and commitment to her role as the Mother of the Lord and Saviour, we have therefore received the salvation from God in Christ.

Today therefore we ought to reflect on the faith that Mary had in the Lord, her virtues and dedication, as although she was conceived without the taint of original sin by the grace of God, but she was still a woman, and she remained pure and blameless throughout all her life, and hence the Archangel Gabriel hailed Mary as being in the fullness of God’s grace, which made her to be perfect as the one to bear the Lord and Saviour of all, and as the Ark of the New Covenant.

We may be wondering if it is indeed possible for someone to remain pure, blameless and immaculate from sin throughout. Yet, it was how we ourselves have been created by God, pure and incorrupt, and we were tainted only because we allowed sin to enter into our hearts and minds. Our love for God is not great enough for us to resist the temptations to sin and to do what is against the will of God. On the contrary, Mary loved God with all her heart and with all her might, and that love allowed her to remain true to Him, and remain in fullness of grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? Have we been living our lives in accordance of God’s will as Mary had done? Or have we instead allowed sin and our desires to control us and the direction of our lives? This is the question that we should really ask ourselves today on this Solemnity of the Annunciation and looking back throughout our Lenten journey, and even further back throughout these past years of our lives. Have we been genuine and good Christians, brothers and sisters?

Let us all seek the Lord with renewed conviction and faith from now on, by looking upon His mother, Mary as our role model and example. Let us all be inspired by the faith of Mary, her piety and dedication, her commitment and humility to accept her role in whatever God had entrusted her with, that she dutifully followed and committed herself, all the way even to the foot of the Cross, when she saw her own Son dying and suffering on the Cross for our salvation, for our benefit.

May Mary, the Mother of God, our loving mother as well, pray for us and continue to aid us in our journey through her guidance and ceaseless intercessions, that we may draw ever closer to her Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour that we all may be worthy to receive from Him the gift of eternal life and glory. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Wednesday, 24 March 2021 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are reminded of the bravery and the courage with which the friends of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood by their faith before the great king of the Babylonians, the lord of many nations and the one who led the conquest of Judah and Jerusalem, destroying the city and the Temple of God, and how this can then be related and compared with what we heard in our Gospel passage today with regards to the Lord and His confrontation with the Jewish people.

In the first reading today, we heard of the moment when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down to the great golden statue built by king Nebuchadnezzar in his own image, as they held fast to their obedience and faith in God, and would not betray Him for the likeness of any idols or false gods. Even when faced with the full wrath of the king and the certain threat of suffering and death, all of them held firmly to their faith and did not give up their faith.

They were thus punished by the king of Babylon, to suffer and perish in the great furnace prepared for all those who dared to defy the command of the king. And as the king was furious with the refusal of the three friends of Daniel, and with their adamant and resolute stance against the worship of the idolatrous golden statue, he made the furnace to be much hotter, and threw the men into it. Yet, by divine providence and grace, they were unharmed. God protected them and sent His Angel to watch over them.

These three faithful men were among the people who had been brought off to exile in Babylon, as a people without a country, without land and honour left, humiliated and humbled. Their own original names were Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, as the names they were known by were actually forced upon them as the names the Babylonians imposed on them, as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This symbolised the situation that they endured, bereft of their own homeland and even name, enslaved and oppressed.

Then we move on to our Gospel reading in which we heard the argument and confrontation between the Lord and the Jewish people in Judea, the latter referring to those who held and supported the hardline views of the Pharisees and therefore opposed the Lord Jesus and His works and ministry. The people argued that they were not enslaved and were free as they were the children of Abraham, when the Lord told them that if they were to believe in His words and accept His truth, then they would be free.

The people who refused to believe in Jesus hardened their hearts and stubbornly declined to listen to reason, and therefore they were actually enslaved. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, they were enslaved, and not free, because they were controlled by their desires, ego and pride, their refusal to admit that they could be wrong and mistaken, as they heard the truth from the Lord.

They continued to resist the truth even after having witnessed all that the Lord had done, and even after they had heard the great wisdom in His teachings and revelations, and the authority with which He has taught the people. This can be indeed contrasted with the attitudes of the three friends of Daniel. While the former, the people of the time of Jesus were free, but their hearts were in fact enslaved by sin, and the latter, the friends of Daniel, while they were enslaved in body, yet in their hearts and minds, they were truly free, by God’s grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard all of these, therefore we are all called to reflect on our own lives and actions. Have we been truly free, brothers and sisters? Are we still enslaved by sin, by our ego, pride, desire and all sorts of worldly concerns and temptations, while we may be free in body? This is why as we continue to progress through this season of Lent, we are all called to do self-introspection, reflect and ponder on what we can do to be more faithful and to be righteous in life.

There will be plenty of challenges and trials facing us, brothers and sisters in Christ, but we must not be afraid, for just as the Lord took care and protected the three men, the friends of Daniel from even the worst of persecutions, the Lord will also stand by our side, that even when we suffer, we will not be alone, and we will walk through and survive even the most challenging trials, by God’s grace, guidance and help. May the Lord be with us all, and may He strengthen us all that we may ever persevere in faith, at all times. Amen.

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Tuesday, 23 March 2021 : 5th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture, hearing how the people of Israel rebelled against God and disobeyed Him when they grumbled and complained against Him as they journeyed through the desert from Egypt. They complained that they had a better life in Egypt even though over there they were slaves and were treated badly.

They did all these even though the Lord had in fact treated them very kindly, patiently answering their pleas and requests, giving them daily the bread from heaven itself, and also other food and plenty of water to drink in their journey through the desert. The Lord took good care of His people and patiently cared for them only to gain contempt, betrayal and disobedience, rebellion and wickedness in return.

The Lord then sent fiery serpents that were disastrous in their effects on the people, as many were bitten by those serpents and died. Those serpents killed many and the people begged the Lord for mercy, asking Moses to intercede for their sake. The Lord had pity on His people and showed them His clemency through instructing Moses to build a great bronze serpent standard, and lifting it up before the whole people that all those who had been bitten and saw the bronze serpent would be saved.

This is related to our Gospel passage today in which we heard of the Lord Jesus speaking plainly to the people and all gathered about what would happen to Him. Those Jews were the ones living in Judea and many of them supported the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in opposition against Jesus. They doubted Him and refused to believe in Him, demanding to see miracles and signs from Him even when He had done all those wonders before them all.

And the Lord then revealed to all of them how He would be lifted up high above the Earth, a prelude to what He would endure during His Passion namely when He would be scourged, stripped and nailed to the Cross, and lifted up on the hill of Calvary, for all the same people to whom the Lord had spoken, to see the ultimate and greatest of all the signs of God’s wonders and love.

What is the significance of this, brothers and sisters? It is just like the lifting of the bronze serpent of Moses in the past through which the people were saved from the deadly sting of the serpents, thus, the Lord also had Himself lifted up so that all those who see Him, believe in Him and have faith in Him will be saved from certain death and destruction from the sting of sin.

This is therefore an important reminder for each and every one of us that we are all called to shun the temptations to sin, the allure and pull of its corruption, and all the things that have led us to our downfall, and the downfall of so many who came and went before us. As we approach the beginning of the Holy Week in less than a week’s time, we are all called to reflect deeply of the Lord’s Passion, all that He had done, out of His great love for us.

It is thanks to Him, His enduring love and great patience that each and every one of us still have hope, the hope of entering into a new and blessed existence free from sin, and one that is no longer corrupted by those wicked and evil taints of the world. The Lord has willingly taken up His Cross, bearing our many sins and their consequences and punishments, all because of His love for us. If not for Him, we should have been lost to despair and the darkness.

That is why we should appreciate the love of God and everything that He had done for us, and we must not take the opportunities that He has given us for granted, or else, we may find it that we are too late to realise how fortunate we are to have been beloved by God and to have received so many good opportunities from Him. We need turn towards the Lord, look at Him crucified and remember the love by which He selflessly took up that sacrifice in order to save all of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we can also be inspired by the good examples set by St. Turibius de Mogrovejo, one of our holy predecessors. St. Turibius de Mogrovejo was a great and renowned Archbishop, who was once also the confessor and trusted advisor of the King of Spain. He was credited with the conversion of numerous people, many of whom he personally preached to and worked with. He dedicated himself wholeheartedly to the improvement of the life of his flock, and committed himself to care for them.

St. Turibius de Mogrovejo travelled extensively throughout his diocese and beyond, often on foot and baptising many, taking care of the spiritual needs of those whom he had encountered throughout his ministry. He established many chapels, convents, hospitals and schools for the benefit of many people, and many indeed were helped and touched by the actions of this saintly bishop that they became converts and believers.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all turn towards the Lord with a new heart and desire to follow Him, inspired by the good examples of the saints, particularly that of St. Turibius de Mogrovejo. May the Lord be our guide that we may journey successfully through life with faith, and focusing our attention from now on, to the Lord and His saving grace. Let us always remember all the sufferings and humiliations that Our Lord had to face in order to save us all, out of His enduring and ever-present love for us. May God bless us all, now and always. Amen.

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Monday, 22 March 2021 : 5th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are reminded of the dangers of sin and the need for us to resist the temptations to sin and to indulge in various human desires. We need to learn from what we have heard in our Scripture readings today so that we may become truly better Christians in all things, in words and deeds, as well as in our everyday living, becoming good examples for one another in faith.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Daniel, the prophet of Israel in exile in Babylon who witnessed the unjust persecution and false accusation by two elders against Susanna, a faithful and righteous woman who was wrongly accused of adultery and sin against God when it was actually the two elders themselves who disobeyed the Lord and sinned because of their lust and their inability to hold that lust in check, leading to their downfall.

The two elders tried to abuse their position and power, the prestige and respect they had in the society of the Israelite exiles at the time to give them strong leverage over Susanna, who however refused to give in to their demands. It was quite obvious from what we have heard that the two men were quite set in following their desires and lust, and not only that they planned everything well, but from their threat to Susanna, they were in fact proud and filled with ego, thinking that they could not be persecuted for what they were about to do.

Not only that, but when they failed to get Susanna to bend to their will and do what they wanted, they were then dead set in trying to get her condemned to death, again using their position wrongly to gain for their own self-benefits. They almost succeeded in doing so if not for the Lord intervening through Daniel, as God awakened the Spirit in Daniel and gave him the wisdom and guidance to do what was right, and prevent the suffering and death of the innocent.

Through all of that, Daniel wisely managed to get the two elders to confess their own sins before the assembled public by making everyone to hear from their own mouths, their incoherent and inconsistent testimony, which meant that Susanna was saying the truth, and was innocent, while it was the two elders themselves who were at fault and should have been punished with whatever they had intended to punish Susanna with.

In the Gospel passage today, we then heard of the well-known story of the Lord Jesus forgiving the woman caught in the act of adultery, in which the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law wanted to test and see the Lord’s response to how they accused the woman caught in the act of adultery, hoping to catch Him off-guard and fumbling, and thus giving them the ground and evidence to either discredit Him or to persecute Him.

Had the Lord said that the woman should have been stoned to death as per the Jewish law, then the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law could have just benefitted by saying that the Lord was no different from them, or that He was just merely agreeing to what they themselves had taught, therefore discrediting Him in the eyes of others. On the other hand, had the Lord told them to release the woman, they could then charge Him on the accusation of siding with sinners and disobeying the Law.

Instead, as we know, the Lord wisely and carefully avoid all of those by simply saying that those who were without sin ought to cast the first stone, which had an almost immediate effect on the assembled people, making them aware of their own sins and disobedience against God, as was evident how the people began to leave one by one, starting from the eldest ones, as those were the ones who have lived the longest and were likely to have committed the most sins in their lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is what we have heard in our Scripture passages today, and we are reminded therefore that first of all, we are all sinners before God, and we are people who are easily tempted by the temptations to sin, in which today we had the emphasis on the sin of lust as showed by the two elders and also by the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. In comparing these two cases, the Lord wanted us to see that sin is truly dangerous and is something that can indeed bring us to our downfall if we are not careful.

Yes, as we heard, the desire to sin and our vulnerability to it, and if we succumb to those temptations, we will end up falling further and further into the trap of sin, as the two elders story had shown us. They committed more sins to protect themselves and doubled down on their mistakes just so that their earlier sins would not be discovered. Sin is something that we must be very careful with, and we cannot allow ourselves to be overcome by it.

But at the same time, through our Gospel, we are also reminded of the powerful healing from God, Who alone can heal us from our sins. And most importantly, because He loves each one of us dearly, He is truly willing to forgive all of us our sins, and be reconciled with us. He does not want to condemn us, and He does not desire our destruction, unless it is we ourselves who desire it, by continuing to live in sin and rejecting His most generous offers of mercy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all turn towards the Lord today with a renewed faith and love for Him, and let us all listen to the Lord when He said that, ‘Go and sin no more’, that we may lead a virtuous life from now on, free from sin and evil, exemplary in our lives, our actions, words and deeds, in obedience to God from now on. May God be with us always throughout our journey of faith and life, and may He strengthen us with the courage to live ever more faithfully in each and every moments of our lives. Amen.

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Sunday, 21 March 2021 : Fifth Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday, the fifth one in the season of Lent we mark the beginning of the Passiontide, the period marking the time remembering the Passion or the suffering and death of Our Lord which will culminate in the celebrations of the Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. As such this Sunday is also known as the Passion Sunday, serving as an important reminder to all of us that we are approaching the end of Lent and are entering the most solemn period in our entire liturgical year.

In our first reading today, we heard of the Lord speaking to His people through His prophet Jeremiah, promising them of a New Covenant that He would establish with them, and how He would reconcile them all to Himself, and that He would forgive them their sins and take them back to His embrace. The New Covenant that He would establish with them would not be like the old Covenant that He had once made, but much more perfect and complete.

At that time, the people of Israel had long disobeyed the Lord and fallen into vile and wicked ways, worshipping the pagan idols and gods, refusing to listen to the prophets and messengers that had been sent to them and remaining defiant in sin. They rebelled against God and were stubborn in challenging God’s authority, and thus, they should have been crushed and destroyed. God could have condemned mankind, but He did not do so because of the love that He has for each and every one of us.

He has always been patient in reaching out to us and in loving us, showing us all His care and compassionate love. And although He might seem to be stern and fierce at times, that was because He loved us sincerely and with the genuine desire to see us grow and become better. He is our loving Father, Who wants us all, His children to learn His ways and to be righteous and good, just as He is good. That is why He sent messengers after messengers, prophets after prophets to reach out to us.

He then sent us the fulfilment of that promise, the promises He had made to all of His beloved ones, through His prophets and messengers, including the one made through Jeremiah. That fulfilment came through Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Saviour of all. That God did not even hesitate to give to us His own beloved and only begotten Son is a testament of His enduring love and the dedication He has to the Covenant that He had made with us.

The Lord Jesus in our Gospel passage today proclaimed to His disciples and to all the people gathered, of the truth of God that has been revealed through Him, and how He would glorify His Father’s Name through His actions, where He mentioned how He would suffer and eventually die for the sake of our salvation, taking up upon Himself the sins of the whole world and placed them on His own shoulders, enduring all those for our sake, because of the love He has for us.

And just as shown in our Gospel passage today, how there were some Greeks, the non-Jews or the Gentiles who came and wanted to speak with the Lord and know more about Him, today as we heard that passage, we can see the symbolic nature of such an encounter, as God’s voice was heard just like how it was during the time of the baptism of Jesus, proclaiming that ‘I have glorified My Name, and I shall glorify it again’, as a reference to what the Lord Jesus would do to proclaim the glory of God and reveal the fullness of His truth to all.

These were meant therefore for both the Jews and the non-Jews or Gentiles alike, God has called all of them to follow Him and to walk in His path. God wants every single one of us, children of mankind, to come to know Him, to embrace Him and be reconciled with Him. Once we may have been separated from Him by sin, but God wants to show us all that no sin is great enough to come between us and Him, and His grace alone is enough to bridge that gap between us and Him.

In our second reading, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews spoke more of all that the Lord Jesus, Our Saviour had done in order to bring us out of our predicament and enslavement by sin, that by obeying the will of His heavenly Father, He willingly took up His Cross, and by becoming both the High Priest for all of us and also the Lamb of sacrifice, the Paschal Lamb, He became for us the source of salvation and eternal life, the reconciliation with God, our loving Father and Creator.

It was by that action, the perfect and most loving sacrifice offered by Christ, our one and true Eternal High Priest, has offered on the Cross, the Altar of His sacrifice at Calvary that He has both become the High Priest offering on our behalf the sacrificial offering worthy of the forgiveness for our sins and our redemption. And not only that but He is also the Lamb to be sacrificed, the only One perfect and worthy enough, Son of God, incarnate in the Flesh, shedding His Body and Blood on the Altar of the Cross, in atonement for our sins.

This, brothers and sisters in Christ, is the Passion of Our Lord, the word Passion having the meaning of enduring, suffering and persevering with patience, from the Latin words, ‘passus sum’, referring to all the hardships, trials, and grievous wounds and pains that Our Lord had to endure as He ascended the way of the Cross, the path of suffering from Jerusalem where He was condemned to death by crucifixion, up to the hill of Calvary outside the city, stripped and humiliated, nailed to the Cross, and finally suffered death at the end of all His sufferings.

That is also why we celebrate during this upcoming Holy Week, committing ourselves to the memory of the Lord Who has loved us so much that He has sent us deliverance, hope and salvation through Christ, His beloved Son, Who had to endure all the struggles and pains so that through His suffering and death, we may be freed from the tyranny of sin and death, and by sharing in the same death, we may enter into the glorious Resurrection just as the Lord Himself had risen in glory.

Through His suffering on the Cross, Christ shed His own Most Precious Body and Blood, with the Cross as His Altar, offering Himself freely and establish for us a New Covenant between us and God, with Him as the Mediator of this New Covenant. Christ being both the Son of God and Son of Man, having two distinct natures, human and Divine, united inseparably in His one Person, is perfect for this role of Mediator, bringing the gap that existed between us and God, reconciling us from the rebellion of our sins and wickedness.

According to St. Paul, Christ is the New Adam, which as compared to the old Adam, our first forefather, is perfect and the exemplary Man, that while Adam and Eve once disobeyed the Lord and ate of the fruits of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, but Christ obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly, that He endured all the sufferings and drank the cup of persecution, bitterness, rejection and humiliation for our sake. Through His obedience, we have been healed and are reconciled with God, establishing a New Covenant, one that is lasting and never-ending, a New and Eternal Covenant.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we enter into the time of Passiontide beginning today on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, the Passion Sunday, let us all therefore deepen our relationship with God and rediscover that faith that we ought to have in Him if we have not already done so yet. The Lord has shown us so much love and patience, enduring the worst of persecutions and challenges, trials and sorrows so that by His suffering we may gain our freedom from the bondage of sin and the tyranny of death.

How are we then responding to God’s love, that is ever present and ever enduring in our midst? Are we going to continue to ignore Him, to reject Him and to harden our hearts and close our minds against Him? Or are we going to allow Him to touch our lives and to make us whole once again, healing us from the afflictions of our sins? As we enter into this time of deeper preparation for the upcoming Holy Week and Easter, let us therefore make best use of the time and the opportunities we have received, so that we may come to seek the Lord with a contrite heart, filled with repentance and regret for our sins.

May the Lord, our loving Father and Creator, continue to love us all as He has always done, and remain patient with us as we continue to navigate our way through this world. Let us all strive to turn away from sinful ways, and reject all forms of worldly temptations and evils, remembering just what He has gone through in order to save us and in establishing the New Covenant with us. Let us seek to be ever closer to the Lord in all things, and grow ever stronger in our faith and commitment to Him. Let our remaining observances of Lent be fruitful and help us to be more attuned to God and His will. May God bless us all and our good efforts and endeavours. Amen.

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Saturday, 20 March 2021 : 4th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us heard of the rejection of God’s message and truth by those to whom God had sent His servants and messengers, as shown in our first reading with the lamentation of the prophet Jeremiah against those who plotted against Him, and then in our Gospel passage today, when the Pharisees rejected the Lord Jesus and many of them refused to believe in Him and in the message that He has brought into this world.

In our first reading today, we heard of the problems faced by the prophet Jeremiah and how he lamented that many were plotting against him simply because he spoke the words of the Lord, and brought His revelation and truth to the people who refused to believe in him and in the Lord. They branded him as doomsayer, fear-monger, prophet of doom and even as a traitor against the nation and king, for speaking up and revealing how the kingdom of Judah would be destroyed because of the sins of its people and their refusal to repent.

The prophet Jeremiah had spent a lot of time and effort trying to call on the people to return to the Lord, but they remained firm in their stubbornness and refusal to repent, remaining in their sinful ways and rebellious attitudes. He had to go up against many false prophets and messengers who claimed to speak the words and the will of God, but who in reality were only interested in their own benefits and selfish desires by flattering the king and the nobles. They spoke not of God’s truth but the lies of the devil.

Why did the people of Judah harden their hearts as such against the efforts of the prophet Jeremiah, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because of their ego and pride, thinking that they could not have done wrong or erred in their choice of actions in life. And their worldly desires and succumbing to temptations led them to refuse to believe in the Lord, as they continued on living their lives following their own path rather than following the Lord and His path.

This same attitude was also shown by the Pharisees in our Gospel passage today. They gathered together because of the need to discuss about the Lord Jesus and the works He had done among the Jewish people in Judea and Galilee. Many among the Pharisees opposed the Lord and refused to believe in His message of truth, while a small minority of the Pharisees actually believed in the Lord, for example Nicodemus and some others.

They refused to believe because they thought that the Lord was a false Messiah and a fraud, as they thought that He had originated from the region of Galilee which was back then at the fringe of the Jewish society and community. Of course they did not know that the Lord was actually born in Bethlehem, the city of David and the place where the Messiah was prophesied to be born in. Regardless, as they were already against the Lord and formed opinion against Him, no matter where He hailed from, they would likely still have opposed Him.

The Lord had shown His might and wondrous miracles before many of those same Pharisees, and yet many of them still refused to believe in Him, doubted Him and questioned His authority and the legitimacy of His actions. He has patiently reached out to them, but they still refused to believe just like how their ancestors refused to believe in Jeremiah, accusing the Lord of heresy and other false accusations just as the enemies of Jeremiah had also accused him earlier on.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how is this important for us all? It is a kind reminder from the Lord through His Church during this very important season of Lent that we must not allow ourselves be controlled by our ego and desires, by the temptations of worldly allures and pride, and all other things that often distracted us in our journey towards the Lord and His salvation. We are all called to turn once again towards the Lord and to humble ourselves before Him, that we may find forgiveness and grace from Him.

It is our pride and ego that often prevented us from finding the salvation in God, because we are too proud to accept the fact that we may be mistaken or at fault, and the desires we have in life may be the serious stumbling blocks that kept us all from truly being able to follow the Lord wholeheartedly and with genuine faith. That is why we are reminded yet again of just how each and every one of us are sinners, all in need of healing and forgiveness from God.

This Lent is the perfect time and opportunity for us to turn towards the Lord once again and be reconciled with Him. Let us therefore make good use of the time and opportunity, and do whatever we can, to the best of our abilities, to be ever closer to God and to attune ourselves to Him and His ways, and do our best to glorify Him by our way of life and by our dedication through faith. May God bless us all, and may He guide us through our Lenten observance, that we may find true joy in Him at the end of our struggles and journey. Amen.

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Friday, 19 March 2021 : Solemnity of St. Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great Solemnity of St. Joseph, the Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. As St. Joseph is the legal wife of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, hence, he was also the foster-father of the Lord. He is the head of the Holy Family and its Protector, especially in his role protecting Mary and Jesus when the Child Jesus was under threat from those who sought to have Him killed.

St. Joseph was himself a descendant of king David of Israel, a fact that is highlighted very strongly in today’s Scripture passages. In our first reading today we heard of the Lord speaking to king David through His prophet Nathan, reassuring David that because of his faith and dedication, God would make his reign secure and his dynasty a lasting one, as a Covenant and promise that He made with him. And this would come true with the coming of the Lord Jesus, Who was born the legal Son of St. Joseph, the Heir of David.

According to the genealogy of the Lord, as contained in the Gospel of St. Matthew, it was evident that He was descended through St. Joseph from the mainline descent from king David, through the kings of Israel and Judah, right up to the exile to Babylon and henceforth, the heirs of the fallen kingdom, to St. Joseph himself. As the legal father of the Lord, he established that link between king David and the Lord Jesus, Who was therefore the Son and Heir of David, the rightful ruler of the kingdom of Israel.

Mary herself, according to the other genealogy, was descended from David through a different lineage, which made the Lord Jesus Himself also descended through His mother, from king David for those who argued that St. Joseph was merely the foster-father and not the biological father of the Lord, conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary. It was then the union between Mary and St. Joseph that firmed up that link, as we then heard in our Gospel passage today, that St. Joseph initially had his doubts when he heard that Mary had been with a Child even when they had not yet been together in marriage.

But the Lord revealed to St. Joseph that everything had happened according to His will, and it was by His will that Mary was with Child, and not because Mary had committed adultery with another man. St. Joseph had always been a virtuous and upright man, that even when he was in doubt of what happened to Mary, he did not want to drag the case to the open, as that would have meant that Mary could have been stoned to death as an adulterer according to the punishment by the Law.

Nonetheless, St. Joseph committed himself to the cause that the Lord had called him to, embracing fully the mission he had been entrusted with as the head of the Holy Family, foster-father of the Saviour of the world, and as the first good role model for our Lord Himself during His formative years, as St. Joseph must have definitely taught the Lord all that He needed to know, in all the skills and experiences of the world and the society, among other things.

Here, St. Joseph was just like his forefathers, Abraham and David, as the latter was pointed out in today’s first reading earlier on his exemplary faith and dedication by which he has served the Lord, and therefore God would secure his reign and that of his house forevermore. While Abraham was mentioned by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, as the father of many nations and as the father of all Christians in faith.

St. Paul in his description of Abraham spoke of a man and servant of God who had been upright, just and dedicated to the Lord in all things, and it was by his virtues and dedication that he had been exalted above all other men, chosen from among the nations to be the progenitor of so many nations and as the forefather of the Israelites, God’s first chosen people. St. Joseph followed in the footsteps of both his predecessors, and through his virtues and faith, became for all of us the role model of Christian faith and living.

In this season of Lent, we have all been called as Christians to follow in the good examples set by St. Joseph, in his virtues and in his dedication to the Lord, in all that he had done in obedience to the Lord and out of love for Him. Are we willing to walk down that same path of faith, brothers and sisters in Christ? Can we commit ourselves to the Lord just as St. Joseph had committed his life and dedicated all that he could to serve Him?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate this great Solemnity of St. Joseph, let us all seek the intercession of this great protector of the Church, and ask him to pray for our sake, for the Church of God facing all sorts of challenges and persecutions. Let us all devote ourselves to the Lord through His role model, St. Joseph as our model and example that through this season and time of Lent we may become ever closer to God and be ever more attuned to His will and His truth.

May God bless us always, and may He always strengthen us, giving us the courage that we need much in order to strive for being ever more faithful amidst the challenges in life, all the temptations and obstacles preventing us from reaching out to God. May the Lord be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 18 March 2021 : 4th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are called to remember just how fortunate we are that God has been so loving, compassionate, caring and merciful towards us. If not for the mercy that He has shown us, and for the love that He still has for each and every one of us, enduring even the worst struggles of our sins and disobedience, we ought to have been annihilated.

In our first reading today from the Book of Exodus we heard of the well-known case when the people of Israel disobeyed the Lord and rebelled against Him at Mount Sinai, not long right after He had rescued them and brought them out of the land of Egypt, destroying the armies of the Pharaoh sent against them and freeing them from the hands and tyranny of the Egyptians.

How did Israel disobeyed and rebelled against the Lord? When Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the Law of the Lord and the Covenant, and was up there for forty days long, the people grew impatient and lost faith in both God and Moses, and some dissidents in the community seized the chance to try and seduce the people to turn to the pagan idols, shaped like a golden calf in the manner of the Egyptian gods.

This showed that the people, especially some among them did not yet have faith in God, or even refused to have faith in Him, just as shown in how many constantly grumbled and complained that they had so much better lives in Egypt even when they were enslaved, and that they had better food and drink, all these when the Lord constantly supplied the whole people daily with the bread of heaven, manna, flock of birds to give them meat to eat, and water throughout their journey in the desert.

When Moses interceded on behalf of the people, he was trying to appease the Lord’s anger over those who had disobeyed and betrayed Him, even as He had just given to them His laws and renewed His Covenant with them. The Lord could have just annihilated the whole nation and left Moses alone as the only survivor as He said, but He withhold His anger and forgave the people because of Moses and what he pleaded with Him.

This is therefore related to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today when we heard the Lord speaking to the people chastising many of them for their stubbornness and refusal to believe in Him, which was likely and especially pointed on many among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who claimed to represent the authentic teachings and the laws of Moses, and yet, they had misinterpreted and misrepresented those laws.

They had forgotten the true intent and meaning of the Law of God, meant to show the way for the people to know God and to love Him. Instead, they used those laws to glorify themselves and for their own benefit, imposing on the people harsh conditions and rules that made it difficult for them to follow the Lord, while closing the door of salvation to those who needed them the most, by rejecting and ostracising those tax collectors, prostitutes and others.

That was why the Lord criticised them directly, and spoke clearly that it was Moses himself who would accuse them all before the Lord, as it was Moses who received the true Law and understood its meaning, which had been warped and changed so much by that time. And the Lord said that unless they changed their ways and turned to the true path, then they were heading to destruction.

And when the people, all mankind had sinned against the Lord, here it was the Lord Jesus Himself, Who like Moses in the past, interceded on behalf of the people. The Lord Jesus, Our Saviour is the High Priest of all of us, representing us, as He offered Himself as the perfect and worthy loving sacrifice on the Altar of the Cross. Through His Passion, suffering and death, He has shed His most Precious Blood and offered on our behalf, the worthy sacrifice to atone for our sins.

Then, through His Resurrection, the Lord called on us all to follow Him to share in the new life that He has offered us through that Resurrection. Just as we have shared in His death, we too have a share in His resurrection, that through Baptism, all of us have been brought into the new life, and a new existence, blessed and filled with the grace of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through what we have heard in our Scripture passages today, all of us are reminded first of all of our sinfulness, all those things that we had done in violation of God’s laws and against His will. Those sins will weigh down on us, and whatever we have in our burden of sin, we shall be judged against by, and unless we atone for them and be forgiven, then we may face the certainty of eternal destruction and death.

But God is ever loving and ever merciful, and He has given us the ultimate gift in Christ, His beloved and only begotten Son, Whom He had sent into this world to be our Saviour. To all of us who believe in Him, He has promised the assurance of eternal life, and if we accept the forgiveness of God and repent sincerely from our sinful ways, then surely we will be reconciled fully and completely with God.

Now, how are we going to proceed forward in life then? Perhaps we should be inspired by the good examples set by one of our holy predecessors, namely that of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, one of the great and influential early Church fathers and a great and dedicated bishop of the Church. He was the Bishop of Jerusalem during a time of great strife for the faithful in the See of Jerusalem, with divisions and disagreements that took place between the rival factions.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem had to face against the opposition from both religious and secular figures, powerful individuals and nobles, and even opposition from the Imperial family and the bureaucracy itself, which was at that time influenced heavily by the Arian heresy as well as other heresies and divisions rampant at that time. But this did not stop St. Cyril from committing himself to the efforts to reconcile those different factions with each other.

Through his efforts, St. Cyril brought many people back to the faith, and despite him having to endure several exiles and much difficulty, but through his works, the Church was able to overcome its darkest years and reaffirming its foundation in the true faith as passed down from the Lord through His Apostles. His courage and determination, his faith and love for God should be inspiration to each and every one of us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all seek the Lord therefore with renewed faith and zeal, with new love and devotion to Him, as we continue to journey through this season of Lent. Let us all seek His mercy and seek His forgiveness for our many sins, that we may be forgiven from them and find consolation and true joy in Him and through Him, and gain the true inheritance of heavenly glory. May God be with us all and bless us all in our good endeavours, efforts and faith. Amen.

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Wednesday, 17 March 2021 : 4th Week of Lent, Memorial of St. Patrick, Bishop (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are reminded that the Lord’s salvation has come into our midst in the person of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, the Divine Word Incarnate and born through His mother Mary to be the Saviour of the whole world. We are reminded today of the salvation that Christ has brought us through His suffering, His Passion, death and Resurrection.

In our first reading, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the Lord speaking to His people of the coming of the time and day of salvation, the moment when the Lord would bring all of them to freedom and happiness, and deliver them from their sufferings and troubles. At that time, the people of God had suffered from repeated invasions and also humiliations from their neighbours, and they were nowhere as great as they were as it was during the time of king David and king Solomon.

And just as the northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed by the Assyrians recently by the time of the prophet Isaiah, exiling its people to the far-off lands of Assyria and beyond, and the same Assyrians had also been coming up to the southern kingdom of Judah and besieging even Jerusalem itself. The people of Judah and their king Hezekiah were only saved because the Lord intervened on their behalf sent His Angel to destroy the whole Assyrian army.

Through Isaiah therefore, the Lord wanted to remind His people that He has not forgotten or forsaken them, and on the contrary, He remembered them well, and wanted them to be saved. But everything happens in God’s time and according to His will. This means that if the people think that the Lord had not been with them, then they were not patient enough and mistook the Lord as One Whom they could control and have at the back of their whims and desires.

The Lord sent His Saviour into this world through Christ, His own beloved and only begotten Son, born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother, that He may gather all of us into the embrace of the Lord, His heavenly Father, and by His sacrifice on the Cross, the Passion, suffering, death and the glorious Resurrection that we shall celebrate very soon during the Holy Week and Easter, He has saved us from the certainty of eternal destruction and death.

Yet, as we heard in our Gospel and as occurred throughout the Gospels, the people to whom the Lord had sent His Son refused to believe in Him and in His words, doubted and rejected Him even when they had seen all the wonders and miraculous deeds He had done, and even after hearing all the great and unsurpassed wisdom with which He had been teaching and preaching to them.

Thus, in our Gospel today, the Lord again reiterated that He, as the Son of God, is indeed the One sent by the Father to be the Saviour of all. And just as the prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming of the Lord’s salvation and wonders, the Lord Jesus spoke of the same, and in fact, spoke everything all as how it has been accomplished in Him and through Him, for He is indeed the fulfilment of what the Lord had been promising us mankind through the prophets.

We are hence reminded once again that our salvation has come to us through Christ, and through His most loving sacrifice on the Cross, by which He has redeemed us from our sins, He has offered us freely the forgiveness of God for our many sins. Yet, it is we ourselves who have been so stubborn and hardened our hearts against Him, refusing to embrace His forgiveness and accept His mercy and compassion.

That is why, we are all called to seek the Lord and to open our hearts and minds to welcome Him into our hearts this Lent. During this time and season of Lent, we are constantly being reminded that we are in need of help from God, to trust in Him and to put our faith and commitment to Him. And today, we happen to be celebrating the feast day of a great saint who can be our role model and inspiration as well.

St. Patrick, the renowned saint of Ireland, the one who evangelised the people of Ireland over a thousand years ago, was remembered for his missionary zeal, faith in the Lord, and especially his dedication to those who had been entrusted to him, those people to whom he had been sent to as a missionary. St. Patrick was captured at an early age by Irish pirates and was taken as a slave, until he managed to escape and return to his family. But this not stop him or discourage him when sent as a missionary and priest later in his life, to the very place where he endured slavery.

On the contrary, St. Patrick dedicated his efforts and his whole life to teach the people in Ireland about Christ, the Lord and Saviour, when most of the people there had not yet known about Him, and were still pagans believing in the pagan gods and idols. St. Patrick patiently explained to them about the nature of God, the Holy Trinity and the main aspects of the Christian faith, and was also involved in the many interactions between the rulers and petty kings in Ireland at the time.

Through his tireless efforts, St. Patrick helped to build the foundation of the Church and the Christian faith in Ireland, and many became converts to the faith and were touched by the courage and commitment, the love that St. Patrick had for the Lord and for his fellow men, for the people of Ireland in particular, who were like the lost sheep gathered by the shepherd, who was St. Patrick himself.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called to follow in the footsteps of St. Patrick, and be inspired by his faith and dedication to the Lord, his exemplary Christian faith and actions in life, his sincerity in reaching out to others and to his fellow men. This Lent, we are all called to purify our faith and to redirect our attention and focus back towards the Lord, so that we may remember that our lives are centred on Him and not on other worldly matters and desires.

Let us all turn towards the Lord, our most loving God and Father. Let us all seek Him with renewed love and dedication, opening our hearts and minds to welcome Him into our beings, allowing Him to transform us into the children of Light, the Light of Christ, the Light of our salvation. May God bless us all and strengthen us, and may He empower us all to live ever more faithfully in His presence. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 March 2021 : 4th Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in our Scripture readings today we heard the interesting parallel between what we heard in our first reading today on the vision of Ezekiel, the prophet of God as he saw the vision of the heavenly Temple and Sanctuary, and the water that flows out of that Temple which purifies and sanctifies, and gives life, with the account of the miraculous healing of a man at the Pool of Bethzatha by the Lord, healing that man from his sickness and made him able to walk again.

In our first reading today, we heard the vision of the heavenly Temple, the dwelling of God Most High by Ezekiel. In that vision, particularly in what we are covering today, the life-giving water that comes forth from the Temple is representative of the life that comes forth from the Lord Himself, Who is the source of all life, and from Whom healing shall come for all those who have been sickened and troubled, just as He healed those with physical complaints and sicknesses. And in the same way therefore, He has also healed us from our sins.

Through what we have been hearing, the Lord has the authority and power to heal us not just from our physical infirmities and troubles, but even more importantly from our sins. In fact, the Lord alone is capable of forgiving us from our sins, and reconciling us to Himself, which He has done therefore through His own Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Saviour of the whole world and all mankind. This healing happened on the Sabbath, on the sacred day in the tradition of the people of Israel and their descendants.

On the Sabbath, the Lord has decreed that the people should honour that day and refrain from doing work, with the intention of allowing the people to have the time to spend with God and to worship Him, rather than being occupied with their worldly matters and work for all of their time, or in pursuit of other matter and forgetting and leaving God out of their lives. Yet, this was never meant to prevent the people from doing good deeds and to do what the Lord has commanded them to do.

The Lord wanted all of His people to know Him and to be righteous in their ways, and He wants them to live their lives with Him as the focus and centre. Yet, they had forgotten this, and at the time of the Lord Jesus and His ministry, those who were charged with the preservation and care of the Law, they had erred and focused too much on the methods and the rigours of the rules and regulations of the Law, forgetting why the Law, especially that of the Sabbath was given by God to us in the first place.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us today are called to turn towards the Lord with ever stronger zeal and devotion. We are all called to renew our faith in Him and to believe that He is the One Who can heal us from all of our predicaments. Just as He has healed the sick man at the Pool of Bethzatha and made him to be able to walk again, thus we too can be healed from our infirmities. If we are perfectly healthy in the body, then are we in need of healing? The answer is yes! That is because of our sins, sins that corrupt us and make us unworthy before God, a disease that is eating up into our whole being, that God alone can heal.

And the Lord did all this through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ no less, by the ultimate and most loving sacrifice that He made on the Cross. He bared everything and emptied Himself, taking up upon Himself all of our sins and iniquities, and suffering greatly for all of them, for our sake, He has brought us the promised redemption and healing. Now, what are we going to do, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we going to embrace the Lord and His love, just as we have seen how much He had dedicated Himself to us? Are we grateful for everything that He had done to us?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us are called in this season of Lent to rediscover our faith and love for God. Are we willing to seek the Lord for healing and ask Him for the grace to be forgiven and reconciled with Him just like the sick man having strong faith and believing that the Lord could heal him? Let us all reflect and ponder on all these, and make the best use of the time and opportunities that have been given to us so that we may grow ever more in our faith and dedication to the Lord, through this time of reflection and reconciliation.

May the Lord guide our path and may He strengthen us all in our journey towards Him that we may find our path and may be ever closer to the Lord and persevere in our struggle in faith through life. May God bless us all and our good endeavours, all for the greater glory of His Name. Amen.