Reflection of the Bible

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Wednesday, 26 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us about the Covenant which He has made with His people, beginning with Abraham, our father in faith, who is a righteous and upright man, a model for each and every one of us in how we ought to live our lives. And we are urged by the Lord Himself to bear good fruits in our lives, so that our lives may truly be worthy of Him.

In our first reading today, we heard of the moment when the Lord made the Covenant with His servant Abraham, calling him into a new existence, one that is blessed and filled with God’s grace, as his faithfulness, dedication and uprightness have been found to be good and worthy by God, as a man whose life has been filled with good faith and bear truly good fruits, in his commitment to God, in his obedience to His call and in adherence to His will, and in his loving and compassionate attitudes to his fellow men.

For example, Abraham, then called Abram came from the faraway land of Ur in lower Mesopotamia, which was then a great centre of civilisation. Surely Abram had a good life in his ancestral lands, judging by the large amount of wealth and possessions that he had. Yet, the Lord called him out of that land to follow His lead into the land He promised to him and his descendants, and Abram obeyed the Lord faithfully.

Leaving his ancestral lands behind, Abram came to the land promised to him, and there, he laboured and suffered, yes, he did suffer quite a lot, having to travel from places to places, and even sojourning for a while in Egypt during a bad famine, and yet, he remained faithful and committed, and showed his great faith, commitment and dedication in his generosity, his compassionate love for his fellow men.

In one example, when the Lord said to Abraham that he would destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah because of their wickedness, Abraham, who knew that Lot and his family, his relatives stayed in that city, and how there might have been some other people who were righteous and might be caught in the destruction, begged the Lord a few times to spare the whole towns just for the sake of even the few righteous ones who were there, including Lot and his family.

This is what Our Lord said in the Gospel passage today, when He spoke of the parable using the example of a good tree that produces good fruits, and how bad trees produce bad fruits. Abraham is an example of a good tree that produces good fruits, which refers to his good, compassionate and kind heart, his loving and faithful self, which is shown in his actions, filled with love and compassion, with faith and commitment to God, in his sincerity to be a righteous man of God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? We are all in fact the children of Abraham through faith, as he is truly our father in faith. We are therefore, the partakers of the same Covenant which God has promised with Abraham, and which He has renewed over and over, and finalised with the Eternal Covenant that He had made with us all through the loving sacrifice of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Therefore, all of us are also expected to follow the good examples of Abraham, in how he had lived faithfully and dedicated his whole life to serve the Lord and in being righteous in all of his actions. Are we able to do that, brothers and sisters in Christ? Are we able to commit ourselves in the way that Abraham had done, in how he trusted God completely and devoted himself to walk in God’s ways?

Let us all reflect on this today, and see how we can be better disciples and followers of Christ from now on. Let our lives be living and real examples of faith, of righteousness, so that our lives will truly bear good fruits of our faith, and we may be worthy to receive the eternal glory and inheritance that God has promised Abraham, our father in faith, and all of us, God’s beloved children and people. Amen.

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Tuesday, 25 June 2019 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the importance for us as Christians to live righteously and devote ourselves to serve God in everything that we do, so that we may be truly worthy to be called children of God and as His followers, heeding the examples of our holy predecessors as we heard in our Scripture passages today.

In our first reading today, we heard of the story of the conflict that occurred between Abraham and Lot, who are each others’ close relatives, and each of them possessed a lot of wealth and possessions, cattle and animals, servants and goods, that resulted in the conflict that happened between their servants and amongst their flocks and possessions. In the quarrels that ensued, Abraham decided to part ways with Lot amicably, knowing that if they have stayed in the same lands, even more conflicts would come to happen.

In this way, Abraham truly acted nobly and wonderfully even though he could have given in to the temptations of pride and desire. He could have made it such that he benefitted from the conflict, or claimed parts of the wealth, flocks and possessions of his own relative for his own, and many others things he could have done as how we mankind often behaved in this world. But he chose not to do all of that.

Instead, Abraham showed the best of his upright and good attitude, as someone whom the Lord had indeed chosen among all the people to be the one with whom He was pleased with and with whom He was about to make a great Covenant, as mentioned in the same passage, how God blessed Abraham and promised to him that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars and beyond.

In the Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples mentioning just how difficult it is in reality for us all to pass through the gates of eternal life, that is for us to enter into the glory prepared for us by God, as we have to be righteous and good throughout our lives, and we have to be worthy to be recipients of what the Lord has promised all of us in the Covenant He had made with us.

This does not mean that we have to be perfect in our lives, as even Abraham himself was not perfect, he did sin just like any one of us. The holy saints of God were themselves not perfect and were sinners just like us, and yet, they made sure that they did not allow sin to rule over them or to have sway over their lives. They did what is righteous and just, good and acceptable to the Lord, and in their righteousness, God made them all worthy.

What matters is for us to do what the Lord has commanded us to do, and that means, instead of succumbing to the temptations of pride whenever we encounter others and having our desires within us, to be recognised, to be praised, to be acknowledged and to have achievements in our lives, we should instead be humble, knowing that no amount of pride can do us any good. If we let pride to have its way in our lives, and greed to lead us in our way, there will be endless conflict and unhappiness ahead of us.

Let us all learn to be more faithful like Abraham, to be more compassionate, loving and be more concerned about each other, just like our holy predecessors, Abraham and all those saints who have gone before us have shown us with their own righteous and worthy lives. The path to enter into the kingdom of God and eternal life is indeed a narrow one, but it does not mean it is necessarily difficult to enter. What we need is the will and the desire to truly love God first and foremost in our lives, and to love one another just as much as we love ourselves.

May the Lord guide us through this narrow path that all of us may be reconciled and reunited with Him, and so that we may be ever closer and be ever more worthy to be in His loving presence, by our faithfulness and our commitment to serve Him, each and every days of our lives. Amen.

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Monday, 24 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a special occasion in the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist is one of the special saints of the Church, in the important role he played in the history of our salvation being the one to proclaim and herald the coming of the Messiah of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ. St. John the Baptist therefore has this celebration of his birth or Nativity, which commemorates the moment when he was born into the world.

St. John the Baptist has such an important role, that God prepared him and his own coming in such a marvellous and miraculous way, as prophesied by the prophets of old and by what was described in the accounts of the Gospels. It was about him that the prophets had spoken that he had been called to be God’s servant from his mother’s womb, as how his coming had been proclaimed by the Angel of God.

The Angel spoke to Zechariah, the father of St. John the Baptist, speaking of how his son would become a great and dedicated servant of God, the last of the prophets and messengers of God with one very important role, that is to proclaim the coming of God’s salvation and to prepare the people for the coming of this salvation through his own works and ministry among the people of God.

St. John the Baptist was the one who called the people to repent from their sins, be baptised in the waters of the Jordan, as the commitment for them to turn away from their old sinfulness and to be prepared to welcome the coming of God’s kingdom and His salvation. But he also made it very clear to the people who followed him, to his own disciples and to all those who asked it of him, that he was not the Messiah of God.

St. John the Baptist had a lot of following and he was very charismatic and influential. People came to him from all over Judea, Samaria and Galilee and perhaps even beyond seeking him for them to be baptised by him. Had he desired to claim everything he had done for his own glory and benefit, he could have done it easily, as what some of the people at that time had done.

There were some people at the time who claimed to be the Messiah of God, and gathered following among the people and rebelled against the Romans and the authorities. But as they were not the true Messiah, their rebellions and uprisings failed terribly. St. John the Baptist did not choose that path, even though he could have easily done so. Instead, he obeyed the Lord faithfully and committed himself totally to what he has been called to do.

And he humbly accepted his role, even when he himself was eclipsed by the coming of the One Who is the Messiah, Our Lord Jesus Christ. He revealed to the people and to his own disciples Who the Lord Jesus truly is, and let some of his own disciples to follow the Lord instead. When his disciples complained that everyone was going to the Lord and that He became increasingly even more popular than him, St. John the Baptist said humbly that it was only right that his Master increases while he, who is only the servant, decreases.

St. John the Baptist dedicated his whole life to serve the Lord, and that means even laying down his own life for the sake of God. When he opposed and stood up against the wickedness of king Herod and his adultery, he was arrested and put in prison, and by the mechanism of Herodias who hated him, St. John the Baptist was beheaded in prison, and therefore died a martyr’s death, for the sake of the Lord and His glory.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, truly we can see in St. John the Baptist a great saint and role model for our own lives. We should heed his examples, his call for us to repent from our past sinfulness and to embrace faithfully the way of the Lord. We should model our own lives and faith based on this holy servant of God’s own faith and dedication, his obedience to the will of God and his humility in service.

Let us all on this Solemnity celebrating the moment of this great saint’s birth recommit ourselves and our own lives to the Lord to honour the memory of the faithful St. John the Baptist, modelling our own lives after his own. Let us all draw ever closer to God and be more faithful with each and every days of our lives. May God bless us all and may He empower us all to live faithfully according to His will, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a great day and occasion dedicated to one of the most important central tenets of our Christian faith, in our belief and firm conviction that God Himself has given us His own Precious Body and His own Precious Blood to be partaken.

We believe that in the celebration of the Holy Mass, or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest minister as the representation of Christ Himself, acting in persona Christi, unites the offerings of the bread and wine made at the Offertory with the offerings that Christ Himself had made to His heavenly Father as our one and true Eternal High Priest from the Altar of His Cross at Calvary.

The bread and wine themselves have been completely and fundamentally transformed into the essence and material of the Lord’s Body and Blood Himself, in what is known as the Transubstantiation. Therefore, while the bread and the wine themselves still appear to be the appearance and texture of bread and wine, but the moment they are consecrated by the priest they become completely and truly the matter and the essence of the Lord’s own Body and Blood.

There are those who doubted the veracity and truth behind this seemingly mysterious and otherworldly transformation, as by our eyes and senses, by the appearance and by the taste and texture, the bread and wine seemingly remain unchanged as they were. However, this is where our faith is essential and necessary, because we truly believe that each and every one of our priests, moulded and ordained in the same order of priesthood as Christ is, and representing Christ Himself, has truly been given the power and authority to turn the bread and wine into Our Lord’s Body and Blood.

The Lord Himself made it clear in one occasion as He taught the people about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread Who has come down from heaven to the midst of His people, to give them the true Bread by which all of those who partake in this Bread will never hunger again and will have a share in the eternal life promised to all those who have received this Bread worthily and with faith.

He was not just mentioning this Bread of Life randomly at that occasion without reason. In fact, He was referring to His very own Flesh and Body, His own Blood as He made that teaching to the people. The Lord speaks only the truth, and therefore, how can the Lord bluff or lie to the people about His own Body when He spoke of it then? He spoke of His own Body as real Food, to be partaken by His people, His faithful ones.

And in today’s Gospel passage, we heard yet another occasion in the Gospel, when the Lord miraculously provided for the need of His people, in feeding the five thousand men and countless other women and children when they were hungry and without food, giving them bread and fishes to eat, out of merely five loaves of bread and two fishes that were available. This occasion was in fact a prefigurement and premonition of what was to come in the Sacrifice of the Cross, though the people then did not know it as yet.

As the Lord offered the bread and the fishes and giving thanks to His heavenly Father, He was representing His own upcoming sacrifice, in which He offered Himself instead as the perfect offering for the oblation and atonement of all of our sins. In the olden days, lambs and other animals were used in sacrifices according to the Jewish laws and customs to be the sin offerings to atone temporarily for one’s sins.

And in the time of the Passover, if we remember, the people chose a young, unblemished lamb to be slaughtered and as a sign of God’s providence and salvation, with the blood of the lamb being smeared and placed on the doorposts of the houses of the people of Israel, as sign for God’s Angels to ‘pass over’ them as they scourged the whole land of Egypt for the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.

Therefore, at the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross, we mark our new Christian Passover, in which a new Covenant had been made by God to be binding between Him and all of us. He offered not the imperfect offerings of lambs and animals of this world, but His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, as He was ‘slaughtered’ on the Cross for the crimes that His enemies had charged on Him.

He laid down Himself and offered His Body and Blood as the perfect sacrifice and offering before God, on the Cross which is His Altar. He is our Paschal Lamb by Whose Blood we have been marked as those who are faithful and worthy to be saved from eternal damnation and destruction because of our sins. By His Most Precious Blood, if we refer to the Book of the Revelations of St. John, the holy martyrs have been washed and made clean in their own outpouring of their blood, and thus, we too are made clean by His Blood.

The Lord Himself has given His all for our sake, laying down His own life and giving His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for us all to partake, in that same Sacrifice at Calvary, to which each and every celebrations of our Holy Mass are united to, not as separate and different sacrifices as some would have misunderstood it, thinking that the Lord is being sacrificed and offered again and again, but in fact, the truth is every time the Eucharist is celebrated, it is the same Sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary again.

And this is what we truly believe, that God Himself has truly become present in our midst, in the form of His own Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and therefore, He is truly and really present in that Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist we receive and partake, a Holy Communion that each and every one of us members of the Church share with one another, and that is why we become the part of the Church, the Body of Christ.

If God Himself has come into our midst and entered into our bodies as we receive Him, then it is of the utmost importance that we understand what this means for us, and how we live our lives from now on, or else we scandalise our own faith and God by our unworthiness and by our own actions that are against His ways. What do I mean by this? I mean that if we believe that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist then we will do our very best to make sure that we are properly prepared and worthy to receive Him.

Of course this must be understood also in the context that the Lord also seeks to gather all those who have been lost to Him, in extending His mercy and forgiveness to those who have sinned, and the Eucharist is one way that this reconciliation has been made in full. Yet, if one is to receive the Eucharist, the Most Precious and Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord in a state of continuing sin, then it is also a scandal to our faith.

We have to be properly predisposed and be prepared to receive Him into ourselves. And we do not have to look far but see how in the liturgical celebrations, we do our very best in everything, to make use of the finest and greatest materials to contain the most Precious matter of God’s Body and Blood, using only precious and incorruptible materials such as gold and silver for the chalices and ciborium used to contain the Sacred Host and Blood of the Lord.

And the Tabernacle housing the Lord’s Presence in that same Eucharist is also made using the finest materials, in a way comparable to that of the Temple of God in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon, where everything that is finest and good were used to adorn the whole Temple, with the Ark of the Covenant being the most precious of all, made using gold and finest materials, and so holy that no one was allowed to touch it.

Then, we know of an even better Tabernacle, the one who had contained the Lord Himself for nine months in her womb, and she is none other than Mary, Our Lord’s own Mother, who had borne our Lord and Saviour in her, and for this very purpose, the Lord made her, as the finest Tabernacle, not crafted by human hands unlike our chalices, ciborium, Tabernacles or the Temple of God in Jerusalem, but the perfect and unblemished human being, not tainted by the corruption of original sin, Mary, conceived and born without sin.

God did so much to prepare His own Mother to bear His holy and most sacred Presence in her, to show that when God is truly present in our midst, there can be nothing less than doing our best just as He has done His best, to bear His Presence, for nothing evil and wicked can truly exist in His Presence and survive. In the same way therefore, do we realise that when we receive the Lord into ourselves through the Eucharist, we too have become the Tabernacles and Temples of God’s own Presence?

St. Paul spoke of this, how by receiving the Lord into ourselves we have made ourselves into Living Temples, the Temples of His Presence and the Temples of the Holy Spirit. And if we sully the sanctity of this Holy Temple, that is our body, heart, mind and soul with the corruption of sin, it is indeed a great sin and wickedness we have committed against God Himself. That is why, as Christians, we are called to be worthy and to be ready to welcome the Lord’s Holy Presence into ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where and when we are called to recommit ourselves in our faith, to live in accordance with our faith again if we have fallen away and went astray from the true faith. We are called to turn towards God, Who is ever loving and merciful towards us. We only need to ask, and He will forgive us our sins, and that is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is for, readily available through our priests.

Let us all from now on truly show it in our lives, in our every actions, in how we consciously and actively participate in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in how we reverently receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, to show everyone that truly, the bread and wine which we brought to Him in offering, has become nothing less than God’s own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, which He offers to us generously for the sake of our salvation.

May the Lord, Who is ever present in us, and Who is our Bread of Life continue to be with us, and guide us in our journey of life, so that each and every one of us who have worthily received Him into ourselves, may be transformed by His Presence into beings truly worthy to be called God’s own beloved people and God’s own beloved children. May God be with each and every one of us, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 June 2019 : Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of the Scriptures and we heard of God’s providence and salvation, which He has fulfilled perfectly and completely through Christ, His own beloved Son, by which He saved the whole world through the suffering and through the sacrifice which He had done on the Cross.

In our first reading today we heard the passage from the Book of the prophet Zechariah which recounted to us the prophecy made about the coming of the day of salvation for the people of God, who had long suffered from their sundering from the love and grace of God, the moment when God would restore to them the glory and the kingdom of David, but not through rejoicing and merrymaking, instead through sorrow and weeping and tears.

This was a prophecy that foretold the coming of the Crucifixion of the Messiah, which was also foretold by the other prophets of God. The Messiah of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, would suffer and be pierced for us on the Cross, bearing our sins and wickedness, bearing and enduring the pains and the burdens of our disobedience and waywardness. He showed His enduring and great love for each and every one of us.

And in our second reading, in the Epistle that St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, we heard of this salvation which God has freely and generously offered to everyone, not withstanding whether they were Greek or Jews, as salvation was previously thought of being exclusive only for the Jewish people, and neither is salvation reserved for the free people only, as slaves will also have a share, and everyone truly will be free, no longer under any bonds or slavery in the Lord’s day.

God has been so generous with His love, which He reiterated and revealed yet again Himself to His disciples, telling them directly about how He would suffer as the prophet Zechariah and the many other prophets of the Old Testament had made the prophecies about His suffering and death, at the hands of those who rejected Him. And yet, it was through this same suffering and the pain of the Cross that salvation came into our midst.

I want us then now to focus on what the Lord Jesus Himself had said in the end of our Gospel passage today, about being His followers and disciples which requires us to deny ourselves and to carry our crosses with Him. What does this actually mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? What is the significance of what the Lord had said to our own lives in this world?

It means that for us as Christians, meaning as those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, in what He has done for us and acknowledging that He is truly our Lord and Saviour, all of us must be ready to suffer and to endure whatever things that Our Lord Himself had to suffer Himself for our sake at that time. If He has been ridiculed, rejected, oppressed and made to endure all sorts of humiliations, then we too must be ready to suffer the same.

Being Christians is not something that can be easily done without sacrifices and challenges. The Apostles and the disciples of the Lord themselves have experienced all those sufferings and challenges, when they were persecuted for their faith and for their works among the people, their courageous witnessing for the Lord. They have been rejected, cast aside, tortured, imprisoned and had to endure martyrdom for the sake of their faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now are all of us able to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles? Are we able to endure sufferings, persecutions and rejections for the sake of the Lord? We are all called to carry our crosses in life, and these crosses are the daily struggles that we may have to face as those who profess to have faith in God and trying to remain faithful to Him.

Let us all heed the Lord’s call then for us to follow Him wholeheartedly, living our lives righteously and with commitment, regardless of the trials and challenges that we may face along the way. Let us not be disheartened by those troubles and difficulties, knowing that God is always with us along the way. When He asked us to carry our crosses, He did not ask us to carry our crosses on our own. Instead, He is carrying His Cross together with us.

May the Lord continue to guide us and may He bless us all always, giving us the strength that we will need to persevere through the trials and challenges we may encounter in our lives. May He be with us always, and may He lead us all through these difficult moments that we may always remain faithful to Him till the end of days. Amen.

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Saturday, 22 June 2019 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Paulinus of Nola, Bishop, St. John Fisher, Bishop and Martyr, and St. Thomas More, Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Bishops) or Red (Martyrs)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us all about the need for us to trust not in our own human power, abilities, greatness or achievements, but rather, in the power and providence of God. Many of us have not trusted enough in God and prefer rather to take matter into our own hands, being concerned and worried about our daily living and focusing on all the wrong things.

In our first reading today we listened to the Epistle that St. Paul wrote to the Church and to the faithful in Corinth, that if one were to boast, it would be best for that person not to boast of his own greatness or power, but rather, of the greatness and glory of God. St. Paul himself gave an example, through his own tireless ministry and hard work among the people he did not glorify himself or his own achievements, in the many miracles he performed and in the many things he accomplished, but he continued to glorify and praise God.

Of course, St. Paul also mentioned the temptations and difficulties he faced, the temptations of pride and greed in his heart. After all, he was still just a human being, prone to being tempted by all these wicked and negative feelings, emotions and desires just as we are. But he did not let those things to become obstacles in the way of his faith. On the contrary, he remained firmly convinced and strongly dedicated in his faith in God.

He trusted the Lord rather than his own power, for in the end, none of the means of this world, be it power, money, prestige, fame, glory or whatever it is that we mankind often seek and desire in this world, could have gained him anything that is true and lasting. In our Gospel passage today, this was exactly what the Lord mentioned to His disciples, when He revealed the folly of those who worry and are concerned about their daily needs and wants, be it for things to eat or for things to wear.

And today we celebrate the feast of a few saints, whose lives have been exemplary and filled with great examples of dedication and commitment to God. They are St. Paulinus of Nola, St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More. All of them put their trust in God and believed firmly in the providence and the power of God rather than in their own human power and capabilities. St. Paulinus of Nola was a bishop and one of the influential leaders of the Church in the final days of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, while St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More are the two saints and martyrs of the English Reformation and persecution.

St. Paulinus of Nola was remembered for his dedication to the Lord and for his renunciation of wealth and worldly glory for asceticism and simple living, having been born as a senatorial class member and a privileged noble. He was once an influential governor of the province in Northern Italy and a trusted confidant of the Roman Emperor, before an occasion when after he has been baptised as a Christian and losing his child, he chose to withdraw from the world.

Eventually he became a bishop and served the faithful in the region of Nola, dedicating himself for over twenty years to the flock he had been entrusted with, spending his money, time, energy and effort for the good of the faithful and the Church there. St. Paulinus of Nola truly showed us all what it means to be a faithful Christian, trusting completely in God and doing everything to glorify God and not himself.

And today we also then celebrate the feast of two martyr saints of the English Reformation, the famous St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher. St. Thomas More was the Chancellor and right-hand man to King Henry VIII, the one who unilaterally initiated the English Reformation due to his insistence to remarry another woman despite still being legally and lawfully married to his Queen, and thus separating the English Church from the Universal Church.

St. John Fisher meanwhile was one of the influential leaders of the Church in the Kingdom of England, as the Bishop of Rochester and a close confidant of King Henry VIII’s father. He was also the Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and tutor to King Henry VIII. It was widely told that King Henry VIII’s highly acclaimed treatise ‘Assertio Septem Sacramentorum’ or the ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’ against the heresies of Protestantism was actually written by St. John Fisher.

Both St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher were strong opponents of the King’s efforts to remarry another woman according to his desires, and worked very hard to resolve the issue and preventing the rupture in Christendom due to the king’s continued insistence to follow his will. And when the King decided to break away the relationship and Communion with the Universal Church of Rome, the two men remained steadfast in their dedication to the true Church.

Despite the challenges, the persuasions, the coercions and pressures for them to abandon their steadfastness to their faith and to obey instead the demands of the King, amidst the promises that they would continue to enjoy the favour of the King and all sorts of good things and worldly goodness they had thus enjoyed then and more, should they abandon their opposition to the King. But they remained firm in their faith, and as such, died as holy martyrs of the faith.

Through all the examples shown by these great saints, surely all of us should be inspired to live as better Christians, more and more devoted to the Lord, and putting Him above all else in our lives. Let us all not worry about worldly things and concerns, things that are not permanent and things that cannot bring real happiness to us in the first place. Let us turn to God from now on, inspired by the good examples of His holy servants, our holy predecessors from now on. Amen.

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Friday, 21 June 2019 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about seeking the true treasures of our life. Are we able to discover this true treasure or are we going to be distracted by the other false treasures of this world that do not lead to true happiness and joy? That is what the Scripture passages today hope to remind us all as Christians in how we live our lives in this world today.

In our first reading passage taken from the Epistle written by St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, the Apostle recounted the many difficulties and challenges that he had had to experience throughout his missionary journeys to the many places and cities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean region. He had to endure the rejection from many people, the suffering of imprisonment and torture, almost losing his life on several occasions and others.

And given a choice, he could have a very different life altogether. For the context, St. Paul himself is of a privileged background at a time when people throughout the Roman Empire were classified into many different social status and groupings, from the lowest of all, the slaves, all the way to the wealthiest and the most privileged among the Roman citizens. St. Paul was not just a highly educated and intelligent person, but he was also a Roman citizen, a rare feat accomplished by one of the Jewish people at that time.

In his early life, as a member of the Pharisees, he had wielded great influence and power as a young zealot going about hunting the early Christians and persecuting all those who believed in the Lord Jesus, and he could have enjoyed such a prestigious life, respected and honoured by the people around him, and enjoying the support and respect of those who were in power at that time to have a good and enjoyable life then.

He could have avoided all the sufferings, pains and difficulties that he had mentioned and instead enjoyed all the good things that the world had to offer, in wealth, in fame, in human glory and praise, in prestige and power, all sorts of things that we mankind often seek in the pursuit of happiness and satisfaction in this world. But this was not the path that St. Paul chose to take.

St. Paul instead sought the true treasure that is far more precious and far better than those treasures of the world. For none of the treasures mentioned earlier could last forever, and they were illusory and temporary in nature at best. None of the wealth, fame, glory and praise can bring us true and everlasting happiness, and in fact, if we look throughout our history, we can see so many occasions when all these things brought more sorrow than joy.

Why is that so? That is because we mankind are hard to satisfy, and we are often never satisfied by whatever we already have. We crave for even more of those things we desire, and when our desires collide with that of another, we can cause suffering, pain and unhappiness to others, all because we want to satisfy our own selfish desires for pleasure, joy and happiness in this world.

St. Paul instead sought the true treasure of his life, that is the Lord Himself, the One Who alone can give us true happiness in life. For it is in the Lord alone that we can be made whole again, in our whole existence, the One Who will reward us with true treasures of joy and happiness by our faith in Him. And this promise of true and everlasting joy, of total freedom from the suffering caused by our sins, is what had empowered St. Paul to endure through all the difficult challenges and sufferings he had to endure for so many years.

Today, we also celebrate the feast of another saint, whose life can also be an inspiration and example for us to follow, in how he has dedicated himself to the Lord, in seeking Him as the treasure of his life. St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born into the noble Italian Gonzaga family and therefore was rightfully going to inherit his family’s position and fortune, title and power, only for him to shun them all by choosing the path of commitment and dedication to God.

St. Aloysius Gonzaga’s family tried to dissuade him from his chosen path, trying to persuade him to take a better path, or at least a path that would preserve his status and privileges as a noble. However, none of these could dissuade St. Aloysius Gonzaga, who remained firm in his decision to dedicate himself completely to God as a Jesuit. And in the midst of that pursuit, he died as a dedicated and holy servant of God due to a serious epidemic at that time.

The courage and bravery of St. Aloysius Gonzaga in rejecting the privileges and norms of his time for the sake of glorifying God is something that each and every one of us as Christians should be inspired by, in how we ourselves can live our lives faithfully, dedicating ourselves each and every day with ever more commitment and faith from now on. May the Lord bless us all and may He continue to guide us in our journey, that we too may have the courage of the saints, St. Paul the Apostle, St. Aloysius Gonzaga amongst many others. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Thursday, 20 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a great day and occasion dedicated to one of the most important central tenets of our Christian faith, in our belief and firm conviction that God Himself has given us His own Precious Body and His own Precious Blood to be partaken.

We believe that in the celebration of the Holy Mass, or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest minister as the representation of Christ Himself, acting in persona Christi, unites the offerings of the bread and wine made at the Offertory with the offerings that Christ Himself had made to His heavenly Father as our one and true Eternal High Priest from the Altar of His Cross at Calvary.

The bread and wine themselves have been completely and fundamentally transformed into the essence and material of the Lord’s Body and Blood Himself, in what is known as the Transubstantiation. Therefore, while the bread and the wine themselves still appear to be the appearance and texture of bread and wine, but the moment they are consecrated by the priest they become completely and truly the matter and the essence of the Lord’s own Body and Blood.

There are those who doubted the veracity and truth behind this seemingly mysterious and otherworldly transformation, as by our eyes and senses, by the appearance and by the taste and texture, the bread and wine seemingly remain unchanged as they were. However, this is where our faith is essential and necessary, because we truly believe that each and every one of our priests, moulded and ordained in the same order of priesthood as Christ is, and representing Christ Himself, has truly been given the power and authority to turn the bread and wine into Our Lord’s Body and Blood.

The Lord Himself made it clear in one occasion as He taught the people about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread Who has come down from heaven to the midst of His people, to give them the true Bread by which all of those who partake in this Bread will never hunger again and will have a share in the eternal life promised to all those who have received this Bread worthily and with faith.

He was not just mentioning this Bread of Life randomly at that occasion without reason. In fact, He was referring to His very own Flesh and Body, His own Blood as He made that teaching to the people. The Lord speaks only the truth, and therefore, how can the Lord bluff or lie to the people about His own Body when He spoke of it then? He spoke of His own Body as real Food, to be partaken by His people, His faithful ones.

And in today’s Gospel passage, we heard yet another occasion in the Gospel, when the Lord miraculously provided for the need of His people, in feeding the five thousand men and countless other women and children when they were hungry and without food, giving them bread and fishes to eat, out of merely five loaves of bread and two fishes that were available. This occasion was in fact a prefigurement and premonition of what was to come in the Sacrifice of the Cross, though the people then did not know it as yet.

As the Lord offered the bread and the fishes and giving thanks to His heavenly Father, He was representing His own upcoming sacrifice, in which He offered Himself instead as the perfect offering for the oblation and atonement of all of our sins. In the olden days, lambs and other animals were used in sacrifices according to the Jewish laws and customs to be the sin offerings to atone temporarily for one’s sins.

And in the time of the Passover, if we remember, the people chose a young, unblemished lamb to be slaughtered and as a sign of God’s providence and salvation, with the blood of the lamb being smeared and placed on the doorposts of the houses of the people of Israel, as sign for God’s Angels to ‘pass over’ them as they scourged the whole land of Egypt for the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.

Therefore, at the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross, we mark our new Christian Passover, in which a new Covenant had been made by God to be binding between Him and all of us. He offered not the imperfect offerings of lambs and animals of this world, but His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, as He was ‘slaughtered’ on the Cross for the crimes that His enemies had charged on Him.

He laid down Himself and offered His Body and Blood as the perfect sacrifice and offering before God, on the Cross which is His Altar. He is our Paschal Lamb by Whose Blood we have been marked as those who are faithful and worthy to be saved from eternal damnation and destruction because of our sins. By His Most Precious Blood, if we refer to the Book of the Revelations of St. John, the holy martyrs have been washed and made clean in their own outpouring of their blood, and thus, we too are made clean by His Blood.

The Lord Himself has given His all for our sake, laying down His own life and giving His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for us all to partake, in that same Sacrifice at Calvary, to which each and every celebrations of our Holy Mass are united to, not as separate and different sacrifices as some would have misunderstood it, thinking that the Lord is being sacrificed and offered again and again, but in fact, the truth is every time the Eucharist is celebrated, it is the same Sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary again.

And this is what we truly believe, that God Himself has truly become present in our midst, in the form of His own Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and therefore, He is truly and really present in that Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist we receive and partake, a Holy Communion that each and every one of us members of the Church share with one another, and that is why we become the part of the Church, the Body of Christ.

If God Himself has come into our midst and entered into our bodies as we receive Him, then it is of the utmost importance that we understand what this means for us, and how we live our lives from now on, or else we scandalise our own faith and God by our unworthiness and by our own actions that are against His ways. What do I mean by this? I mean that if we believe that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist then we will do our very best to make sure that we are properly prepared and worthy to receive Him.

Of course this must be understood also in the context that the Lord also seeks to gather all those who have been lost to Him, in extending His mercy and forgiveness to those who have sinned, and the Eucharist is one way that this reconciliation has been made in full. Yet, if one is to receive the Eucharist, the Most Precious and Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord in a state of continuing sin, then it is also a scandal to our faith.

We have to be properly predisposed and be prepared to receive Him into ourselves. And we do not have to look far but see how in the liturgical celebrations, we do our very best in everything, to make use of the finest and greatest materials to contain the most Precious matter of God’s Body and Blood, using only precious and incorruptible materials such as gold and silver for the chalices and ciborium used to contain the Sacred Host and Blood of the Lord.

And the Tabernacle housing the Lord’s Presence in that same Eucharist is also made using the finest materials, in a way comparable to that of the Temple of God in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon, where everything that is finest and good were used to adorn the whole Temple, with the Ark of the Covenant being the most precious of all, made using gold and finest materials, and so holy that no one was allowed to touch it.

Then, we know of an even better Tabernacle, the one who had contained the Lord Himself for nine months in her womb, and she is none other than Mary, Our Lord’s own Mother, who had borne our Lord and Saviour in her, and for this very purpose, the Lord made her, as the finest Tabernacle, not crafted by human hands unlike our chalices, ciborium, Tabernacles or the Temple of God in Jerusalem, but the perfect and unblemished human being, not tainted by the corruption of original sin, Mary, conceived and born without sin.

God did so much to prepare His own Mother to bear His holy and most sacred Presence in her, to show that when God is truly present in our midst, there can be nothing less than doing our best just as He has done His best, to bear His Presence, for nothing evil and wicked can truly exist in His Presence and survive. In the same way therefore, do we realise that when we receive the Lord into ourselves through the Eucharist, we too have become the Tabernacles and Temples of God’s own Presence?

St. Paul spoke of this, how by receiving the Lord into ourselves we have made ourselves into Living Temples, the Temples of His Presence and the Temples of the Holy Spirit. And if we sully the sanctity of this Holy Temple, that is our body, heart, mind and soul with the corruption of sin, it is indeed a great sin and wickedness we have committed against God Himself. That is why, as Christians, we are called to be worthy and to be ready to welcome the Lord’s Holy Presence into ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where and when we are called to recommit ourselves in our faith, to live in accordance with our faith again if we have fallen away and went astray from the true faith. We are called to turn towards God, Who is ever loving and merciful towards us. We only need to ask, and He will forgive us our sins, and that is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is for, readily available through our priests.

Let us all from now on truly show it in our lives, in our every actions, in how we consciously and actively participate in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in how we reverently receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, to show everyone that truly, the bread and wine which we brought to Him in offering, has become nothing less than God’s own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, which He offers to us generously for the sake of our salvation.

May the Lord, Who is ever present in us, and Who is our Bread of Life continue to be with us, and guide us in our journey of life, so that each and every one of us who have worthily received Him into ourselves, may be transformed by His Presence into beings truly worthy to be called God’s own beloved people and God’s own beloved children. May God be with each and every one of us, now and always. Amen.

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Thursday, 20 June 2019 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of God in the Scripture speaking to us about the matter of prayer and how we should be praying to the Lord in the right way. We should understand what prayer truly is, that is communication and connection between God and us, an intimate and close relationship between us and Him and not as what many of us might have thought.

Many of us prayed because we wanted something to be fulfilled, which are things that we did not have and then now desire to have, and we ask God for the favour hoping that we may get what we want through prayer. But when we do not get what we want through our prayers, we become angry with God and become disillusioned with Him, often causing us to forget about God and abandon Him without knowing and understanding His true intentions for us.

Instead, true prayer must be first and foremost an active and fruitful conversation between two parties, that is between us and God, or between our community and God in our communal prayers gathered together by the priest for example during the intercessions and the collect during the Holy Mass. First and foremost we must be willing to listen and we must be open-minded and be willing to accept the word of God in our heart and mind.

That is what true prayer is all about. Without the open-minded attitude and willingness to listen to the Lord speaking in our hearts, and with our insistence to have our desires and wishes heard by God, our prayer will not end up being genuine or true, and instead of a good and fruitful prayer, we will have something akin to the whining of a child who does not get what he wants from his or her father.

How do we pray then? It is by following the example of what the Lord Jesus Himself has done. The Lord Jesus, although He is indeed God, but at the same time, in His person, He also unites to Himself the Humanity, the Son of Man and Son of God, two natures in one person, Jesus Christ, and in today’s Gospel, we heard of the prayer which the Lord Jesus Himself had made to His heavenly Father, as a Son praying to His Father.

He showed us all how we mankind, united to His own Humanity, should be praying. First of all in prayer we glorify God and we thank Him for all that He has done for us, and we open our minds to listen to His will, and acknowledge that whatever it is that we seek or request from Him, His will ultimately shall be done. What the Lord Jesus had said in His prayer is the expression of what true prayer is like, a prayer where we mankind seek to glorify and to come into close and genuine contact with Our Lord and Saviour, Our loving Heavenly Father.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, following the examples of the Lord’s own prayer, are we able to deepen our own relationship with God, and strengthen our own spiritual life by devoting ourselves to the Lord and by refocusing our lives on God instead on our own selfish desires in life? Let us all reflect on this as we continue living our lives in this world, as St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle today, being tempted constantly by the forces of the devil.

Let us all be strengthened by our sincere and genuine prayer, committing ourselves to the Lord anew, with a new and more devoted heart and mind, that are constantly attuned to the Lord, our heavenly Father in prayer, at all times. Let us all be ever prayerful and commit ourselves, day after day, to be ever closer to God and to be more faithful to Him each and every days of our lives. May the Lord continue to bless us all and may He listen to our sincere prayers and supplications. Amen.

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Wednesday, 19 June 2019 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Philip Minh, Priest and Companions, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the words of the Scripture in which we heard of the matter of prayer and fasting, two of the practices of our faith which we constantly do all the time and at the prescribed times of the year. And He reminded all of us to pray and fast with the right attitude and intention, or else we are not doing what is right for us to do as Christians.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? First we must understand the context of what the Lord had said to His disciples at that time, as He compared the practices that the Pharisees at that time did, in showing of their piety and prayers in public, not with the intention to glorify God but glorifying themselves and seeking for attention and human praise. And that is exactly what the Lord does not want His disciples and all of us to do.

The Pharisees were influential group of people who were intelligent and educated at that time, who held sway over a lot of the people, highly respected and honoured because of their role in safeguarding and keeping the customs and practices of the Jewish people, which they came to guard zealously and strongly against anyone or anything that might threaten those practices and customs, and all the privileges that they had earned by safeguarding those customs and laws.

But at that time, their preoccupation and excessive focus on maintaining the customs and the practices of the Jewish people ended up on them focusing on the external appearances and the superficial obedience to those laws and customs, rather than truly appreciating the significance and the real substance and intention of the Law of God. They ended up practicing those customs and laws not because they truly had God in their mind, but a lot of time because they had to do them.

As Christians, all of us are reminded by today’s Scripture readings not to follow the examples of many of the Pharisees who have forgotten the true importance of the Law and the customs they practiced, doing it all for appearances and praise rather than for the true purpose that is to worship, glorify and communicate with God. We must remember that as we live through our faith life, we must practice our faith with sincerity and commitment, not just by paying lip service.

In our first reading today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians reminded us of the gifts that God has given us, His blessings and wonders, and consequently, as those whom the Lord has blessed, all of us should make good use of the gifts He has given to us, that we may truly be fruitful and bountiful in God. He said, those who have sowed meagrely will reap meagrely, and those who sowed generously will reap generously as well.

Therefore, in our lives we should be exemplary in our faith, and in our actions, in how we pray, in what we do in our daily lives we must reflect our faith and dedication to the Lord. We should put God as the focus and attention of our whole lives, and do our best to glorify Him and not ourselves. And today, we also can follow the examples showed by St. Philip Minh and his companions in martyrdom, the Holy Vietnamese Martyrs.

At that time, the authorities in Vietnam were very hostile to the Christian faith and the missionaries who worked among the people proclaiming the truth of Christ. They were viewed with suspicion of collaboration with the French and other colonial powers. St. Philip Minh was among the first of the local Vietnamese to be ordained a priest and ministered among his own people before he and many others throughout those difficult years were arrested and made to suffer for their faith.

Yet, these courageous saints did not give up their faith despite the many temptations, persuasions, pressures and coercions to do so. They remained firm in their faith and dedication to the Lord. Had they placed their own safety, well-being and glory before that of the Lord, they would have abandoned God to gain the safety and acceptance of the world. But they showed all of us what it means to be true disciples and followers of Christ.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day let us all be inspired by the examples of the holy saints of God, especially St. Philip Minh and his companions, the Holy Vietnamese Martyrs. Let us all dedicate ourselves to the Lord in the same way as they have done and do our best to be true disciples of the Lord. May the Lord bless us all, now and always. Amen.