Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Psalm 26 : 1, 4, 13-14
The Lord is my Light and my Salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the Rampart of my life; I will not be afraid.
One thing I ask of the Lord, one thing I seek – that I may dwell in His house all the days of my life, to gaze at His jewel and to visit His sanctuary.
I hope, I am sure, that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Trust in the Lord, be strong and courageous. Yes, put your hope in the Lord!
Liturgical Colour : White or Red (Martyrs)
Acts 5 : 34-42
But one of the members of the Council, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law highly respected by the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin. He ordered the men to be taken outside for a few minutes and then he spoke to the assembly.
“Fellow Israelites, consider well what you intend to do to these men. For some time ago Theudas came forward, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men joined him. But he was killed and all his followers were dispersed or disappeared.”
“After him, Judas the Galilean appeared at the time of the census and persuaded many people to follow him. But he too perished and his whole following was scattered. So, in this present case, I advise you to have nothing to do with these men. Leave them alone. If their project or activity is of human origin, it will destroy itself. If, on the other hand, it is from God, you will not be able to destroy it and you may indeed find yourselves fighting against God.”
The Council let themselves be persuaded. They called in the Apostles and had them whipped, and ordered them not to speak again of Jesus Saviour. Then they set them free. The Apostles went out from the Council rejoicing that they were considered worthy to suffer disgrace for the sake of the Name. Day after day, both in the Temple and in people’s homes, they continued to teach and to proclaim that Jesus was the Messiah.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we all heard the proclamations of the Scripture reminding us not to follow in the footsteps of the proud, the arrogant and the haughty ones. In the first reading we heard about the story of the Tower of Babel, which was the place where God scattered all of His people because of their pride and arrogance.
In that passage, we heard about how mankind after the time of Noah had grown powerful, great and filled with many great things and riches of the world. Everyone spoke the same language since they were descended from Noah and his family, and all the people gathered together, having ambition in their hearts to surpass even the glory of God, plotting to build a great tower which height would reach out to heaven itself.
It was their pride that had become their undoing, as it had for Satan, who fell from his haughtiness, and became an example for all others who thought that they could become like God, or to be even greater than God. He wanted to surpass God and the other Angels, such was the pride and ambition in his heart, who had been created with great and unsurpassed beauty and might among the Angels of God, as Lucifer.
But Lucifer rebelled against God, and disobeyed Him. And he was defeated, and was humiliated and cast out of heaven. Such was his fate because of his pride, and such was therefore also the fate of those others who followed in his footsteps, the people who tried to build up the great tower of Babel. They were scattered and confused in their language, as a reminder that no matter how great, mighty and powerful we are, our power and might are nothing if we are not with God.
It is what the Lord wanted us all to remember, even as we now continue to live our respective lives here on earth. He Himself has come into this world in order to show us the way. Many kings and lords of this world were powerful, proud of their power, intellect, achievements and greatness, but He, Who is the King of all kings, and Lord of all lords, came into this world humbly, not flaunting to others His might and power, even though His power is true power, and His might is real might.
He came into this world to humbly work the works that His Father has entrusted to Him to do, that is the salvation of this world. He bore the burden of the cross for our sake, His people, that by all of His sacrifice, He might save us all from the hopelessness and despair because of our sins, and from all the sufferings caused by our disobedience against God.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, we should also heed what our Lord Jesus had said in the Gospel today. He said that it is better for someone to lose one’s life and lose other things for the sake of the Lord, rather than for someone to try to save his or her life, and at the cost of his or her own soul. It is a kind reminder by our Lord that to be His disciple, we often will need to make sacrifices, and also to endure rejection and opposition from others.
Are we as Christians ready to take up the challenges and the crosses of our life together with Jesus? Are we ready to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, be humble and be meek in all things, and not to be proud, arrogant or haughty just because of our human achievements, power and greatness? It is important that we should resist the temptations of our flesh, through which the devil is constantly trying to pull us into sin.
Let us all follow in the footsteps of the seven Holy Founders of the Servite order. These seven men were people of exceptional piety and devotion to the Lord, and each of them were committed to serve God’s people, and for that reason, they established the congregation of the Servites. They led others into a life of poverty, simplicity and humility before God.
Many people were inspired to follow in their footsteps, to let go of their pride and their human ambitions, and instead endeavour to follow the Lord and be humble in all of their deeds. Let us all seek to be humble and to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. Let us all spend our whole lives and all the things that we do, glorifying the Lord by our deeds.
May the Lord bless us all and all of our endeavours and works. May He remain with us always, and keep us all in His loving grace. May God be with us all, now and forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Mark 8 : 34 – Mark 9 : 1
At that time, Jesus called the people and His disciples, and said, “If you want to follow Me, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me. For if you choose to save your life, you will lose it; and if you lose your life for My sake and for the sake of the Gospel, you will save it.”
“What good is it to gain the whole world, while destroying your soul? There is nothing more precious than your soul. I tell you : If anyone is ashamed of Me and of My words among this adulterous and sinful people, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the Glory of His Father with the holy Angels.”
And He went on to say, “Truly I tell you, there are some here who will not die before they see the kingdom of God coming with power.”
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 32 : 10-11, 12-13, 14-15
The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and brings to nothing the peoples’ designs. But His plan stands forever, and His heart’s design through all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord – the people He has chosen for His inheritance. The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole race of mortals.
From where He sits He watches all those who dwell on the earth – He Who fashions every heart observes all their deeds.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Genesis 11 : 1-9
The whole world had one language and a common speech. As people moved from east, they found a plain in the country of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them in fire.” They used brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. They said also, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven; so that we may become a great people and not be scattered over the face of the earth!”
YHVH came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man were building, and YHVH said, “They are one people and they have one language. If they carry this through, nothing they decide to do from now on will be impossible. Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language so that they will no longer understand each other.”
So YHVH scattered them over all the earth and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because there YHVH confused the language of the whole earth and from there YHVH scattered them over the whole face of the earth.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great feast day of one of the most renowned holy saints of Christendom, one known for his great piety and discipline in faith, the one who made religious life to be such a devout and popular profession in his days. St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder and first Abbot of the Benedictine religious order had a great role in the history of the Church, in helping many to find their calling and vocations in God, and advance the cause of the Lord.
St. Benedict of Nursia was born five centuries after the birth of Christ at a time when Christianity has become the majority faith for the people in the then known world. The Christian faith has become the faith followed by the people from the lowest to the greatest in the society, and the Church was still growing rapidly and developing its structure and practices. However, it was very often that heresies and all other false teachings arose in the Church, and people were also often lukewarm about their faith.
They have become complacent about their faith, just as what we heard in the Scriptures today, in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, where God rebuked His people for their empty offerings and sacrifices which were not made in real and genuine faith and devotion for Him. The people had come to see those sacrifices as obligations and as merely a process, and they had no real love for the Lord.
And in the Gospel Jesus also rebuked the people who followed Him, all those thinking that His coming into the world would usher an era of eternal peace where there would be no more suffering or difficulties, where being a follower of the Lord would entail one to a life of complacency and enjoyment, and where no more work is needed. Being a Christian in fact means a life of challenges and difficulties, as the world of darkness from which we have been rescued from would not remain silent even as we approach the salvation in our God.
Jesus Himself warned that His coming would bring about conflict and struggle, even among the closest of friends, among the inner circles of the families themselves, where one member of the family, being a Christian might be pitted against the other members of the family and even be persecuted. There had been many examples in the history of our Faith and the Church, where the faithful had been torn between their families and the faith, their friends and the Lord. And those who chose the Lord often faced suffering and even martyrdom.
And thus, St. Benedict who founded several communities of the faithful who chose to devote themselves and their whole lives to God in a life of seclusion and prayer. St. Benedict was renowned for his famous Rule of St. Benedict, which became the foundation of the order which he helped to establish, as those communities which he had established eventually grew to become what we know as the Benedictine order.
The Rule of St. Benedict encompassed the rules put in place to ensure that the lives of those who chose to join the religious order of St. Benedict are filled with devotions and prayers, and filled with hard work to cultivate their faith in the Lord. They lived together and worked together in harmony, and in the challenges and the difficulties that they faced, they have nothing better and greater than God Himself Who stood by them.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, it does not mean that all of us should abandon our current lives and devote ourselves to become monks and religious like St. Benedict and his followers had done. Of course if there are some among us who had been called and chosen, and if they had chosen to follow the fullness of the examples of St. Benedict, then it is in fact a great thing, and we should give our support and encouragement to them.
But for the rest of us, each and every one of us have also been called to give our best effort to live as true and devout Christians, as those who do not just profess the faith on paper or with mere words alone, but also through hard work and dedication. Indeed, the path forward for us will be challenging, but at least then if we remain faithful to the end, then our way forward is clear, and God rewards all those who keep their faith in Him despite all the difficulties and the challenges faced.
Let us all therefore imitate the examples of St. Benedict of Nursia and his Benedictine followers, devoting ourselves in each of our own way, but most importantly be sincere in our faith and devotion, and commit ourselves wholly to God, not just with our mouth or gestures, but from the deepest depths inside our hearts and our minds. May God help us and strengthen us. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 10 : 34 – Matthew 11 : 1
At that time, Jesus spoke to the people and to His disciples, “Do not think that I have come to establish peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Each one will have as enemies those of one’s own family.”
“Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take up His cross and come after Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
“Whoever welcomes you welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes Him Who sent Me. The one who welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive the reward of a prophet; the one who welcomes a just man, because he is a just man, will receive the reward of a just man. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is My disciple, I assure you, he will not go unrewarded.”
When Jesus had finished giving His twelve disciples these instructions, He went on from there to teach and to proclaim His message in their towns.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 49 : 8-9, 16bc-17, 21 and 23
Not for your sacrifices do I reprove you, for your burnt offerings are ever before Me. I need no bull from your stalls, nor he-goat from your pens.
What right have you to mouth My laws, or to talk about My covenant? You hate My commands and cast My words behind you.
Because I was silent while you did these things, you thought I was like you. But now I rebuke you and make this charge against you. Those who give with thanks offerings honour Me, but the one who walks blamelessly, I will show him the salvation of God.
Liturgical Colour : White
Isaiah 1 : 10-17
Hear the warning of YHVH, rulers of Sodom. Listen to the word of God, people of Gomorrah.
“What do I care,” says YHVH “for your endless sacrifices? I am fed up with your burnt offerings, and the fat of your bulls. The blood of fatlings, and lambs and he-goats I abhor.”
“When you come before Me and trample on My courts, who asked you to visit Me? I am fed up with your oblations. I grow sick with your incense. Your New Moons, Sabbaths and meetings, evil with holy assemblies, I can no longer bear.”
“I hate your New Moons and appointed feasts, they burden Me. When you stretch out your hands I will close My eyes; the more you pray, the more I refuse to listen, for your hands are bloody. Wash and make yourselves clean. Remove from My sight the evil of your deeds.”
“Put an end to your wickedness and learn to do good. Seek justice and keep in line the abusers; give the fatherless their rights and defend the widow.”
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 