Liturgical Colour : White
1 John 3 : 1-3
See what singular love the Father has for us : we are called children of God, and we really are. This is why the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.
Beloved, we are God’s children and what we shall be has not yet been shown. Yet when He appears in His glory, we know that we shall be like Him, for then we shall see Him as He is. All who have such a hope try to be pure as He is pure.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 23 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 5-6
The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord, the world and all that dwell in it. He has founded it upon the ocean and set it firmly upon the waters.
Who will ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who will stand in His holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart, who desire not what is vain.
They will receive blessings from the Lord, a reward from God, their Saviour. Such are the people who seek Him, who seek the face of Jacob’s God.
Liturgical Colour : White
Revelations 7 : 2-4, 9-14
I saw another Angel ascending from the sunrise, carrying the seal of the living God, and he cried out with a loud voice to the four Angels empowered to harm the earth and the sea, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God upon their foreheads.”
Then I heard the number of those marked with the seal : a hundred and forty-four thousand from all the tribes of the people of Israel. After this I saw a great crowd, impossible to count, from every nation, race, people and tongue, standing before the throne and the Lamb, clothed in white, with palm branches in their hands, and they cried out with a loud voice, “Who saves but our God who sits on the throne and the Lamb?”
All the Angels were around the throne, the Elders and the four living creatures; they then bowed before the throne with their faces to the ground to worship God. They said, “Amen. Praise, glory, wisdom, thanks, honour, power and strength to our God forever and ever. Amen!”
At that moment, one of the Elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these people clothed in white, and where did they come from?” I answered, “Sir, it is you who know this.” The Elder replied, “They are those who have come out of the great persecution; they have washed and made their clothes white in the Blood of the Lamb.”
Liturgical Colour : Purple or Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the fourth and therefore the last Sunday of Advent in our liturgical year. Christmas is coming soon and this week is the time traditionally prescribed by the Church as the time for the final preparation for Christmas. This Sunday we continue to observe and reflect on the major aspects of Christmas, that is Love. We have previously reflected on Hope, on Peace, and finally on Joy at the Gaudete Sunday last week.
Love is the central nature of Christmas and all that we celebrate. Indeed, love is the centre of everything, of why we still live and breathe comfortably now in this world. God loves us all, for we were created special, with the very image of our God imprinted on us, and we have been given the greatest gift of all. And what is this gift? It is the Gift of all gifts, surpassing all other gifts, that is Christ our Lord Himself, the Gift of God to all mankind.
As we have often talked about and discussed throughout this Advent season, this season is a time for ardent prayer and genuine preparation, a time for us to prepare for the ‘Adventus’ or the coming of the Lord. And after going through four Sundays in which we discern the true meaning of Christmas, we should all be ready and prepared to celebrate this Christmas meaningfully.
Otherwise, if we fail to understand the true meaning of Christmas, then we will not benefit from the richness of God’s grace which He had given to us, which will benefit us most if we can appreciate what Christmas truly is. Christmas is not just about the glorious and bountiful food, not just about the festivities and the parties, and not just about the decorations and shopping that we often do to prepare for Christmas.
Christmas is truly about love, the love of God for mankind. Surely we know that the Gospel has clearly spoken about God who loves us all so much, that He gave us His only Son, so that all those who believe in Him, the Son, will not perish but gain eternal life (John 3:16). This is the essence of Christmas, the coming of the Son into the world, so that a new Hope arises for the nations and for all the peoples.
So the aspect of love that we reflect on this Sunday, reflects this Love that God had shown us, the true meaning of Christmas that I have often emphasized. Without the love of God, there can be no Christmas, and there can be no hope for us. There can no true peace in us, if we do not embrace the peace brought to us by God’s Love in Christ. There can also be no joy in us that lasts, if we do not share in the joy of God’s Love.
What is love, brothers and sisters in Christ? Is love shown by expensive gifts or romantic activities, and all the things taught and shown to us by the world? Is it like what are being advertised to us in many things, about love? No, it is not that kind of love, for that kind of love is often selfish, love that is bound to possessions and material goods, love that is conditional and once spent, then no love is left. Sadly, this is also the reason why there are so much sorrow in the world, of broken families, of abuses in the family, of infighting and jealousy, and many others.
Love, and indeed real love, is not about all these, but is the kind of love which Love Himself, Christ, had shown us. For God is Love, and He had shown us what love really is. His love is true love, genuine and pure, unconditional and gentle. His love does not have any prerequisite, nor does He demand us to give Him something for the love He had shown us. Indeed, He loved us even when we are still sinners, and even laid down His life for us.
St. Paul mentioned in his letter to the Romans, that someone may want to give their life for the just and righteous ones, but very unlikely to do so, for those who are wicked and evil. But Jesus suffered for us, bearing all of our sins, and died for us, laying down His life, even when we are still sinners and wicked (Romans 5:8). And as Jesus had said that the greatest kind of love is for someone to lay down his life for a friend (John 15:13), then we can see indeed how much greater the love God had for us when He chose to lay down His life for us, sinners and evildoers.
God does detest our sins greatly. Sin has no place in His presence, as sin is a taint and corruption, and for He who is perfectly good and pure, sin is completely disgusting. And yet, His love is even greater than His hatred for our sins. He loves us so much that He was willing to endure all those sufferings in order to rescue us from our predicament of sin.
This is the kind of love we should really have with us, and the love we should cherish. For it is through the love of God that we can enjoy a new hope, true peace and real joy which the world and others cannot provide. His love for us is unconditional, and by His coming into the world, that we celebrate in Christmas, He offered Himself, His love and mercy for all of us, so that we may be saved.
But at the same time, we have to be vigilant and be careful, for this world certainly has done much to prevent the love of God from reaching us, as Satan is the Lord of this world, and he has all in his possessions and within his means to tempt us and lead us away from the salvation and love which God freely offers us all. And today, we celebrate the feast of a great and faithful servant of God, who is a devout and courageous defender of the Faith in God.
St. Peter Canisius was a Dutch Jesuit, who lived during the time of the Protestant ‘reformation’, when many of the faithful and the members of the Church were misguided and misled by those who have been corrupted by the lies and the confusion of the evil one. They left the Church and the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ as faithfully kept by the Church and chose to follow their own human desires, greed, selfishness, and other evils in them.
St. Peter Canisius joined the Society of Jesus, also known as the Jesuit order, which is the spearhead of the Church’s effort at Counter-Reformation, which main goal is to counter the heresy of Protestantism and bring as many souls as possible back to salvation that exists only in the Church of God. He led the effort of Counter-Reformation in what is now Germany, where the effects of the Protestant heresy is at its worst. He preached the true faith, and it was told that his preaching was so effective that hundreds and more returned to the true Faith.
He preached and taught in many places, and he persuaded many to return to the Faith not by coercion or force, but by clear reason and clear understanding of the Faith, and through that clarity in the teaching of the Faith, his words of truth, the truth of God rang deep into the depths of the hearts of many, who were convinced to abandon their heresy and return to the Holy Mother Church.
St. Peter Canisius was very particular in the matter of the education of the Faith to the people, and his most well-known legacy is the three books of Catechism he had written, which are the clear source of the teachings of the Faith, used in many generations and saved countless souls from sins and heresies. That is why his name today is also identical with Catholic education and several Jesuit education institutes adopted his name after he was made saint of the Holy Church.
He was also credited for his great devotion to Mary, and he taught that the best way to the Lord is through His mother Mary, and he was the one who added the response in the Ave Maria or Hail Mary prayer, “Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners.” This clearly showed the importance of Mary in the lives of the faithful, for through her intercessions and prayers for us, God our Lord His Son, is most likely to hear our pleas and petitions, and mercy shall be shown us.
Why did St. Peter Canisius do all of these, brothers and sisters in Christ? Why did he go forth and preach to the heretics and those who have been lost to the darkness of the world? That is because of none other than God’s love for us, and His desire that we be found and be gathered again, that we will be lost sheep no more but belonging once more to the one flock of Christ, that is the Church.
The love of God is such, that He, although despising our sins and repelled by our wickedness, endure all of them, and even endure all forms of humiliation and rejection, none less by His own people, the ones whom He was sent to save! And yet, He persevered, out of that eternal and infinite love which He has in Him, for He is Love, and just as He wanted to share that love with us when He created us, thus, He wanted us to be loved by Him even when we have fallen into sin.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, even as we prepare for the Christmas celebrations which will be here in less than a week’s time, and even as we prepare to rejoice together with the whole world and the whole Universal Church at the celebration of the Birth of our Lord Jesus, let us never forget that this event is there in the first place, because of God and His Love for us, that is made real and concrete through His Son Jesus, who performed the act of ultimate love for us, to die for us for our sins on the cross at Calvary.
This Christmas, shall we then ponder at the love God has for us, that He was willing to enter into our world, and indeed into our lives and dwell within us? Let us never forget that Christ is at the heart of Christmas, and at the very heart of that celebration and joy is the Love of God, the eternal and undying love Christ had shown us through the cross, the very purpose of His coming into this world, and thus to liberate us from the chains of sin.
Sin no more, repent, change our ways and be wholeheartedly devoted to God from now on, that this Christmas and the next ones will be decidedly different from the past ones, that this time, we truly understand and fully embrace the love of Christ, the true meaning of Christmas. God bless us all and may St. Peter Canisius intercede for us always with the Blessed Mother of our Lord, Mary our mother. Amen.
First Reading :
Psalm :
Second Reading :
Gospel Reading :
Epistle (Usus Antiquior) :
Gospel (Usus Antiquior) :
Liturgical Colour : Purple or Violet
Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam – Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
Luke 3 : 1-6
Anno quintodecimo imperii Tiberii Caesaris, procurante Pontio Pilato Judaeam, tetrarcha autem Galilaeae Herode, Philippo autem fratre ejus tetrarcha Ituraeae et Trachonitidis regionis, et Lysania Abilinae tetrarcha, sub principibus sacerdotum Anna et Caipha : factum est verbum Domini super Joannem, Zachariae filium, in deserto.
Et venit in omnem regionem Jordanis, praedicans baptismum paenitentiae in remissionem peccatorum, sicut scriptum est in libro sermonum Isaiae Prophetae : Vox clamantis in deserto : Parate viam Domini : rectas facite semitas ejus : omnis vallis implebitur : et omnis mons et collis humiliabitur : et erunt prava in directa, et aspera in vias planas : et videbit omnis caro salutare Dei.
English translation
In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, Pontius Pilate is the governor of Judea, and Herod is the tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother is the Tetrarch of Iturea and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias is the tetrarch of Abilina, under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the word of the Lord came to John the son of Zechariah, in the desert.
And he came into all the the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins, as it is written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah the prophet : “A voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare all of you the way of the Lord, make straight His paths. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. The crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'”
Homily and Reflection :
Liturgical Colour : Purple or Violet
Isaiah 40 : 1-5, 9-11
Be comforted, My people, be strengthened, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her that her time of bondage is at an end, that her guilt has been paid for, that from the hand of YHVH she has received double punishment for all her iniquity.
A voice cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way for YHVH. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley will be raised up; every mountain and hill will be laid low. The stumbling blocks shall become level and the rugged places smooth. The glory of YHVH will be revealed, and all mortals together will see it; for the mouth of YHVH has spoken.”
“Go up onto the high mountain, messenger of Good News to Zion, lift up your voice with strength, fear not to cry aloud when you tell Jerusalem and announce to the cities of Judah : ‘Here is your God! Here comes your God with might; His strong arm rules for Him; His reward is with Him, and here before Him is His booty.'”
“Like a shepherd He tends His flock : He gathers the lambs in His arms, He carries them in His bosom, gently leading those that are with young.”
Homily and Reflection :
Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam – Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
Luke 19 : 1-10
In illo tempore : Ingressus Jesus perambulabat Jericho. Et ecce, vir nomine Zachaeus : et hic princeps erat publicanorum, et ipse dives : et quaerebat videre Jesum, quis esset : et non poterat prae turba, quia statura pusillus erat.
Et praecurrens ascendit in arborem sycomorum, ut videret eum; quia inde erat transiturus. Et cum venisset ad locum, suspiciens Jesus vidit illum, et dixit ad eum : Zachaee, festinans descende; quia hodie in domo tua oportet me manere. Et festinans descendit, et excepit illum gaudens. Et cum viderent omnes, murmurabant, dicentes, quod ad hominem peccatorem divertisset.
Stans autem Zachaeus, dixit ad Dominum : Ecce, dimidium bonorum meorum, Domine, do pauperibus : et si quid aliquem defraudavi, reddo quadruplum. Ait Jesus ad eum : Quia hodie salus domui huic facta est : eo quod et ipse filius sit Abrahae. Venit enim Filius hominis quaerere et salvum facere, quod perierat.
English translation
At that time, Jesus entering in, walked through Jericho. And behold there was a man named Zachaeus, who was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich, and he sought to see who Jesus was, and he could not see Him because of the crowd, for he was of low stature.
And running before, he climbed up into a sycamore tree that he might see Him, for He was to pass that way. And when Jesus came to that place, looking up, He saw him and said to him, “Zachaeus, make haste and come down, for this day I must abide in your house.” And he made haste and came down, and received Him with joy. And when all saw it, they murmured, saying that He is going to be a guest with a man who was a sinner.
But Zachaeus standing, said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have wronged any man of anything, I will restore to him fourfold.” Jesus said to him, “This day salvation has come to this house, because he is also a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man comes to seek and save those who were lost.”
Homily and Reflection :
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are reminded of the need for us to stay true to our faith. We cannot be lukewarm and be passive in our faith, and we cannot just pay a mere lip service and obedience to the Lord. This is what Jesus meant that we cannot be servant to both God and money, as when we serve one, we will loath the other, and refuse to follow the other.
Why is this so? That is because the ways of the Lord and the ways of this world are diametrically opposite to each other. While one is filled with love, with genuine care and devotion to the Lord and to one’s fellow brothers and sisters, and filled with forgiveness and mercy, truth and justice, the other is filled with the desires of the flesh, that is our human desires and the things of this world, filled with not love but hatred, filled with jealousy and vanity rather than humility and harmony and peace.
The people of the Lord lives according to the ways of God and desires things that reflect the teachings of Christ. Meanwhile, the people of the world lives according to the ways of this world and desiring things that belongs to this world. But if we notice, we mankind are never easy to satisfy, and in fact, in many cases, we are often unable to be satisfied.
It is in the nature of mankind that we often ask for even more when we have received some things for ourselves. We always feel that we do not have enough and always wanting for more to satisfy our ever growing desires. And there is no better example than our own contemporary culture and livelihood, in the world around us today. Our world is thoroughly filled with the materialistic and consumeristic culture, which pervades all aspects of our lives.
Materialism and consumerism are the vile aspects of our world and our society today, in which we live in a world obsessed with the earthly materials and possessions. We can ask ourselves, and remember every time when we watch the television and access the internet these days, on how many advertisements we see every single moment we do these?
Those advertisements are promoting materialistic behaviours, as they play directly into our desire for more of the material goods and possessions. Some are dealing with food, which may lead us into greed and gluttony, desiring always the best of foods in our lives. We have to note, though, that food is not something to be shunned from, and it is not wrong for us to enjoy our food.
However, the problem is when we start to eat our foods lavishly without abandon, and without proper consideration for our brethren who are less fortunate than us and have less to eat than us. Greed is the undoing for many people, as we desire for ever more things, and in the process, we often trample at the rights of others and even cause suffering to them.
Hence, if we walk in the ways of the world and follow our own desires, we are likely to come into confrontation and clash with the ways of the Lord. If we do so, then at the day of judgment we will be found wanting by the Lord, for not only that we failed to do as we supposed to do, as the children of God, but also because we are likely to have caused pain and suffering for those around us.
Certainly this is not the fate that we want in this life. And that is why, we need to learn to follow the true path as shown by the Lord, that is the path of love, the path of peace, the path of humility, and the path of temperance. All of these are important if we are to seek the Lord’s salvation and His promised salvation for us, the eternal life which He had promised all those who believe in Him.
It is important for us to have temperance in us, that is to be able to restrain ourselves and know the limits of our desires, so that we know how to limit our wants such that we will not fall into greed. Temperance is also knowing the truth, how our Lord and God cares so much for us, that He provided us all with everything that we will ever need, in all His various ways, which we often do not realise. He gives us His grace and blessing, and just as St. Paul had mentioned in his letter, we too need to learn to know how to be satisfied with what we have, the blessings of the Lord.
And following the Lord means for us to know how to love, first that is to love God our Lord who had first loved us very much, and then to love one another just as much as we loved our Lord and just as much as we loved ourselves. If we have loved in that way, certainly we will no longer commit whatever evils that are the ways of this world. How is this so?
It is because if we know love, how can we stand when someone is being hurt and being cheated out of his or her money and possessions? And indeed, how can we even contemplate causing pain and suffering to others for our own benefit? And how can we contemplate doing something that bring goodness and riches to us, but bring about poverty and pain to others?
And if we know justice, how can we stand when injustice happen to others, and how can we even contemplate acting in a way such as to disadvantage others around us, for our own personal advantage? That is why, as I have mentioned, that the ways of the Lord are diametrically opposite to the ways of this world, and we cannot serve both at once, as our heart and our conscience will soon lead to contradict one action from the other.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all no longer be lukewarm in our faith, and let us all no longer be on the fence. We have to make a conscious and clear choice to stand up for the Faith and be firmly at the side of the Lord. And when we do so, we will find ourselves becoming more attuned to the ways of Christ, and as such, we will grow better and stronger in the faith, and in love within our actions.
May Almighty God guide us to be loving in all of our actions, rejecting all forms of hatred and violence, rejecting all forms of fornications of the flesh and the soul, the ways of this world, and exchange it for the ways of our Lord. Let us all seek salvation in our Lord Jesus Christ, by being righteous and just, as well as loving in all of our actions, and live our lives fully in genuine faith in the Lord. God bless us all. Amen.
First Reading :
Psalm :
Gospel Reading :
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is a great feast day of the entire Universal Church, and not just of the Church which is in this world, but also together with the entire Church of the heavenly realm, as we celebrate today the feast and solemnity of All Saints, rejoicing with all creation, for the gift of the saints, who were once of mankind, but have been raised to the glory of the Altar and had been deemed by the Church as worthy of heaven by the virtue of their life and works.
This day marks the very important concept in our Faith, that is of the belief in saints and also to that extent, the blesseds or the Beati, who were also deemed worthy of praise and veneration, due to their actions in life, and in how they have faithfully lived their life in accordance with the ways and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in how they have dedicated their lives in service both to God and to their fellow men.
Then, in order to start, we have to understand who are saints in the first place and why they were so special, and how they can inspire us all in our own lives and drive towards salvation in God. Saints were also once living and walking in this world just like us, and they were also once sinners like us. Some saints were even once great sinners, who committed even abominable acts in the sight of God, when they were still alive.
Some saints were once murderers, and some were heretics and rebels against the orthodox teachings of the faith, and yet some were also fornicators and those who gave in to the pleasures of the flesh and the temptations of the world. St. Augustine of Hippo, the renowned Doctor of the Church and great saint is a traditional example of this, as well as St. Paul the Apostle, the great Apostle to the Gentiles and the one who wrote the many letters that today form the majority of our New Testament in the Scripture.
St. Augustine of Hippo was the son of another well-known saint, St. Monica, who was a devout Christian and had hoped that her son would be one too. She brought him up in the Faith with zeal and love, only to be greatly disappointed when he grew up to be a fornicator and a heretic, following the heresy of Manichaeanism, and indulging in various pleasures of the flesh and the world with his friends and companies.
Meanwhile, we know that St. Paul the Apostle was once Saul, the great scourge and enemy of the Church and the faithful, who hunted down many of the faithful, persecuted many of the saints and martyrs of the early Church, destroyed many of the communities of the faithful, and were once a bitter and zealous enemy of Christ. He went to Damascus with the evil intent of bringing the faithful who lived and hid there to the justice of the Pharisees and the chief priests.
And yet, what differentiated them from those who sin and was lost to us into eternal damnation? It is because they did not remain forever in their sins and in their sinful state, and instead, they sought complete change and turnaround in their own lives. They abandoned what were wicked and evil in their lives, casting out wickedness from their actions and deeds, and they embraced the mercy and love of God, taking up instead the armour of God, that is faith, hope, love and justice.
St. Augustine of Hippo was converted to the truth through both the endless intercession and prayer by his mother, St. Monica, who ceaselessly prayed for him and his soul, and he changed his ways, finding eventually the Lord his God, abandoning all of his past wickedness and since then, walked faithfully in the Lord, becoming among the greatest of the saints of Christendom, through his acts and works.
Saul as we know, was changed since he encountered our Lord Jesus personally, on that fateful day, on the way to the city of Damascus. He was blinded and was helpless, but the Lord through Ananias, His servant, he was healed and made wholesome once again. He was baptised and regained his old strength, but instead of resuming his old ways of hunting and persecuting the faithful, he made a turnaround and indeed, he from then on preached the Good News of God.
Thus, as we can see from their examples, saints does not have to be perfect people. Indeed, they were just as imperfect as we are, and they were sinners as we are. What matters is however that, they did not remain in their sinfulness and neither did they remain steadfast in their rebellion against the will of God. They changed their ways and had a turnaround in their lives, and therefore, they are converted to the cause of the Lord, and through their new lives, they gained justification in their faith and actions.
Some saints and blesseds were indeed already holy for most of their lives, and they were exemplary throughout the life they led, and in all of their actions. Some of these saints even died young, at a teenage or young adult age. This is in fact God’s way to preserve their saintliness and holiness, and to prevent them from falling into sin as they progressed further in life.
St. John Bosco or John de Bosco, St. Stanislaus Kostka, St. Bernadette Soubirous and many other saints who died young, because of sickness and other reasons, showed great holiness and piety since youth, and because of that, as the Lord Himself had said through His prophets and messengers, that He would rather that they be brought to His presence early and in their youth, rather than to allow the corruptions of the world and the temptations of Satan to get into them.
And closer to our era, we also know of the deeds of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the simple Albanian woman who dedicated herself to the service of the Lord and of her fellow men, by becoming, in her own words, as the ‘pencil in the hand of God’, and she became a beacon of faith and hope in many of those who suffered at the hands of the world, the dejected, the ostracised, the poorest and the weakest in the society.
We also know of St. Maximilian Kolbe, the saint of the Holocaust, who gave up his own life in exchange for another prisoner, who was condemned to death while trying to escape from the persecution of NAZI Germany. And we know of several Popes who are also saints, namely, Pope St. Pius X, the holy and devout Pope of the Eucharist, who reformed the faith and allowed more people to come closer to the Lord in the Eucharist.
And just recently this year we have two new Popes who were declared saints by Pope Francis, our current Pope. They are Pope St. John XXIII, the Pope of the Second Vatican Council, the Pope of peace and the one who worked hard to bring about peace between nations in the height of superpower conflict, and also to usher unity among the quarrelling bodies of the faithful in God. Pope St. John Paul II is the one whom we are often know a lot about, as the Pope who helped to bring down the tyranny of Communism, and who helped the Church to stand up strongly against the evils of this world.
Now one may ask yet again, who are the saints? And how do they play a part in helping us to achieve our salvation in God? And no doubt there are those who misunderstood and having been led by the lies of the devil, thinking that we in the Church of God pray to the saints and worship them as if they are gods. These are among the many things we surely will encounter in our lives, the common opinion of the world around us, the lies of Satan!
So, it is important that we are thoroughly capable of understanding the role that the holy saints play in our faith life, and as I have mentioned the various examples of saints, their actions and their justifications in faith, we can already see that these saints were once also men like us, walking down the same paths we take in this world, but they all share one thing in common, that they truly love the Lord their God, as well as their fellow men, and allow their faith to grow and flourish through their actions which bring grace not just to themselves but also to all those they have interacted with.
Sainthood is a state of someone who had been found worthy by the Church, after a process of formal scrutiny, or through widespread public testimony, that the aforementioned is indeed worthy of heaven, by the virtue of his or her actions, and by the piety of his or her faith, living and substantiated by the actions, which made the person as someone who is assured of heaven at the moment of death.
Is there a precedent for this? Yes, there is, exactly, and none other than, as done by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, when He was on the cross at Golgotha. If now the Pope, as the supreme leader and the Vicar of Christ invested with authority, proclaimed that a person is worthy of sainthood, then the first ever saint, was the humble sinner, the criminal who was on the right side of Jesus, who was crucified together with Him.
There were two criminals who were crucified together with Jesus, and the one on the left of Him cursed Jesus and mocked Him, even daring to ask Him to bring Himself down from the cross, so that he too could escape from the suffering and the death that was to come. And what did he get in the end? Nothing, and he went straight into hell, for his pride, arrogance, lack of faith and most importantly, for his lack of repentance.
Both of them were sinners, but what differentiated the criminal on the left, who was condemned, and the one on the right, who was made just and righteous? It was because the criminal on the right fully acknowledged his sins and misconducts in life, humbly seeking the forgiveness of God, and declaring his faith and love in Jesus, knowing that He who is the Master of all, has the power to save all, providing that he was willing to accept the salvation. And indeed, he accepted it, and Jesus praised his faith and humility, and his genuine repentance, saying to him, that he would be with Him that very day in paradise.
Thus, that criminal too, was made a saint, St. Dismas according to tradition, as he was assured of his place in heaven. And thus, following in the same manner, as a tradition, the Church also declares worthy individuals as saints, and many of these were once sinners, who changed their ways and embraced the love and faith in God. And now that they are assured of their places in heaven, and being in heaven, they lie close to the throne of our Lord.
Therefore, now we come to the matter whether we worship the saints as if they are gods. No, and this is absolutely not true, the lies of Satan, the prince of evil, which he spread to misguide many from the truth and bring many away from salvation in the Church. We do not worship the saints, but we ask them for their prayers and intercession instead, asking them sincerely for their support for us, as they are close to the throne of God, and hopefully, through their prayers, the Lord will be moved to have mercy on us.
But this eventually does not mean that we should be idle, and pretending to think that the saints can help us in everything, while we sit back and relax, enjoying ourselves in this world. The saints implore for us and pray for us, but if we ourselves are not proactive in our faith, and if we ourselves embrace wickedness and darkness in this life, then we have no hope for salvation ourselves. Indeed, unless if we follow in the path of the saints, those who have turned away from the darkness into the light and follow their examples.
What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? That means, even today, as we celebrate together the great feast of all the holy saints of God, we too should realise that in each and every one of us lie the potential to become saints and holy before God, just as the saints who have gone before us had done. What matters is whether we make that potential a reality, by following the examples of the saints, embracing the goodness of God and rejecting all the falsehood, the lies and the temptations of the devil.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us ask the multitudes of the saints, the people who have been righteous and worthy in life, and were chosen and marked as belonging to God, for them to pray for us sinners who still live and roam in this world. Let us ask them for their intercession before the throne of our Lord’s mercy, so that God may be moved in His love, to help us to overcome our own sinfulness and vulnerabilities to sin, that we too may become worthy as His saints had been.
May Almighty God be with us always, and may the glory and joy of His saints remind us always of the everlasting promise of happiness and goodness which He gave all those who keep their faith in Him, and who lived according to what He had wanted us to live, so that we too may one day be found worthy of the glorious sainthood, and be holy people, one people united in our praise to God, forever and ever more. Amen.
First Reading :
https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/10/30/saturday-1-november-2014-solemnity-of-all-saints-first-reading/
Second Reading :
https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/10/30/saturday-1-november-2014-solemnity-of-all-saints-second-reading/
Gospel Reading :
https://petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com/2014/10/30/saturday-1-november-2014-solemnity-of-all-saints-gospel-reading/
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Popes)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate together for the very first time, the feast of a great saint, and one whose memory is certainly still very clear in the minds of most of us, except for the very youngest ones among us. If we are at an age of adulthood or above, that is eighteen or beyond, we would have remembered how we once know of Pope John Paul II as our Pope, and thus as the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of St. Peter the Apostle.
And just earlier this year in April, that together with another great Pope of the last century, Pope John XXIII, the Pope who initiated the Second Vatican Council that they were together raised to the glory of the Altar of God as the holy saints of the Church, worthy of heaven, of praise and also worthy of being asked for intercessions from, to pray for us sinners still in this world.
To many of us, Pope St. John Paul II was our Pope, the Pope who had filled so much of our faith life. His very long reign, the second longest among the verified reigns of Popes, third if St. Peter himself is included, the reign of twenty-seven years certainly is of a very significant to the whole Universal Church. Many of us did not even know any other Pope than this saint, until he passed away just less than a decade ago.
However, even though many of us knew him, and even though many of us think that he was a great man and a great Pope, how many of us actually knew who he was and what he had done for the Church and for the faithful people of God? It is likely that many of us do not have the full image and idea of who he really was and what he has done. And many of us might have wrong impressions about him through misinformations and miscommunications of the world and the media.
That is why, let me share a bit first on who Pope St. John Paul II was. He was a Pole, the first ever Pope to originate from Poland, an Eastern European country, which at that time had the unfortunate fate of being overrun by the two great powers that were its neighbours. Pope St. John Paul II was born Karol Jozef Wojtyla in Krakow, Poland, just two years after Poland regained its independence from the Russian Empire after a period of more than a century.
But as the life of Pope St. John Paul II would testify, Poland was to be subjected to a series of unfortunate and very grim events, subjugation first by the forces of the NAZI Germany and then later under the dominance and hegemony of the Communist Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the one fact most if not all of us knew well was that the central role which Pope St. John Paul II would play in bringing down the dreaded Communism, not just in Poland, but also in almost the whole world.
Pope St. John Paul II himself did not have an easy life, as his mother died young when the then Karol Wojtyla was still very young, and he quickly lost his siblings to various reasons, including his elder brother whom he respected a lot, to a disease. His father passed away just at the start of the great miseries to befell Poland, and Pope St. John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla was left all alone in the world, without a family, but yet with God and His Blessed Mother at his side.
If we are wondering why Pope St. John Paul II chose the motto which would be famously accredited and associated to him, then we do not need to look further from the fact how he had persevered through many sufferings and difficulties, left all alone in the world, but he made it through the help and the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God.
His motto was Totus Tuus, the abbreviation of the full motto of Totus Tuus suum Maria, or ‘Blessed Virgin Mary, I am all yours’. This motto showed the great devotion which Karol Wojtyla, later Pope St. John Paul II had for Mary, and he was indeed known as one of the great Marian Popes who highly promoted the veneration and devotions to the Blessed Virgin.
This is the same kind of attitude which we should also have in our faith life and in our lives in general. We have to devote ourselves to the Lord and also to His Blessed Mother Mary, fully and completely if we are to allow God to come and work His wonders in us, and through us He can indeed do many things for the benefit of the world and for His people, as He had shown through how He worked through the person of Pope St. John Paul II, who should indeed be the role model for all of us in living our faith.
He endured difficulties after difficulties, persecutions after persecutions, and he frequently brushed closely with death. Yet, God had indeed had a plan for him, and every time, the Lord and His Blessed Mother guided him and delivered him from harm’s path. He suffered indeed, but he knew that he suffered for the sake of the Lord, who would indeed be bound to listen to the pleas of His people and take action.
He stood up for the faithful, when he, as the Metropolitan Archbishop of Krakow, one of the most influential and outspoken Archbishops and prelates in Poland and in Communist-dominated Eastern Europe, defended the right of his sheep, the flock of God for a place to worship God, a church to be built in the vicinity of the city of Krakow, at a locale known as Nowa Huta, the new city, supposedly the hallmark in the Communist government’s project to establish a utopian Communist city without a church building.
The then Archbishop Karol Wojtyla led the faithful people of Nowa Huta in a defiant rally and celebration of the Holy Mass, commemorating the establishment of a church building in that city championed by the Communists as the model of a utopian society without the faith. He gave the people the foundation stone of the church building, originating from the catacombs of St. Peter the Apostle, the rock upon whom the Lord had established His Church, and blessed by Pope Paul VI, now known as Blessed Pope Paul VI, beatified just last Sunday by our current Pope, Pope Francis.
Even after he was elected to the Papacy, to succeed as the Vicar of Christ and the Successor of St. Peter the Apostle, Karol Wojtyla, then on known as Pope John Paul II, continued his works for the good of the Church as he had always done, defending the orthodox and true teachings of the faith, and also to help the people of God suffering persecution in the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.
We knew how Pope St. John Paul II had survived an assassination attempt, although he was grievously injured by it, on the day of our Lady of Fatima’s apparition in 1981. He attributed his survival to the ever caring and loving Mother of God, to whom he had devoted himself fully to, and to His Son, that he was again brought from the brink of death to continue to serve the people of God. We also knew how he forgave the one who tried to assassinate him.
And even to the end of his life, suffering from Parkinson’s disease which increasingly debilitated him and made it very difficult for him to continue to work as the leader of the Universal Church, he persevered on, and in his suffering, through which he share the suffering of Christ, he became a source of priceless inspiration for countless numbers of the faithful.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, after that summary of the life and the actions and contributions of Pope St. John Paul II, how are they relevant to the readings we had heard today, and how ultimately does do they relate to our own lives? It is in fact quite obvious that while every one, every single children of God will encounter different things on their respective journeys to God, but the actions of Pope St. John Paul II, Karol Wojtyla can indeed be a model and inspiration for all of us.
In the First Reading, St. Paul in his letter to the Church and the faithful in Ephesus revealed what had been entrusted to him in the graces and wisdom of God, that he might enlighten and show that wisdom to the people of God, so that all those who heard his words may be moved within their hearts and souls, and decide to seek the Lord their God with all of their hearts’ devotion.
In the same way therefore, Pope St. John Paul II, his predecessors and successors, the bishops and priests who had given themselves completely to the service of God, also received the same graces and wisdom to teach the Lord’s words and laws to His people, so that through them, many would be saved. But this does not mean that they alone are the ones who can do this.
Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, each one of us at our own baptism, when we were welcomed into the Church of God, and now as a member of that one and only Church, we all have our own parts to play in the salvation of souls and in the good works of evangelisation done by the Church. We have been given the same graces, wisdom and blessing, and indeed it is part of our responsibility to bring the people of God, especially those who still live in darkness, into the light of Christ.
This is also what Christ had done, by bringing together the separated people of God, and grant them His peace. Ever since mankind had disobeyed God and followed their own desires, they had walked their own paths and in contrary to each other, each following their own hearts’ desires and inevitably leading to conflicts, violence and many other evils. Ever since the day of the Tower of Babel, mankind had been divided against one another and peace as well as harmony were lost.
It was therefore the peace of Christ, which He made by His works and His sacrifice on the cross, which offered mankind a new hope, that they may abandon their old lives of sin and darkness, of disobedience and injustice, of hatred, fear and violence, so that they may receive the love and peace of the Lord, by following Jesus and walking in the path He had prepared for them.
And in the Gospel, this responsibility which we have as members of the Church is reiterated yet once again by the parable of Jesus our Lord, on the master and the steward. This parable tells us clearly that we are indeed stewards appointed by God, and with a certain purpose, that is to love one another, and to spread the Good News which had been given to us by God, to those who still have yet to hear it.
That is what the faithful servants will do, unlike the unfaithful servants, which examples are the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, when they failed not only to lead the people in faith by example, but they have cast obstacles in the path of the people of God, and in their selfishness, they abused their power and authority, like the unfaithful and bad servants. And when the Master comes back, that is the Lord, He will rebuke them without mercy and cast them out of His presence, precisely what He did with those Pharisees and hypocrites.
Therefore, this is a stern and clear reminder for us to avoid following the path of those Pharisees and avoid succumbing to our human desires, greed, pride, arrogance, hatred, lack of love, unfaithfulness, sloth and many others. Instead, we should open wide the doors of our heart to Christ our Lord, inspired by the words of Pope St. John Paul II, ‘Aprite le porte a Christo!’ which means, ‘Open wide the doors to Christ!’.
When we open wide the doors of our hearts to Christ, in essence we allow Him to enter into our hearts and transform us from within, allowing His love to fill us up, and therefore, it will affect our actions and deeds, which will then be based no longer on our own selfish desires, but instead upon the love of God. We must not be afraid to seek the Lord for help, and indeed we should entrust everything we have to God and to His Blessed Mother Mary just as Pope St. John Paul II had done.
Do not tarry and do not delay, for as much as God is merciful and loving, and as much as He desires to embrace us with His love and forgive us our sins, nothing good will come until we take the initiative and embrace His mercy first. Therefore, it is imperative that we realise that God hates sin and all wickedness, and if we delay and wait, and wait and wait, eventually time will catch up to us, and at the time that we do not know, the Lord will decide that our time is up, then no amount of regret or even repentance will help.
Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us help one another, working with one another to take care of ourselves, that we do not open ourselves to sin and evil, and so that we may allow the Lord to come into us, and to transform us with His love and grace. May Almighty God bless us, empower us and strengthen us, and through the intercession of Pope St. John Paul II, may all souls come eventually to salvation in God, with the help of His Blessed Mother Mary, the Mediatrix of all graces. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 