Liturgical Colour : Red
Ephesians 2 : 19-22
Now you are no longer strangers or guests, but fellow citizens of the holy people : you are of the household of God. You are the house whose foundations are the apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus.
In Him the whole structure is joined together and rises to be a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you too are being built to become the spiritual sanctuary of God.
Liturgical Colour : White
Ephesians 1 : 17-23
May the God of Christ Jesus our Lord, the Father of Glory, reveal Himself to you and give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that you may know Him. May He enlighten your inner vision, that you may appreciate the things we hope for, since we were called by God.
May you know how great is the inheritance, the glory, God sets apart for His saints; may you understand with what extraordinary power He acts in favour of us who believe.
He revealed His almighty power in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and had Him sit at His right hand in heaven, far above all rule, power, authority, dominion, or any other supernatural force that could be named, not only in this world but in the world to come as well.
Thus has God put all things under the feet of Christ and set Him above all things, as Head of the Church which is His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 16 : 11-15
So we put out to sea from Troas and sailed straight across to Samothrace Island, and the next day to Neapolis. From there we went inland to Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. We spent some days in that city.
On the sabbath we went outside the city gate to the bank of the river where we thought the Jews would gather to pray. We sat down and began speaking to the women who were gathering there. One of them was a God-fearing woman named Lydia from Thyatira City, a dealer in purple cloth.
As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. After she had been baptised together with her household, she invited us to her house, “If you think I am faithful to the Lord come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us to accept her invitation.
Liturgical Colour : White
Acts 16 : 1-10
Paul travelled on to Derbe and then to Lystra. A disciple named Timothy lived there, whose mother was a believer of Jewish origin but whose father was a Greek. As the believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him, Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him. So he took him and, because of the Jews of that place who all knew that his father was a Greek, he circumcised him.
As they travelled from town to town, they delivered the decisions of the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem, for the people to obey. Meanwhile, the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number every day.
They travelled through Phrygia and Galatia, because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia. When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on to Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them to do this. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas.
There one night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and begged him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” When he awoke, he told us of this vision and we understood that the Lord was calling us to give the Good News to the Macedonian people.
Liturgical Colour : Red
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of St. James and St. Philip, two of the Twelve Apostles of Christ, who brought the faith to faraway lands, dedicating themselves to the Lord and His mission that He had entrusted to them. Today we learn from the readings that we ought to be firm in our faith, and to proclaim the truth about the Christ, that is Jesus our Lord.
For Jesus is the Son of God, anointed with power, and through Him the salvation of all had come. Through Jesus, God worked His great miracles and brought His mercy to all peoples, bringing them closer to the embrace and eternal life He had offered freely to us. Yes, freely through Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. Jesus is the bridge that connects us to God our Father, as the only way through which we can return to the Father who loves us and wishes nothing more for us other than that we all may be saved.
Brethren, we have to preach Christ our Lord and the Good News He bore to all the nations, beginning from those who are around us. How do we do so? Remember what Christ told us in the Gospel today, that those who believe in Him, will do even greater things than He had done, but doing similar works nonetheless, for we are the extensions of God’s good works which He began when He came into our world through Jesus.
This means that we have to carry out the teachings of our faith and practice it concretely in our communities and in our surroundings, that having our actions and deeds based closely on Christ and His teachings, we become the reflection and living manifestations of that teaching, and thus show the truth about Christ to all those who see us, and therefore they may believe in Him too, through us and our works.
Therefore, just as Jesus had reflected the will and nature of the Father, we too should reflect the nature of Jesus and be like the Father in all things, that we be worthy of Him. We have to open our hearts and minds to listen and understand the will of the Father, through Jesus and His teachings, that we may walk in His ways and hence remain in His grace.
The holy Apostles had laboured hard for the sake of the Gospel, and they encountered enormous difficulties and challenges as they went on their ministries to the people of God. They went on delivering the words of God’s salvation to all the peoples regardless of these, and they persevered despite the oppositions.
They passed on the truth that had been revealed to them by Christ Himself. From them they passed on this truth which is kept for generations as a deposit of the faith and is kept in the teachings of the Church. And this is why we must uphold with the greatest care and devotion what the Church had taught us and kept the faith we have with greatest effort. We cannot be complacent in this, just as the Apostles were not complacent in their works to evangelise the people of God.
St. James the Apostle, also known as St. James the Lesser, went on to spread the Good News in the western parts of the Roman Empire, evangelising the people where none had heard the Word of God before. He was eventually martyred in Hispania, the place known as Spain today. His most important shrine and place of remembrance is at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the well-known and famous pilgrimage site of our faith.
Meanwhile St. Philip the Apostle was known for his conversion of the attendant or official of the ruler of Ethiopia as he made his way through Judea in a carriage. This is a well-known story in the New Testament, in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, telling us how the Ethiopian official discussed the faith with Philip, and in the process, convincing him of the truth about Jesus who came as the Messiah and Saviour of the world. Philip baptised the official and from him came the seed of faith that is preserved even until today in Ethiopia.
He went on to spread the Good News to areas of Greece, the province of Roman Asia and other areas, until he too was martyred for his faith and missionary works. St. Philip even in his suffering and death managed to do good works for the people of God, converting many to the cause of the Lord. Together with St. James, both these Apostles are truly role models for all of us the faithful ones in Christ.
Yes, brethren, we are also called in this modern era to be the Apostles and disciples of Christ of our times. We should not be afraid or reluctant to proclaim the truth about the Lord just as the Apostles had done before. This world lies in darkness, and many languished in that great darkness, bereft of the opportunity to see the Lord and His light, having been barred by the darkness itself. It is often up to us, to be the ones to bring them into the light and therefore show them the path towards eternal life.
May God bless us and guide us, as we walk in this path, that we may follow the footsteps of the Apostles St. James and St. Philip, that we too may be courageous in our lives that we may do our best to bring the people of God ever closer to salvation and perfection in God. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or Rose (Laetare Sunday)
Ephesians 5 : 8-14
You were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Behave as children of light; the fruits of light are kindness, justice and truth in every form.
You yourselves search out what pleases the Lord, and take no part in works of darkness that are of no benefit; expose them instead. Indeed it is a shame even to speak of what those people do in secret, but as soon as it is exposed to the light, everything becomes clear; and what is unmasked, becomes clear through light.
Therefore it is said : “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead that the light of Christ may shine on you.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Ephesians 3 : 2-3a, 5-6
You may have heard of the graces God bestowed on me for your sake. By a revelation He gave me the knowledge of His mysterious design.
This mystery was not made known to past generations but only now, through revelations given to holy apostles and prophets. Now the non-Jewish people share the Inheritance; in Christ Jesus the non-Jews are incorporated and are to enjoy the Promise. This is the Good News.
Liturgical Colour : White
Galatians 4 : 4-7
But when the fullness of time came, God sent His Son. He came born of woman and subject to the Law, that we might receive adoption as children of God. And because you are children, God has sent into your hearts the Spirit of His Son which cries out : ‘Abba!’ that is, ‘Father!’
You yourselves are no longer a slave but a son or daughter, and yours is the inheritance by God’s grace.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)
Brothers and sisters in Christ, in God lies our salvation, and in Him we have a bright new hope for the future. For we have lived long in the darkness, just as the two blind men healed by Jesus in the reading today. Remember what the Scripture said, that a people who had lived and walked in darkness, had seen a great light, and that light is none other than Jesus, the Lord and the Light of world.
Jesus is the light, true light and source of all light that will dispel all the darkness that surrounded us. In Him lies the salvation of the world in light, after for eons it had been living in the great darkness. Indeed, the great darkness of our sinfulness. We have been made blind by our lust for evil, by the disobedience that we had done. In our search of knowledge and curiosity, we had been trapped in the designs of the evil one, who misled us towards destruction.
Mankind groans to be free of this state of darkness. Who among the blind does not want to see the beauty of light and the beauty of the world through light? They certainly aspire, desire, and want to see again, to be able to once again perceive light in their eyes. Such was the condition of mankind, and indeed, still is, even until today.
That is why the two blind men sought the mercy of Jesus, whom they recognised, as the One who would be able to bring them out of their dark blindness, and return into the world of the light. And Jesus, having loved them just as He loves all of us, and in His pity and mercy for them, healed them and made them to see once again.
We too, brothers and sisters, are blind. We who have ever sinned are blinded by sin, by the forces of evil that comprises sinfulness. This blindness is not the physical blindness of our eyes, but instead, is the spiritual blindness of our hearts and souls. Sin has wrapped itself around us, distorting truth and distorting our perceptions of the world around us. It has made us corrupted in a sense, and made us to conform to the ways of evil.
That is why, even though we groan to be released from this state of blindness, and even though we are called by the Lord, and through the disciples He had sent to us, He had made the effort to call us out of the darkness, we still often linger or prefer to linger in this state of darkness. Sin corrupts us, and it distorts our perceptions, and it makes often irresistible offers that keep many people to continue in their sinfulness.
It is indeed, in our world today, one increasingly tainted by evil and sin, easier for us to commit things that are evil in the eyes of God, than to do things that are in accordance with the will of God. It is harder for many of us to be good persons that are concerned with the good of others, instead of being selfish and caring only for our own good.
But we can do it, brothers and sisters! We can do it! We can seek and reach out to the Lord, as the two blind men had done. Step outside of our comfort zone, and seek the Lord in places unknown. We have been far too long been blind, and in our darkness, we have been manipulated and corrupted by sin. Reach out to the Lord who is Light, and seek His healing just as He healed the two blind men, who put their trust and faith in Him.
Today, we celebrate the feast day of St. Nicholas, also known as St. Nicholas of Myra, which many people said to be the figure that inspired the story of father Christmas, or Santa Claus. Many people see Santa Claus as the figure who goes around the world every Christmas, distributing gifts and presents to children, and from there, eventually grew the secularised celebration of Christmas, a commercialised version, where Christ no longer lays at the centre of it.
St. Nicholas of Myra was in fact a bishop of the early Church, in the area of Myra, now located at the area known as Turkey. At that time, the Church was growing and flourished in the area, and with every day, new converts entered the Church of God, bearing the fruits of salvation. St. Nicholas was one of their bishops, and he was particularly dedicated to the flock entrusted to him.
St. Nicholas often give generous gifts to others, to the people he was bishop of, and to the children. He showed them the warmth of God’s love and care, through his own actions, as one of God’s representatives among mankind. He showed the perfection of God in love, and share the love he has received from the Lord, that everyone may enjoy the love together.
Such is the true joy of Christmas, for God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son, Jesus Christ, part of Himself, who is Love, that He might share that eternal and undying love with all of us. That is the true essence of Christmas, that is about Christ, about His coming into this world, and about His humble birth, and not in all the commercialised celebrations of Christmas.
It is alright to rejoice and be happy in Christmas, as indeed we should be happy and rejoice. But are we doing them for the right purpose? Let us not be blinded by sin and evil, who will scheme to distort our understanding of the nature of this wondrous event, from one where we rejoice in the coming of Christ, into one where we think only about ourselves, about our own good, about our own well-being.
May the Lord who is Light, the true light, will shine forth and pierce the darkness and evil that surround us, and with the guidance and intercession of St. Nicholas of Myra, allow us to seek the light and be able to truly see again the truth of God and the truth about ourselves and our salvation in God. May He bless us as we prepare to celebrate His coming this Christmas. Amen!
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Bishops)
Matthew 9 : 27-31
As Jesus moved on from there, two blind men followed Him, shouting, “Son of David, help us!” When He was about to enter the house, the blind men caught up with Him, and Jesus said to them, “Do you believe that I am able to do what you want?” They answered, “Yes, Sir!”
Then Jesus touched their eyes and said, “As you have believed, so let it be.” And their eyes were opened. Then Jesus gave them a stern warning, “Be careful that no one knows about this.” But as soon as they went away, they spread the news about Him through the whole area.
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