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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Behold Jesus, our Risen Lord and God! He is the Son of God, the Messiah, who was rejected and tortured and suffered a humiliating death, abandoned by those near to Him and those who were dear to Him, just as prophesied by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah has spoken much about the Messiah who is about to come, and in Jesus that prophecy is perfectly fulfilled.

In Christ lies our salvation, and in Him is all hope, because the Lord has given to Him authority over all. He has been given the authority to rule all the nations, with an iron rule of justice and love. Through Christ we have a new way towards the Lord, and if we keep God’s commandment and do His will, Jesus will prepare rooms for us in His Father’s kingdom, just as Jesus had promised to the disciples.

Christ had to endure death to achieve His mission, that through His suffering on the way to Calvary, Christ justified us by the outpouring of His blood from His holy wounds. His wounds are our sins, past, present and future, all our faults and rebellions against God, and all our unworthiness that Christ bear unto Himself, that all who believe in Him may not die, but enjoy everlasting life, through Him.

For Christ in His death had destroyed our own deaths, our fate for having abandoned God and His commandments, that we inherited from our forefathers in their stubbornness against God’s will and God’s words through the prophets. He restored us then to life, when He rose again in a new life of glory, on Easter day, when He is risen from the dead.

Christ our Lord is truly the Lord of life, the living God, just as the Father is God of the living, that death has no more power over us, and therefore, Satan, who first instigated mankind in rebellion against God’s will, has no more power over us. For Satan and his evil advocates and allies controlled us and enthralled us through the agents of sin, which they propagated through worldly temptations.

This Easter season is a holy season, a good season indeed for the renewal of our faith and our dedication to God our Lord. We should make best use of this opportunity and let it not go to waste, by embracing our faith in the Lord ever more intimately and strongly, and embrace God’s love ever more within our hearts.

Do not harden our hearts and do not turn a deaf ear against the Lord’s will and words that He spoke to us, not by loud proclamations, but by simple and soft whispers in the depths of our hearts. If we remain faithful to Him, and keep our hearts, minds, and soul attuned to Him, we will be able to listen to Him speaking to us in our hearts, in silence, the words of truth, of life, and salvation.

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, despite all our busy schedules and occupancies, we should always try to set aside some time for the Lord, spent in quiet contemplation, that we will be able to follow Him ever more, and take His message of eternal life into our own being. Let us never forget the greatness of His love and the sacrifice He had endured on Calvary, so that all of us may live, and not die, in eternal life. Amen.

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Friday, 26 April 2013 : 4th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 14 : 1-6

“Do not be troubled! Trust in God and trust in Me! In My Father’s house there are many rooms; otherwise, I would not have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. After I have gone and prepared a place for you, I shall come again and take you to Me, so that where I am, you also may be. Yet, you know the way where I am going.”

Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we don’t know where You are going; how can we know the way?” Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

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Ninth General Congregation of the College of Cardinals : Saturday, 9 March 2013

The ninth and probably the last of the General Congregations of the College of Cardinals will take place on Saturday morning at 9.30 am, 9 March 2013, and may be used as an opportunity to clear up outstanding matters and issues, and to help the Cardinals to affirm what they are looking as the characteristics needed in the new Pope, which they will elect in the Conclave that will begin on Tuesday, 12 March 2013.

Now that the date of the Conclave has already been decided, the remaining matter to be completed is to assign the rooms in the Domus Sancta Marthae where the Cardinals will stay during the duration of the Conclave. The room assignment is done by lots and therefore is random, and may be done in the Ninth General Congregation this morning.

The Mass for the Election of the Roman Pontiff or the Missa pro Eligendo Pontifice, has also been confirmed to take place at St. Peter’s Basilica on Tuesday morning before the commencement of the Conclave on Tuesday afternoon, when the Cardinals will march into the Sistine Chapel and henceforth be ‘closed-off’ from the outside world until the new Pope is elected.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, head of the Holy See Press Office will give his usual press briefing on Saturday afternoon at 1pm Rome time (1 pm CET // 12 pm UTC // 7 am EST // 4 am PST // 7 pm WIB or UTC+7 // 8 pm Singapore time or UTC+8).