Sacred Liturgy

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Saturday, 19 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 70 : 3-4a, 5-6ab, 16-17

Be my Rock of refuge, a Stronghold to give me safety, for You are my Rock and my Fortress. Rescue me, o my God, from the hand of the wicked.

For You, o Lord, have been my Hope, my Trust, o God, from my youth. I have relied on You from birth : from my mother’s womb You brought me forth.

I will come to Your strength, o Lord, and announce Your justice, Yours alone. You have taught me from my youth and until now I proclaim Your marvels.

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Saturday, 19 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Judges 13 : 2-7, 24-25a

There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife could not bear children. The Angel of YHVH appeared to this woman and said to her, “You have not borne children, and have not given birth, but see, you are to conceive and give birth to a son.”

“Because of this, take care not to take wine or any alcoholic drink, nor to eat unclean foods from now on, for you shall bear a son who shall be a Nazirite of YHVH from the womb of his mother. Never shall his hair be cut for he is consecrated to YHVH. He shall begin the liberation of the Israelites from the Philistine oppression.”

The woman went to her husband and told him, “A messenger of God who bore the majesty of an Angel spoke to me. I did not ask him where he came from nor did he tell me his name. But he said to me : ‘You are to conceive and give birth to a son. Henceforth you shall not drink wine or fermented drinks, nor eat anything unclean, for your son shall be a Nazirite of God from the womb of his mother until the day of his death.”

The woman gave birth to a son and named him Samson. The boy grew and YHVH blessed him. Then the Spirit of YHVH began to move him when he was in Mahane Dan between Zorah and Eshtaol.

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Friday, 18 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we hear from the Sacred Scriptures on the proclamation of the coming of the Messiah, Who is the Heir and Son of David, which the Archangel Gabriel first delivered to Mary, His mother, and then also to Joseph, His foster father. Through this, God made it clear to His people that the salvation which He had promised them is coming true, and He was coming to deliver them from the evil one.

For many years, we mankind have lived in suffering in this world as a result of our sins and disobedience against God, and we are earning the bitter fruits of our ancestors’ inability to resist the temptation of the devil, and we have also been put under the thrall of the wicked one, so that sin weighed us down and became a huge stone hanging on our necks, threatening to bring us down into the abyss of darkness, the eternal fire and suffering.

But God does not wish this fate to be ours, as He created us and loved us more than all the other things and beings that He had created, for we all have been crafted in His own image, and He Himself breathed life into us. He has given us life, and therefore, all of us are intended for life with Him, and not to suffer death and suffering itself, instead enjoying forever the fullness of the richness of God’s grace.

Nevertheless, it was our rebellion and desire to follow our heart’s wants and desires which had sundered us from the fullness of God’s love and grace, and we were doomed into suffering on a hard life on earth, toiling without end, and in the end, to be claimed by death, as our bodies return to the dust from which we came from, and there seemed to be no escape from our punishment and our fate.

But God had another path that He had intended for us, that is the path of atonement and forgiveness, and in this, He promised His people that a deliverance will come upon all those who remain true to Him and to their faith in Him. And over the years, God continued to keep up that promise, and renewed again and again, the covenant which He made with them, as He made His covenant with Abraham, with Moses, with David, and through the prophets, made clear His will to the people.

It was through Jesus our Lord that God had made complete and perfect His promises to us, as through Him, a new Hope was shown to us, and in Him, our hearts that were once filled with despair and darkness, could finally see the Light of our Lord once again. And this is the essence of Christmas, the celebration and the joy we experienced, which is truly because our Lord has come to save His people.

The joy of Christmas is not about all the glamour and the glory associated to all the celebrations, the bright lights and all the commercial goods associated with it. Yes, it is a season of festive giving and happiness, joy and celebrations, but do we even remember Who or what we are celebrating it for? Is it for ourselves? Yes, partially for ourselves indeed, but why? Do we know the reason?

It is the joy we feel because of the hope we have received by the coming of our Saviour that is the true reason for our Christmas joy, for He is the true Joy of the world often forgotten by us all, even as we joyfully celebrate this Christmas. This Advent season, a time to prepare for Christmas, let us all commit ourselves to find the way to celebrate Christmas meaningfully in our families and communities, no longer be bound and consumed by the consumer celebration of Christmas, but celebrate it with full understanding of our faith.

May the Lord bless us and keep us in His grace, and may all of us be able to find the true meaning of Christmas in Jesus our Lord, Whose birth had blessed us with a new hope and the salvation He promised us. Let us all strengthen our faith and follow Him in all of His ways. Amen.

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Friday, 18 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 1 : 18-24

This is how Jesus Christ was born. Mary His mother had been given to Joseph in marriage, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Then Joseph, her husband, made plans to divorce her in all secrecy. He was an upright man, and in no way did he want to discredit her. While he was pondering over this, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, descendant of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She has conceived by the Holy Spirit, and now she will bear a Son. You shall call Him ‘Jesus’ for He will save His people from their sins.”

All this happened in order to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet : The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and He will be called Emmanuel, which means God-with-us. When Joseph woke up, he did what the Angel of the Lord had told him to do, and he took his wife to his home.

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Friday, 18 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 71 : 1-2, 12-13, 18-19

O God, endow the King with Your justice, the Royal Son with Your righteousness. May He rule Your people justly and defend the rights of the lowly.

He delivers the needy who call on Him, the afflicted with no one to help them. His mercy is upon the weak and the poor, He saves the life of the poor.

Praised be the Lord, God of Israel, Who alone works so marvellously. Praised be His glorious Name forever; may the whole earth be filled with His glory! Amen. Amen.

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Friday, 18 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Jeremiah 23 : 5-8

YHVH further says, “The day is coming when I will raise up a King Who is David’s righteous Successor. He will rule wisely and govern with justice and righteousness. That will be a grandiose era when Judah will enjoy peace and Israel will live in safety. He will be called YHVH-Our-Justice!”

“The days are coming,” says YHVH, “when people shall no longer swear by YHVH as the Living God Who freed the people of Israel from the land of Egypt. Rather, they will swear by YHVH as the Living God Who restored the descendants of Israel from the northern empire and from all the lands where He had driven them, to live again in their own land!”

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Thursday, 17 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we listen to the words of the Sacred Scriptures telling us about Christ our Lord and His origins in the accounts of the world and men. God had come into the world through the means of His blessed mother Mary, through Whom He assumed the flesh of Man, and became one like us.

Through the sons of Adam He had come forth into the world, and then through the line of Abraham, the faithful servant and beloved child of God, He had come into the world in order to fulfil the covenant and the promise which He had made with him. Then, God also fulfilled the promises He made to David, the faithful king and servant of God, by being born into His line and family as was promised.

And one may think that because Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus, but merely His foster-father, then Jesus was not the Messiah because He is not of the family of David, as the prophets had prophesied that the Messiah is also the Son of David. Yet, in the Jewish customs and laws, a legal father, even though he was not the biological father, but as long as he is legally married to the mother, he is the father of the child, and the child is the legal and rightful heir of the father.

Thus, this is how God made Himself manifest into the world, by His choice of the Holy Family of Mary and Joseph, to be the ones through whom He would descend into the world and save it. By fulfilling the promises He had made to His beloved people, He endeavoured to bring all of them to Himself, and bring them to salvation and eternal life which can only be found in Him.

All these are to remind us that our Lord loves all of us, and it is His desire that we should be reconciled to Himself and not be condemned for all of the wickedness and sins that we have committed. Yet, many of us willingly and openly rejected His love and mercy, and we instead walk on our own paths, following our own desires and wants, and refusing to believe in Him and refusing to listen to Him whose words is our salvation.

Now the challenge is upon us all, brethren, whether we are to walk on the same path as all those who have rejected the Lord and instead chose the ways of this world, that is often contrary to the ways of the Lord, that is the way that does not show our obedience to the will of God. God has been so kind such as to provide us with the means to salvation and the free offer of forgiveness that He had granted us, and yet, we spurned His love and rejected all these gifts in exchange for a life of pleasure and wickedness.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we draw closer to Christmas and as we enter this one last week of Advent, let us all reflect on the nature of Christmas, what it truly means for us, and how we are going to celebrate that great day and occasion, when our Lord Himself came into this world in order to save it and liberate us from all of our afflictions.

Do we celebrate Christmas because we like to have all the fun and the joy for ourselves? For all the new clothes, gifts and all the glamours the world had associated with it? Or do we want to celebrate Christmas as a glorious and great thanksgiving for the love which our God has given us? Remember, as St. John himself had written in his Gospel, that the Lord so loved the world, that He has given us His only Son, so that through Him all may be saved and have eternal life.

Let us all keep these in mind even as we continue to live through our lives, and as we prepare to celebrate Christmas again this year. Let us not forget Who Christmas was made for, and Who Christmas was truly celebrating. It was a celebration of God’s love, the love He had shown us, and thus we too, should show the same love to one another, sharing all the graces and blessings He had given us.

May our loving Father and Almighty God be with us always, and may He strengthen our faith in Him, that in all things we may realise the great graces and blessings we have received. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 17 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Matthew 1 : 1-17

This is the account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, Son of David, Son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (their mother was Tamar), Perez was the father of Hezron, and Hezron of Aram. Aram was the father of Aminadab, Aminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon.

Salmon was the father of Boaz. His mother was Rahab. Boaz was the father of Obed. His mother was Ruth. Obed was the father of Jesse. Jesse was the father of David, the king. David was the father of Solomon. His mother had been Uriah’s wife. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Then came the kings : Abijah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah.

Josiah was the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the deportation to Babylon. After the deportation to Babylon, Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel and Salathiel of Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud, Abiud of Eliakim, and Eliakim of Azor. Azor was the father of Zadok, Zadok the father of Akim, and Akim the father of Eliud.

Eliud was the father of Eleazar, Eleazar of Matthan, and Matthan of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and from her came Jesus Who is called the Christ – the Messiah.

There were then fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, and fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen generations from the deportation to Babylon to the birth of Christ.

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Thursday, 17 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 71 : 1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8, 17

O God, endow the King with Your justice, the Royal Son with Your righteousness. May He rule Your people justly and defend the rights of the lowly.

Let the mountains bring peace to the people, and the hills justice. He will defend the cause of the poor, deliver the children of the needy.

Justice will flower in His days, and peace abound till the moon be no more. For He reigns from sea to sea, from the River to the ends of the earth.

May His Name endure forever; may His Name be as lasting as the sun. All the races will boast about Him, and He will be blessed by all nations.

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Thursday, 17 December 2015 : 3rd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Genesis 49 : 1-2, 8-10

Jacob then called his sons and said, “Gather round, sons of Jacob. And listen to your father Israel!”

“Judah, your brothers will praise you! You shall seize your enemies by the neck! Your father’s sons shall bow before you. Judah, a young lion! You return from the prey, my son! Like a lion he stoops and crouches, and like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?”

“The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to Whom it belongs, and Who has the obedience of the nations.”