salvation of souls

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(Usus Antiquior) Feast of Dedication of St. Michael the Archangel (I Classis) – Monday, 29 September 2014 : Homily and Scripture Reflections

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great feast of a great protector, our great defense against the assaults of the evil one, Satan, the prince and progenitor of all evils. We celebrate today the feast of the chief of all the angelic hosts of heaven, that is St. Michael the Archangel, prince of all the angels, and chief of the seven Archangels who served before the throne of God.

The angels were created by the Lord to be His servants, that is to be the ones who carry out His will throughout the world, to be His messengers and the bearers of His good works, to exercise His power throughout the universe He had created. He created angels of many forms and kinds, and they have various tasks and functions, depending on how they were created.

Just like men, when we were first created, the angels were initially pure and blameless, free from what is now called as sin, the impurities and imperfections that blemished the purity of creation, through disobedience against the will of God. The angels too, were granted free will just like us, so that, just as we are able to choose our path and destination in life, then they too were able to choose.

But everything was good and perfect, just as our ancestors once lived in perfect peace and harmony in the gardens of Eden, the angels were all pure and immaculate, free from all evil and taints of sin, that is until the corruption and fall of Lucifer, the greatest, brightest and the mightiest of all the angels, and unfortunately, his pride too was the greatest of all the angels, his vanity and sense of superiority over others, which proved to be his greatest undoing.

While now we speak of St. Michael the Archangel as the chief of all the heavenly hosts, he was not made such because of his greatness and his power or might, neither it was because he was the most beautiful or splendid among the angels of God. It was rather because of St. Michael’s great obedience and faith in the Lord, which made him to be the greatest defender of the Lord and His beloved people against the forces of evil.

For as mentioned, that Lucifer was once the greatest and the mightiest among the angels, but this made him proud beyond any pride, and he began to plot his rise among the angels, and eventually even boasted that he would make his throne rise above the stars of God, namely the angels, to be the ruler of them, and displacing God as the ruler over all creations.

Lucifer was proud and haughty, and he was brought down, because he was thinking too highly of himself, aspiring to be the ruler of all surpassing the Creator, while he is merely a creation, albeit a glorious and great one at that. On the contrary, St. Michael was known for his great faith and piety, and the complete trust he has for the Lord. And in addition to this, he was also told to be trembling at always before the presence of God.

This does not mean that St. Michael was fearful or weak, but rather, in doing so, he actually by himself acknowledging the superiority of God, and how great God is as compared to himself. It is his humility, courage and piety which made the Lord to choose him and honour him to be the great commander of His heavenly forces. And he courageously led the forces of the faithful against the deceiver and the evil one, the fallen Lucifer, who was struck down and cast out of heaven, to suffer for eternity the fate prepared for him.

The examples of St. Michael’s faith, piety, dedication and courage therefore should become guiding lights for us to follow, that in our actions and deeds, we may model them after what St. Michael had once done, and what he is doing now, that is leading the hosts of the Lord in a constant and regular battle for the salvation of our souls, against Satan, the fallen Lucifer, and his allies, those angels who were also ensnared in his pride and vanity, and ended up rebelling against God.

We mankind are special indeed, for we are the greatest of God’s creations, including even the angels, and we are the most beloved ones of all the things which God had created. As such, while the angels who rebelled were given no second chance to turn back to the Lord, and receive forgiveness, we mankind alone had been given this gift of forgiveness, that as long as we repent our sins and rebelliousness, and if we are willing to follow the way of the Lord, we will be saved.

That is why, even though our ancestors had disobeyed the Lord, through the instigation of the snake, the form assumed by the fallen Lucifer, who wanted mankind to also follow into his rebellion, God gave us a second chance, and by no other means than to send His very own Son, part of Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord, to assume our own form, and through what He had done, He gave up His life and through His sacrifice, gained for us a new hope and a new justification in Himself.

And we also have to note that the Lord is thoroughly concerned with us, brothers and sisters in Christ. He is truly concerned about our fate, and whether we will share the fate of the devil, that is to suffer in the hell fire, or to be reunited with Himself in perfect love and harmony, just as what He intended for us at the very beginning when He first created us.

That is why, He sent us Jesus His Son, so that through what He taught His disciples, and from them passed down to us, we may all know what we need to do in order to avoid the dark fate which awaits us if we remain in our life of sin. But we need to be aware that, what Jesus said today in the Gospels, we should not interpret or take it literally, which means that if a part of our body made us to sin, then we should not chop it off just like that.

There is indeed wisdom and thought put into that kind of decision, to cut off the part that corrupts the entire body and soul, but that also means that we can no longer do good with the same part of the body, which God had given us. This is where we need to truly understand, that what the Lord means is that, we have to really do our best to excise from ourselves any actions or parts which have been great hindrances to our salvation, beginning from within ourselves.

Sin corrupts everything it touches, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and it is caused by the accumulation of the negativity in our hearts, of which things such as pride, jealousy, hatred, greed and many others consist of. And it was this same thing that had corrupted even the greatest and the brightest of the angels into rebellion against God and therefore sinned against Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore let us renew our faith in the Lord, not by just mere empty words and promises, but also through real action and devotions, that is by following the examples of St. Michael the Archangel. Let us excise from our hearts, all evils and darkness, that we may truly become pure and worthy of the Lord once again. We can do this by sincere love and devotion to the Lord, and by listening to what He had said to us through Jesus.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all sharpen the edges of our humility and obedience to God, that we may always listen to Him and follow Him, obeying Him in His will for us rather than to listen to our own desires and pride, as Lucifer had done. Let us all not be enslaved by our emotions and pride, that we may truly rebuke Satan and let him to suffer alone the fate which he had earned for himself. Do not let him to drag us into hellfire, brethren!

Let us pray and ask for the help and intercession of St. Michael the Archangel and the holy angels, so that they may help us and protect us from all the harm which the evil one and his allies, the fallen angels had intended for us. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, so that by the power of God, you who are the prince and leader of all the heavenly hosts, may smite down Satan and all his lies, and all those who are working their evils in our world, seeking after the ruination of all the souls of the faithful. Amen.

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Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel, by Pope Leo XIII (1886)

Guido_Reni_031

Sancte Michael Archangele,

St. Michael the Archangel,

 

defende nos in praelio;

defend us in battle

 

contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.

Safeguard us against the wickedness and the snares of the devil.

 

Imperet illi Deus, supplices deprecamur:

May God therefore restrain him, we humbly pray:

 

tuque, Princeps militiae Caelestis,

and you, the Prince of the heavenly hosts

 

satanam aliosque spiritus malignos, qui ad perditionem animarum pervagantur in mundo,

divina virtute in infernum detrude.

by the power of God, thrust down to hell Satan, and with him the other wicked spirits

who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

 

Amen.

Amen.

 

(By Pope Leo XIII, in 1886, recited every time after the Holy Mass as an invocation for the intercession of the mighty Archangel in the rebuke of Satan)

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Monday, 29 September 2014 : Feast of the Holy Archangels St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a great feast day of the Church, that is the feast of the Holy Archangels of God, and primarily of which, is the Prince of all heavenly hosts, the leader of all the angels of God, that is St. Michael the Archangel, the faithful servant of God and one of the seven holy Archangels serving before the throne of God, the vanquisher of Satan, who defeated the forces of evil and all the fallen angels, and cast them out of heaven.

The Holy Archangels, three of whom were named, St. Michael the prince and leader of angels, St. Gabriel the messenger and the voice of God, and St. Raphael the healer and the mercy of God, all of them represent the different aspects of God, and they are the greatest servants of the Lord, sending and giving His messages to all whom the Lord wills to reveal Himself to.

The Archangels of God are also the chiefs of our protectors, the leaders and the ones in charge of our guardian angels, and all the angelic hosts and forces of heaven, who are locked in constant and regular combat and battle against the forces of darkness, led by the prince of evil, that is Satan. Satan desires nothing but for our destruction, for in his jealousy of the Lord, he desires to destroy all that is dear to God, especially all of us mankind, the greatest and the most beloved of all His creations.

Satan himself was once a great Archangel, and in fact was once the mightiest, most beautiful and the greatest of the angels of the Lord, created with such perfection and beauty, and with such might and authority, that the bright and mighty Archangel, Lucifer, was filled with great pride about himself. But it is this same pride which became his greatest undoing and became rightly, as the greatest sin of all.

For in his pride, he chose to rebel against God and His love, thinking that he is mightier than his own Creator, the Lord of all the universe. The creation failed to realise that despite all of his power, might and beauty, and despite all of his perfections, that he is still merely a creature, and not the Creator. And he is still nothing compared to the Lord of all, who is perfect in all things that He has, and He truly has everything.

Satan, who was Lucifer, the lightbringer, boasted that in his majesty, glory and power, he would raise his throne above the throne of God, and thus rule over all creations. He brought many of his fellow angels into sin and darkness, what we now know as the fallen angels. But his pride is his undoing, and instead of rising up in glory, he was thrown down in shame. The one who led the hosts of the faithful angels was Michael the Archangel, who was made the chief of all the angelic hosts.

St. Michael the Archangel was made the chief of all heavenly angels and all the heavenly hosts not because he was great and mighty, nor because he was proud and beautiful as Lucifer or Satan was, but because he obeyed the will of God fully and completely, as an obedient servant of God Most High. It was said that St. Michael always trembled before the presence of God, not because he was fearful or afraid, but because he knew that he was in the presence of the Lord and Creator of all the universe, and he is nothing before Him.

That was why, God rewarded him such as to make him chief of all the heavenly hosts, as a great protector and role model for all of us the faithful. Remember that Jesus always said that the mighty would be humbled, and the humble would be glorified? This is the exact thing that had happened. Lucifer was cast down for his pride, to suffer for eternity the torture of hell and the lake of fire, while Michael the humble was raised to a position of honour.

St. Gabriel the Archangel and St. Raphael the Archangel also followed and obeyed the will of God in their own way, listening to God in all things and carrying out His will into the world. St. Gabriel the Archangel delivered the Good News of the Lord to Mary in Nazareth, while St. Raphael was sent to the family of Tobit the Israelite exile, and to help exorcise the demon Asmodeus from Sara, the soon-to-be wife of Tobit’s son, Tobias.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rejoice together as one to celebrate the feast of St. Michael the Archangel and his fellow Archangels, let us all realise our frailty and our prone nature towards sin, and how we can follow the examples of the holy Archangels to lead our lives to come into closer relationships with our God. Let us heed the examples of the holy angels of God, who fought day and night at all times to protect us from the depredations of the evil one and his forces.

Evil is never at rest, brethren, for Lucifer, fallen and shamed, as Satan had enmity on us mankind, and this was why he tempted our first ancestors into sin, so that through that disobedience we might also follow in his footsteps, and therefore end up in eternal suffering and destruction. But the Lord clearly does not want this to happen, and that was why He sent us Jesus His Son to be our Saviour and Redeemer.

And the angels constantly are on guard against the attacks of the evil one, but they certainly cannot fight on their own. We too should take part in this fight and resistance against the evil forces, and thus rebuke the devil who is trying to set us up against the Lord. Therefore, let us all reflect on our own actions, so that we may know how to be a true follower of Christ and thus gain salvation through Him.

May all of us be able to cast away our pride and arrogance, knowing full well that all of us are sinners who are unworthy of God’s love and presence, for our disobedience and the disobedience of our forefathers, but it is the love of God our Lord and Father, who made us whole again, by sending us love Himself through Jesus, who shed His life so that we may live once again, not just any life, but life supported by the love and the grace of God.

Let us be like the holy Archangels, obedient and faithful, always listening to God in all things, faithfully carrying out His will. And what is God’s will for us? None other than so that we can love, first that is to love God Himself, with all of our hearts, with all of our souls and with all of our minds and strengths, and then to show the same love to our brethren around us, in particular those who are in the greatest need.

May Almighty God guide us on our ways, so that we may find our way towards Him, not by pride or arrogance, nor through our power and might, but through our sincere desire to be reunited with Him, and to seek His mercy and love, so that, with the help of the angels and the holy Archangels of God, St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael, with His Blessed Mother and His saints, we may attain salvation and eternal life, in the loving grace of God, leaving Satan to suffer by himself with his fellow rebel angels, for eternity, while we enjoy the fruits of our good labour in this world.

St. Michael the Archangel, and all the holy Archangels and angels of God, pray for us, and protect us in battle, that we may always triumph against anything that the devil, Satan, that old snake and deceiver has put in our path, that we may rebuke him and profess our faith and love for the Lord our God. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Feast of St. Wenceslaus, Martyr (II Classis) – Sunday, 28 September 2014 : Offertory, Secret Prayer of the Priest, Communion and Post-Communion Prayer

Offertory

Psalm 39 : 14, 15

Domine, in auxilium meum respice : confundantur et revereantur, qui quaerunt animam meam, ut auferant eam : Domine, in auxilium meum respice.

English translation

Look down, o Lord, to help me. Let those who seek after my soul to take it away be confounded and ashamed. Look down, o Lord, to help me.

Secret Prayer of the Priest

Munda nos, quaesumus, Domine, sacrificii praesentis effectu : et perfice miseratus in nobis; ut ejus mereamur esse participes. Per Dominum…

English translation

Cleanse us, we beseech You, o Lord, by the effect of the present sacrifice, and in Your mercy bring to pass in us that we may deserve to be partakers of it. Through our Lord…

Communion

Psalm 70 : 16-17, 18

Domine, memorabor justitiae Tuae solius : Deus, docuisti me a juventute mea : et usque in senectam et senium, Deus, ne derelinquas me.

English translation

O Lord, I will be mindful of Your justice alone. You have taught me, o God, from my youth, and unto old age and gray hairs, o God, do not forsake me.

Post-Communion Prayer

Purifica, quaesumus, Domine, mentes nostras benignus, et renova caelestibus sacramentis : ut consequenter et corporum praesens pariter et futurum capiamus auxilium. Per Dominum…

English translation

In Your loving kindness, purify our souls, we beseech You, o Lord, and renew them with the heavenly sacrament, that we may receive bodily assistance thereby, both for this life and for the life to come. Through our Lord…

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Thursday, 25 September 2014 : 25th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the wisdom and power of God, which transcends far beyond even the greatest of human intellect, wisdom and understanding. There is none like God, and no matter what we try to understand and find out about God, it is truly futile if we do not first understand what He had done to us through Jesus His Son, the embodiment of God’s perfect love for all mankind.

For we are creations of the Lord, whom God made out of simple dust and soil, unto which He breathed His life-giving Spirit. Therefore, we are bound to the Lord who created us, and our lives are in His hands. He is the Lord of life, and One who has authority over life and death. Thus, whatever is His will for us, it will definitely happen to us, without any exceptions.

The problem with us and our world today is exactly that mankind are often too concerned and too worried about themselves, to the point that they are unable to look beyond their inherent selfishness and thus fall prey into the machinations of the evil one, who always prod us with more and more selfishness and temptations which would end up turning us further and further away from the way to the Lord.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have often been too fixated on our prosperity and well-being, and in this modern day world, our lives have revolved around the concepts of material goods and material possessions, and if we look at the kind and the amount of the advertisements and promotions we see in our media, we can easily see that it is so easy for many of us to be devoured into the streams of greed and desire in the world.

Many of us try to look for more things in the world to satisfy ourselves, be it our desire, our curiosity or our sense of belonging, and our desire for love. But many of us failed to understand that we have to first seek the Lord before anything else. If we put God aside and instead seek the numerous things that satisfy our desires and pleasures in the world, then we lose our focus and our true purpose in this world.

We often occupy ourselves with thoughts and matters such as the desire to know more about God, and in our world today, we can see that there are increasingly more and more hostile groups of people who are adamantly opposed to the idea of God, and who contended that God does not exist, because they could not prove His existence and whether He truly is present with us and among us, and if He is as what our Faith had taught us.

This is all in fact because, as mankind grew to know more about the things around them, and as their curiosity accordingly grew, they became more and more revelling in their own sense of superiority and greatness, which was further helped by the culture and habit of competition in the society, where only the best can persist and prosper amid the increasingly more and more demanding world.

As such, men grew to care more and more about themselves and less about others, and they grew more and more detached from the Lord, thinking that it is their own efforts and achievements that had brought them to where they are now. People are fighting and toiling over possessions and prestige, and they strived to gain more and more fame and honour, that their names may be glorified among the people.

However, as the Scriptures tried to remind us, that all these pursuits are eventually futile, if we leave God behind in pursuit of all these. Ultimately, it is the salvation of our souls that matter, and as Jesus said that, it is meaningless indeed if someone is to gain the whole world just to lose his or her soul. Rather, indeed, it is better for someone to lose what he has in the share of the world, so that he may receive the salvation of the soul.

Therefore, brethren, let us all seek the Lord from now on with all of our hearts, and with all of our devotions and our dedications, that with all the strengths of our beings, we may bring glory to God and draw ever closer to His presence and love. May we learn to let go of the things that keep us away from Him, namely the excessive attachments to the things and pleasures of this world.

May Almighty God sharpen the edge of our humility and of our desire to seek Him with all sincerity and love, and dull the edge of our ego, our pride, our greed and our desire, so that we may learn to love Him unconditionally, just as He had once done unto us. Let us also love one another tenderly and with grace. That eventually we may let go of all things that keep our pride held high, and realise the love which God our Lord and Creator had given us through this life. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 September 2014 : 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is truly a great feast day of the Church, of such a great importance for us, as in it lie one of the greatest aspect of our faith itself. And this is none other than the exaltation and the glorification of the Holy Cross, on which our Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ had hung upon as He went on His mission of salvation to save us all from death because of our sins.

The Holy Cross is not just any cross, but it has been made holy and sacred because it was on that wooden cross, made from a tree, that Jesus had emptied Himself completely from His divinity, and suffered a grievous and horrendous pain as He laid dying, hanging from that cross. The Holy Cross is a reminder for all of us, of He who once hung there out of His love for us, so that we may have new hope in this life, and that we may look beyond death that is once our fate.

The cross was the favourite punishment method by the Romans, the conqueror of the known world at the time, where they used it to punish rebels against the Roman authority, as one of the most severe methods of punishment, reserved only for those who brought about great harm and threat to the Roman state. The victims of crucifixions were left to hang on the cross, made from a tree and carved to form a cruciform plank, so that the victims were left to hung between the heaven and the earth.

This punishment was both designed to bring the greatest amount of suffering to the victim, by denying the victim a quick death, giving them a slow and increasingly painful suffering, and also to give the greatest humiliation possible, as the victims were stripped to mere loincloth or even naked, stretched wide on that cross, often on the roadsides and high places like hills, so that many would be able to see the humiliation and suffering of those who dared to test the might of Rome.

Thus, the cross was a symbol of ultimate humiliation and suffering for all who see them at the time of Jesus, during the peak of the Roman Empire. But yet, many centuries prior to the time of the Romans, the prophets have foretold of the suffering Messiah, namely through the prophet Isaiah, who prophesied how the Messiah would come and bear the suffering for all of mankind. It was also mentioned how He would suffer, even long before the time when the punishment was common.

For in crucifixions, the victim would either be tied to the cross or in especially serious and severe occasions, the victims would be nailed upon the cross. The latter method would be more grievous and painful, and even more humiliating, and was indeed reserved only for the worst enemies and the greatest of punishments for the enemies of Rome.

And the prophet Isaiah mentioned that the Messiah would be pierced, and that piercing indeed represented how Jesus, the Lord and Messiah would be nailed on the cross. He would also be lifted up high, like when Moses lifted high up the bronze serpent in the desert. This too is a premonition of what was to come when the Lord came to save His people from destruction and death.

When the people of God, the Israelites were saved from their slavery in Egypt, they went through a long Exodus and journey through the desert in their progress to reach the land promised to them through their ancestors. In that journey, which was not an easy one, God was with them along the way, and He blessed His people, giving them great providence and food along the way.

Yes, if we read through the Book of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, we should all realise how blessed this people had been. God destroyed their enemies and all those who went on to fight against them were crushed and have their forces utterly beaten, and God gave them into the hands of His people. And we all should be aware that God Himself freed them from the chains of the Egyptians with great might, with ten plagues, each of which were of terrible ferocity.

God even sent His people the bread from heaven to eat, in the form of manna, and large birds for them to catch and eat as well. He gave them clear and sweet water to drink, and we have to imagine that, having crystal clear and good water to drink in the middle of the desert is no mere small feat. Nothing is of course impossible for the Lord, and He loves us beyond anything else.

And it is that love that prevented Him from totally and completely annihilating that people which had risen up against Him, despite all He had given them and blessed them with. Having been given and endowed with so much graces, the people of God made complaints after complaints of their supposedly ‘miserable’ existence and life in the desert, and even longed for the ‘good’ life in Egypt where they once lived in slavery.

They spurned His love and kindness, complaining even against what they have been given to eat, bread from heaven itself. This was why, eventually, God took action against them, to remind them that He is Lord over all, and that those who constantly defy Him and oppose Him will meet their end in eternal suffering and destruction. He sent them therefore, fiery and poisonous serpents that attacked them, struck them and killed many of them.

But we have to always remember and take note that it is not God who desired our destruction, as it had happened with the Israelites. In fact, it was the people’s own stubbornness and refusal to return to the light of God which had caused their own destruction. The serpents represented the suffering and the punishment that the people must endure for their sins, and the ultimate effect is indeed none other than death.

Ever since mankind had first disobeyed against the Lord, they have sinned against the Lord in their hearts and in their bodies, such that they were no longer worthy of the Lord. The consequence of sin is death, as sin separates one from the Lord. The Lord who is all good and perfect cannot tolerate the imperfections caused by evil to be in His presence, and therefore, naturally, sin led mankind to death, and if nothing had been done, then all mankind would have faced death eternal, and eternal separation from the love of God.

And that is hell. Hell is the total separation of a creation of God from the very love of the Creator and Lord of all. And this total separation is final and unchangeable. Thus, this is what hell is truly about, not the fires and the images of hell that we are commonly exposed to, but the suffering in hell is far greater than we can ever imagine, since it means that the total separation from God’s love, that should be unimaginable to us all, because it was God’s love that is everything to us, how we live and why we live in the first place, and we are able to walk and enjoy this life on earth because of God’s love that is with us and in us.

Hell is what is due to mankind as the punishment for our sins, and in hell, it is the despair and the state of total hopelessness which is the greatest suffering, as all the souls in hell know that there is absolutely no hope of escaping that state, eternally damned and separated from God’s love, and it is this eternal and constantly repeating despair, hopelessness and guilt of having betrayed the Lord which brought about the greatest suffering for the souls in hell.

But is this what God intends for us? Is this what He intended for the people He loved and which He had created in His own image, as the pinnacle and the greatest of all His creations? No! This is exactly why He wants to save us, and so great was His desire, that the very truth was laid bare for all to see and hear, as we often heard in the famous phrase from the Gospel of St. John, chapter 3 verse 16, namely that God loved the world and His people so much, that He sent His only Son into the world, so that all those who believe in Him would not be lost and perish, but gain eternal life.

This is the very essence of what we are celebrating on this day, that is the glory and the mystery of the Holy Cross of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom the Lord Himself had sent, a part of Himself, His own Word made incarnate into flesh as one of us, and to walk among men, so that He might exercise His power and bring salvation to all those who believe in Him. And the way how He did that, was through the cross of suffering, which He transformed into the cross of glory and triumph.

As I had mentioned much earlier on in this homily and reflection, that the use of crucifixion and the punishment of the cross was indeed to punish and to bring the greatest suffering on the sufferer, and also to humiliate the sufferer, and in this case, this suffering One is Jesus, the Messiah and Saviour of all. Even though He was guiltless, blameless and without sin, He offered Himself freely as part of God’s long planned salvation for His people, so that through His death, He might open a new path for them, into salvation and eternal grace.

To those who observed His death and especially among those who followed Him during His ministry would indeed question, why would such a holy Man and the Messiah no less, suffer such a humiliation and suffering so great if He was indeed chosen by the Lord. And we know that even throughout history and until today, there are still many those who refused to believe in the crucifixion of Christ because they deemed it impossible and unreasonable for such a great One to suffer such a humiliating death.

Yet we know that Jesus Christ, Son of God, Messiah and Lord of all, chose this way because indeed, He loves us all very dearly, and He would not want us to be sundered forever from His love, that is hell. He does not desire for us to inhabit hell, simply because, that was not His intention for us. His intention is for us to live happily with Him in love and harmony. And that was why He chose to come into this world, that is to bring all peoples to Himself.

But sin lays between God and us, as a great and seemingly insurmountable barrier that prevent us from returning to God our Lord. Therefore, if we read the Book of Leviticus, we know that there is such a thing as sin and burnt offering, where animals such as lamb were slaughtered and then burnt on the altar, and the blood together with the animal constituted a worthy offering to God, who then accepted it as the partial reparation and remission for the sins committed by God’s people.

But the people of God remained in sin, and also they inherited the original sin of their forefathers, ever since they rebelled against the will of God and followed Satan into his rebellion instead. This original sin and other sins that mankind committed kept them separated from the love of God, and due to the immensity of the sins of mankind combined together, no amount of sacrifice would be able to redeem mankind from their sins, save for one.

Yes, the one sacrifice and the only one, when the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself offered His own Body and Blood as the only worthy sacrifice for the immensity of the combination of our sins together. Only He who is perfect, perfectly unblemished and pure, without any taints of sin, and He who is Lord of all, had the worthy offering to make in order to save us from our sins.

And thus He suffered, all the sufferings and humiliations He endured, all the spittle and the mockery from the people He endured, and the cross of suffering He carried on His back, enduring lashes after lashes and mockery after mockery as He made His journey towards Calvary. Yet He did not give up. We cannot even comprehend the kind of suffering which Jesus endured for our sake.

Why so? This is because the suffering He endured was much more than just the apparent physical suffering, even as great as that suffering was. He endured the weight and the consequences of our sins, and all of this bore down on Him as a great weight beyond any other weight. He was blameless, and yet He was crushed for our sins. This was also yet another fulfillment of the prophecy of the prophets.

But Jesus endured all of them with perfect obedience and perfect love for us. He is truly the new Adam, as St. Paul had said, as the One who went to correct all the wrongs that began with Adam, the old Adam, our forefather who sinned against God. Just as Mary His mother is the new Eve, whose obedience and faith, rebuking Satan and his lies, Jesus is the new Adam through which God renewed mankind.

Jesus therefore changed that symbol of ultimate shame, the cross, designed as such by the Romans, into a symbol of hope and glory. He turned the cross from a symbol of death and destruction into a symbol of salvation and liberation from sin, from the slavery of the forces of evil, and the guarantee of life eternal as promised by the Lord. Thus, the essence of the cross and the crucifix we have today signify this important turning point, which Christ had made the cross into our hope, through His death on the cross for our salvation.

Sadly indeed, despite all that the Lord had done for us, many of us mankind still acted like the people of Israel of old, disregarding the love of God and even ignoring Him altogether. How many of us actually realised the love that God had for us? Every single step He took on His passion journey towards His death, He did it out of His love for us. He did not want us to perish, but it is many of us who chose perishing in the world rather than embracing God’s love.

Remember, that in Jesus we have been saved, out of God’s love. He wants to forgive us our sins, but this is only possible if we too play our part, and believe in Him. We can start this through our own actions and our own daily lives. Have we acted in accordance what our Lord had taught us? Have we practiced our faith and what we believe in our lives? Have we loved our brothers and sisters as much as we love ourselves?

We have much work to do in front of us, brothers and sisters in Christ. Our lives will indeed be difficult, if we choose to follow the Lord and walk in His path. But our Lord had made His cross a sign of victory and triumph, the Holy Cross, that even Satan and his forces will tremble and flee from. Satan knows that the cross was his ultimate undoing. His defeat lay at the cross that had liberated mankind from the burden of their sins. He knows that his doom is coming, and he cannot avoid that final defeat.

However, Satan will grow desperate and he will do all he can to stall as many souls as possible on his way to doom. Remember that he has all the power in this world to tempt and persuade us to divert our path from the path of salvation into the path of doom. Temptations of the evil one is plenty in this world saturated with materialism, consumerism and love of the self. Selfishness and violence is on the rise, brethren, and if we do not guard ourselves against Satan’s advances, we will fall.

Therefore, let us all work together, brothers and sisters in Christ! We who have been saved by the suffering and sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ must be strong in our faith and in our dedication to God, so that Satan will not stand against us. Remember the Holy Cross and Jesus our Lord whenever temptations of Satan come to prevent us from seeking the Lord. Proclaim the Holy Name of Jesus and staunchly rebuke Satan for his attempts to tempt us.

Jesus has indeed been given the Name which is above every other names, for first He is God made flesh, and thus, it is the Name of God Himself, Master of all the universe and over all creations. Then, through His perfect love and obedience, He had become an example for all mankind and for all creation, and no one in creation can do anything other than to obey this Lord and Master who had given His all to save His beloved ones. And even Satan had to obey the Lord, with fear and great trembling on his knees. Such is the power of the Name of Jesus Christ. Do not use His Name in vain!

And even in the Roman Empire, which was pagan and idol worshipping, the Lord also gained a final victory. Many Emperors of Rome persecuted the Christians, the faithful ones in the Lord, but their prayers and the blood of the martyrs eventually triumphed, the triumph of the Holy Cross, when the Lord made them strong and grow in might, so that more and more people would come to listen to the words of salvation in the Gospels and the Scriptures.

Ultimately, the famed Emperor Constantine saw a bright sign of the Lord, Christ Himself in His insignia, as the victorious and conquering King, and went on to win a great victory that eventually led to the repentance and conversion of the Roman Empire into a great, Christian Empire belonging to God. Thus, the Cross had triumphed against the enemies of the Lord, led by Satan and his fallen angels.

Therefore, let us all take an opportunity, every day in our lives to look at the cross, at the crucifix on which lie the Body of Jesus our Lord, as a reminder that He died out of His infinite and enduring love for us, so that we who have seen Him and believed, will not die but live a new life everlasting, just as Moses lifted the bronze serpent and all who had been bitten and saw the bronze serpent did not die but live.

We have been bitten by the serpent, Satan, and his poison is threatening to destroy us, that is sin. But if we trust in the Lord Jesus, and look at the victorious cross, the Holy Cross of Christ, we will not die but live too! Let us carry together our crosses in life with Christ, so that just as He told His disciples, that we may have a share in His resurrection, and therefore be granted new life eternal, freed from all vestiges of sin and evil, and rejoice for eternity with our loving God. May Almighty God bless us this day and every day of our lives, that we will always be faithful and dedicated to the Cross of Christ! Amen.

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Wednesday, 10 September 2014 : 23rd Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard in the Gospel reading, of the content of the sermon of Jesus on a mount, also known as the Sermon on the Mount or the Beatitudes, a series of blessings for those who walk righteously in the way of the Lord and lived according to what God had asked them to, namely to bring peace and love where there is hatred and violence, and those who focused on the Lord rather than on the things of this world.

And in that also lie the curses and warnings for those who do not walk in the path of the Lord, who oppress others and those who practice wickedness in life, preferring the path of Satan and the pleasures of the world to the way of God, which for them seem to be a more difficult and less promising path, and yet that is the only path towards salvation.

St. Paul in the first reading today, in his letter addressed to the faithful and the Church in Corinth spoke about how the faithful should be maintaining whatever good things and virtues that they committed, and avoid any misfortunes, impurities and the darkness of the world that could be brought through certain actions.

No one knows the plan of the Lord and the will of God fully except the Lord Himself and to those whom He had revealed His will and plans to. And what we know of the end times when Jesus will come again in His glory, we know it from what He Himself had told the disciples, and the more detailed explanations as we heard it from the Book of the Revelations which was written by St. John the Evangelist as he received a vision of what was to come.

No one knew when and at what moment the Lord would come again. Remember that Jesus Himself mentioned that He will come again when people least expect it, like a thief entering into the house, no one knows when and how it will happen. Thus, He urged all of His disciples and all of us to be ever vigilant and to be always prepared for all eventualities.

Therefore, this was why St. Paul wrote in the way he did in his letter, as it was truly not known when the Lord would come again, and it was frequently assumed at that time, that the second coming of Jesus would be soon and immediate. Therefore, it was really not that St. Paul was opposed to marriage, or to the people walking and acting in the ways of the world, but he was truly concerned for the salvation of their souls.

All the priests and many other servants of God are also greatly concerned with the salvation of our souls, all of those who had been entrusted to them, like sheep entrusted to the care of their shepherds. But we ourselves should be concerned with our own salvation, the salvation of our souls. For if we do not do something, then when the time comes suddenly, we will be found wanting, and will not have any part in God’s kingdom, condemned for eternity.

How do we do this then? How do we live our lives so that we can ensure our safety and protection from the danger of eternal damnation? None other than by following the teachings of the Lord, some examples of which are what in the Beatitudes, the blessings which Jesus pronounced for those who had committed those good deeds.

And this is not impossible for us to do. And if we do them, we are truly going to be found as worthy when the Lord comes again, and He will bless us with His grace. But if we fail to do as He said, and instead if we follow the ways of this world and immerse ourselves in corruption, then His curse will be upon us, and in the end, only suffering will await us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us heed the message of the Beatitudes, not just to be awed by them, but that we truly listen to that message, and then practice it in our lives. We should not worry if things are not perfect as we are bound to make mistakes, but what is important is that we should do better every time, and thus we should begin from now before it is too late.

Never wait, brethren, and be ready at all times. Do not wait until it is too late for us and we regret our mistakes. May Almighty God and Lord guide us in this life, that we may find our way to Him through what He had revealed to us through His Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

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(Usus Antiquior) Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (II Classis) – Sunday, 7 September 2014 : Gradual and Alleluia

Psalm 73 : 20, 19, 22 and Psalm 89 : 1

Respice, Domine, in testamentum Tuum : et animas pauperum Tuorum ne obliviscaris in finem.

Response : Exsurge, Domine, et judica causam Tuam : memor esto opprobrii servorum Tuorum.

Alleluja, alleluja.

Response : Domine, refugium factus es nobis a generatione et progenie. Alleluja.

English translation

Have regard, o Lord, to Your covenant, and forsake not to the end the souls of Your poor ones.

Response : Arise, o Lord, and judge Your cause. Remember the reproach of Your servants.

Alleluia, alleluia.

Response : Lord, You had been our refuge, from generation to generation. Alleluia.

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Thursday, 4 September 2014 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 5 : 1-11

One day, as Jesus stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, with a crowd gathered around Him listening to the word of God, He caught sight of two boats, left at the water’s edge by fishermen, now washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to pull out a little from the shore. There He sat and continued to teach the crowd.

When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon replied, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing. But if You say so, I will lower the nets.”

This they did, and caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. They signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came, and they filled both boats almost to the point of sinking.

Upon seeing this, Simon Peter fell at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Leave me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” For he and his companions were amazed at the catch they had made, and so were Simon’s partners, James and John, Zebedee’s sons.

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. You will catch people from now on.” So they brought their boats to land and followed Him, leaving everything.

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Sunday, 31 August 2014 : 22nd Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the readings from the Holy Scriptures today all had a single and most important meaning as well as purpose, that is to remind us that, in all things and in all that happen in our lives, they are not within our control, and in everything, we should defer to the will of God, that is what God wanted for us to do in this life.

Brethren, God always means well for us, even when often it does not seem as such. That was exactly why the prophet Jeremiah in the first reading we heard today, while he grumbled for the difficulties, challenges and persecutions he faced, he eventually acknowledged that the Lord and His will had him in the best interest, and that God continued to help and support him amidst all the challenges, and thus Jeremiah continued on to preach the word of God to the people of Judah.

And St. Paul in the second reading, in his letter addressed to the Church in Rome, the great Apostle urged the people there to listen to and heed the will of God, understanding what the Lord wanted from them rather than following the ways and the norms of the world, which were filled with wickedness and injustice unworthy of God’s chosen peoples in the Church. And he also urged the people to live and bound themselves to God’s great mercy, making themselves a favourable sacrifice in heart and prayer to Him.

And lastly we heard how Jesus rebuked Satan, who entered Peter’s heart, to remind both St. Peter and all of us, by our listening and understanding of the message of that encounter, of the need and importance for us to follow and obey the will of God in all things. St. Peter commented on how Jesus should not have said that He would suffer persecution and rejection in Jerusalem by the Pharisees and the chief priests, because he was afraid and fear filled his heart.

And the same applied to us all, brethren, because we all also often feel fear and are afraid of many things. We are easily concern about many aspects of our own well-being, as we mankind are by our nature selfish. And the many things in this world served to fuel our insecurities further, often leading us to carry out deeds and works that often benefit ourselves but disadvantage and even hurt others. Often, this means that we are also frequently disadvantaged by others when others acted in self-preservation out of the same fear.

Some fears that we have, be it we are rich or poor, weak or strong, young or old are the fear of death, the fear of suffering and pain, the fear of loss of properties and material goods, and many others. We are insecure over these, and it is easy for us to think that when times are difficult, when things do not go our way, and when someone who loved are lost through various means, be it old age or even unexpected events such as accidents, we often feel such despair and anger in us over the loss that we often think and even say, where is God in all these?

Yes, brethren, it is very easy for us to blame God and put the fault at Him for such apparent ‘neglect’ of His beloved creations. However, this is because many of us did not understand the nature of God and the nature of our relationship with the Lord. If we look into our lives, we can often see that we frequently overlook the presence of God in our lives, and we often only turn to Him whenever we are in dire strait and in trouble. And many of us misunderstood our relationship with our Lord, thinking and expecting that the Lord will ‘listen’ to our petitions, prayers or even whining and demands.

That is because for many of us, prayer to God is nothing more than a litany of requests and even demands, which we bombard the Lord with, with the familiar, constant and ubiquitous phrases of ‘Lord I want that…’, ‘Lord I wish for…’, ‘Lord, please do something…’, ‘Lord, give me…’ and other similar phrases, without giving a chance for the Lord to speak to us in our hearts.

Yes, as we all should know, the essence of prayer is not for us to bombard the Lord with all these. We did these exactly because we feel insecure and fearful, and we think that God is someone who can just fulfill and admit all of our wishes. But He is not our slave nor our servant, in the sense that we can just order Him around for anything. On the other hand, we are the ones who actually should live according to what God wants from us, and yet many of us failed to do so.

We have to realise that we live in this world not just for ourselves, and we have to live with one another in faith, peace and love. We have to learn that the true meaning of prayer is for us to open our hearts and all sorts of our senses to the Lord, who will then converse with us in the silence of our hearts, in the deepest part of our selves, which we have often overlooked and forgot, in the midst of all the things we are so concerned about in life.

God is always there for us, and He always watches over us. He wants to speak to us all the time, and yet we always find our excuse or pretend to be ignorant, refusing to listen to His words. We always think that God does not listen to us, or that He does not care for or love us, and we even think that He had abandoned us to the forces arrayed against us, but we often never stop to think that the Lord is always with us and around us, and it is we who have often shut ourselves from. His care and love.

We are surely familiar with the story of someone who walked in the beach, on the seashore, where he walked with God. There were two sets of footsteps, one that belonged to the man and one that belonged to the Lord. Then the man encountered great difficulties in life and he suffered from it. He looked at the footsteps and realised that there was only one footstep there. The man complained and protested against God, alleging that God had abandoned him and did not care for him.

When the Lord asked him what he thought, he presented the evidence of the one set of footsteps to accuse the Lord of leaving him back there alone during his time of troubles. But the Lord patiently and lovingly told the man, that when the man was in his most difficult moments, the Lord carried the man on His own shoulders, and thus the footsteps that the man saw, actually belonged to the Lord who carried and guided the man in his difficulty, even without him knowing it.

Thus, brothers and sisters, learning from the Scriptures which we have heard today, and what we have reflected and pondered on this day, we have to keep always in our hearts. First, we mankind cannot presume what is in God’s mind, and we have to learn to trust in the Lord, as whatever He has for us in His will and mind, it is the best of the best for us. Second, we have to always trust in His providence and love for us, as God is always with us and He will never leave us even for a moment, and in fact it is men who left Him first.

And lastly, we all have to know that to follow the Lord means that challenges, difficulties and persecutions from the world and all in it will be part and parcel of our lives. What we need to do is to carry our cross and follow the Lord, as Jesus Himself said. If Christ had suffered and was rejected by the world, we who are part of Christ as His disciples and servants are bound to suffer in the same way as well.

Jesus told us to get rid of from our hearts all desires of self-preservation, selfishness itself and seek to be upright and righteous in all things. If we do so, we will save our souls, as the Lord who sees all and who knows all will reward us for our hard works. And we ought to do this by showing love, care and concern for our fellow men.

Those who are so concerned for themselves, fearing the loss of their properties, their other concerns in life will be paralysed by that fear, or act in ways that hurt or disadvantage others, and the Lord who sees this, will cast them out of His presence into eternal damnation, and hence, saving the world and their glory in the world but losing their soul for eternity.

We can do our part, brethren, by changing our lives if we have not done so, or do even better if we have indeed done as the Lord had taught us. Be courageous to defend the weak and the oppressed, and be courageous to defend our faith as well. Live our faith consciously and actively by loving acts and dedications to our brethren around us, especially those who are in need. And lastly, keep a good, vibrant and healthy prayer life, spending time with God whenever we are able to. And in our prayers, keeping silent and focused on the Lord, so that He may speak in our heart and that we may then know His will for us.

May Almighty God bless us, protect us and be with us always as He had always been all this time. May His light shine upon us that we may find our way to Him and may all souls in this world be saved, by following the only God and Saviour Lord, Jesus Christ, Saviour of all mankind. Let us all also bear our crosses of suffering in this life together, that in the end, the Lord may transformed those crosses into the crosses of His glory and power. Amen.