Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Mark 3 : 20-21
At that time, Jesus and His disciples went home. The crowd began to gather again and they could not even have a meal. Knowing what was happening, His relatives came to take charge of Him, “He is out of His mind,” they said.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Psalm 46 : 2-3, 6-7, 8-9
Clap your hands, all you peoples; acclaim God with shouts of joy. For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared; He is a great King all over the earth.
God ascends amid joyful shouts, the Lord amid trumpet blasts. Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
God is King of all the earth; sing to Him a hymn of praise. For God now rules over the nations. God reigns from His holy throne.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Hebrews 9 : 2-3, 11-14
A first tent was prepared with the lampstand, the table and the bread of the Presence, this is called the Holy Place. Behind the second curtain, there is a second sanctuary called the Most Holy Place.
But now Christ has appeared as the High Priest with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is, not created. He did not take with Himself the blood of goats and bulls but His own Blood, when He entered once and for all into the sanctuary after obtaining definitive redemption.
If the sprinkling of people defiled by sin with the blood of goats and bulls or with the ashes of a heifer provided them with exterior cleanliness and holiness, how much more will it be with the Blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself as an unblemished victim to God and His Blood cleanses us from dead works, so that we may serve the living God.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are presented through the readings of the Sacred Scripture, the truth of God’s love and compassionate nature, and His desire to seek us and to love us all once again, as He has shown us through Jesus Christ, His one and only beloved Son, Who came into this world to be our Saviour, and not just any one’s Saviour, but for everyone, without exception, even to the worst of sinners.
That is why today we are presented with the story of the calling and conversion of Levi, the tax collector in our Gospel passage today. Levi was the name of St. Matthew the Apostle before he was called by the Lord and embraced the calling to be an Apostle. Levi was a tax collector, which as a group of people were greatly hated and reviled within the community by the rest of the Jewish people.
The tax collectors were seen as traitors to the nation for their work in collaborating with the Romans in collecting the much hated taxes, the symbol of the Roman dominance over the region. And they were also seen as greedy and haughty, seeking to enrich themselves over the others, many of whom were living in poverty and destitution. However, in truth many of them were really no different from all others, those who seek a living in difficult and turbulent times.
What the people thought of the tax collectors were biases and prejudices that were sustained by the elders as a means to seek scapegoats to place the people’s hatred and all the blame for the misfortunes and challenges that they faced. When the Lord came to Levi and called him to be His follower, it was with this mentality that many others had seen the tax collectors like Levi all that time.
Yet, Levi showed us and all the people that tax collectors were not necessarily evil as they had often been painted as, and they were in fact good and just people too, in their own way. And Levi willingly abandoned everything, his job and profession, all that he had in order to follow the Lord. Not only that, he also gathered the other tax collectors, many of whom were evidently also willing to listen to the Lord and seek Him.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were quick to criticise, pointing out to the disciples of the Lord and questioning them why their Lord and Master would sit and have dinner together with sinners, and activity that was often disliked by the elders and the Pharisees as they deemed entering into the house of sinners and being with them to cause them to be defiled by the sins of those sinners.
Yet, ironically, as they pointed out the sins of others, in truth they themselves had failed to realise that they themselves were sinners. And because they were sinners, they should have been like the tax collectors in desiring to seek God for His mercy and forgiveness. Instead, they hardened their hearts and closed them to the Lord, preferring to remain aloof and looking down on others from their high position and maintaining an attitude of self-righteousness.
But this is exactly where they faltered and fell, brothers and sisters in Christ. For while the tax collectors might have committed sins and lived wickedly, yet by listening to God and answering to His call, and as exemplified by Levi, who abandoned everything to follow the Lord and became one of His disciples, even the greatest of sinners could become great saints themselves had they chosen to embrace God’s ways and abandon their sins.
This is a lesson and reminder for all of us never to allow pride and ambition, greed and ego to bring us to our downfall. We should not allow all these to lead us down the wrong path, but instead, following in the examples of Levi, we should seek the Lord and follow Him with all of our heart, He Who is our High Priest and Redeemer as according to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, that we have been hearing for the past few days.
May the Lord bless us all and may He strengthen us all our faith, and may He guide us down the right path that each and every one of us may follow Him ever more faithfully. May God be the Light of our lives and be our strength, forgiving us from our sins and faults when we come seeking Him in humility and sincere desire for forgiveness, at all times. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Mark 2 : 13-17
At that time, when Jesus went out again beside the lake, a crowd came to Him, and He taught them. As He walked along, He saw a tax collector sitting in his office. This was Levi, the son of Alpheus. Jesus said to him, “Follow Me!” And Levi got up and followed Him.
And it so happened that when Jesus was eating in Levi’s house, tax collectors and sinners sat with Him and His disciples; there were a lot of them, and they used to follow Jesus. But Pharisees, men educated in the Law, when they saw Jesus eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to His disciples, “Why does your Master eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus heard them, and answered, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Psalm 18 : 8, 9, 10, 15
The Law of the Lord is perfect : it gives life to the soul. The word of the Lord is trustworthy : it gives wisdom to the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right : they give joy to the heart. The commandments of the Lord are clear : they enlighten the eyes.
The fear of the Lord is pure, it endures forever; the judgements of the Lord are true, all of them just and right.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart find favour in Your sight, o Lord – my Redeemer, my Rock!
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)
Hebrews 4 : 12-16
For the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and judges the intentions and thoughts of the heart. All creation is transparent to Him; everything is uncovered and laid bare to the eyes of Him to Whom we render account.
We have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God, Who has entered heaven. Let us, then, hold fast to the faith we profess. Our High Priest is not indifferent to our weaknesses, for He was tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sinning. Let us, then, with confidence approach the throne of grace; we will obtain mercy and, through His favour, help in due time.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day as we heard the words of the Scriptures, we are reminded of the obligation that each and every one of us have in proclaiming the Lord’s Good News of salvation, in living our lives with faith and rejecting the many temptations to sin. All of us should be inspirations to each other that we may show one another what it truly means to be Christians, that is to be those who truly believe in Christ.
In our Gospel reading today, taken from the Gospel of St. John the Apostle, we heard of the account of what happened after the Lord Jesus was baptised by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan. Jesus began His ministry and was gathering a lot of followers at the same time as St. John the Baptist himself still performing his ministry and baptised many. The disciples of St. John were worried and came up to him with the concern that the Lord was drawing more and more people away from them.
But St. John calmly and gladly remarked that it was just exactly as how it was supposed to be. As the servant, his role was merely to do the will of God, and as the Herald to announce the coming of the Messiah, his role was to prepare the way for the Lord in this world. And at that time, all these had been accomplished, and the Lord has begun His ministry to a great and successful beginning. St. John the Baptist humbly remarked that it was only right that while his Lord and Master increased in importance and prominence, that he decreased in these.
He showed us that as a true disciple of the Lord, all of us need to focus ourselves on God and adhere closely to Him, and we should not allow pride, ambition, ego and desire to dictate how we live out our lives. Otherwise, we will easily swayed by those many worldly temptations and lose our way, falling deep into the trap of sin. Instead, all of us are called to be humble and to be faithful to God at all times.
In our first reading today, St. John the Apostle in his Epistle mentioned how all of us as Christians are the holy people of God and that therefore we should be free from sin and reject the path of sin, so that we will not end up being trapped more and more in the path of sin, which will end up in our eternal damnation if we are not careful. If we are truly God’s children and His beloved ones, we should reject all the corruptions of sin.
This means that we should be righteous and just in all of our actions and dealings as true Christians. Of course this is much easier said than done, as there will certainly be plenty of obstacles going forward if we choose to walk down this path. But as long as we stay true to our faith in God, then we should not falter or fall, and by the grace of God, we can overcome even the greatest challenges ahead.
Now, the question is, what are we then going to do as Christians in our living actions and in our daily lives? Through our baptism all of us have received the commandments of God, to love one another and to love Him with all of our heart, with all of our might and strength, and dedicating ourselves to His cause. As we are about to conclude the celebrations of the season of Christmas, let us all make good use of the time and opportunities given to us, to be true witnesses of the Lord.
Let us all devote ourselves each and every moments of our lives like St. John the Baptist and the many others had done, and let us all do our best, in whatever we do so that, no matter how little or insignificant those actions that we may do, we may indeed bring a difference into the lives of others, and help many more people to come closer to God and receive His providence, grace and love just as we ourselves have received from God.
May God be with us always, and may He continue to guide us through this life, helping us all to remain faithful to His laws and commandments, and inspire in our hearts strong love and faith in Him. May God bless us all generously, now and always. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
John 3 : 22-30
At that time, Jesus went into the territory of Judea with His disciples. He stayed there with them and baptised. John was also baptising in Aenon, near Salim, where water was plentiful; people came to him and were baptised. This happened before John was put in prison.
Now John’s disciples had been questioned by a Jew about spiritual cleansing, so they came to John and said, “Rabbi, the One Who was with you across the Jordan, and about Whom you spoke favourably, is now baptising, and all are going to Him.”
John answered, “No one can receive anything, except what has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.’ Only the bridegroom has the bride; but the friend of the bridegroom stands by and listens, and rejoices to hear the bridegroom’s voice. My joy is now full. It is necessary that He increase, but that I decrease.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5 and 6a and 9b
Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!
Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.
The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, this is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 