Saturday

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Saturday, 14 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, Priest (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we listened to the word of God in the Scriptures, beginning with the account of the vision of the prophet Isaiah from the Old Testament. In that account, we heard about the great glory and majesty of God, in His true and eternal splendour in heaven, in His might and power, with the Angels by His side, praising His glory.

The prophet Isaiah, seeing this vision, was called by God to be His servant and messenger to His people, to spread the word of the Lord to His people and call them to be faithful and to remain united with God and follow His ways. The prophet was afraid, after seeing the great majesty of God and thought that he was doomed, as no one who is a sinner can see the face of God and live.

But the Angel of God, a Seraph, came and reassured Isaiah that God had chosen him from among His people to be His instrument and the means through which He would bring about many of His good works and intentions to fruition. And this is related to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus told His disciples about what they must expect as His followers and His disciples.

The Lord essentially told them not to be worried or to be hesitant when His disciples follow Him and do His works. First of all, He mentioned about the need to remain strong and fearless amidst the opposition rallied against them by the forces of Satan. Indeed, the opposition against them might be fearsome and seemingly insurmountable or undefeatable, but God was with them. And that, is more than enough.

This can then, explain, why there were so many holy men and women, who chose to defend their faith and die a martyr during the early days of the Church, when the Church and the faithful were subjected to particularly vicious rounds of persecution, torture, arrest, rejection and suffering. Amidst the difficulties they faced, they still kept the faith and even inspired many more to follow their examples.

What we need to realise, brothers and sisters in Christ, is the fact that we may often feel inadequate, unworthy or even felt the reluctance to live truly in a Christian way, because of various reasons. We are therefore reluctant to live out our full Christian life, and in the end, many of us end up becoming lukewarm in our faith life. This is not what the Lord wants from us.

Do we remember how the Lord called His disciples? He said, “Take up your cross and follow Me.” This sentence alone summed up everything that the Lord wanted us to know, that being His disciples means we must be willing and be ready to embrace and to endure the sufferings and trials which will come our way, that is our crosses in life. Are we willing and ready to take up such a challenge of faith?

Today, we commemorate together the feast of St. Camillus de Lellis, a holy priest whose life was remembered for his great care and compassion for the poor and the sick. He himself had not been cared by his family and was neglected, and endured many hardships, including sickness and troubles that came by him every now and then. But, this holy saint of God persevered nonetheless to carry out the good works of God.

His zeal and love for God is shown in his love and care for those who are least fortunate and weakest in the society. He devoted himself to that cause and inspired many others to follow in his examples. He continued to suffer throughout his life from illnesses and other difficulties, but he entrusted himself to the Lord, and continued to do whatever good work God entrusted him, to the very end of his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, shall we not follow the example of this holy saint, as well as our numerous and countless predecessors, the holy saints and martyrs of the Church? Let us all begin our lives anew by redirecting our effort and attention to the Lord, so that we no longer live selfishly for ourselves, and seek our personal gratification and happiness over the suffering of others, but endeavour to do what we can, to love the Lord our God, and our fellow brethren, all the more from now on. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 14 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, Priest (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Matthew 10 : 24-33

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “A student is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. A student should be content to become like his teacher, and the slave like his master. If the head of the household has been called Beelzebul, how much more, those of his household! So, do not be afraid of them!”

“There is nothing covered that will not be uncovered. There is nothing hidden that will not be made known. What I am telling you in the dark, you must speak in the light. What you hear in private, proclaim from the housetops. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but have no power to kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of Him Who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”

“For a few cents you can buy two sparrows. Yet not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father knowing. As for you, every hair of your head has been counted. Do not be afraid : you are worth more than many sparrows! Whoever acknowledges Me before others, I will acknowledge before My Father in heaven. Whoever rejects Me before others, I will reject before My Father in heaven.”

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Saturday, 14 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, Priest (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Psalm 92 : 1ab, 1c-2, 5

YHVH reigns, robed in majesty; YHVH is girded with strength.

The world now, is firm; it cannot be moved. Your throne stands from long ago, o YHVH; from all eternity You are.

Your decrees can be trusted; holiness dwells in Your House, day after day, without end, o YHVH.

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Saturday, 14 July 2018 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Camillus de Lellis, Priest (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Priests or Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Isaiah 6 : 1-8

In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted; the train of His robe filled the Temple. Above Him were Seraphs, each with six wings : two to cover the face, two to cover the feet, and two to fly with. They were calling to one another : “Holy, Holy, Holy is YHVH Sabaoth. All the earth is filled with His glory!”

At the sound of their voices the foundations of the threshold shook and the Temple was filled with smoke. I said, “Poor me! I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips, and yet I have seen the King, YHVH Sabaoth.”

Then one of the Seraphs flew to me; in his hands was a live coal which he had taken with tongs from the Altar. He touched my mouth with it and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for Us?”

I answered, “Here I am. Send me!”

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Saturday, 7 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in today’s first reading from the Book of the prophet Amos, in continuation to what we have heard from the earlier days this week, while we heard about the punishment which God had warned for all those who have sinned against Him, because of the wickedness and the disobedience shown by the people of Israel, today, we heard of the love and mercy which God had for His people.

In this, we see how the Lord is truly filled with love for each and every one of us, despite the anger that He has shown at our sins and wickedness. Ultimately, each and every one of us are beloved by God, and it is our sins and wickedness which He has despised. And it is exactly these sins and wickedness that have become obstacles in our journey of faith towards the Lord.

Now, should we continue to let these obstacles to be burdens and obstacles to us, preventing us from finding our way to the Lord Who loves us? Certainly we should not have allowed this to happen right? And yet, many of us, even though we know that what we have done in our lives are sinful and wicked, and we have drifted away from God, but we continue to walk in this path, because we have not been able to resist the many temptations of life.

And this is where we should perhaps heed what the Lord Jesus had mentioned in today’s Gospel passage through a parable, by which He wanted to teach us the importance of internal conversion and transformation of our lives from one that was wicked and sinful, into one that is filled with faith, commitment and devotion to God. And the Lord Jesus used a parable to show this.

He taught the people using the parable of the new cloth and the old cloth, as well as the new and old wineskins and the new and old wine. What does these parables mean? What are their intentions? It was in fact, to show how incompatible our old ways of life are, as compared to the way which Our Lord has shown us. The old cloth and the old wineskins represent our past, filled with sin and wickedness, while the new cloth and the new wineskins represent the way that the Lord want us to walk in.

And as the Lord related how new wine will end up bursting and destroying the old wineskin if it is stored in the old wineskin, and vice versa, as well as when new cloth is patched to close up the tear in an old piece of cloth, this shows how our old, sinful way of life is incompatible to our current status, as Christians, as those whom God has taken away from this world, and called to be His disciples, and His children.

Yet, many of us Christians still live in disobedience against God’s will and His laws and commandments. We do not live a virtuous life and carry out a graceful and and devout attitude in life. This is what it means by us being new wineskins and new cloths, but inside us, we are still filled with old wine and patched with old pieces of cloth. And as the Lord showed what happened to the wineskins and the cloths, we will eventually end up in danger, should we continue to live in this kind of double standard life.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on renew our commitment to live faithfully, truly as Christians in everything we say and do. We should no longer adopt this double standard of being Christians and yet, disobedient and sinful in our attitudes and actions in life. Rather, let us all turn our hearts, minds and all of our being to be devoted to God, from this moment onwards. May the Lord be with us in this journey of faith, and bless us all in our endeavours. Amen.

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Saturday, 7 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Matthew 9 : 14-17

At that time, the disciples of John came to Jesus with the question, “How is it, that we and the Pharisees fast on many occasions, but not Your disciples?”Jesus answered them, “How can you expect wedding guests to mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The time will come, when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then, they will fast.”

“No one patches an old coat with a piece of unshrunken cloth, for the patch will shrink and tear an even bigger hole in the coat. In the same way, you do not put new wine into old wine skins. If you do, the wine skins will burst and the wine will be spilt. No, you put new wine into fresh skins; then both are preserved.”

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Saturday, 7 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Psalm 84 : 9, 11-12, 13-14

Would, that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints – lest they come back to their folly.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

YHVH will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Saturday, 7 July 2018 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Amos 9 : 11-15

On that day, I shall restore the fallen hut of David and wall up its breaches, and raise its ruined walls; and so built it as in days of old. They shall conquer the remnant of Edom, and the neighbouring nations, upon which My Name has been called.” Thus says YHVH, the One Who will do this.YHVH says also, “The days are coming when the plowman will overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes overtake the sower.

The mountains shall drip sweet wine and all the hills shall melt. I shall bring back the exiles of My people Israel; they will rebuild the desolate cities and dwell in them.”“They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will have orchards and eat their fruit. I shall plant them in their own country and they shall never again be rooted up from the land which I have given them,” says YHVH your God.

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Saturday, 30 June 2018 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the first reading today, we listened about the humiliation of Israel, because of their sins and disobedience, they have been rejected by God, as they have rejected God first. The people of Israel had been uprooted from the land given to their ancestors, and had to endure humiliation in exile, because they were not faithful to the Covenant which God had made with them.

And they therefore had to endure the punishment due for their rebelliousness, and endure the bitter consequences that arise because of their own stubbornness and refusal to repent, despite the many reminders and the constant promptings from the Lord through His messengers and prophets. Instead, they hardened their hearts and persecuted those whom the Lord had sent to call them to return to Him.

Yet, the Lord in His most tender love and gracious mercy, was always ever willing to extend His generous offer of mercy and forgiveness to all of us. Through sin we have been sundered and cut off from His love and cast away from His grace, but through sincere and genuine repentance, all of us have been given the way out of our predicament, that is none other than, following the path that the Lord Jesus Christ, Our God, has shown us.

And in today’s Gospel passage, we heard about how the Lord encountered a faithful army centurion or captain, who came to Him asking for a favour of healing to his very sick servant, who was dear to him. In this passage, we heard the amazing and unusual action of the centurion, who, when the Lord was about to go into his house in order to heal the sick servant, uttered the words that we now utter at every celebrations of the Holy Mass.

‘Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof.’ These were the words of the centurion, who later then added, ‘Just say the word, and my servant shall be healed.’ In these two sentences alone, were summed up the great profession of faith and sincere prayer made by the centurion to the Lord. Such a great faith amazed the Lord, Who immediately granted all that the centurion had asked for, and the servant was healed.

First of all, we must understand how, as an army centurion, it was likely that the centurion did not belong to the race of the Jewish people, or followed the Jewish traditions and faith. It was likely that he was both a Gentile or non-Jew, and a pagan. According to the customs and practices at that time, it was taboo for a Jew to enter into the house of a pagan and Gentile, as it would, according to the Jewish customs, defile the person.

That was why, the centurion, who was likely aware of this custom, would not want the Lord to be defiled by his non-Jewish and pagan background. And yet, through the words he said, in fact, as the Lord Himself pointed out, the centurion showed a pure and genuine faith, that was not found even among the Jews themselves. First of all, he admitted openly his sinfulness and unworthiness to receive the Lord into his humble abode. This is a trait that many of us did not have with us.

Then, he was filled with such a great faith and trust in the Lord, knowing that even if the Lord did not directly perform miraculous deeds or touch his servant to heal him, just through a word of the Lord, his servant would be immediately healed. The centurion trusted in the Lord so greatly, that he was totally unlike the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who had seen so many of the miracles and deeds performed by the Lord Jesus, but still refused to believe.

How many of us are able to be as humble and as faithful as the centurion? Do we truly love the Lord our God, with all of our heart, and give Him the very best of our attention and focus? Have we been true Christians in all of our actions and dealings? We are all called to follow in the footsteps of the faithful centurion, and truly mean it, every time we say at the Mass, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under My roof.”

Now, today, we also celebrate the feast of the first martyrs of the Holy Roman Church. On this day, we celebrate those courageous members of the faithful who suffered the first great persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire under the reign of the Emperor Nero. This feast is celebrated a day after the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul, as it was likely that the two holy Apostles were martyred in Rome as part of this great persecution.

At that time, the Christian faith was flourishing in every parts of the Empire, despite the challenges they encountered from various origins. Many of the faithful also lived in the city of Rome, the capital of the Empire. And more and more of the faithful were added to the Church with every passing moment, as the fruits of the dedication and hard work shown by the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord.

Then, in the year 64 AD, a great fire engulfed most of the city of Rome, one which, according to historians, was started by the eccentric Emperor Nero himself, who quickly laid the blame of the fire on the growing Christian community. Hence, the first great persecution of the faithful began, and many were forced to choose between abandoning their faith and losing their lives.

Yet, many of the faithful, including St. Peter and St. Paul remained true to their faith, and refused to bend to the demands of those who persecuted them. They remained true to their faith in God, and devoted themselves wholeheartedly, and committed themselves, to the very end, courageously declaring their faith to the One Who has saved them from eternal damnation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, having heard of the examples set by the faithful centurion and the first holy martyrs of the Roman Church, shall we all be inspired by those examples that they have set? Shall we follow in their footsteps, and learn to commit ourselves more wholeheartedly to the Lord, in all the things that we say and do? This is our calling as Christians, and we are all challenged to be ever better Christians, day after day.

May the Lord bless us all, and may He strengthen each and every one of us in our faith. May He continue to watch over us and may He remain with us, on our side, through the challenges and trials of life, that we may remain wholly faithful to Him, at every moments of our life. First Holy Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, pray for us all, sinners still living in this world. Amen.

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Saturday, 30 June 2018 : 12th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of the First Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Red (Martyrs) or White (Saturday Mass of Our Lady)

Matthew 8 : 5-17

At that time, when Jesus entered Capernaum, an army captain approached Him, to ask His help, “Sir, my servant lies sick at home. He is paralysed and suffers terribly.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

The captain answered, “I am not worthy to have You under my roof. Just give an order and my boy will be healed. For I myself, a junior officer, give orders to my soldiers. And if I say to one, ‘Go!’ he goes; and if I say to another, ‘Come!’ he comes; and if I say to my servant, ‘Do this!’ he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, He was astonished; and said to those who were following Him, “I tell you, I have not found such faith in Israel. I say to you, many will come from east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of heaven; but the heirs of the kingdom will be thrown out into extreme darkness; there, they will wail and grind their teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the captain, “Go home now. As you believed, so let it be.” At that moment, his servant was healed. Jesus went to Peter’s house and found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with fever. He took her by the hand and the fever left her; she got up and began to wait on Him.

Toward evening, they brought to Jesus many people possessed by evil spirits; and with a word, He drove out the spirits. He also healed all who were sick. In this way, what was said by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled : He bore our infirmities and took on Himself our diseases.