Saturday

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Saturday, 8 March 2025 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. John of God, Religious (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 58 : 9b-14

If you remove from your midst the yoke, the clenched fist and the wicked word. If you share your food with the hungry and give relief to the oppressed, then your light will rise in the dark, your night will be like noon.

YHVH will guide you always and give you relief in desert places. He will strengthen your bones; He will make you as a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fall. Your ancient ruins will be rebuilt, the age-old foundations will be raised. You will be called the Breach-mender, and the Restorer of ruined houses.

If you stop profaning the Sabbath and doing as you please on the holy day, if you call the Sabbath a day of delight and keep sacred YHVH’s holy day, if you honour it by not going your own way, not doing as you please and not speaking with malice, then you will find happiness in YHVH, over the heights you will ride triumphantly, and feast joyfully on the inheritance of your father Jacob. The mouth of YHVH has spoken.

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Saturday, 1 March 2025 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are reminded of the great love which the Lord our loving God and Father has for each and every one of us, His beloved children and creation, whom He had created out of His overflowing and most generous love. God has always loved each and every one of us and despite our sins and wickedness, all the evils and waywardness of our lives, but God never gave up on us, and His love still persisted and remained nonetheless throughout all the struggles that He had to go through in reaching out to us and loving us persistently. It is God’s ever enduring and persistent, most generous and genuine love that has given us this sure hope and the certainty of salvation, because it is through God alone that we can have the hope of salvation.

In our first reading today, taken from the continuation of the Book of the prophet Sirach, we heard of the prophet mentioning to the people of God about how God created all of them and all mankind, and all of creation, and how mankind, having been formed and made in the very image and appearance of God, had received the great gift of Wisdom and power from God, and how this gift of Wisdom has been granted to them so that they may all discern the ways of the world and the path towards righteousness and truth, to follow whatever it is that God has taught them and shown to them, and allowing them to obey Him as their Father, just as faithful and loving children obeying their parents, and walking in the path that God has led them through, so that they would not end up falling into the wrong path of evil and wickedness.

As I have mentioned before, the prophet Sirach lived and compiled his works about two centuries before the coming of Christ, at a time of great change and turbulence in the community of the people of God, at a point of time when the Jewish community in Judea, Galilee and elsewhere were facing pressures and challenges, in particular with regards to their way of life and their faith and belief in God. At that time, during the height of the Hellenistic Era, many among the Jewish people and other people in the region began to be strongly influenced by the ways and beliefs of the Greeks, which led to many people to begin abandoning the ways of their ancestors, and for the people of God, it led to them abandoning the Law and commandments of God for the pagan practices and beliefs of the Greeks.

And all of that had led to the conflict and disagreements among the people of God regarding which path they ought to be following and obeying, and hence, the prophet Sirach reminded them all that since God had created all of them good and wonderful, perfect and full of wisdom, therefore, all of them should continue to serve the Lord and following His path, dedicating themselves and their time, their efforts and works to glorify God by their lives, lived in obedience and commitment to the path of the Lord. We are reminded of the good that are in us, which although it has been marred and corrupted by sin, by the corruption of evil and darkness, the fact remains that there is still this good within us as God has given and blessed us with.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, taken from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist, we heard of the Lord speaking to His disciples, rebuking and chiding them from keeping the little children from coming towards Him. Those disciples had tried to stop the children from coming towards the Lord, and they tried to send them away, only for the Lord to rebuke them for what they had done, as He wanted all the children to come to Him. Why is that so, brothers and sisters in Christ? That is because as the Lord Himself had said it, the future of the Kingdom of God belonged to those children, as those children would become the ones to continue the struggle and journey of the faith, and they also served as the good examples and role models for everyone else to follow in how they all ought to believe in the Lord, in the salvation which God has promised.

The faith of the little children is also something that is pure and exemplary, as the faith that each and every one of them had, were truly free from the corruption of worldly desires, ambitions and pressures, all of which only grew to influence us as we grew up in age, and became no longer innocent and pure in our thoughts and ways. That is why the Lord used those little children as examples and reminders for all of His disciples and also for all of us that this purity and truth, they are all our true nature, the true nature of our humanity, that has been made all wonderful and perfect in the image of God, and meant to glorify Him by our lives and existence, and as His beloved children and people, we should always walk in His Presence, and remain loved and cared for by His loving kindness as always.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why the Lord has always been active in reaching out to us, His children, because He truly loves each and every one of us, without exception. He wants all of us to be reunited to Him and no longer be separated from Him because of our many sins and wickedness. He has provided us with the various means and methods through which we can truly find our way back to Him. But whether we want to follow Him or not, and whether we want to embrace God’s ever generous love and mercy or not, is entirely up to us, because God has also given us the free will and the freedom to choose our path in life. Yet, let us all realise that without God by our side, and if we continue to walk down the path of rebellion against Him, in the end, there will be nothing for us but an eternity of regret. It is in the Lord alone that we can have the sure hope of eternal happiness and joy, together with our Father Who loves us all.

May the Lord, our ever loving God and Father, continue to love each and every one of us as His beloved children, and may He continue to strengthen and encourage us all in the respective journey that we encounter in this life so that in whatever challenges and trials, difficulties and all sorts of obstacles we may encounter, we will continue to remain faithful and true in our love for Him, and that we may be strong and resilient in resisting the various temptations and pressures all around us, trying to drag us away from the Lord, our loving Father, and bringing us into the path of darkness and sin. Let us all keep in mind that all of us should obey the Lord and His commandments, and strive to be truly good, holy and worthy of our loving God and Father, by doing our best to live a truly Christian life at all times. May God bless us in our every efforts and endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Saturday, 1 March 2025 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

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

Mark 10 : 13-16

At that time, people were bringing their little children to Jesus to have Him touch them, and the disciples rebuked them for this. When Jesus noticed it, He was very angry and said, “Let the children come to Me and do not stop them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it.”

Then He took the children in His arms and, laying His hands on them, blessed them.

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Saturday, 1 March 2025 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

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

Psalm 102 : 13-14, 15-16, 17-18a

As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. For He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust.

The days of mortals are like grass; they bloom like a flower of the field; but the wind passes over it, and it is gone, his field will not see him again.

But the Lord’s kindness is forever with those who fear Him; so is His justice, for their children’s children, for those who keep His covenant and remember His commands.

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Saturday, 1 March 2025 : 7th Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

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

Sirach 17 : 1-15

The Lord created man from the earth and let him return to earth. He settled a fixed time for them and a set number of days, giving them power over everything on earth. He endowed them with a strength like His own, making them in His own image.

He put fear of them in all living things, thus they had mastery over the animals and birds. He endowed them with knowledge; He gave them tongue and eyes, ears and a mind to think with. He filled them with wisdom and knowledge; He taught them good and evil. He put His own eye in their hearts so they would understand the greatness of His works. They will praise His holy Name and relate the magnificence of His creation.

He gave them revealed knowledge as well and handed over to them the Law of life. He established an everlasting covenant with them and let them know His judgments. Human eyes saw the splendour of the Glory of God; their ears heard the grandeur of His voice.

He said to them, “Keep yourselves from all wrongdoing,” and to each of them He gave commands regarding his neighbour. Their conduct is always before the Lord; they cannot escape His sight.

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Saturday, 22 February 2025 : Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle, marking this occasion when we honour the Apostolic and leadership authority of St. Peter as the chief and leader of the Apostles and also as the Vicar of Christ, the one to whom the Lord had entrusted His whole entire Church. If we are wondering why we are celebrating the Feast over a Chair, this is an important reminder for all of us that this Chair is not just representing the physical Chair that St. Peter had been sitting on as the Bishop of Rome and Christ’s Vicar on earth, but also the Chair representing his authority which had been given by God, to be the one through whom the Lord would exercise His power and governance over His Church, together with the other Apostles.

The first representation of the Chair mentioned has its physical embodiment in the actual Chair that St. Peter had been using, an antique Roman chair made from wood, known as the ‘Cathedra Sancti Petri’ dating from the earliest days of the Church, and which is now housed within the Altar of the Chair at the great Basilica of St. Peter in Vatican City. But as mentioned, this ‘Cathedra Sancti Petri’ is also a representation of the God-given authority and power which God has granted to St. Peter the Apostle and his successors as Bishop of Rome and leader of the Universal Church, the Popes, right up to the present Pope, Pope Francis. And therefore this Feast celebrates this unity that the whole entire Church has under the leadership of the Pope, the Vicar of Christ, as the successor of St. Peter the Apostle.

In our first reading today, taken from the First Epistle of St. Peter, we heard of the words of St. Peter, the chief of the Apostles and leader of the Church to the elders of the Christian communities equivalent of the present days bishops of the Church, reminding them that as shepherds of the flock of God’s people, all of them are responsible for the well-being of the people of God, and they were reminded as shepherds and leaders that they should be good and faithful in the exercise of their ministry so that in everything that they do and carry out, in their works and efforts they would always be good role models and inspirations for others around them all to follow in their own lives. They should not seek glory and fame for themselves, but rather they should strive to be the faithful servants of the Lord’s will, so that in the end, they shall all share in the glory of God.

This set of reminders is an important one for all of us as Christians, especially so for those who have been entrusted with the responsibility over the faithful but at the same time is also applicable for everyone else who call themselves as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people. This is because all of us as Christians must also live our lives worthily in the Lord’s path such that we may become the shining beacons of God’s light and truth, His Good News and salvation to everyone else around us. After all, how can we expect others to believe in the Lord as well, if we ourselves have not shown good examples in our own lives and in how we ourselves live our lives as Christians, or worse still, if we cause scandal to our faith and the Church due to the wickedness and sins that we have committed?

Then from the Gospel passage taken from the Gospel according to St. Matthew the Apostle, we heard that classic account of the moment when the Lord established His Church and entrusted all of His faithful and people to St. Peter the Apostle, the ‘Rock’ of faith upon which He had founded His Church, and also to the other Apostles who were the important pillars supporting the Church. In that passage the Lord first asked the disciples on His identity, and they spoke first about the identity that many of the people at that time attributed to the Lord, either as one of the past prophets being sent back, or as a new great Prophet and Teacher sent into the world. But St. Peter spoke firmly and courageously when the Lord asked of the disciples again, ‘but you, Who do you say I am?’, saying that He is truly the Messiah, the Holy One and Son of God.

In this great profession of faith, we can see the shining qualities of St. Peter, which the Lord could see and know within his heart and mind. We can see the great love and commitment which St. Peter had for the Lord, which made him to be chosen as the one to lead all the whole Church. He was not perfect himself, as he was just as flawed as any one of us are. If we know the character of St. Peter from the evidences throughout the Gospels and other sources, we can see clearly how he was just a sinner like any of us. He was illiterate, brash and hot-headed, and easily gave in to anger and temptations, and was once chided by the Lord for striking the servant of the High Priest with a sword, cutting of that servant’s ear. St. Peter was also well-known for his thrice denial of the Lord around the same time, when he fearfully denied knowing the Lord at the time of His arrest.

But God chose this imperfect man, this sinner to be the great instrument of His works, His desire to see us all reconciled and reunited with Him. He knew that despite all of St. Peter’s imperfections, faults and problems, within him there lies a heart full of love and obedience towards Him, that despite the doubts, fears and other things he had with him, ultimately, he was willing to give it all to the Lord and devote himself thoroughly to His cause, as St. Peter himself proved with his many decades of service in glorifying God through the extensive and intensive efforts at evangelisation and conversion of many to the Lord’s path. To the very end, St. Peter the Apostle committed himself to God and to His Church, carrying out what he himself told the other elders of the Church, ultimately suffering and dying for the Lord, being crucified upside-down at the site where the great Basilica of St. Peter now stands.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today therefore as we celebrate together this occasion of the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle, let us all reaffirm our faith in the Lord and the unity which all of us the faithful people of God have in Him through His Church, and affirm our unity as one flock of the faithful, under the leadership of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, successor of St. Peter the Apostle, who is now sitting on the Chair of St. Peter, the ‘Cathedra Sancti Petri’ as God’s holy Vicar in this world. Let us all continue to strive to live our lives each day with dedication and commitment to God so that our examples may help many more people to come ever closer to God’s Presence, as how St. Peter the Apostle himself, the other Apostles and our other holy predecessors had been good role models and examples for us as Christians.

May all of us continue to do our best in living our lives each day that even in the smallest and seemingly least significant things that we do, we will embody our Christian faith, our love for the Lord and our faith in Him at all times. May we continue to persevere through the challenges, trials and sufferings that we may have to endure as part of our Christian journey in this life, so that we may grow ever stronger in our commitment as those whom God had called and chosen to be His own, His faithful and holy people, now and always. Holy Apostle, St. Peter, Holy Vicar of Christ, pray for us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 22 February 2025 : Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 16 : 13-19

At that time, Jesus came to Caesarea Philippi. He asked His disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They said, “For some of them You are John the Baptist, for others Elijah, or Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

Jesus asked them, “But you, who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “It is well for you, Simon Bar-Jona, for it is not flesh or blood that has revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven.”

“And now I say to you : You are Peter, and on this rock I will build My Church; and never will the powers of death overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven : whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you unbind on earth shall be unbound in heaven.”

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Saturday, 22 February 2025 : Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 22 : 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.

He guides me through the right paths for His Name’s sake. Although I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are beside me : Your rod and Your staff comfort me.

You spread a table before me in the presence of my foes. You anoint my head with oil; my cup is overflowing.

Goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live.

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Saturday, 22 February 2025 : Feast of the Chair of St. Peter the Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Peter 5 : 1-4

I now address myself to those elders among you; I, too, am an elder and a witness to the sufferings of Christ, hoping to share the Glory that is to be revealed.

Shepherd the flock which God has entrusted to you, guarding it not out of obligation but willingly for God’s sake; not as one looking for a reward but with a generous heart; do not lord it over those in your care, rather be an example to your flock.

Then, when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will be given a crown of unfading glory.

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Saturday, 15 February 2025 : 5th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures, we are all reminded of the love and mercy, the kindness and compassion which God has always had for each and every one of us, His beloved people. We must consider ourselves truly fortunate because even though we have frequently fallen again and again into sin, and kept on slipping back into the path of disobedience against Him, God has always loved us and His love for us endured even throughout all these times and moments, and even despite our constant rebelliousness and wickedness. Yes, He is indeed angry at our sins and disobedience, and He chastised us all for those sins and rebellions, but in the end, He did so because He desired for all of us to be truly and fully reconciled and reunited with Him.

In our first reading today, we heard of the continuation of the account of the beginning of time and Creation of the world from the Book of Genesis, focusing on the moment right after our first ancestors, Adam and Eve, had fallen into sin because they disobeyed God and chose to listen to the lies and falsehoods of the evil one, who took up the shape and form of a snake to persuade and coerce firstly Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and then that of her husband Adam to do the same as well. They became aware of their nakedness, and therefore as we heard, hid from God Who came looking for them. When God confronted them about what had happened, Adam and Eve ended up throwing the blame at each other, with Eve blaming the serpent, that was Satan in disguise, for having tempted her to disobey God.

It was by this conscious choice of our disobedience that we have ended up falling into sin and therefore become corrupted by our own doing. God has created us all out of His great love for every one among us, and yet, we have chosen to spurn and reject His love for the love of money and material possessions, choosing to follow the whim of our desires and ambitions, our greed and ego, giving in to the temptations to be more powerful, to know more and to receive more good things of this world rather than to obey Him, the One Who had created us all out of love. That was why mankind had fallen from grace, and as a consequence of our actions, as we heard from our first reading today, our ancestors had to spend time in exile away from the Gardens of Eden, where God had intended for us all to dwell in.

Our sufferings in this world are the results of our own choice, our own deliberate and conscious rebellion against God. And yet, God in His infinite love and mercy for us still desired for all of us to return back to Him, to be reconciled and reunited to Him. If God truly despised and hated us for our sins, He could have easily destroyed us and erased us from existence for having defiled the perfection of His Creation. Yet, this was not what He had chosen to do, as He showed us all His great magnanimity, showing us His generous mercy and love, offering us all the assurance of His love and guidance, revealing to us His intention, in opening for us the path to eternal life and redemption through His Son, the Saviour Whom He would send into our midst to save us.

Then, in our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Gospel according to St. Mark the Evangelist in which the account of how the Lord miraculously fed a large multitude of at least four thousand people when they had followed Him to listen to Him and His teachings, and became hungry after several days of journey and time with Him without any means of sustenance and eating food from nearby places. It was at that moment the Lord showed His great love, compassion and mercy towards each and every one of us mankind, His beloved ones, by showing how He cared for the needs of the people who were there to listen to Him and who were hungry for food.

The Lord showed them all that He could provide them with whatever they needed, giving them physical sustenance through the bread that He miraculously multiplied and broke for them, as well as the spiritual sustenance of the Wisdom of God that He has delivered to all of them. There were so many people gathered and yet, their hunger were all sated, from merely seven pieces of bread brought before the Lord, and not just that, but seven whole basketful of leftover bread were collected, showing symbolically how if we truly put our trust in the Lord, then we have nothing to fear, as He would provide for us what we need and even more than that. And this is not just limited to food and physical sustenance alone, but applying to all things in our lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore do our best so that in everything that we do in our lives we will always glorify the Lord by our lives, our every actions and deeds, reminding ourselves of how much we have been loved and cared for by God at every opportunities and moments, throughout the history of our existence. We should indeed be ashamed at our sinfulness and how easily we have fallen into the traps and the temptations of the evil one, who sought our destruction and damnation, that we share his fate in Hell. This is why, as Christians, all of us who truly believe in God and have faith in Him, ought to truly show this faith and love we have for God in our everyday living and in each and every actions and deeds in our lives.

May the Lord, our ever loving God and Father, continue to strengthen us in His love, empower each and every one of us so that by His guidance and strength, His providence and help, He may strengthen our weak selves and allow us to overcome the temptations of the world, so that by our efforts to resist the temptations of sin, we may come to righteousness and virtue through Him. Let us all strive to renew our faith and dedication to the Lord, doing what we can to glorify God by our lives, shunning the wicked influence of the evil one in this world, embracing instead God’s love which He has patiently shown us ever since the beginning. May all of us continue to be good and faithful disciples and followers of God, as His beloved children, now and always. Amen.