Saturday

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Saturday, 11 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day each and every one of us are reminded that as Christians, we have the obligation to love one another, and foremost of all, to love God with all of our hearts, with all of our strengths and might. This is what God had commanded us to do, and which we must do wholeheartedly and sincerely in our daily lives.

It is the heart and the true purpose of the Law of God. God has loved us so much that He wants us all to be like Himself, to be like Him Who is love. And His love is perfect and impartial, and He gives His love freely to all. And therefore, because God is love, so therefore His Law is also the Law of love. He has given His laws to His people so that through these laws, they may learn about love, and also how to love sincerely with their hearts.

But as the time went on, many misunderstood and misinterpreted God’s laws. They used them for their own purposes, to advance their own causes and to gain advantages for themselves. This is what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. Instead of bringing love to the people of God, the laws of the Lord became a source of burden and difficulty for the people, for they had been applied without proper understanding of its true meaning and intent.

And many took the laws and commandments of God at its face value, not realising and appreciating what these laws are truly about. The first and most important of all the commandments that God had given us His people is truly very basic and very simple, that all of us have to love God with all of our might, with all of our strength and conviction, and with our entire and whole beings. It is to follow in what God had first done unto us, giving us His unconditional love by creating us out of love for us, and by granting us His grace of life and His love.

Many of us in the world today love in the way that is not in accordance with what the Lord had taught us to do. We love because we often seek returns from the love which we have given. We love others because we know that those people will love us back and give us back in return what we have given them first, and sometimes we even demand that more should be returned to us than what we give.

That is what happened to our society and communities today, even in the love present between our families and our couples in marriages. We love because it is a conditional and transactional love, desiring for reward and returns on what we have done. This is why we have also become overly engrossed with appearances, with external beauty, desiring pleasures of the flesh, improper sexual conducts, and all the things which led to the perversion of love.

Do we all realise that when we do all these, what we have in us is not love? It is in fact desire and human greed that we have in us, loving only ourselves and caring only for our own needs. It is this selfish love and caring for oneself that had led to the breakdown of many relationships and families, and at the same time, distancing ourselves from the Lord our God.

In the Gospel passage today, all of us as Christians are challenged to overcome this status quo. We are all challenged to break free from this habit of selfishness and greed. We are all called to follow none other than the Lord our God Himself in His examples, in how He has loved us all unconditionally. And what better example there is than the loving sacrifice of Christ?

In this time and season of Lent, we are all called to reflect on the examples of Christ, Who has loved all of His beloved people, and most importantly, as He Himself said in the Gospel today, that true love, and indeed Christian love, is to love all others unconditionally and without desire for returns or rewards. And this includes loving even all those who do not love us, all those who have hurt us and hated us.

And above all else, Christ has Himself done what He had preached, loving all His enemies, forgiving them even from the cross, as He was hung on it dying from His suffering. He forgave all of them from their sins and all that they had inflicted on Him. Are we able to love in the same manner as Christ our Lord had loved? This is a challenge that all of us as Christians should take up on during this time of Lent.

Let us all reflect on this, brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us think in what way we are able to obey the Lord more faithfully by following the examples of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who had shown us all how to love and how to obey the Lord and His will. He Himself had obeyed His Father to the very end, and therefore, all of us who believe in Him ought to do the same as well.

May this season of Lent be truly a time of conversion for us, that all of us who have once been unloving, wicked and selfish may be turned into loving, forgiving and compassionate children of God our Father, following His examples in being selfless and true in our love for each other, just as how we love Him with all of our hearts, minds and strengths. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 11 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Matthew 5 : 43-48

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “You have heard that it was said : Love your neighbour and do not do good to your enemy. But this I tell you : love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in Heaven. For He makes His sun rise on both the wicked and the good, and He gives rain to both the just and the unjust.”

“If you love those who love you, what is special about that? Do not even tax collectors do as much? And if you are friendly only to your friends, what is so exceptional about that? Do not even the pagans do as much? As for you, be righteous and perfect in the way your heavenly Father is righteous and perfect.”

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Saturday, 11 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 118 : 1-2, 4-5, 7-8

Blessed are they whose ways are upright, who follow the Law of the Lord. Blessed are they who treasure His word and seek Him with all their heart.

You have laid down precepts to be obeyed. O, that my ways were steadfast in observing Your statutes!

I will praise You with an upright spirit when I learn Your just precepts by heart. I mean to observe Your commandments. O, never abandon me.

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Saturday, 11 March 2017 : 1st Week of Lent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Deuteronomy 26 : 16-19

On this day, YHVH, your God, commands you to fulfil these norms and these commandments. Obey them now and put them into practice with all your heart and with all your soul.

Today YHVH has declared to you that He will be your God, and so you shall follow His ways, observing His norms, His commandments and His laws, and listening to His voice. Today YHVH has declared that you will be His very own people even as He had promised you, and you must obey all His commandments.

He, for His part, will give you honour, renown and glory, and set you high above all the nations He has made, and you will become a nation consecrated to YHVH, your God, as He has declared.

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Saturday, 4 March 2017 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the healing which God is offering to all of us His people, which He had made by offer through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who came into this world in order to become the salvation for all the people, and become healing for all those who have fallen into the sickness of sin, the disease of our souls.

The message which the Lord our God had announced to all in today’s readings is that all of us ought to change our lives, and reorientate them towards the Lord, so that if we have once committed sins and wicked acts, we must stop them immediately, no longer disobeying the Lord and His laws, and instead, beginning to follow Him and obey His ways, in all the things we do in this life.

God is merciful and loving, and He wants each and every one of us to be saved and freed from the torment of our sufferings because of our sins. He wants all of us to receive grace, peace and blessings because we have found our way to Him, and no longer are lost in the darkness of this world. That is why He had given His mercy and love so freely through Christ, through Whom He gathered all of us to Himself.

However, many of us do not realise that it is we ourselves who have been stubborn and resistant to God’s mercy and love. We have not been willing to welcome God’s mercy in our hearts, and all of these is because of first of all, our human pride and ego, refusing to believe that we have erred or committed a mistake in our lives. We are not willing to allow God to come in and transform our lives, just because we have too much ego and cannot bear others to see that we have humbled ourselves.

That was exactly what happened to the Pharisees and the elders, the teachers of the Law and the chief priests. Many of them criticised Jesus for having embraced and walked among the tax collectors and prostitutes, and even calling some of His disciples from among them, one of whom was Levi, whose calling was part of the Gospel we heard today. Jesus called Levi from his tax collector post, and he willingly left behind everything in order to follow Him.

Those tax collectors had been hated and resented by the population as a whole, because especially upon the instigation of the Pharisees, they had been seen as traitors of the nations and the people, having worked with their Roman conquerors and helping them in administrative works such as the collection of taxes, resented by the people as a whole.

But many of them were aware of their status and their sins, and when God called them through Jesus His Son, they responded in kind and turned away from their sinful ways, as Levi had done, and followed Him wholeheartedly. They followed Him and were saved because of their sins, and because they humbled themselves before God, fully knowing of their sins and unworthiness, unlike that of those who have accused them.

The same mercy and love have been offered by God to all, but while those who accepted God’s mercy were forgiven, those who refused to acknowledge their sins had not received His mercy. They have haughtily thought that they were worthy of God but they have overlooked their own sins. They thought that they were without blame, but they failed to recognise their own shortcomings and sins. In this manner, those tax collectors and sinners they had ridiculed came before them in attaining God’s salvation and grace.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what we need to understand from today’s Scripture readings is that, no one is truly beyond God’s forgiveness and ability to forgive, unless they themselves reject being loved and being forgiven by God. God extended His love and grace to all, without any exceptions, and therefore all of us need to respond in kind, doing what we can in order to love Him back, and devote ourselves to Him.

This season of Lent is a very good opportunity for us to reevaluate ourselves and our lives, whether we are ready to continue moving forward in our path towards God’s grace and salvation, or whether we need time to reevaluate and rethink the direction of our lives. It is a good time for us to heed the examples of the holy saints and the holy people of God in the ages past, who had lived a righteous and worthy lives, as examples for us to emulate and follow.

St. Casimir of Poland for example, the holy saint whose feast we celebrate today, is an exceptional role model for our faith. He was a royal prince of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, and eventually became its crown prince after the death of his elder brother. However, despite his noble and high position in life, St. Casimir was renowned to be a person filled with humility and compassion, known for his charity and love for the poor, and for his pious works and devotions to God.

He led a life wholly committed and dedicated to the Lord, and showed others by example on how they ought to be faithful to their Lord and God. He inspired many others in following his footsteps and after his early death at the age of twenty-five, many people continued to venerate him and follow on his examples in their lives, imitating the holy saint for his exemplary life and piety.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on our own lives today and henceforth, and remembering what St. Casimir had done, let us all open our hearts to the Lord, allowing Him to enter into them and thus transforming us from dirty and unclean vessels into worthy and glorious vessels of His Presence. Remember that God Himself has chosen to reside in us, and therefore, all of us need to turn away from our sins and embrace God’s mercy and love. Sin no more and follow the Lord in all that we say and do.

May the Lord be with us all, and may He strengthen us and our resolve to be ever more faithful to Him. Let us all throw far away our pride and arrogance, our human resistance and weaknesses, that we will not end up like the Pharisees who rejected God’s love and mercy, but instead be like Levi and the tax collectors, who humbly repented their sins, and were gloriously transformed by God’s love. May God bless us all always. Amen.

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Saturday, 4 March 2017 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Luke 5 : 27-32

At that time, Jesus went out, and noticing a tax collector named Levi, sitting in the tax-office, He said to him, “Follow Me!” So Levi, leaving everything, got up and followed Jesus.

Levi gave a great feast for Jesus, and many tax collectors came to his house, and took their places at the table with the other people. Then the Pharisees and their followers complained to Jesus’ disciples, “How is it that you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

But Jesus spoke up, “Healthy people do not need a doctor, but sick people do. I have not come to call the just, but sinners to a change of heart.”

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Saturday, 4 March 2017 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 85 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6

Listen, o Lord, and answer me, for I am afflicted and needy. Preserve my life for I am God-fearing; save Your servant who trusts in You.

Have mercy on me, o Lord, for I cry to You all day. Bring joy to the soul of Your servant, for You, o Lord, I lift up my soul.

You are good and forgiving, o Lord, caring for those who call on You. Listen, o Lord, to my prayer, hear the voice of my pleading.

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Saturday, 4 March 2017 : Saturday after Ash Wednesday, Memorial of St. Casimir (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 fail. 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, 25 February 2017 : 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, on this day the Scripture passages reminds us of the love which God had given us generously and willingly, that He has blessed us beyond all other beings in creations, far surpassing even the Angels and other creatures. We are all reminded of the kindness of our Lord, Who treated us not as slaves and servants, but instead as children, and as He is our Father, He blesses us and treats us in the best way that is possible for us.

He has created us in His own image and blessed us so abundantly, that no one else could have hoped to compare with us. For we mankind have been made to be God’s very own children, to partake in His inheritance and in His glory, and to enjoy forever the blessed fruits of the glorious kingdom of God. That was what God intended for us mankind, certainly not to see us suffer and perish in the darkness and sin, but instead to have us enjoy the fullness of His love for us.

Yet, we all know that we have spurned the love of God and rejected the grace which He had offered us. We have disobeyed Him as those who have lost their way and chose to follow their own paths, and although God had revealed His glory and might in various occasions throughout history, we mankind often always tried to find reasons and excuses for not following Him and fall deep into the wickedness of our sins.

This is when all of us should heed what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples in today’s Gospel reading, that all of His people ought to welcome the children and allow them to come to the Lord, and embrace Him, and follow the examples of these children in their own faith. And there is indeed a very good reason in this, and this requires us to understand what the faith of a child is like.

A child is a very innocent person, whose heart and mind is still pure and unburdened by the many concerns of the world. Unlike many of us, a child is still pure at heart, and the faith of a child is a pure faith. The children look towards the Lord and desire to be with Him, because that is our true human nature, who have been created out of love by God, and in that love, we receive the grace and the desire to love Him back.

Unfortunately, we have often been distracted by the many worldly concerns and temptations. Yes, all the things that have distracted us and kept us away from being able to truly be able to love the Lord with all our hearts. We have been burdened by monetary concerns, by the temptations of worldly pleasures, the sinful pleasures of the flesh, the temptation of desire, lust, the pull of pride, ambition and human greed. These are all the things that have kept us away from God.

We need to spend some time to think about this, brothers and sisters in Christ. Have we been so occupied and distracted by our worldly living and concerns that we have failed to see the real purpose and aim of our life, that is our God, and to love Him with all of our heart and with all of our strength just as He Himself had loved us first? This is what we all need to do, and we need to begin from now if we have not done so yet.

Let us all seek to purify ourselves from all forms of sins and wickedness, that all of us will be like children in our faith, genuine and true, unmasked by all the ugliness of our sins, desires, human greed and all the other things that have kept us away from God. Let us show the Lord our God, that we are truly worthy of being the ones to receive the inheritance which He had intended for us when He created us. Let us prove that we want to be with Him, and desire to be reconciled and be reunited with Him.

May the Lord continue to love us, and may He continue to be merciful towards us, that in all of our daily lives and daily works, we may gradually be more and more attuned to His ways and learn to be more like Him in all our ways, actions, words and deeds. May the Lord help us on this journey to return to Him, that all of us may be filled with joy. God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 25 February 2017 : 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.