Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 146 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Alleluia! How good it is to sing to our God, how sweet and befitting to praise Him! The Lord rebuilds Jerusalem; He gathers the exiles of Israel.
He heals their broken hearts and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of stars, He calls each of them by name.
The Lord is great and mighty in power; His wisdom is beyond measure. The Lord lifts up the humble, but casts the wicked to the ground.
Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Isaiah 30 : 19-21, 23-26
O people of Zion, who dwell in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. When you cry, YHVH will listen; when He hears, He will answer. When the Lord has given you the bread of anguish and the water of distress, He, your Teacher will hide no longer. Your own eyes will see Him, and your ear will listen to His words behind you : “This is the way, walk in it.”
He will then give rain for the seed you sow and make the harvest abundant from the crops you grow. On that day your cattle will graze in wide pastures. Your beasts of burden will eat silage tossed to them with pitchfork and shovel.
For on the day of the great slaughter, when fortresses fall, streams of water will flow on every mountain and lofty hill. The light of the moon will be as light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven times greater, like the light of seven days, when YHVH binds up the wounds of His people and heals the bruises inflicted by His blows.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, the last day of our current liturgical year, as is the norms for the Scripture readings taken for these period of time, we always heard about the coming of the end of days, when the devil would amount one last attempt to destroy God’s people and to persecute all the faithful through the means of force, gathering all the forces of the wicked one last time against God and His majesty.
The four great beasts that arose symbolised the powers of this world, the princes and lieutenants of the evil one, and the last of which is the great enemy himself, the devil, Lucifer, once the greatest and mightiest of the angels and creations of the Lord, but who had fallen far in his pride, vanity and greed to be a great demon and destroyer of the world, known by us now as Satan.
And daily, every single day of our lives, Satan and his forces, his fellow fallen angels are battling our guardian angels, the angels sent to protect us, for the sake of our souls, that they may corrupt them and bring us down into damnation together with them in the eternal fire. As he was not able to ascend above the angels of God and seize the throne of God, thus, Satan is filled with hatred and jealousy against all of us, who are God’s most beloved and favoured ones.
And he had attempted many times to bring all of us down with him, beginning from when he seduced our first forefathers into sin, by disobeying the Lord and thus sundered from the love and grace He had given them, and by that, he subjected mankind to himself and to his dominion through sin and evil. And through sin he manipulated mankind that many souls fell into his prey.
He introduced to us many forms of wickedness and sins of this world, engaging us in leisurely and pleasurable pursuits of the flesh, in acts that are against God’s will and in things that distract us and keep us away from being able to understand the truth about how wicked we have become, and how far we have gone astray from the salvation and eternal life in God.
We have to remember the examples of those who lived during the time of Noah, when the Great Flood came to destroy all forms of life and civilisations of those who had been deemed wicked by the Lord. Those people enjoyed life and acted as if God did not exist, and they did not obey the Lord’s commandments and laws but instead following their own hearts’ desires.
And there was indeed no warning to them save for the works of Noah who built the great Ark to save the living animals and beings as instructed by the Lord, and those who ignored the signs shown by the Lord, seeking their repentance surely would have regretted it in hell, when the great flood and rain came to eradicate all of them from existence, and cleanse the earth from their wickedness.
This is a reminder to all of us, to always be ready and be vigilant of all things around us, that we will always guard our thoughts, our words and actions, so that in all things, we will not go against the Lord and we will always walk in His ways faithfully. We must not have the thoughts that we have all the time we need, and as long as we atone in the end, the Lord will forgive us our sins and absolve us into eternal life.
Remember, that Jesus had repeatedly made it clear that His coming again will not come announced and predictable. He will not make His coming known and He can just appear again at any time in accordance with His will. And if His coming, like that of a thief, catch us all unprepared, certainly we will not want ourselves to end up on the wrong side of the Lord’s judgment.
On the day of judgment, God will separate the people and everything into two sides, namely those who have been faithful to Him and walked in His ways, and those who have not been obedient to Him. Those whom He had rejected will have no hope for salvation and no hope for escape from the eternal damnation and the eternal fire that awaits them, to punish them for eternity. We certainly do not want to be caught amongst these condemned ones.
Instead, we all should from now on, from this very moment onwards, strive to do our best in following God in all of His ways. Let us no longer be selfish or greedy in our actions, but learn to do our best in loving each other, caring for the poor, the sick and the dying, and let all of our words and deeds be filled with love, so that when our Lord comes again, He will see the righteousness in us and bless us. God be with us all, now and forever. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Luke 21 : 34-36
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “Be on your guard, do not immerse yourselves in a life of pleasure, drunkenness and worldly cares, lest that day catch you unaware, like a trap! For, like a snare, will that day come upon all the inhabitants of the earth.”
“But watch at all times and pray, that you may be able to escape all that is going to happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Daniel 3 : 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87
All people on earth, praise and exalt Him forever.
Israel, praise and exalt Him forever.
Priests of the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
Servants of the Lord, praise and exalt Him forever.
Spirits and souls of the just, praise and exalt Him forever.
Those who are holy and humble of heart, praise and exalt Him forever.
Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Saturday Mass of our Lady)
Daniel 7 : 15-27
I, Daniel, was deeply troubled, since these visions terrified me. I approached one of those who were standing there, and asked him to tell me what all this meant. He answered me and gave me the interpretation of these things :
“These four beasts are four kings who will rise from the earth. But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom to possess it eternally, forever and ever.” Then I wanted to know the meaning of the fourth beast, different from the others, extraordinarily terrifying, with iron teeth and bronze claws, that ate, and tore into pieces and crushed underfoot whatever remained.
I also wanted to know about the ten horns it had on its head, and about the other horn which had sprung up, and the three first horns that fell, and about this horn with eyes and a mouth that spoke with arrogance, and that looked greater than the other horns.
As I looked, this horn waged war against the holy ones and was subduing them until the One of Great Age came to do justice for the holy ones of the Most High, and the time came for the holy ones to take possession of the kingdom.
Then I was told : “The fourth animal shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, different from all the kingdoms. It will devour the earth, crush it and destroy it. The ten horns are ten kings who shall rise from this kingdom. Another one will rise up after them and destroy three kings.”
“This king shall insult the Most High and persecute the holy ones of the Most High. He shall try to change the feasts and the laws. The holy ones shall be handed over to his power for a time, two times, and half a time.”
“But judgment will come and dominion will be taken from him; he shall be destroyed and utterly wiped out. The kingship, dominion and leadership of all the kingdoms of the world shall be given to the people of the holy ones of God Most High : His kingdom will be without end. All the kingdoms shall serve Him and be subject to Him.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we commemorate the feast of the dedication and presentation of the Blessed Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin Mary. On this day, we remember the time, just as His Son Jesus was presented before God at His Temple, she was also presented in the same manner, just as the Law of God revealed through Moses had prescribed.
In the Scripture reading of today that we have heard, we witnessed how mankind fell into sin through the instigation of the devil who persuaded them to sin by disobedience against the Lord, tempting them with false promises of power and greatness that would be ours if we would just eat of the forbidden fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, without knowing the consequences of such disobedience would bring us.
But God Who punished them for their sins and disobedience did not entirely gave them up to destruction and condemnation. Instead, He gave them a new opportunity, the chance for them to change their ways, turn around from their sinfulness and rebellion, and therefore regained the favour of God and from their position of shame and from the punishments they endured, they would emerge triumphant of having resisted the temptation of Satan unto the end.
And God promised to mankind that deliverance and hope would come, and even though Satan would have the first bite at us, inflicting upon us, generations upon generations of mankind, the bitterness of the sufferings of the world because of our sins, just as the Lord had said that there would be bitter feud between the sons of men and the forces of the evil one, therefore, the salvation would come through the Woman whom God had promised to be the one through whom the Saviour would come forth into the world.
And this Woman is Mary, the special one among mankind whom God had prepared since the beginning to be the one through whom the salvation of the world would come, that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, born from her through the power of the Holy Spirit and by the Will of God the Father. But it was not because of Mary’s own might and power that she had done all these, but rather through her humility and obedience to the will of God.
Yes, Mary is the new Eve just as Christ is the new Adam according to St. Paul. While the old Eve, the first woman sinned and disobeyed the Lord because she was unable to hold her desires, the new Eve, that is Mary was obedient to God in all things, and she accepted fully the role she was to play in the salvation of all mankind.
Both Eve were born without sin, for Eve was created by God from the flesh and bones of men without the taints of sin, for creation was pure and without sin in the beginning. Meanwhile, Mary was specially prepared by the Lord to be immaculate, free from the taints of sin in any form from the very moment of her conception. This is because she was to be the mother of the Lord God of all creations, and the Lord most holy, Who certainly would not deserve a vessel tainted by sin.
Yet, if we notice, it was the choice that the new Eve took that differentiated her from the very first Eve, who chose the other option. The first Eve chose the world and all of its glories, the temptation of knowledge and power that tempted her and turn her away from the way of the Lord. But Mary, the new Eve did not choose that path. Instead, she chose obedience and complete submission to God.
Therefore, as we celebrate today’s feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, when Mary the mother of our Lord, the new Eve was presented pure and blameless before the Lord on His Temple, let us all also commit ourselves to the Lord, renewing our faith and our dedication to the Lord our God. We all also need to model ourselves after our role model in faith, Mary, whose faith in the Lord was truly remarkable.
It is not impossible for us to walk in her ways, as we lead our lives on in the path of God. What we need is conviction and genuine desire for us to lead a life that is in accordance to God’s will, and be thoroughly and completely devoted in our ways, so that in all the things we say and do, we always do them or say them in the Name of the Lord and for the greater glory of God.
May Almighty God be with us all, forgive us all our sins, and may He guide us on the path to His everlasting happiness and glory. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Matthew 12 : 46-50
At that time, while Jesus was still talking to the people, His mother and His brothers wanted to speak to Him, and they waited outside. So someone said to Him, “Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside; they want to speak with You.”
Jesus answered, “Who is My mother? Who are My brothers?” Then He pointed to His disciples and said, “Look! Here are My mother and My brothers. Whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is for Me brother, sister or mother.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 1 : 46-47, 48-49, 50-51, 52-53, 54-55
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit exults in God my Saviour.
He has looked upon His servant in her lowliness, and people forever will call me blessed. The Mighty One has done great things for me, Holy is His Name!
From age to age His mercy extends to those who live in His presence. He has acted with power and done wonders, and scattered the proud with their plans.
He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up those who are downtrodden. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.
He held out His hand to Israel, His servant, for He remembered His mercy, even as He promised to our fathers, to Abraham and his descendants forever.
Liturgical Colour : White
Zechariah 2 : 14-17
“Sing and rejoice, o daughter of Zion, for I am about to come, I shall dwell among you,” says YHVH.
“On that day, many nations will join YHVH and be My people, but My dwelling is among you.” The people of Judah will be for YHVH as His portion in His holy land. He will choose Jerusalem again.
Keep still in YHVH’s presence, for He comes, having risen from His holy dwelling.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 