Saturday

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Saturday, 1 February 2014 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of our Lady)

Mark 4 : 35-41

On that same day, when evening had come, Jesus said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” So they left the crowd, and took Him away in the boat He had been sitting in, and other boats set out with Him.

Then a storm gathered and it began to blow a gale. The waves spilled over into the boat, so that it was soon filled with water. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion.

They woke Him up, and said, “Master, do You not care if we drown?” And rising up, Jesus rebuked the wind, and ordered the sea, “Quiet now! Be still!”

The wind dropped, and there was a great calm. Then Jesus said to them, “Why are you so frightened? Do you still have no faith?”

But they were terrified, and they said to one another, “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

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Saturday, 1 February 2014 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of our Lady)

Psalm 50 : 12-13, 14-15, 16-17

Create in me, o God, a pure heart; give me a new and steadfast spirit. Do not cast me out of Your presence nor take Your Holy Spirit from me.

Give me again the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. Then I will show wrongdoers Your ways and sinners will return to You.

Deliver me, o God, from the guilt of blood, and of Your justice I shall sing aloud. O Lord, open my lips, and I will declare Your praise.

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Saturday, 1 February 2014 : 3rd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Mass of our Lady)

2 Samuel 12 : 1-7a, 10-17

So YHVH sent the prophet Nathan to David. Nathan went to the king and said to him, “There were two men in a city : one was rich; the other, poor. The rich man had many sheep and cattle, but the poor man had only one little ewe lamb he had bought. He himself fed it and it grew up with him and his children. It shared his food, drank from his cup, and slept on his lap. It was like a daughter to him.”

“Now a traveller came to the rich man, but he would not take from his own flock or herd to prepare food for the traveller. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared that for his visitor.”

David was furious because of this man and told Nathan, “As YHVH lives, the man who has done this deserves death! He must return the lamb fourfold for acting like this and showing no compassion.”

Nathan said to David, “You are this man! YHVH speaks : ‘Now the sword will never be far from your family because you have despised Me and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite for yourself.'”

“Thus says YHVH : Your misfortune will rise from your own house! I will take your wives from you and give them to your neighbour who shall lie with them in broad daylight. What you did was done secretly, but what I do will be done before Israel in broad daylight.”

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against YHVH.” Nathan answered him, “YHVH has forgiven your sin; you shall not die. However, because you have dared to despise YHVH by doing such a thing, the child that is born to you shall die.” Then Nathan left and went to his house.

YHVH struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David and he became sick. David entreated God for the child; he kept a strict fast and lay on the ground the whole night. The elders of his house asked him to rise from the ground but he refused. Nor did he join them to eat.

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Saturday, 25 January 2014 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today is a great feast in the Church, and a day when we should really celebrate, that is because today we celebrate the conversion of St. Paul the Apostle, which was a great event that had repercussions and effects, even on all of us here. Today commemorated that day when God appeared to St. Paul, then known as Saul, and made him to have a total change of heart.

St. Paul was once Saul, a great sinner, the enemy of the Church and all the faithful of God, and the scourge of the Christians and all those who believed in Jesus. Saul was a typical zealot of the faith of the people of God, the Jews, educated in the courts and learnt the faith following the ways of the Pharisees and the scribes, and he developed a particularly hostile and violent opposition to the faithful ones of Christ.

In accordance with the stance of the Pharisees and the Temple against the followers of Jesus, Saul went even further and mercilessly imprisoned many of the faithful, without even showing mercy to women and children. In his burning zeal for the Lord and in his misguided state due to the teachings of the Pharisees, he mistook the purpose that God had for him, and instead committed great sins by condemning many innocents who kept their faith in God.

But it was also in Saul, later to be called Paul after his conversion, that God had a great plan of renewal. The conversion of Paul was accompanied with his baptism by Ananias, and indeed that experience of conversion was truly akin to that of baptism, with our own baptism, that is with total and profound change of the heart. God called Saul on the way to Damascus, in his hot pursuit of God’s faithful, and revealed to him the false way that he had been following all those while.

In Paul, God wants to show us that there is no sinner who is beyond salvation or hope. Yes, just as Christ Himself said that He came to seek sinners and to bring them back into the light of God, embracing those who were rejected and cast out of the society because of their sinfulness. The conversion of Paul showed that, even with the numerous sins he had committed by torturing and participating in the massacre of the faithful including that of St. Stephen, the first martyr, he was not beyond redemption.

God called him and he listened. He let the Lord to enter into his heart and spoke to Him. And he did not refuse to listen to the truth being transmitted to Him, either directly or through Ananias, who baptised him and marked him to belong in God and His Church. The Holy Spirit therefore came into Paul, and the blindness that had afflicted him for so long, that is the blindness of his heart and his spirit, was removed.

When Paul was healed from his blindness by Ananias, it was not just that he could physically see again, but through the water of baptism, he could then see the truth behind the Lord and His plan of salvation which He had brought via Jesus, which Paul had been mistakenly condemning and attacking, in blind obedience to the false and corrupted faith of the Pharisees.

Paul therefore, was turned from once the greatest enemy of the faith and all the Church of God, into its greatest champion, the bravest and most courageous defender of the faith, who daringly went to testify for the Lord, for the truth that had been revealed to him in his conversion, from the way to Damascus, and all the way to the end of his life in martyrdom in Rome.

St. Paul was a crucial persona in the era of the early Church, for it was St. Paul who helped to bridge the Church from its earliest foundations in Jerusalem and Judea, to be a truly universal Church, by spreading it throughout the Roman Empire, not least helped by St. Paul’s own extensive visits throughout the Empire, in his four journeys, which saw him travelling to cities across the Mediterranean, spreading the faith, correcting errors in the faith and guiding the people to God.

St. Paul and his letters to the various Church communities and peoples also helped further in this evangelisation of the Good News, especially to those who had never seen or experienced Christ before when He was still in this world. St. Paul built a stronger foundation and affirm the cornerstone, the prime foundation which Christ had placed on Peter, His Vicar, and together with Peter, he became the cornerstones of the Universal Church, enabling it to persevere through centuries of persecutions by the pagan Emperors and to eventually thrive and save countless souls from damnation.

But the works of St. Paul were not done there yet. Even though he and the other Apostles and disciples of Christ, with other innumerable martyrs met their end at the hands of their executioners, the mission that Christ had laid on them never ended. To proclaim the Good News to all creation, and to make all mankind the disciples of the Lord through baptism and faith, these are the missions which ring true even today.

Today the world is increasingly covered again in darkness, with many people turning their back on the faith and God, and many of them even actively and openly attack the Church through various means, that were meant to harm the Church directly or harm the faithful ones, that is us. It was on a way not much different from how it was in the early days of the Church, when the followers of Christ were looked at with suspicion and were hunted by the likes of St. Paul when he was still Saul, the enemy of Christ.

And following on the example of the conversion of Saul, from enemy to hero and defender of the faith, we too then can also draw the parallel to our modern day society. It is very easy indeed for us all to condemn and fight back against those who hated us and persecuted us, many of whom even were once our brethren in faith. Yet, is hatred and violence the way? No! That is because if we hate them, then we are no better than them.

Instead we should follow in the example of St. Stephen, who forgave his enemies and asked God not to take them into account for their sins. He and many other saints, and ultimately God Himself see in people like Saul and those who persecuted the faith, a hope, for their own redemption. Nobody is beyond redemption, and we too therefore should not close our gates to redemption. We should not exclude them or bar them from redemption through our actions.

Instead, follow in the example of St. Paul himself and other saints, loving these enemies of ours and turning them into our brethren. Welcome them into our hearts and open the gates of our love for them. Let them therefore experience the richness of God’s infinite love and mercy, that they may eventually see the light and repent, as St. Paul once did.

Forgiveness, mercy, and love can go a long way, brothers and sisters in Christ, and as disciples of Christ in this increasingly darkened age, we have lots of things to do, and much is expected from us. Let us pray therefore, that we will be strengthened in our resolve, and that through our deeds and actions we may proclaim the Lord and bring salvation to those who had abandoned God and His ways. God be with us all, always and forever. Amen.

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Saturday, 25 January 2014 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 16 : 15-18

Then He told them, “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Good News to all creation. The one who believes and is baptised will be saved; the one who refuses to believe will be condemned. Signs like these will accompany those who have believed :

“In My Name they will cast out demons and speak new languages; they will pick up snakes, and if they drink anything poisonous, they will be unharmed; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”

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Saturday, 25 January 2014 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 116 : 1, 2

Alleluia! Praise the Lord, all you nations; all you peoples, praise Him.

How great is His love for us! His faithfulness lasts forever.

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Saturday, 25 January 2014 : 2nd Week of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 22 : 3-16

Paul said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up here in this city when I was educated in the school of Gamaliel, according to the strict observance of our Law. And I was dedicated to God’s service, as are all of you today. As for this way, I persecuted it to the point of death and arrested its followers, both men and women, throwing them into prison.”

“The High Priest and the whole Council of elders can bear witness to this. From them I received letters for the Jewish brothers in Damascus and I set out to arrest those who were there and bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. But as I was travelling along, nearing Damascus, at about noon a great light from the sky suddenly flashed about me.”

“I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me : ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?’ I answered : ‘Who are You, Lord?’ And He said to me : ‘I am Jesus the Nazarean whom you persecute.'”

“The men who were with me saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me. I asked : ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord replied : ‘Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told all that you are destined to do.’ Yet the brightness of that light had blinded me and so I was led by the hand into Damascus by my companions.”

“There a certain Ananias came to me. He was a devout observer of the Law and well spoken of by all the Jews who were living there. As he stood by me, he said : ‘Brother Saul, recover your sight.’ At that moment I could see and I looked at him. He then said, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know His will, to see the Just One and to hear the words from His mouth.'”

“‘From now on you shall be His witness before all the pagan peoples and tell them all that you have seen and heard. And now, why delay? Get up and be baptised and have your sins washed away by calling upon His Name.'”

Alternative Reading

 

Acts 9 : 1-22

Meanwhile Saul considered nothing but violence and death for the disciples of the Lord. He went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues of Damascus that would authorise him to arrest and bring to Jerusalem anyone he might find, man or woman, belonging to the Way.

As he travelled along and was approaching Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul! Why do you persecute Me?”

And he asked, “Who are You, Lord?” The voice replied, “I am Jesus whom you persecute. Now get up and go into the city; there you will be told what you are to do.”

The men who were travelling with him stood there speechless : they had heard the sound, but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground and, opening his eyes, he could not see. They took him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. He was blind and he did not eat or drink for three days.

There was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias, to whom the Lord called in a vision, “Ananias!” He answered, “Here I am, Lord!” Then the Lord said to him, “Go at once to Straight Street and ask, at the house of Judas, for a man of Tarsus named Saul. You will find him praying, for he has just seen in a vision that a man named Ananias has come in and placed his hands upon him, to restore his sight.”

Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many sources about this man and all the harm he has done to Your saints in Jerusalem, and now he is here with authority from the High Priest to arrest all who call upon Your Name.”

But the Lord said to him, “Go! This man is My chosen instrument to bring My Name to the pagan nations and their kings, and the people of Israel as well. I Myself will show him how much he will have to suffer for My Name.”

So Ananias left and went to the house. He laid his hands upon Saul and said, “Saul, my brother, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me to you so that you may receive your sight and be filled with Holy Spirit.” Immediately something like scales fell from his eyes and he could see; he got up and was baptised. Then he took food and was strengthened.

For several days Saul stayed with the disciples at Damascus, and he soon began to proclaim in the synagogues that Jesus was the Son of God. All who heard were astonished and said, “Is this not the one who cast out in Jerusalem all those calling upon this Name? Did he not come here to bring them bound before the chief priests?”

But Saul grew more and more powerful, and he confounded the Jews living in Damascus when he proved that Jesus was the Messiah.

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Saturday, 18 January 2014 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflections)

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

Today brethren, we heard about how God had chosen Saul, from the tribe of Benjamin, to be the king over His people Israel, and how He instructed Samuel, His prophet and servant, to deliver His will to Saul and later on, to let it be known to the people.

He anointed Saul through His servant Samuel, that Saul be filled with His own Spirit bearing power and authority, that He be granted wisdom and power, which came from God, to lead the people of God through righteous life and obedience to the Lord, and make sure that the people of God faithfully keep the laws and commandments of God without turning from them or abandoning them.

But sadly, Saul, and many other kings of Israel did not remain faithful to God, and followed their own ways and desires, in ruling the people, misusing the power given to them and the authority entrusted to them. They became tyrants and abusers of power, serving their own needs and desires instead of serving the people of God.

The people of Israel were eventually lost and were scattered all over the world, after their kingdoms of Israel and Judah were destroyed by their enemies. They went into exile, and only a portion would eventually return to their Promised Land, and began anew, trying to once again obey the will of God and not walk the path of sinfulness as their ancestors had under the rule of the corrupt kings.

God resolved to show His infinite love for His people and for all mankind, the most beloved of all His creations, by sending to us His ultimate form of love, that is, Jesus Christ, His own Son, the Logos, the Word of God, who was made man, by the power of God, and born of the Virgin Mary. Jesus, as Lord, is the true King of all, for God is the true King over all creations, the Lord and King over all the universe. From God all authority and power comes.

But Jesus showed all of us, that true kingship is not one based on the abuse of power or tyranny. Even though He was Lord of all and King of all kings, and have all the power and authority He needed, He never showed them off or used them to push things to His advantage. The kingship of Jesus is one of true service for His people, to care and love them very, very much, so much that He even was willing to lay down His own life for them.

He also came to seek the lost and the ones without hope. He came to bring light to those who live in the darkness, especially those who were deeper and even deeper in darkness. That was why, when He came, He sought those who were sinful and considered the troubles of the society, the hated enemies of the people. Yes, people such as tax collectors, prostitutes, and those possessed by illnesses and the evil spirits.

Jesus came to bring them to the comfort of the light of God, and to show that they too deserve redemption, even more so because they were so deep in the risk of damnation. He also made the point that these people were truly capable of great deeds and great piety, even more than those who outwardly showed brilliant faith, but inside were not as brilliant as they seemed to be.

That was why, He as the King who has authority over us, and who is like a father to all of us, came to correct things as well as perceptions of the society, that we should not judge others based on their appearance or their deeds in the past. Yes, the likes of Saul, who was very tall and handsome, who seemed like the perfect choice for a regal king, and yet failed miserably, and the likes of the Pharisees, who outwardly showed faith in God but in their hearts there were no love for God, but only for themselves.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are called by our King, our Lord Jesus Christ, to be the beacons of light shining the way for those who have been lost in the darkness of this world. Let us imitate Jesus and seek out those who have been condemned and villified by the society, those ostracised and hated. Let us not hate or be prejudiced against them, but instead embracing them, that we show to them the love of God, that they too may believe and therefore be saved together with us.

May the Lord put in our hearts, the courage to embrace the least of our brothers and sisters, especially those who are looked down upon by the society, and those who are unloved and rejected. May God be with all of us, that together, we may help one another to find a way to seek the light, our King, the One and only True King, Jesus Christ our Lord and God! Amen.

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Saturday, 18 January 2014 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

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

Mark 2 : 13-17

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 Le vi, 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.”

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Saturday, 18 January 2014 : 1st Week of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

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

Psalm 20 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7

The king rejoices in Your strength, o Lord, and exults in Your saving help. You have granted him his desire; you have not rejected his request.

You have come to him with rich blessings; You have placed a golden crown upon his head. When he asked, You gave him life – length of days forever and ever.

He glories in the victory You gave him; You shall bestow on him splendour and majesty. You have given him eternal blessings, and gladdened him with the joy of Your presence.