Saturday

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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.

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

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

1 Samuel 9 : 1-4, 17-19 and 1 Samuel 10 : 1a

There was a man from the tribe of Benjamin whose name was Kish. He was the son of Abiel, son of Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a valiant Benjaminite. Kish had a son named Saul, a handsome young man who had no equal among the Israelites, for he was a head taller than any of them.

It happened that the asses of Kish were lost. So he said to his son Saul, “Take one of the boys with you and go look for the asses.” They went all over the hill country of Ephraim and the land of Shalishah but did not find them. They passed through the land of Shaalim and the land of Benjamin, but the asses were nowhere to be found.

So, when Samuel saw Saul, YHVH told him, “Here is the man I spoke to you about! He shall rule over My people.” Saul approached Samuel in the gateway and said, “Tell me, where is the house of the seer?”

Samuel answered Saul, “I am the seer. Go up ahead of me to the high place, for today you shall eat with me. In the morning, before you leave, I will tell you all that is in your heart.

Then Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on Saul’s head.

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Saturday, 11 January 2014 : Saturday after the Epiphany (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

We may be confused at first, when we listened to the first reading today, how that there are two kinds of sin, one that does not lead to death and one that leads to death. But indeed, there are indeed two kinds of sin that we know of in the Church, one being the venial sins, the lesser sins that are not very serious, and the other being the mortal sins, sins that are both heavy and serious in consequences.

But this does not mean that we should not take all sins seriously. Indeed, every kind of sins are serious and deadly, no matter how light or small they are. We cannot treat sinfulness lightly or we may end up in death. What is this death? As we all know, that the Lord is the Lord of life, and in Him, we have hope of eternal life, and liberation from the power of sin and death.

If we sin, that we are no longer worthy of the Lord, who is perfect in goodness. Yes, goodness that is not marred by sin. Sin, no matter how small, prevents us from truly reuniting ourselves with the love of God. And you all know that even if you build a building slowly, brick by brick, it will eventually become a large building. So it is the same as our sins then.

That is why as the Church had taught us, it is important for us to go to confession frequently, and not just that, but resolve to live a life without sin, as best as we can, every single day of our life. Confession should not be taken lightly, nor should we fear it. That is because the priests who hear our confession has been given with the authority from on high to forgive sins, just as with Jesus Christ, our Lord, who is Lord over all and had the authority to forgive sins, which He imparted to His disciples and from them, to our priests.

Do not fear, for the priests are also charged with the maintenance of the seal of confession, that is nothing that is shared by us to the priests should ever be made known to anyone else other than the priest. We should not fear to confess even our most secret sin. After all, the Lord is a loving and forgiving God, who will see that we are sorry for having sinned against Him and if we truly repented our sinfulness.

Sin is serious, brothers and sisters in Christ, and we should be conscious of our own sins, and understand the malice of sin above all else. Venial sins or small sins may not be a big hinder to our relationship with God, but they do make up to a big mountain of sin if we continue to do them without considering our state of sin.

We should indeed adopt the example of St. John the Baptist, who in great humility proclaimed the greatness of God, how great He was as compared to himself who is just mere servant of God. He readily said to his own disciples how he should decrease in importance while the Lord rose in importance. He did not let His human pride to get in the way, unlike many of us.

We often let fear and our human pride in the way of forgiveness. We do not let the Lord to come and absolve us from our sinfulness. We stood by our pride and let the devil to urge us to continue with our rebellion against God. No, this is not the way we should follow. Instead, cast aside our pride and fear, and instead put in a complete trust in the Lord and in His love and forgiveness.

Let us therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, from now on, follow the steps of St. John the Baptist, lowering ourselves humbly before God, and asking for His forgiveness from our sins, that we will be made righteous once again through our. Lord Jesus Christ, who sanctified and made holy all those who believe in Him. Let us be thrall of sin and evil no more, and let us from this day henceforth, be free and liberated!

Go often to confession and confess our wrongs to God, for our loving Father will surely hear us, forgive us, and embrace us with His love. God forgive our sins and be with us all always. Amen.

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Saturday, 11 January 2014 : Saturday after the Epiphany (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 22-30

After this, Jesus went into the territory of Judea with His disciples. He stayed there with them and baptised. John was also baptising in Aenon, near Salim, where water was plentiful; people came to him and were baptised. This happened before John was put in prison.

Now John’s disciples had been questioned by a Jew about spiritual cleansing, so they came to John and said, “Rabbi, the One who was with you across the Jordan, and about whom you spoke favourably, is now baptising, and all are going to Him.”

John answered, “No one can receive anything, except what has been given to him from heaven. You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before Him.’ Only the bridegroom has the bride; but the friend of the bridegroom stands by and listens, and rejoices to hear the bridegroom’s voice. My joy is now full.”

“It is necessary that He increase but that I decrease.”

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Saturday, 11 January 2014 : Saturday after the Epiphany (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 149 : 1-6, 9

Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in His Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!

Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.

The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, and in their hands two-edged swords.

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Saturday, 11 January 2014 : Saturday after the Epiphany (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 5 : 14-21

Through Him we are fully confident that whatever we ask, according to His will, He will grant us. If we know that He hears us whenever we ask, we know that we already have what we asked of Him.

If you see your brother committing sin, a sin which does not lead to death, pray for him, and God will give life to your brother. I speak, of course, of the sin which does not lead to death. There is also a sin that leads to death; I do not speak of praying about this. Every kind of wrongdoing is sin, but not all sin leads to death.

We know that those born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them and the evil one does not touch them. We know that we belong to God, while the whole world lies in evil.

We know that the Son of God has come and has given us power to know the truth. We are in Him who is true, His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

My dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

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Saturday, 4 January 2014 : Weekday of Christmas Time (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear about the call that Jesus made to His first disciples, when St. John the Baptist announced to the people, the truth about Jesus, that is the Lamb of God. One may ask, why Lamb of God? To answer this, we have to look at the role of the lamb in the society of Israel and the faith that they had, that is following the laws of God as given through Moses.

The lamb is one of the few animals mentioned at the Book of Leviticus, used in the offerings to God, which in this book, were used for various purposes. The most important of these sacrifices were the sin and burnt offerings to God, in which the animals were slaughtered and their blood on the Altar of God represent the cleansing of the sins of God’s people, and the purification of their souls.

But these offering of lambs and other animals as sin offerings, were only temporary. They did not completely erase the sins of the people, nor did they justify the people in God. The people were only given a breather in their sinful daily lives, and they have to offer the sacrifices again and again to keep themselves worthy of the Lord.

That is because, even though unblemished lamb supposed to be used, they are not perfect, not in the way that the Lamb of God is perfect in all aspects. Then, to add to the point of the truth about the Lamb of God, we have to also remember about what happened when God saved His people Israel from their slavery in Egypt. God asked the people through Moses, to find unblemished lamb, and slaughter it so that its blood could be used to mark the houses of God’s people.

The blood let it known to the angels of death sent by God to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians, that the houses marked by the blood belong to God. Yes, death passed the houses of the faithful who obeyed the Lord, and the people of Israel were saved and liberated by the Lord who loved them. In this light therefore, we too, should see the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.

For indeed we can define the role of Lord Jesus Christ in these two characteristics. First that Jesus is the Lamb of sacrifice, the most worthy of all, to be the offering for all of our sins. As Jesus is Himself God incarnate, He is perfect and indeed the only One perfect to redeem us from our sinfulness, and to make worthy again all the people of God.

Then secondly, Jesus is the Lamb whose Blood becomes the mark of all the faithful ones in God, that when the Day of Judgment comes, God will know those who belong to Him, and those who had remained faithful and true to His ways. Remember that Jesus in the Last Supper gave His own Body and Blood in the transformed bread and wine for His disciples to eat and drink.

This is very much in the same way as the lamb of the Passover, where the lamb was slaughtered, and it was eaten by the family of the people who slaughtered it, and the blood used to mark the houses of the faithful. Jesus is our Passover Lamb, or more precisely the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, who brought with Him the joy and hope of Easter. In this perfect sacrifice of Christ, which He made on the cross, He reunited mankind to the Lord, and made the whole creation to be filled once again with hope.

Jesus did not come into this world for leisure or without a clear purpose. He had a clear aim, that is to liberate mankind from their slavery to sin and evil, ever since mankind were sundered from God after they had sinned. Jesus laid Himself freely for us, as a lamb led to the place of slaughter, just as He went through grievous scourging and suffering during His Passion and way towards the cross. All these, He did for our sake, that we may be free forever from the dominion of sin and evil.

Yet, as we all know, brethren, many of us still live in darkness and prefer to be in the darkness rather than to be in the light. We turn ourselves away from the Lamb. He offered us freely the graces He had poured onto us with His sacrifice, and yet we still prefer to rebel against Him and reject His offer of salvation and eternal life.

We prefer to live in our sinfulness and our current way of life, instead of seeking the Lord in the way that the disciples had done. Remember what happened when John the Baptist proclaimed to the disciples, that Jesus is the Lamb of God. The disciples straight away went and follow Him, without questioning and without doubting!

Can we too, brothers and sisters, profess our faith in Jesus in the same way? Jesus offered Himself to us, for our sake, and died for us on the cross, that we will be saved and received new life in Him. He went quietly and obediently to the slaughtering table, so that we ourselves will not have to endure death and its punishment for eternity. We are sinners yes, but we do have the capacity and ability to change ourselves for the better.

Therefore, let us today seek first to know more about our Lord, the Lamb of God, and then learn to love Him and seek Him more and more, that we will be more intimate in our relationship with Him. Let us not be ignorant of His love but instead seek to increase even more the love we have for Him. May the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, free us from the hands of Satan, and bring us into new life eternal. Amen.

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Saturday, 4 January 2014 : Weekday of Christmas Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 1 : 35-42

On the following day John was standing there again with two of his disciples. As Jesus walked by, John looked at Him and said, “There is the Lamb of God.” On hearing this, the two disciples followed Jesus.

He turned and saw them following, and He said to them, “What are you looking for?” They answered, “Rabbi (which means Master), where are You staying?” Jesus said, “Come and see.” So they went and saw where He stayed, and spent the rest of that day with Him. It was about four o’ clock in the afternoon.

Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard what John had said, and followed Jesus. Early the next morning he found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means the Christ), and he brought Simon to Jesus.

Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, son of John, but you shall be called Cephas (which means Rock).”

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Saturday, 4 January 2014 : Weekday of Christmas Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 97 : 1, 7-8, 9

Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.

Let the sea resound and everything in it, the world and all its peoples. Let rivers clap their hands, hills and mountains sing with joy before the Lord,

For He comes to rule the earth. He will judge the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.