Saturday

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Saturday, 4 January 2025 : 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 2025 : 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.

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Saturday, 4 January 2025 : Weekday of Christmas Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 John 3 : 7-10

My little children, do not be led astray; those who do what is right are upright, just as Jesus Christ is upright. But those who sin belong to the devil, for the devil sins from the beginning.

This is why the Son of God was shown to us, He was to undo the works of the devil. Those born of God do not sin, for the seed of God remains in them; they cannot sin because they are born of God. What is the way to recognise the children of God and those of the devil? The one who does not do what is right is not of God; so, too, the one who does not love his brother or sister.

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Saturday, 28 December 2024 : Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Holy Innocents, those young children and infants, mostly below the age of two years old, who in the Scriptures were mentioned as the victims of the greed and ego of mankind, being slaughtered mercilessly by the forces of King Herod the Great, the King of Judea at that time. This was done because King Herod was afraid of the threat that the newborn ‘King of the Jews’ prophesied by the prophets and messengers of God presented against him and his rule, and this made him to try to find ways to prevent this King from overcoming his and his family’s rule, and when things did not work out, he desperately launched that massacre against his own people.

For the context, we must first understand that historically, the rule of King Herod was far from secure in the beginning of his reign, and while after decades of rule he had managed to secure the kingdom that he had established and been patronised for by the Romans, who was the overlord of the region, King Herod would always be seen as a usurper to the rightful rulers of the land, firstly as he rose to power on the coattails of the Romans who came and conquered the region, and through manipulations and trickery, and political plays, he managed to gain the throne and kingship over the land. He was also not a member of the House of David, which historically had held the Kingship over Israel, and lastly, he was an Idumaean, hailing from a people neighbouring the Israelites, and hence, was not considered by some as true legitimate King.

That was part of the reason why King Herod the Great was often seen as insecure in his reign and way of ruling, and in his megalomania and often overly ambitious projects, which he made in order to secure that legitimacy over the ruling of the land of Israel and the people of God. He built the great Temple in Jerusalem, greatly expanding the previous Second Temple there likely to win over the support from the Jewish community and from their chief priests and elders. He built the great city of Caesarea, a great port city and trading centre, and naming it after Caesar, the Emperor Augustus in Rome, as an obvious effort to try to win and maintain the support of the Romans, without which he could not have secured his rule and the rule for his family and dynasty. He had many other projects and works designed to show his greatness to the people.

And all of these likely led to King Herod the Great being increasingly insecure, paranoid and ambitious, as the more we depend on worldly means, powers and all those means in order to achieve our objectives and goals, the more it is that we may become dependent on them. And that was what happened to King Herod the Great, as well as many other worldly rulers and all those who have allowed their desires, ambitions, pride and ego to mislead them down the path of ruin. To King Herod, he was certainly unwilling to let go everything that he had spent his whole life building up, all the great things that he had supposedly achieved, and hence, this led him to the desperate actions and wicked things such as the slaughter of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem just as we all heard in our Gospel passage today.

In our first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. John the Apostle, we heard of the Apostle writing to the people of God regarding the matter of sin, and how the faithful ought to respond and act with regards to the sins which they had all committed. And we heard of the power of God in healing us all from our many sins and wickedness, and how He has sent us all His Son to be the One to intercede for us and deliver us the salvation of God. St. John also spoke about the need for the people of God not to be deluded to think that they had no sin or shortcomings, or have no need for God’s help and forgiveness. For this is the problem which many of the people of the time of St. John in the early Church had faced, as we still face the same issue even to our present day.

There are people who claim to be righteous, just and worthy of God, and took great pride in that status, like for examples the chief priests and the Pharisees among the Jewish people, and also others in the Christian community who considered themselves to be righteous and better spiritually and in the path towards God’s salvation than others. They underestimated the dangers of sin and even became desensitised to it. This is what we cannot let to happen to us as well, and we must first of all realise that we are sinners, in need of God’s help, and as we have seen from the examples of the past life and actions of King Herod and many other historical figures, we can easily be distracted and tempted by the many desires and pressures, expectations and ambitions that we have in our hearts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, some of us may be wondering why is it that God permitted such atrocities to happen such as what happened in the massacre of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, as well as in many other dark moments in our human history. Some of us certainly would have criticised the Lord, thinking that God could have intervened and stopped all those atrocities and evils from happening. But this is where we have to understand and realise that God has given us the free will and the freedom to choose our course of action in life. The many sufferings that we often suffer from and encounter in this world, they all came from our abuse of our privileges, freedom and choices, as instead of choosing the better and righteous path, we often chose the path of pleasure and corruption, allowing sin and the temptations for it to mislead us down this path of destruction and ruin.

That is why, while all of us commemorate this Feast of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem, we are reminded that we must continue to be vigilant so that we do not easily end up falling into the temptations to sin and to give in to our fears, our desires and ambitions, our pursuits for worldly glory and renown, just as King Herod had experienced. For all the efforts that he had done, ultimately Herod’s legacy was a failure, with the grand Temple he built being destroyed merely decades later, and other great monuments abandoned and destroyed, while his family’s rule over the lands of his kingdom did not last very long, and what remained for him is the everlasting reminder of this great atrocity that he ordered at Bethlehem. This is a reminder for us not to allow ourselves to walk in the same path he traversed.

Let us all as Christians instead be the courageous bearers of our faith before all, standing up firmly for the sake of the poor, the less privileged and the weak, striving not for our own selfish desires and ambitions, but rather for the common good of all. We must be good role models and inspirations for one another in upholding the truth and justice of God. May the Lord continue to help us to remain firmly focused on Him, and to be truly committed to a life of virtue and compassionate care for others as we continue to progress through this joyful season of Christmas, and share our Christmas joy to everyone around us, resisting the temptations of pleasure and hedonism, and striving instead to seek the true heavenly treasure that can be found in God alone. Amen.

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Saturday, 28 December 2024 : Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Matthew 2 : 13-18

After the wise men had left, an Angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph and said, “Get up, take the Child and His mother and flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod will soon be looking for the Child in order to kill Him.”

Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and left that night for Egypt, where He stayed until the death of Herod. In this way, what the Lord had said through the prophet was fulfilled : I called My Son out of Egypt.

When Herod found out that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was furious. He gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its neighbourhood who were two years old or under. This was done in line with what he had learnt from the wise men about the time when the star appeared.

In this way, what the prophet Jeremiah had said was fulfilled : A cry is heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation : Rachel weeps for her children. She refuses to be comforted, for they are no more.

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Saturday, 28 December 2024 : Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 123 : 2-3, 4-5, 7cd-8

Had not the Lord been on our side, when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us alive; such was their anger against us.

A bit more and the flood would have engulfed us, the torrent would have swept over us, the raging waters would have swept us away.

The snare was broken and we were freed. Our help is in the Name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

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Saturday, 28 December 2024 : Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

1 John 1 : 5 – 1 John 2 : 2

We heard His message from Him and announce it to you : God is light and there is no darkness in Him. If we say we are in fellowship with Him, while we walk in darkness, we lie instead of being in truth. But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we are in fellowship with one another, and the Blood of Jesus, the Son of God, purifies us from all sin.

If we say, “We have no sin,” we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He Who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from our wickedness. If we say that we do not sin, we make God a liar, His word is not in us.

My little children, I write to you that you may not sin. But if anyone sins, we have an Intercessor with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Just One. He is the sacrificial Victim for our sins and the sins of the whole world.

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Saturday, 21 December 2024 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we all listened to the words of the Scriptures we are all reminded of the need for us to seek God at all times and to focus our attention to Him as our Lord and Master, as the One Whom our hearts desire and wish to be reunited with. If God is not the most important thing in our lives, then it may be easy for us to fall prey to all the temptations of the things around us, which may lead to us losing our sight on the most important thing and treasure in our lives. It is why we are constantly being told by the Lord Who has always patiently given us much help along the way, encouraging us all and making Himself approachable to us by His coming into this world, in His Incarnation in the flesh, born of the Virgin Mary, His mother. He became Emmanuel, God Who is with us, dwelling amongst us all.

In our first reading today, we heard of the readings from either Book of Song of Songs or from the Book of the prophet Zephaniah. From the Song of Songs we heard of the pursuit of one who seeks her Lover, and how this Lover gives encouragement, joy and strength to His beloved one. This is a metaphor representing our relationship with God, and the Lover represents the Lord, our God, with each and every one of us as the Lord’s beloved ones. And as we heard from this passage from the Book of Songs, there is that yearning for both the Lover and the beloved, and as they search for one another, as they are reunited, this will restore order in all things, showing us of the end of our sufferings and struggles, the restoration of grace and the beauty to everything, no longer defiled and corrupted by the darkness and evils of sin around us.

Then, from the Book of the prophet Zephaniah we heard yet another words of encouragement from God as we heard the proclamation to all the people of God, represented by the daughters of Zion, the common name used to represent Jerusalem, the Holy City of God. At that time, during the ministry of the prophet Zephaniah which happened after the reigns of the wicked kings of Judah, Manasseh and Amon, and during the time of the righteous king Josiah, the last righteous king to rule over Judah and Jerusalem, many among the people of God had fallen into the worship of the false gods and idols, Baal and Asherah, and that wicked deeds and blatant disobedience against God and His commandments had led to the imminent coming of the Divine retribution and just consequences for their actions in disobeying God and committing great sins against Him.

Yet, just as the Lord spoke through the prophet Zephaniah of the punishments and the consequences that those who have embraced the worship of the pagan and false idols would receive, He also reassured them at the same time of the salvation and redemption which He also offered for all those who sought His mercy and forgiveness. Essentially God wants us all to know that each and every one of us are truly dear, precious and beloved to Him, and it is far for Him to desire our destruction and damnation. However, at the same time, He is also a just and righteous God, Who is all good and perfect, and in Whose Holy Presence sin and evil cannot remain and survive. Therefore, each and every one of us, God’s people must not allow sin to continue corrupting and staining us, which may prevent us from finding the way to His salvation and grace. God has always been generous in offering us His mercy, but we must also be willing to embrace His mercy and forgiveness, and be ready to commit to repentance.

From our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the time when Mary, the Mother of God visited Elizabeth, the mother of St. John the Baptist, her relative, when both of them were expecting and during their respective pregnancies. We heard how Elizabeth and her child, St. John the Baptist in her womb recognised the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour Son of God in the holy womb of Mary when Mary came and approached their house. And this was another revelation of God’s loving care and compassion towards each and every one of us, reminding us of everything which He has done for our sake and for our salvation. He sent us all His Beloved Son so that by His entry into this world, He may show us all the sure path towards His loving embrace, grace and eternal life. The coming of Jesus Christ into this world, which we are celebrating in Christmas, is the fulfilment of what God had promised through the prophet Zephaniah and many other prophets.

Through the coming of Christ into this world, the Lord wants us all to embrace His ever present and enduring love, that He has manifested in His Son, and making us all to share in the fullness of His compassionate love and mercy, to make available to all of us His boundless and ever bountiful mercy, forgiveness and grace. We cannot save ourselves, and it is only by the grace of God that we can be saved and liberated from the bondage to our sins and the evils around us. That is why God in His boundless mercy reached out to us to help us to leave our predicaments and bondage to sin, leading and bringing us all into the straight path of redemption by His Son’s saving works on the Cross. This is what we are truly celebrating this upcoming Christmas time and season.

Now, today the Church also celebrates the Feast of St. Peter Canisius, holy priest and an esteemed Doctor of the Church, one of my patron saints and also the patron of this blog. St. Peter Canisius was born as Peter Kanis in Nijmegen, which is now part of the Netherlands but which was then considered a dominion of the Holy Roman Empire. St. Peter Canisius was born to a wealthy merchant family and he also had prodigious talent in academic studies, gaining his master’s degree at the mere age of nineteen. It was during his study that he encountered St. Peter Faber, who later on together with St. Peter Canisius, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier and other men would become the founder and co-founders of the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits.

St. Peter Canisius was called and convinced to give himself to the mission of the Jesuits, and after a period of preparation, he was ordained as a priest, and became one of the Jesuits’ spearhead in the efforts of Counter-Reformation against the rampant Protestant heresies and other wrong teachings and practices that was then widespread throughout the region that are now parts of Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland. St. Peter Canisius put strong emphasis on education both of the priests and the laity as part of the efforts to rejuvenate the faith and to combat the false ideas and heresies. He was also renowned for his crafting and authorship of his ‘Catechism’ also known as the German Catechism, composed of the important articles and teachings of the Christian faith for the formation of Christians, especially that of Catechumens going through preparation for baptism.

St. Peter Canisius was also a strong advocate for dialogue and cooperation, mutual understanding and empathy during his works and efforts in the Counter-Reformation, quoted for his words, ‘with this kind of attitude, this condition becomes incurable’ referring to the hardline attitude and approach that some of the Counter-Reformation figures took in approaching those who have embraced the ideals of the reformation and other heretical teachings. In addition, he was also a strong Marian devotee and the final words of the prayer ‘Hail Mary’ or ‘Ave Maria’, that is ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.’ was composed and added by none other than St. Peter Canisius, who was ever faithful to the very end of his life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore reflect upon our own lives after having heard and discussed the messages from the Sacred Scriptures, and by the inspiration from the life of St. Peter Canisius, holy servant of God, let us all continue to strive to do what is right and just, worthy and appropriate for all of us as Christians in our everyday living so that we may truly be committed to a life that inspires others to follow in our footsteps in glorifying God by our lives and actions, just as we have been inspired by our holy predecessors, particularly that of St. Peter Canisius, holy priest and Doctor of the Church. Let our lives truly be reflection of God’s light, hope and love, and may the Lord be with us always in our every good endeavours. Amen.

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Saturday, 21 December 2024 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Luke 1 : 39-45

Mary then set out for a town in the hill country of Judah. She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leapt in her womb.

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and, giving a loud cry, said, “You are most blessed among women; and blessed is the Fruit of your womb! How is it, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? The moment your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby within me suddenly leapt for joy. Blessed are you, who believed that the Lord’s word would come true!”

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Saturday, 21 December 2024 : 3rd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. Peter Canisius, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Psalm 32 : 2-3, 11-12, 20-21

Give thanks to YHVH on the harp and lyre, making melody and chanting praises. Amid loud shouts of joy, sing to Him a new song and play the ten-stringed harp.

But His plan stands forever, and His heart’s design, through all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is YHVH – the people He has chosen for His inheritance.

In hope, we wait for YHVH, for He is our help and our shield. Our hearts rejoice in Him, for we trust on His holy Name.