Scripture Sunday

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Monday, 13 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Henry (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about how the people of Israel in Egypt after the time of Joseph were mistreated and made into slaves. The Pharaoh or ruler of Egypt feared that these people who grew numerous and mighty him and his country, and thus he oppressed them and made them suffer. In this, as we compare to what Jesus had said in the Gospel, we can see indeed how conflict and clashes would come between the Lord and those who follow Him with the ways and norms of this world.

And as we see the conflict between the Egyptians and the Israelites, there would also conflict between us all who follow the ways of our Lord and those who follow the ways of this world. This is the fact which our Lord Jesus highlighted to His disciples and to all of us through them, that following Him and walking righteously in His path will not be an easy one. There will be plenty of challenges and difficulties awaiting us, as the conflict and clashes between our interests and ways will be our obstacles.

If we look at the history of the Church and our faith, then we will realise how in many occasions, for one to accept the faith and to believe in the Lord would often mean estrangement and opposition from one’s own family members and friends. Often many of the holy martyrs especially in the early years of the Church had to suffer martyrdom because they held fast to their faith despite the staunch opposition from their own families and friends.

That is because the way of the Lord is often opposed to the ways of the world, and for one to abandon the way of worldliness for the way which our Lord had taught us often mean for many, the estrangement from the norms of the society at large. And to many people who do not understand the way of God, it would indeed seem very strange that we would give ourselves and devote ourselves to this way.

This is just as the way of the world is selfishness, the way of the Lord is selflessness, and while the way of this world is materialism and consumerism, the way of our Lord is temperance and gratitude for whatever we have. While the world values appearances and human approval, the Lord values simplicity of heart and righteousness, and the courage to stand up for the truth, even when many others do not agree with us or approve what we are doing.

However, we have to take note that while the Lord Jesus Christ warned us about the conflict, clashes and confrontations that would come our way, it does not mean that we ought to go out there and purposely cause trouble for ourselves, inviting problems and dangers that may endanger those who are around us. Some of us may have misinterpreted the intentions of our Lord in this manner, as we may think that we have to confront the world actively and overpower it.

No, this rather means that we should be vigilant and be prepared that we may be ostracised, shunned, made an object of shame of, humiliated, or even tortured both physically and mentally by others, because of what we believe in. But do we then succumb and give up to the temptations and forces of the world? No, we must resist them. We must be courageous to stand up for our faith in the face of all these difficulties.

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Henry, also known as Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, the sovereign Augustus and ruler of the revived Roman Empire in the west, God’s secular representative in the world. St. Henry II, was a great and benevolent Emperor, who led many of the faithful in the Empire, leading many other Christian nations at the time.

However, he also encountered many great challenges in his role as the paragon of faith and virtue. He combatted many forms of vices and excesses during his reign as Emperor, and he strengthened the Church and its many works by his tireless support of the Church and its activities, even though in many occasions he had to deal against the many people who opposed him and his reforms.

St. Henry was remembered for his upright actions and for his devotion to the Lord even though many people resisted and tried to undermine his works and reforms, for the good of the faithful, and even for the good of those who have resisted his works. Indeed, what he had done was a clear example of what we have just discussed this day. If we are truly faithful to the Lord, the path forward will not be easy, and challenges will surely come our way, but if we stay faithful to the end, our rewards in the Lord will be great indeed.

May the examples of St. Henry inspire us always and help us to be true to our faith and to defend it with all of our might. Let us show our faith in our actions, words and deeds, so that all who see us will know that we truly belong to the Lord. We have no need to fear anything for the Lord is with us, and whatever difficulties and challenges we will encounter, there will always be hope in the end, for the Lord will reward all those who keep their faith in Him even amidst persecution. God be with us all, and may He guide us in our way. Amen.

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Monday, 13 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Henry (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Matthew 10 : 34 – Matthew 11 : 1

At that time, Jesus said to the Jews, “Do not think that I have come to establish peace on earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Each one will have as enemies those of one’s own family.”

“Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take up his cross and come after Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”

“Whoever welcomes you welcomes Me, and whoever welcomes Me welcomes Him who sent Me. The one who welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive the reward of a prophet; the one who welcomes a just man, because he is a just man, will receive the reward of a just man. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, because he is My disciple, I assure you, he will not go unrewarded.”

When Jesus had finished giving His twelve disciples these instructions, He went on from there to teach and to proclaim His message in their towns.

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Monday, 13 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Henry (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Psalm 123 : 1-3, 4-6, 7-8

Had not the Lord been on our side – let Israel say – 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. Blessed be the Lord, who did not let us be devoured.

Like a bird our soul escaped from the snare of the fowler; 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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Monday, 13 July 2015 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Henry (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White

Exodus 1 : 8-14, 22

Then a new king who had not know Joseph came to power and said to His people, “The Israelites are more numerous and stronger than we are. Let us deal warily with them lest they increase still more and, in case of war, side with our enemy, fight against us and escape from the land.”

So they set taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labour. In that way they built the storage towns of Pithom and Rameses. But the more they oppressed the Hebrews the more they increased and spread, until the Egyptians dreaded the Israelites and became ruthless in making them work. They made life bitter for them in hard labour with bricks and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields. In all their work the Egyptians treated them harshly.

Pharaoh then gave this order to all the people : “Every infant boy born to the Hebrews must be thrown into the Nile, but every girl may live.”

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Sunday, 12 July 2015 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the desire of the Lord our God, our loving Father and Creator, who sent forth His disciples, messengers, Apostles, prophets and even His angels to go to the nations and the many peoples all over the earth to call them to Him, and to reunite all of His scattered loved ones back into His loving embrace.

In the Gospel we heard how Jesus sent His disciples two by two to the many towns and villages, to preach the Good News of His salvation to the people, to heal the sick and to cast out demons from them, and to proclaim the time of repentance, for them to change their ways, the ways of sin, so that they may walk on the path towards grace and salvation in God.

In the second reading from the Epistle or letter of St. Paul to the faithful in Ephesus, he mentioned how God has destined all of us to be in perfect love and unity to Himself, as the very purpose of why He created us in the first place. He created all of us mankind and all the creatures so that He may love us all, and give us the fullness of the love of His heart, and yet, we have rejected Him many, many times.

We who have disobeyed Him have been sundered from that love which should have been part of us. And our portion should therefore have been hell, destruction and eternal damnation, and yet, we are truly fortunate, for just as our Lord despises sin and all forms of our wickedness, He still loves us even more than all that. He is loving, merciful, slow to anger and rich in kindness, and He generously offers to us His mercy which He made completely evident through the sending of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into this world, that we all may be saved through Him.

But sadly, our attitudes are often like that shown by the king Amaziah of Israel whom we heard in our first reading, rejecting the prophet Amos and telling him to go back to his own country of Judah, and to come no more to disturb his land of the northern kingdom of Israel. He refused to listen to the reminders which the Lord sent to His people to remind them of the bad and wicked deeds that they have committed in His sight.

We mankind are by our nature, we are always prideful and filled with self-serving attitudes. We like to think that we are always in the right and that the others are wrong or mistaken in their ways, because we often fail to look deep into ourselves and discover what actually went wrong with us. Our pride and arrogance, our attitudes and stubbornness are all that actually keep us separated from the love and grace of our Lord.

It was just like the king of Israel, Amaziah, who refused to listen to the truth as preached by the prophet Amos, even though it was the fact, no matter how terrible they might have sounded, but that is exactly because what he and the people of the northern kingdom had done were indeed wicked in the sight of God. And we know that what Amos and the other prophets prophesied about would come true in all their fullness, and the wicked were cast out in the utter darkness and suffering.

And yet God gave them chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity, just as He gave His people chance after they disobeyed Him and rebelled against Him during the Exodus from Egypt, when they abandoned Him for the pagan gods and a god made of gold. He forgave them and continued to love them even though He did punish them, but to those who adamantly refused to change their ways and continued to sin, there was no forgiveness.

In the Gospel, Jesus told His disciples to minister to those who are sick, both physically and spiritually, that is by delivering the truth of God as espoused in the Scriptures and in the testimony of the prophets, and opening the eyes of the people and their senses to the truth, so that they may repent and turn from their sinful ways. Yet, there are always those who would refuse to listen and continue to dwell in their sins.

To this people, the Lord rejected them and would hold their disobedience and stubbornness as testimony against them on the day of judgment. Do we want to share in their fate, brethren? We surely will if we continue to walk in the path of worldliness and sin. There is no future in following that path, for indeed the temporary goodness and pleasure we gain by that path is not worth the eternal suffering due to us.

Shall we therefore on this day, realise and understand how much God has loved us and how great is His everlasting love for us, that His mercy He richly provides for us all, so that all of us who repent our sinful ways may be saved? All of us have a choice, and the opportunity has been given to us to reflect on our own actions and consider it carefully, before what we do in this life bring great repercussions for us in what is to come.

And we also ought to realise that all of us who have been saved, and we who have committed ourselves to the way of the Lord, who believe in the fullness of His truth, also have a mission to carry on. Today happens to be the commemoration of Bible or Scripture Sunday, which should have brought us all to the greater realisation of what we ought to do from now on, if we have not done so.

Let me ask all of us these simple questions, how many of us actually regularly open up the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, and read it? How many of us are actually familiar with what the prophets and messengers of God had said? How many of us know what Jesus taught to His disciples, and what His servants like His Apostles wrote in the many letters preserved in the Holy Scriptures?

If our answers to these are no, that is because we have not understood or read the Holy Scriptures, if at all. We have a mission, brethren, to evangelise and to spread the Good News of our Lord, so that we may extend the mercy and love of God we have just discussed about, to the nations and to the peoples who have yet to hear them and witness them.

But how are they going to believe in us if we ourselves do not have what we ought to know within each one of us? It is important for us to read the Holy Scriptures regularly so that we may have ever growing and greater understanding of what our faith is truly about. And then, it is important that we also have to make it complete by knowing, understanding and obeying the ancient traditions of the Church, the teachings as preserved by the Church from the time of our Lord and His Apostles.

Let us all therefore, from today onwards, renew our commitment to our Lord and God, so that through all the things we do which we commit in faith and hope for our salvation, and the salvation of many around us, we may bring ourselves together as one people closer to salvation and eternal life promised by our Lord to all who has been faithful to Him, and let us all deepen our understanding of the faith, by reading and studying more of the Holy Scriptures, so that our hearts may be opened to the word of God contained in the Bible. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 12 July 2015 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 6 : 7-13

At that time, Jesus called the Twelve to Him, and began to send them out two by two, giving them authority over evil spirits. And He ordered them to take nothing for the journey, except a staff : no food, no bag, no money in their belts. They were to wear sandals and were not to take an extra tunic.

And He added, “In whatever house you are welcomed, stay there until you leave the place. If any place does not receive you, and the people refuse to listen to you, leave after shaking the dust off your feet. It will be a testimony against them.”

So they set out to proclaim that this was the time to repent. They drove out many demons and healed many sick people by anointing them.

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Sunday, 12 July 2015 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 1 : 3-14

Blessed be God, the Father of Christ Jesus our Lord, who in Christ has blessed us from heaven with every spiritual blessing. God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and without sin in His presence.

From eternity He destined us in love to be His adopted sons and daughters through Christ Jesus, thus fulfilling His free and generous will. This goal suited Him : that His loving kindness which He granted us in His Beloved might finally receive all glory and praise.

For in Christ we obtain freedom, sealed by His Blood, and have the forgiveness of sins. In this appears the greatness of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and understanding, God has made known to us His mysterious design, in accordance with His loving kindness in Christ.

In Him and under Him God wanted to unite, when the fullness of time had come, everything in heaven and on earth. By a decree of Him who disposes all things according to His own plan and decision we, the Jews, have been chosen and called and we were awaiting the Messiah, for the praise of His glory.

You, on hearing the word of truth, the Gospel that saves you, have believed in Him. And, as promised, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit, the first pledge of what we shall receive, on the way to our deliverance as a people of God, for the praise of His glory.

Alternative reading (shorter version)

Ephesians 1 : 3-10

Blessed be God, the Father of Christ Jesus our Lord, who in Christ has blessed us from heaven with every spiritual blessing. God chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and without sin in His presence.

From eternity He destined us in love to be His adopted sons and daughters through Christ Jesus, thus fulfilling His free and generous will. This goal suited Him : that His loving kindness which He granted us in His Beloved might finally receive all glory and praise.

For in Christ we obtain freedom, sealed by His Blood, and have the forgiveness of sins. In this appears the greatness of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and understanding, God has made known to us His mysterious design, in accordance with His loving kindness in Christ.

In Him and under Him God wanted to unite, when the fullness of time had come, everything in heaven and on earth.

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Sunday, 12 July 2015 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 84 : 9ab and 10, 11-12, 13-14

Would that I hear God’s proclamation, that He promise peace to His people, His saints. Yet His salvation is near to those who fear Him, and His Glory will dwell in our land.

Love and faithfulness have met; righteousness and peace have embraced. Faithfulness will reach up from the earth while justice bends down from heaven.

The Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its fruit. Justice will go before Him, and peace will follow along His path.

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Sunday, 12 July 2015 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Amos 7 : 12-15

Amaziah then said to Amos, “Off with you, seer; go back to the land of Judah. Earn your bread there by prophesying. But never again prophesy at Bethel for it is a king’s sanctuary and a national shrine.”

Amos replied to Amaziah, “I am not a prophet or one of the fellow prophets. I am a breeder of sheep and a dresser of sycamore trees. But YHVH took me from shepherding the flock and said to me : Go, prophesy to My people Israel.”

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Sunday, 20 July 2014 : 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Bible Sunday (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today this Sunday just as last Sunday, we celebrate Bible or Scripture Sunday, when we truly come together to appreciate and honour this writing and collections of books which together make up the entire revelation of God and His words, which He spoke through the prophets and through His many servants throughout the ages.

In order to be able to fully appreciate and understand the importance of the Bible or the Holy Scriptures, then first we must know it and take the word of God in it into our hearts and minds. And it is important to know that without a sufficient knowledge of the word of God in the Scriptures, we cannot be truly faithful and devoted to God, for we are bound to be affected and corrupted by the falsehoods of Satan, the evil one, who spread his lies all the time to trap those whose faith are not strong.

But that does not mean we can just memorise and remember the Holy Scriptures and the word of God without understanding it and the true meaning of the literary works of the prophets and the writers of the Holy Scriptures. Do you all remember what Satan did when he tempted Jesus our Lord in the desert just after His baptism? Yes, precisely, Satan quoted the passages of the Holy Scriptures, and then twisting their meaning to serve his own wicked purposes.

Such will be the dangerous and powerful weapon that Satan will employ against those who knows the Scriptures, but refuse or disregard the need to understand the word of God and its meaning as written in the Holy Scriptures. Therefore, we cannot study or understand the Scriptures on our own, or claim that our understanding of them to be sufficient for our salvation, a view and idea which is called sola scriptura and which has quite a following among those who thought that they know it better than the early Church fathers in the matters of the faith.

Remember brothers and sisters, that the authority to teach the meaning of the Holy Scriptures has been bestowed by God to none other than Jesus Christ, His own Son, who came into the world. In Jesus lay the full completeness and perfection of all the messages and the prophecies of the prophets of the past and all the words of God revealed through the servants of God. All these are in what we know today as the Old Testament, that is the testaments and the works of the servant of God before the coming of Christ.

Jesus taught His disciples and many other people through the means of parables, or stories that are related to many different life experiences and scenarios, often not talking directly about God in those parables. For the laypersons and all those who did not understand the meaning of those parables, what Jesus told them in the parables might not make sense to them, but they might have truly understood what the stories were about.

The parables of Jesus were constructed around many real examples that if one is to take a closer inspection, would reveal that Jesus often talked about the professions that were truly ubiquitous and renowned, as well as common during the time when He was in the world. These include shepherds, which we know in the case when Jesus talked about shepherds and Himself as the Good Shepherd; fishermen, which Jesus often referred to in His teachings to the disciples in their future role as the fishers of men.

Jesus talked about farmers and sowing of seeds most often, because farming truly was the most prevalent job in the society at the time. By using these analogies, or parables, He taught the meaning of the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures with perfect clarity and true authority of teaching. With those examples and references, He could relate with the life experiences of the people, who then might understand the word better.

However, as we all know, that Jesus did not stay in the world for long. He accomplished the long-planned salvation for mankind by going through the punishments meant for our sins, bearing them on the cross towards Calvary, and gave us a new hope in life. Jesus rose up from the dead and showed us hope in His resurrection and then departed from this world to return to His throne in heaven to prepare a place for all of us.

Hence, Jesus passed down the authority to teach the Holy Scriptures in its complete and true meaning to the Apostles and the disciples whom He had chosen from among the people. He sent them the Holy Spirit, the Advocate and the Helper, who enlightened them with zeal and faith, and through the Spirit sent by God to them, they passed down the same truth and teachings of the Lord to their successors, to pass them down in the Church of God, on which God had invested the authority over all of the faithful.

There is no other wisdom and truth beyond that of the Lord’s wisdom and power, and hence there can be no truth in the Scriptures and the Word of God beyond the teachings of the Church. There were those who thought that they have the intellect and knowledge better than the Church and the early Church fathers who had received the teachings and the directly from the Lord Himself.

Luther, Henry VIII, Calvin, Zwingli, and many other countless heretics who rebelled against God and His Church were the very examples of how people have misinterpreted, twisted and misused the words of the Lord in the Holy Scriptures for their own selfish purposes. They were attached to the promises of Satan in the glories and pleasures of the world, and so deeply attached they were to their own human frailty and weakness, that they failed to see what the Lord truly meant in His words and instead caused great divisions in the body of the faithful, that is the Church.

Therefore, it is important that as we celebrate this occasion of the Bible or Scripture Sunday, that we read the Scriptures with understanding, and do our best to obey and listen to the teachings of the Church as espoused and held firm by its members and through the successors of the Apostles, namely our Pope, the Cardinals, bishops and priests of the Church of God.

Nevertheless, it is also important for us to take note that, we do not have to worry about our faith if we hold true to the teachings of the Church. What is important is that we have faith in God and keep it true at all times. God has told us through Jesus, that the faith in us is like the mustard seed. Mustard seed from the mustard plant is a very small seed, only barely a small speck to our eyes. However, when the mustard plant is fully grown, the plant is truly large, at least four to five metres tall.

What Jesus meant was that, if we allow our faith to develop and grow in us, then no matter how small that faith is, it will grow and flourish, and affecting not just ourselves, but also those around us and inspiring them to come closer to the Lord as well. But if we choose not to allow this faith to grow in us, then we will wither and perish, just as a mustard seed will remain just that, a seed if it does not sprout and grow.

How do we let it grow healthily then? It is by listening to the word of God, and not just by our ears or by our eyes that we witness these words of the Lord, but also to carry them deep into our hearts. Follow faithfully the teachings of the Lord that we gained through the Church, and we will do fine. Let us all work together, that all of us may grow stronger together in faith, hope and love in God. May He bless us always, now and forever. Amen.