Scripture

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Wednesday, 8 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Psalm 148 : 1-2, 11-12ab, 12c-14a, 14bcd

Alleluia! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heavenly heights. Praise Him, all His angels; praise Him, all His heavenly hosts.

Kings of the earth and nations, princes and all rulers of the world, young men and maidens.

Old and young together – let them praise the Name of the Lord. For His Name alone is exalted; His majesty is above earth and heaven. He has given His people glory.

He has given a praise to His faithful, to Israel, the people close to Him. Alleluia.

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Wednesday, 8 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 17 : 15, 22 – Acts 18 : 1

Paul was taken as far as Athens by his escort, who then returned to Beroea with instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible.

Then Paul stood up in the Areopagus hall and said, “Athenian citizens, I note that in every way you are very religious. As I walked around looking at your shrines, I even discovered an altar with this inscription : ‘To an unknown God.’ Now, what you worship as unknown, I intend to make known to you.

God, who made the world and all that is in it, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands, being as He is Lord of heaven and earth. Nor does His worship depend on anything made by human hands, as if He were in need. Rather, it is He who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone.

From one stock He created the whole human race to live throughout all the earth, and He fixed the time and the boundaries of each nation. He wanted them to seek Him by themselves, even if it were only by groping for Him, succeed in finding Him.

Yet He is not far from any one of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as some of your poets have said : ‘for we too are His offspring.’ If we are indeed God’s offspring, we ought not to think of divinity as something like a statue of gold or silver or stone, a product of human art and imagination.

But now God prefers to overlook this time of ignorance and He calls on all people to change their ways. He has already set a day on which He will judge the world with justice through a Man He has appointed. And, so that all may believe it, He has just given a sign by raising this Man from the dead.

When they heard Paul speak of a resurrection from death, some made fun of him, while others said, “We must hear you on this topic some other time.” At that point, Paul left. But a few did join him, and believed. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus court, a woman named Damaris, and some others.

After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

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Tuesday, 7 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

Follow the Lord! For He is justice and truth embodied!

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we hear the word of God, proclaiming that in Christ our Lord, lays true justice and the truth itself, however hard it is for this evil-laden world to comprehend and accept. Even among us, there are many who still do not believe truly in God, and put our trust in His justice and have faith in the truths He had taught us through His apostles.

For Christ is our great judge, who will judge every being and every mankind at the end of time, when it is time once again for Him to descend onto this world in His glorious Second Coming, when He will vindicate all who keep their faith in Him and do not give it up for the temptations and seductions of the evil one. He will reward all those who remain faithful in Him, and punish all those who stray from His way, the true way, the path of salvation.

This great judgment will separate the good ones from the bad ones, the worthy ones from the unworthy ones, like the harvester separate the good wheat from the chaff and the husks, and like the shepherd separating the goat from the sheep. So will all of us be separated based on our virtues, and whether we have faithfully kept God’s commandments in our deeds and in our daily lives.

Would we want to be separated as the bad goats as compared to be like the good sheep? Would we want to endure the eternal suffering of separation from God and His infinite love? Never forget that the true suffering in hell is not the physical fire and the torture of the flesh that is always depicted in the secular illustrations, but hell is in fact a state of eternal damnation and suffering when one is truly, completely, and forever separated from God.

It is difficult to believe in God, especially in our increasingly secular world today, as God becomes ever more distant in mankind’s hearts, when world’s increasingly seductive temptations exert greater and ever greater pull on many, steering them away from the true faith and from the righteous path in Christ. This is why the world is sinful, and it is most sinful in what is called disbelief. Not only because it has not believed in God, and had rejected the One whom God had sent, but also that it had made many to lose their faith and belief in God, because it has offered the falsehoods that Satan has offered.

Let us not be perturbed, my brethren. Let us not be shaken in our faith, and doubt our God not for even a single moment, for He is constant, and He is faithful. He is God who keeps His promises, who loves those who also love Him, and those who obey the commandments He had set, and those who follow in His way. Remember, the path of Satan, and what the deceiver offers us, may look good, but it offers only temporal satisfaction. Remember Adam and Eve, our ancestors.

True salvation, true joy, and true glory lie only in God, our one and only God and Lord. To no other being should we bend our knee to in worship, other than to He who had come down from heaven, who had lived amongst us, who died for us, that we may live, and who had risen in glory, in triumph, and conquered death. Amen.

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Tuesday, 7 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 16 : 5-11

But now I am going to the One who sent Me, and none of you asks Me where I am going; instead you are overcome with grief, because of what I have said. Believe Me, it is better for you that I go away, because as long as I do not leave, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go away, it is to send Him to you, and when He comes, He will vindicate the truth before a sinful world; and He will vindicate the paths of righteousness and justice.

What is the world’s sin, in regard to Me? Disbelief. What is the path of righteousness? It is the path I walk, by which I go to the Father; and you shall see Me no more. What is the path of justice? It is the path on which the prince of this world will always stand condemned.

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Tuesday, 7 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Psalm 137 : 1-2a, 2bc-3, 7c-8

I thank You, o Lord, with all my heart, for You have heard the word of my lips. I sing Your praise in the presence of the gods. I bow down towards Your Holy Temple, and give thanks to Your Name.

For Your love and faithfulness, for Your word which exceeds everything. You answered me when I called; You restored my soul and made me strong.

You save me from the wrath of my foes, with Your right hand You deliver me. How the Lord cares for me! Your kindness, o Lord, endures forever. Forsake not the work of Your hands.

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Tuesday, 7 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 16 : 22-34

So they set the crowd against them and the officials tore the clothes off Paul and Silas and ordered them to be flogged. And after inflicting many blows on them, they threw them into prison, charging the jailer to guard them safely. Upon receiving these instructions, he threw them into the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. Suddenly, a severe earthquake shook the place, rocking the prison to its foundations. Immediately all the doors flew open and the chains of all the prisoners fell off.

The jailer woke up to see the prison gates wide open. Thinking that the prisoners had escaped, he drew his sword to kill himself, but Paul shouted to him, “Do not harm yourself! We are all still here.” The jailer asked for a light, then rushed in, and fell at the feet of Paul and Silas. After he had secured the other prisoners, he led them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your household will be saved.”

Then they spoke the word of God to him and to all his household. Even at that hour of the night, the jailer took care of them and washed their wounds; and he and his whole household were baptised at once. He led them to his house, spread a meal before them and joyfully celebrated with his whole household his newfound faith in God.

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Monday, 6 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Scripture Reflection)

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, to be with Christ, and to remain faithful in Him, as His disciples, and as His children, is not easy, and never will be easy. There is bound to be rejection and opposition against Christ, especially by the agents of the evil one, who does not want mankind to be saved, and he wants rather that mankind fall with him into hell, in his jealousy of the Lord.

There will be those who also will hear and follow the Word of God, just as the first reading today has told us, about the devout Jewish lady named Lydia, and her family, who listened to the apostles, and became a believer, and who were baptised and therefore were joined into the number of those who were promised eternal life in God.

That is why we should never give up nor abandon the task that Christ had entrusted us, just as He had entrusted the same task to the apostles, that is to evangelise and bring the Good News to all nations, to the ends of the earth, that all will listen to the Good News, repent, be baptised, in the Name of the Holy Trinity, and therefore gain eternal life in salvation.

As the apostles had shown us, and all the disciples in Christ had shown in the early times of the Church, that preaching the truth of Christ and the Good News would bring about opposition, apathy, and even persecution by those who did not believe, and those who had closed their hearts from the truth that Christ had brought. They had closed their ears and the doors of their hearts to Christ. Nevertheless, they too are the children of God, our brethren.

We must not act n the same way that they had acted on us, that is we should not counter their hatred and opposition with hatred on our own, or any kind of loathing. Rather, let us, through our words, and most importantly our actions, show them, what being the followers of Christ is like, that is filled with love and compassion, that is of the Lord, that they too will eventually learn the truth, and believe.

This is because, for the Lord, nothing is indeed impossible, and even the most hardened enemies of Christ, may eventually repent and become great saints and disciples, with full dedication to the Lord. Remember that many of the greatest saints and holy men in the Church were once great sinners and even fornicators, with all sorts of evil-led life imaginable, but yet they repented, and then became ardent defenders of the faith, and now they enjoyed their great rewards in heaven, and became now, our intercessors before the throne of God.

Even St. Paul himself, the great missionary, the Apostle to the Gentiles, was also once a great enemy of the faithful, a great persecutor, who captured many who believed in Jesus, and subjected them to torture for their faith, and who had once vowed to destroy the Church of God. After his conversion to the faith on the way to Damascus, when the Lord Himself appeared to Paul, he became the greatest champion of the Church, and through him, many people were saved.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us persevere in the mission that God had entrusted to us, that we will become great missionaries like the apostles were, even though we are also great sinners ourselves. Let us keep our faith in God burning strong, and let us keep our sight always in focus towards the Lord. May God grant us strength and courage to be His evangelists and may the light of God be brought to all mankind. Amen.

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Monday, 6 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

John 15 : 26 – John 16 : 4a

From the Father, I will send you the Spirit of truth. When the Helper has come from the Father, He will be My witness, and you, too, will be My witnesses, for you have been with Me from the beginning.

I tell you all this to keep you from stumbling and falling away. They will put you out of the synagogue. Still more, the hour is coming, when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God; they will do this, because they have not known the Father or Me.

I tell you all these things now so that, when the time comes, you may remember that  I told you.

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Monday, 6 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (Psalm)

Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b

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. This is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!

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Monday, 6 May 2013 : 6th Week of Easter (First Reading)

Acts 16 : 11-15

So we put out to sea from Troas and sailed straight across to Samothrace Island, and the next day to Neapolis. From there we went inland to Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. We spent some days in that city.

On the sabbath we went outside the city gate to the bank of the river where we thought the Jews would gather  to pray. We sat down and began speaking to the women who were gathering there. One of them was a God-fearing woman named Lydia from Thyatira City, a dealer in purple cloth.

As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. After she had been baptised together with her household, she invited us to her house, “If you think I am faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us to accept her invitation.