Second Sunday of Advent

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Sunday, 10 December 2017 : Second Sunday of Advent (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

2 Peter 3 : 8-14

Do not forget, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like one day. The Lord does not delay in fulfilling His promise, though some speak of delay; rather, He gives you time, because He does not want anyone to perish, but that all may come to conversion.

The Day of the Lord is to come like a thief. Then, the heavens will dissolve with a great noise; the elements will melt away by fire, and the earth, with all that is on it, will be burnt up. Since all things are to vanish, how holy and religious your way of life must be, as you wait for the day of God, and long for its coming, when the heavens will dissolve in fire, and the elements melt away in the heat.

We wait for a new heaven and a new earth, in which justice reigns, according to God’s promise. Therefore, beloved, as you wait in expectation of this, strive, that God may find you rooted in peace, without blemish or fault.

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Sunday, 10 December 2017 : Second Sunday of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

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.

YHVH 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, 10 December 2017 : Second Sunday of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Isaiah 40 : 1-5, 9-11

Be comforted, My people, be strengthened, says your God. Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, proclaim to her that her time of bondage is at an end, that her guilt has been paid for, that from the hand of YHVH she has received double punishment for all her iniquity.

A voice cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way for YHVH. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley will be raised up; every mountain and hill will be laid low. The stumbling blocks shall become level and the rugged places smooth. The glory of YHVH will be revealed, and all mortals together will see it; for the mouth of YHVH has spoken.”

Go up onto the high mountain, messenger of Good News to Zion, lift up your voice with strength, fear not to cry aloud when you tell Jerusalem and announce to the cities of Judah : Here is your God! Here comes YHVH Sabaoth with might; His strong arm rules for Him; His reward is with Him, and here before Him is His booty. Like a shepherd He tends His flock : He gathers the lambs in His arms, He carries them in His bosom, gently leading those that are with young.

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Saturday, 10 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we go through midway through the season of Advent, we are presented through the Scripture readings about the messenger of God and herald of the Messiah, John the Baptist. He came before the Saviour Himself in order to prepare His path, just as the prophet Elijah was sent many centuries before him to call the people of God back to the Lord and to repent from their sins.

At that time, the people of Israel, particularly the northern kingdom had often sinned against God and did not faithfully the way shown to them by their ancestors, following their kings who led them into sin, into the worship of the pagan gods and idols, of Baal, Asherah and many other false gods. They made the people to become wayward and diverge from the path God had shown them. And thus, Elijah came at that time, called by God to be His messenger, to call the people who have fallen into the darkness and call them to return to the light.

He encountered challenges and difficulties, and kings like Ahab hunted him down because of his refusal to back down from calling the people of God to repentance and for his denouncing of the kings and the pagans. Many other people who have followed the Lord had equally been put into suffering and pain, and many even lost their lives in consequence.

The people and their leaders, the kings persisted in their wickedness and many of them refused to listen to the prophet Elijah. They remained in their sinful ways and committed even more sins. The same happened to John the Baptist who came into the world to call the people of God back towards God’s path. Indeed, at his time, while the nature of the problem is kind of different, the essence is the same, that many had erred and he was sent to call them back to the light.

At that time, the people of God were more faithful than they were at the time of the prophet Elijah. However, many of them went through living and obeying God without understanding why they ought to obey the Law. And instead, their leaders and elders have misused their power and authority to gain benefits for themselves, resulting in them oppressing the people with the Law and gaining influence and fame for themselves.

That was why John the Baptist came to the people, to straighten their path and also the path of the Lord when He comes. Certainly, there were quite a few oppositions and challenges, from those same leaders, the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law, the elders and the priestly caste, who saw John as a challenge and rival to their power, teaching authority and influence.

In the same manner therefore, they also opposed Jesus our Lord when He came, and with even greater ferocity, for both John and our Lord came to right the mistakes of their ways as the prophet Elijah had once come to oppose the false ways of the kings of Israel who led the people into sin. And that is something that each and every one of us should also take note of as we go through this season of Advent.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, John and Elijah called upon the people to repent from their sins, to reject those sinful ways and to turn back towards the Lord. In the same manner therefore, we have all been called to turn back towards God, and cast away all those sins that have separated us from Him. However, that is where we also need to look at the examples we have just discussed in order to note the resistance and the difficulties for us to repent.

This time of Advent, we need to spend time to reflect on our actions in life thus far. We need to reattune ourselves to the Lord, and reject our sinful past. But temptations and the lures of sin will always be there, and thus it will not be easy for us to go through this path of preparation. Nonetheless, we really have to begin somewhere, or else, we will never move on in our path to seek God and His love and grace.

Let us all pray to the Lord and ask Him for strength, courage and faith, so that we may draw ever closer to Him, and that we will be able to turn our ways and follow the path of the saints, and not the stubbornness of the kings and the elders of Israel of the past. Let us all make the effort this Advent to help one another, calling upon each other to seek the Lord and be forgiven our sins. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Saturday, 10 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Matthew 17 : 10-13

At that time, the disciples of Jesus asked Him, “Why do the teachers of the Law say that Elijah must come first?” And Jesus answered, “So it is : first comes Elijah to set everything as it has to be. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, but they did not recognise him, and treated him as they pleased. And they will also make the Son of Man suffer.”

Then the disciples understood that Jesus was referring to John the Baptist.

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Saturday, 10 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Psalm 79 : 2ac and 3bc, 15-16, 18-19

Listen, o Shepherd of Israel, You Who sit enthroned between the Cherubim. Stir up Your might and come to save us.

Turn again, o Lord of hosts, look down from heaven and see; care for this vine, and protect the stock Your hand has planted.

But lay Your hand on Your instrument, on the Son of Man Whom You make strong for Yourself. Then we will never turn away from You; give us life, and we will call on Your Name.

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Saturday, 10 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet
Sirach 48 : 1-4, 9-11

Then came the prophet Elijah like a fire, his words a burning torch. He brought a famine on the people and in his zealous love had them reduced in number. Speaking in the Name of the Lord he closed the heavens, and on three occasions called down fire.

How marvellous you were, Elijah, in your wondrous deeds! Who could ever boast of being your equal? You were taken up by a whirlwind of flames in a chariot drawn by fiery horses. It was written that you should be the one to calm God’s anger in the future before it broke out in fury, to turn the hearts of fathers to their sons and to restore the tribes of Jacob.

Happy are those who will see you and those who die in love, for we too shall live.

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Friday, 9 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Saints)
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard from the Scriptures the contradictions from the ways of the Lord and the expectations of this world, as the Psalm we sung today show how different is the path of the wicked from the path of the just and the righteous. It is a reminder for us that as Christians, many of us should wake up to the reality that not all of the ways of our faith are acceptable and easily welcomed by the standards of this world.

But many of us often live our lives oblivious to this fact, and often it is because we are not living our faith in the manner it should be done. We are often lukewarm in our faith, and we are not practicing what we believe, but rather we follow the norms of this world, even though some of these ways and norms may be contrary to what we believe in our Christian faith.

It is a question that we should ask ourselves in this time of Advent, as we come to prepare for our celebration of Christmas. Are we living our lives in this world out of routine and just trying to do what this world is expecting us? Are we just following the motions and follow what this world has shown us? Have we ever stood up for our faith in the Lord and dared to be different by living our faith genuinely, even when others around us disapprove, ridiculed us and even rejected us?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to challenge ourselves in how we live our lives in faith. We cannot be lukewarm and ignorant any longer, for those who have professed to believe in the Lord and yet their actions showed otherwise, these will be found wanting by the Lord, as those whose faith are not living, but dead, for faith without good works, as St. James said in his Epistle, is as good as dead.

Perhaps, we should follow the example of the holy man whose feast we are celebrating today. St. John Diego or St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin was one of the first saints of the Americas, then known as the New World. He was one of the first natives of the New World to convert to the faith, after it was brought there by courageous missionaries who delivered the word of God and His Good News to those people still living in the darkness and ignorance of God.

Through his newfound faith in God, he was inspired to live an upright and honest life in accordance with God’s ways, and he was devoted to good works and charity, caring especially for his sick uncle with devotion. And it was told that this upright and devout man received a vision and apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of God, what is now known as Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico.

St. John Diego received the apparition of Mary at a hill known as Tepeyac, where now the great Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is located at. He saw the Blessed Virgin clothed in the traditional cloth of the natives known as the tilma, and then related the experience to his local bishop. The bishop doubted this vision, and he did not believe at first that Mary had appeared to him.

For several times the apparition appeared again and again to St. John Diego as he went about carrying out his works among the poor as a lay member of the Franciscan religious order. And eventually the bishop asked for a sign that this vision is truly an authentic and trustworthy one. The Blessed Virgin appeared to St. John Diego with an instruction to go to the hill of Tepeyac, and there he found many white flowers that are not usually found in that region.

St. John Diego gathered the flowers in his own cloak or tilma and hurried back to the bishop to show him the flowers he had gathered. However, what surprised the bishop most was not the flowers, but rather what he saw was printed inside the tilma of St. John Diego, which is none other than the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe herself.

And ever since then, many people were saved because of the inspiration of St. John Diego, through the vision of the miraculous cloak or the tilma upon which the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is printed, which is now enshrined in the great Basilica, and through the messages that Our Lady passed on to St. John Diego, which he disseminated among the faithful.

From his example, we should be inspired by his dedication to the Lord, his upright and just ways, and despite the opposition and ridicule from others, in this case, from his own bishop and from his relatives, he nevertheless continued to persevere on nonetheless, and as a result, brought many others to salvation and liberation from sin.

May all of us be able to follow in his footsteps and be good and devoted disciples of the Lord ourselves. May He bless us and strengthen our faith, so that in all the things we say and do, we will always bring glory to Him and to His Name. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us all sinners. Amen.

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Friday, 9 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Saints)
Matthew 11 : 16-19

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Now, to what can I compare the people of this day? They are like children sitting in the marketplace, about whom their companions complain : ‘We played the flute for you, but you would not dance. We sang a funeral song, but you would not cry!'”

“For John came fasting, and the people said, ‘He is possessed.’ Then the Son of Man came, He ate and drank, and people said, ‘Look at this Man! A glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet the outcome will prove Wisdom to be right.”

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Friday, 9 December 2016 : 2nd Week of Advent, Memorial of St. John Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet or White (Saints)
Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Blessed is the one who does not go where the wicked gather, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit where the scoffers sit! Instead, he finds delight in the law of the Lord and meditates day and night on His commandments.

He is like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering. Everything he does is a success.

But it is different with the wicked. They are like chaff driven away by the wind. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.