Second Sunday of Easter

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 31-36

At that time, John the Baptist said to his disciples, “He who comes from above is above all; he who comes from the earth belongs to the earth, and his words belong to the earth. He who comes from heaven speaks of the things He has seen and heard; He bears witness to these things, but no one accepts His testimony. Whoever does receive His testimony acknowledges the truthfulness of God.”

“The One sent by God speaks God’s words, and gives the Spirit unstintingly. The Father loves the Son and has entrusted everything into His hands. Whoever believes in the Son lives with eternal life; but he who will not believe in the Son will never know life, and always faces the justice of God.”

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 33 : 2 and 9, 17-18, 19-20

I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!

But His face is set against the wicked to destroy their memory from the earth. The Lord hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles.

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught. Many are the troubles of the just, but the Lord delivers them from all.

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Thursday, 16 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 5 : 27-33

So the captain and the guards brought the Apostles in and made them stand before the Council and the High Priest questioned them, “We gave you strict orders not to preach such a Saviour; but you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to charge us with the killing of this Man.” To this Peter and the Apostles replied, “Better for us to obey God rather than any human authority!”

“The God of our ancestors raised Jesus whom you killed by hanging Him on a wooden post. God set Him at His right hand as Leader and Saviour, to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel. We are witnesses to all these things, as well as the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him.”

When the Council heard this, they became very angry and wanted to kill them.

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about how the Apostles of our Lord were delivered from their distress, when they were arrested by the Jewish leaders and the elders of the people. They were freed from prison and brought into deliverance to continue once again to teach the word of God to all the people. And in the Gospel, we heard how Jesus made clear God’s love for us, in the famous phrase of the Gospel of St. John Chapter 3, Verse 16.

That God so loved the world, that is all of us mankind, that He was willing to send His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into this world so that all who witness Him and His life, His death and resurrection and then believe in Him, may be saved and not be lost. For God has decreed that all whom He had gathered upon Himself, He would not lose again, unless if we are the ones who want to be lost ourselves.

The essence of this is that, if we put our trust in the Lord, we shall not be disappointed. We shall have no need to fear for anything, as God will guard us and protect us in His own way. God will shield us from harm and bring us to safety. Such is His love and dedication to all those who have put themselves at His care. After all, He had given Himself and none less, for our salvation by His death on the cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often difficult for us to comprehend the fullness of  God’s mercy and love for us. And it is often easy for us to fall into the temptations of this world and to walk down the path of corruption, that is the path of worldliness. And because we trust so much in the things of the world, such as power, fame, prestige, influence and human praise, then we cannot part from these.

We have our fears in this life because of these worldly attachments, and indeed not just attachments, but these had gone further to be addictions. Many times we mankind act in certain ways because we want to preserve ourselves and avoid being harmed in any way. And on the other hand, some of us even acted in a way that bring about harm and pain to others just so that we may preserve ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all be awakened to the truth of Christ, that what we truly need is not all the worldly things that this world often impose on us. We have to be courageous in our life so that we may say no and reject all the falsehoods and the traps which Satan had set on our path. We must be able to overcome all this, and despite the challenge, if only that we can trust in God, then the path will be opened for us.

This Easter is a time for us to realise how much is the love which God had showered us with, the perfect and eternal love which He had shown us through Jesus, whom by His death had broken us free from the bonds of sin and death, and by His resurrection, had promised us the eternal promise of eternal life with Him. It is indeed time for us to change our lives for the better, and become better and more devoted disciples of our Lord.

May our Risen Lord, Almighty God, be with us always and guide us in all the ways of our lives. May He bless us and give us strength to carry out His will in this world, and resist the temptations of Satan, resist all of our fears and worries, for in God we can trust, and He will always be faithful. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 16-21

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life. God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world; instead, through Him the world is to be saved. Whoever believes in Him will not be condemned. He who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the Name of the only Son of God.”

“This is how the Judgment is made : Light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For whoever does wrong hates the light, and does not come to the light, for fear that his deeds will be seen as evil. But whoever lives according to the truth comes into the light, so that it can be clearly seen that his works have been done in God.”

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 33 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

I will bless the Lord all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.

Oh, let us magnify the Lord, together let us glorify His Name! I sought the Lord, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, the Lord hears and saves them from distress.

The Lord’s angel encamps and patrols to keep safe those who fear Him. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!

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Wednesday, 15 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 5 : 17-26

The High Priest and all his supporters that is the party of the Sadducees, became very jealous of the Apostles; so they arrested them and had them thrown into the public jail. But an angel of the Lord opened the door of the prison during the night, brought them out, and said to them, “Go and stand in the Temple court and tell the people the whole of this living message.” Accordingly they entered the Temple at dawn and resumed their teaching.

When the High Priest and his supporters arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin, that is the full Council of the elders of Israel. They sent word to the jail to have the prisoners brought in. But when the Temple guards arrived at the jail, they did not find them inside, so they returned with the news, “We found the prison securely locked and the prison guards at their post outside the gate, but when we opened the gate, we found no one inside.”

Upon hearing these words, the captain of the Temple guard and the high priests were baffled, wondering where all of this would end. Just then someone arrived with the report, “Look, those men whom you put in prison are standing in the Temple, teaching the people.”

Then the captain went off with the guards and brought them back, but without any show of force, for fear of being stoned by the people.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how the community of the first Christians lived, and how they shared all their possessions among themselves in a society filled with the love of God and in full obedience to the Law of God. And in the Gospel, we heard how Nicodemus continued his discussion with Jesus at night time, when Jesus told him how the Son of Man was to be raised up as the salvation for all just as Moses raised the bronze serpent in the past.

All these point out to the fact that we Christians should heed the teachings of the Lord and profess His death and resurrection at all times in our life and also in how we live as a community of the faithful ones in God. There is great symbolism in the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ, the very important and singular most important moment together with the Resurrection, which is the moment when God triumphed against the forces of sin and darkness, once and for all.

Our Lord was raised up between the heaven and the earth, for all to see, the suffering which He had endured, the sins for which He had been punished for, which are all our sins and our iniquities, that He had borne in our place. The consequence of sin is death, destruction and annihilation, for we have disobeyed the Master of Life, and by right therefore, we do not deserve to live.

And yet, God is willing to forgive us, providing that we are sincere and genuine in repenting for those sins that we have committed. When the people of Israel walked through the desert during their Exodus out of Egypt, they rebelled and disobeyed against the Lord, such that the Lord sent fiery serpents to strike at those sinful people, and many died. The people repented and cried out to the Lord through Moses, and He told Moses to raise a bronze serpent, and all who had been bitten and looked at the serpent would live.

Thus, all those who have been bitten by sin, that is all of us mankind without exception, except for Christ Himself, is bound to die, and we are supposed to be destroyed and annihilated forever, without hope for redemption. But God’s love for us caused Him to show His mercy in the most spectacular and yet humblest of ways. He raised Himself up on the cross, that all of us who witness His resurrection by what we have received in faith, shall live.

We shall no longer die, that is eternal death. This means that while we still will die at the end of our earthly lives, but just as Christ rose from the dead in glory, we too shall be raised in glory and join Him in body and soul to the heavenly inheritance waiting for us. We shall live, and it is this hope and this joy for a new and everlasting life that we rejoice for this Easter.

But, another significance to today’s readings is also that because we are all a community of the faithful, and as people of the Light who had been saved from the world, and as we have heard and understood the word of God and His teachings, then we too should also showcase that faith through real commitment, real actions and deeds, that others can see and thus be saved too.

We cannot be passive in our faith. Remember what Lord Jesus told His disciples, that if salt loses its saltiness or light is hidden under a cover then these two have no meaning or use? It is the same with all of us. Having shared in the Lord, we too have been charged with the obligation and responsibility to shine with the light of Christ within us, so that all who see us may turn away from their sinfulness and be converted to the truth of Christ.

If we do not act in accordance to the way of the Lord, then it will be a scandal for us, and we may be held responsible for having turned people away from the Lord instead of bringing them closer. We have a lot of homework to do, and indeed, we have to reevaluate our lives and our ways in life. Have we been truly devoted to God and practice our faith genuinely in our actions? Let us ask the Lord for His continuing guidance, so that we may ever walk in His path. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 3 : 7b-15

At that time, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must be born again from above. The wind blows where it pleases and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is like that with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Nicodemus asked again, “How can this be?” And Jesus answered, “You are a teacher in Israel, and you do not know these things? Truly, I say to you, We speak of what We know and We witness to the things We have seen, but you do not accept Our testimony. If you do not believe when I speak of earthly things, what then, when I speak to you of heavenly things? No one has ever gone up to heaven except the One who came from heaven, the Son of Man.”

“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.”

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Tuesday, 14 April 2015 : 2nd Week of Easter (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 92 : 1ab, 1c-2, 5

The Lord reigns, robed in majesty. The Lord is girded with strength.

The world now is firm, it cannot be moved. Your throne stands from long ago, o Lord, from all eternity You are.

Your decrees can be trusted; holiness dwells in Your house day after day without end, o Lord.