Septuagesima Sunday

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are all called to have faith in the Lord, to trust in Him and to walk ever more faithfully in His path. As Christians, all of us have to follow the Lord and His Law, His commandments, all of His precepts and ways, or otherwise we are no better than hypocrites and unbelievers. As Christians we are called to be exemplary in our way of life, in our actions, words and deeds so that we may inspire others to follow in our footsteps and be faithful to God as well.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, we heard the Lord speaking to His people regarding those who refused to believe in Him and instead depending on human power and might, in worldly things rather than believing in the providence of the Almighty. The Lord also encouraged all those who have kept their faith in Him, that they would be blessed and God would always remain with them no matter what, and they had no need to be afraid because in the end, they will triumph with God and receive true joy and glory with Him.

Contextually, we have to understand that the prophet Jeremiah brought God’s words and message to the people in the kingdom of Judah, which was then on its last days, but they still refused to believe in God despite everything that God had done for them and despite all the messengers and prophets He had sent to them to remind them of His love and of what would happen if they continued walking down the path of sin. Instead of believing in God, many of them believed in the falsehoods of the false prophets, some of whom contested against Jeremiah in as written in another part of the record of the prophet’s life, and deluded the king and the people of Judah to trust in them instead of God’s words.

To that extent, the king and the people of Judah chose to depend on their more powerful neighbours, entrusting themselves to the protection of Egypt, which was one of the major powers alongside the then rising Neo-Babylonian Empire under King Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah was one of the few who spoke against doing such a foolish act, depending on one power against another, and he was the only one who dared to speak up against the king and those false prophets, which led to him being persecuted for his faith and dedication to his work. He was almost killed if not for the help from some of his few remaining friends and allies.

The Lord therefore wanted to reassure those remaining few faithful ones who still kept their faith in God, that they had no need to be worried or afraid of their fate. Whatever things that would happen to them, as long as they were faithful, God would take care of them, protect them and guide them. As proven later on, with the downfall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, and even though many of the people were carried off into exile in Babylon and other lands, but God always remembered them.

And even though they had to endure hardships and humiliation, but in the end, they and their descendants would rejoice with great happiness when He led them back to return to their own land as it happened under the reign of King Cyrus the Great of Persia. The King of Persia would allow the people of God to return to their homeland in triumph, to rebuild their cities and to restore their lost glory and rebuild the Temple and House of God in their midst, supported by the King of Persia and his kingdom.

In our second reading today, then we heard from St. Paul the Apostle in his Epistle and letter to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, as he spoke of regarding the matter of Christ’s resurrection from the dead to the Christians in Corinth. St. Paul reminded all of them that their faith was all about believing in the Risen Lord, their Lord and Master Who had risen from the dead and was triumphant. And because of this, all of them could be assured of the ultimate victory and joy, the true happiness that will come from God because of His victory over death through the Cross.

For the Lord has sent His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, into this world, appearing in the flesh, and through Him, God has made clear His promises and reassured all of us that our faith in Him are well placed and we will never be disappointed. The Lord reassured His people that if they had suffered and endured challenges and trials in this world all these while especially because of their faith in Him, they shall not be disappointed because the Lord would remember them and give them their due in its time, in the time that God Himself deems appropriate.

The Lord will provide for His faithful ones just as He had provided for their ancestors during the time of the prophet Jeremiah and beyond. He has given His own Son as the proof of all that, and through Him all of us have received the sure hope of eternal life, because by His Cross, bearing the multitudes of our sins and the punishments due to those sins, we have shared in His suffering and death, as He bore all of our faults upon His own shoulders, and through that, He shared with us His own glorious Resurrection, triumphant over death and sin. He showed us all that sin and death no longer have the final say over us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to the Scripture passages and recall these words of the Lord, let us all therefore seek to trust more in the Lord and believe in Him and His love. Let us all no longer doubt Him and strive to resist all the temptations in this world, all trying to mislead us down the path of sin and evil. Let us do our best to persevere through the challenges and trials that we may encounter in life, and try to be inspiration to one another in how we remain faithful to the Lord despite all the difficulties and obstacles we may have to face in the midst of our journey towards the Lord.

All of us are called to be witnesses of His truth and love, to be the bearers of His compassionate mercy and the Good News, to reveal Him, Our Risen Lord and Saviour, to all the people of all the nations just as He had commended this mission to the Apostles. All of us are part of this effort and work, which He has entrusted to His Church. The Lord gave us the gifts, talents and abilities to do what we can in giving ourselves and our time, our opportunities and efforts to spread the truth of His salvation and Good News to more people, to the far ends of the earth.

That is our calling as Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ. And we cannot truly commit ourselves to the cause of the Lord unless we have truly embraced the Lord and His ways, resisting the temptations to sin, striving to be faithful in all things, in our every actions and deeds. All of us are called to do God’s will, to practice our faith sincerely and with conviction, at all times. We are all given the many opportunities to touch the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters around us, in these opportunities afforded to us.

Now, are we going to remain idle? Are we going to ignore the Lord’s call and keep our own gifts and abilities hidden, or to misuse them for our own selfish purposes? We are all given the freedom to choose our path, and we have to make a clear choice whether we want to follow the Lord wholeheartedly or to allow our path to be swayed by the many worldly temptations that lead us down the path of sin and destruction. Let us recall the love that God has shown us, His reassurance and encouragement to us. Let us not be discouraged if we meet hardships and hurdles, and instead help one another to endure them together as one united people by faith, in the Church of God.

May the Lord continue to be with us and guide us in our respective journey of faith through life, that we may always grow ever stronger in faith in Him, and do our best to be good role models for our fellow brothers and sisters whenever we can, bringing hope and encouragement to a world shrouded in darkness, and bearing God’s light and love with us as we carry on living our lives in this world. May God bless our actions and every endeavours, all for the greater glory of His Name. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Luke 6 : 17, 20-26

At that time, coming down the hill with His disciples, Jesus stood in an open plain. Many of His disciples were there, and a large crowd of people, who had come from all parts of Judea and Jerusalem, and from the coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon.

Then, looking at His disciples, Jesus said, “Fortunate are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. Fortunate are you, who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Fortunate are you, who weep now, for you will laugh.”

“Fortunate are you, when people hate you, when they reject you and insult you and number you among criminals, because of the Son of Man. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for a great reward is kept for you in heaven. Remember, that is how the ancestors of the people treated the prophets.”

“But alas for you, who have wealth, for you have been comforted now. Alas for you, who are full, for you will go hungry. Alas for you, who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Alas for you, when people speak well of you, for that is how the ancestors of the people treated the false prophets.”

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 15 : 12, 16-20

Well, then, if Christ is preached as risen from the dead, how can some of you say, that there is no resurrection of the dead? If the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith gives you nothing, and you are still in sin.

Also, those who fall asleep, in Christ, are lost. If it is only for this life, that we hope in Christ, we are the most unfortunate of all people. But no, Christ has been raised from the dead, and He comes before all those who have fallen asleep.

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 1 : 1-2, 3, 4 and 6

Blessed is the man 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 YHVH 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 YHVH knows the way of the righteous but cuts off the way of the wicked.

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Jeremiah 17 : 5-8

This is what YHVH says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings and depends on a mortal for his life, while his heart is drawn away from YHVH!”

He is like a bunch of thistles in dry land, in parched desert places, in a salt land where no one lives and who never finds happiness. Blessed is the man who puts his trust in YHVH and whose confidence is in Him! He is like a tree planted by the water, sending out its roots towards the stream. He has no fear when the heat comes, his leaves are always green; the year of drought is no problem and he can always bear fruit.

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Sunday, 1 February 2015 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Septuagesima Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or Violet (Septuagesima Sunday – Usus Antiquior)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the Septuagesima Sunday, which literally means ‘seventy’. This is to remind us that as this is the ninth Sunday before Easter, we are about seventy days away from the great feast and celebration of our Lord’s Passion, death and ultimately, the most important of all, the Resurrection through which He made whole all mankind and bring hope into the world engulfed in the darkness.

As is appropriate, the Gospel today from the Gospel of St. Mark spoke about time and works that men take up, to fulfill the Lord’s call for all of us. The parable of the vineyard workers and the owner is speaking about how we mankind, the people of God are called by the Lord to be His servants and to do the good works which He had initiated in this world.

The Gospel from the readings for the Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time spoke of how Jesus our Lord exercised His power and authority to cast out demons and heal all those afflicted by the physical and spiritual sickness and diseases. And that is just how our Lord does His work to liberate us all from the clutches of Satan, and ti show the way for us all to seek the Lord our God.

And in the first reading of the Ordinary Time readings, from the Book of Deuteronomy, the Lord had promised His people that He would send them a Prophet, that is the One who would bear His will and His words of truth to the people. Jesus is that Prophet, who taught the people and His own disciples through stories and parables which bore the truth of God inside them. He is the Word of God made flesh.

In the parable told by Jesus in the Gospel for Septuagesima Sunday, the vineyard owner is truly the Lord our God, who is the Lord of all. The vineyard itself is the world that is saved, that is the Church of God, and the workers are all of us, the race of men. God seeks out all of us at different times, and He sought us in the darkened world outside the Church, that is everything else beyond the vineyard. Like the owner who went out to seek more workers for his field at various hours, the Lord too seeks us at all the time, desiring to find us and bring us to salvation.

There are therefore three main things I want and I hope all of us will take away from the readings of today, that we may reflect on them and understand the necessity for us to know what the Lord wants from us. First, it is that we should not wait until it is too late and then only then we desire to seek the Lord. The Lord always wants to seek us, but if we ourselves refuse to listen to His call, then we will be forever damned in the darkness.

And we do not know when death will come for us. All of us will die one day, at the time and place that only the Lord our God knows. There are many who continue to ignore the Lord’s heedings for us, and they wait, thinking that there is still time for them. But death may claim them on the next day, and even on the next minute or second! And when that happens, no matter how we beg or how we plead with the Lord, He will refuse us for we have ourselves refused the generous and repeated offer of mercy which He had given us.

And then secondly, the Lord invites us to enter His Church, to be saved with all those who have been saved earlier. The Church of God is represented in the Gospel with the vineyard and all the workers inside it. All those whom the Lord calls and accepted His call and worked in His Church are saved. Thus, we ought to rejoice indeed, for we have received baptism that initiated us to be the members of the Church, the children of God and thus the partakers of God’s saving works and grace.

And last of all, as we see, that all the workers received equal pay of one denarius or silver coin, regardless of how long they have worked in the vineyard. Thus, the same applies to all of us the children of God. Regardless of what we have in this life, our possessions, our abilities and talents, our works and contributions, as long as we are all faithful to God and keep His commandments, we are all equal before the Lord.

This does not mean literally that everyone should be equal. As we can see, that different workers work at different hours and for different lengths of time. This means that each of us in the Church of God have distinct roles, each according to his or her own abilities. We should not be jealous that others had done less, or be proud that we have attained salvation earlier because He called us earlier than others.

This means that we should not be proud of our justification and look down on others who have yet to be saved. After all, as long as we receive His salvation and agree to become part of His Church, we shall receive the same reward, represented by the equal pay of one denarius for each worker, that is our salvation and eternal life, to live together in perfect bliss and happiness without end, with the Lord our God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all realise that we all have much to do in order to bring others into the salvation in God. We should help one another, and as part of the Church, to be examples and role models for all those who have yet to find their way to the Lord, so that they too may be saved. And we have to realise as well, that the vineyard of the Lord, that is His Church, still require many people to help as the servants of the works of God.

May all of us be awakened to follow the Lord and to righteously walk in His way. Let us all seek the Lord and harken to His call. Do not wait until it is too late for us, but let us stir ourselves from our slumber and walk from now on, only in the path of the Lord. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 February 2015 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Septuagesima Sunday (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 1 : 21b-28

Jesus taught in the synagogue on the sabbath day. The people were astonished at the way He taught, for He spoke as One having authority and not like the teachers of the Law.

It happened that a man with an evil spirit was in their synagogue, and he shouted, “What do You want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are : You are the Holy One of God.”

Then Jesus faced him and said with authority, “Be silent, and come out of this man!” The evil spirit shook the man violently and, with a loud shriek, came out of him. All the people were astonished, and they wondered, “What is this? With what authority He preaches! He even gives orders to evil spirits and they obey Him!”

And Jesus’ fame spread throughout all the country of Galilee.

Alternative reading (Gospel of Septuagesima Sunday – Usus Antiquior)

Matthew 20 : 1-16

At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable, “The kingdom of heaven is like to a householder, who went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. And having agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing in the marketplace idle, and he said to them, “Go all of you also into my vineyard, and I will give you what shall be just.” And they went their way. And again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did in like manner. But at about the eleventh hour, he went out, and found others standing, and he said to them, “Why do you stand there all the day idle?”

They said to him, “Because no man has hired us.” He said to them, “You all also go to my vineyard.” And when evening came, the lord of the vineyard said to his steward, “Call the labourers, and pay them their hire, beginning from the last even to the first.” When therefore they came, those who came at about the eleventh hour, they received for every person a penny.

But when the first also came, they thought that they should receive more, and they also received for every person a penny. And receiving it, they murmured against the master of the house, saying, “These last have worked barely for one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the heat.”

But he answered and said to one of them, “Friend, I did you no wrong, did you not agree with me for a penny? Take what is yours, and go your way. I will also give to this last even as to you. Or, is it not lawful for me to do what I will? Is your eye evil, because I am good? So shall the last be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

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Sunday, 1 February 2015 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Septuagesima Sunday (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Corinthians 7 : 32-35

I would like you to be free from anxieties. He who is not married is concerned about the things of the Lord and how to please the Lord. While he who is married is taken up with the things of the world and how to please his wife, and he is divided in his interests.

Likewise, the unmarried woman and the virgin are concerned with the service of the Lord, to be holy in body and spirit. The married woman, instead, worries about the things of the world and how to please their husband.

I say this for your own good. I do not wish to lay traps for you but to lead you to a beautiful life, entirely united with the Lord.

Alternative reading (Epistle for Septuagesima Sunday – Usus Antiquior)

1 Corinthians 9 : 24-27 and 1 Corinthians 10 : 1-5

Brethren, do you not know that those who run in the race, all run indeed, but only one received the prize? So run, that you may obtain. And everyone who strives for the mastery, refrains himself from all things, and they indeed so that they may receive a corruptible crown, but we receive an incorruptible one.

I therefore so run, not as at an uncertainty, I so fight, not as one beating the air but I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection, lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.

For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all in Moses were baptised, in the cloud and in the sea, and all did eat the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, (and they drank of the spiritual drink that followed them, and the Rock was Christ). But with the most of them God was not well pleased.

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Sunday, 1 February 2015 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Septuagesima Sunday (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 94 : 1-2, 6-7, 8-9

Come, let us sing to the Lord, let us make a joyful sound to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him giving thanks, with music and songs of praise.

Come and worship; let us bow down, kneel before the Lord, our Maker. He is our God, and we His people; the flock He leads and pastures. Would that today You heard His voice!

Do not be stubborn, as at Meribah, in the desert, on that day at Massah, when your ancestors challenged Me, and they put Me to the test.

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Sunday, 1 February 2015 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Septuagesima Sunday (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Deuteronomy 18 : 15-20

God will raise up for you a Prophet like myself from among the people, from your brothers, to whom you shall listen. Remember that in Horeb, on the day of the Assembly, you said : “I am afraid to die and I do not want to hear the voice of YHVH again or see again that great fire.”

So YHVH said to me : “They have spoken well. I shall raise up a Prophet from their midst, One of their brothers, who will be like you. I will put My words into His mouth and He will tell them all that I command. If someone does not listen to My words when the Prophet speaks on My behalf, I Myself will call Him to account for it.”

“But any prophet who says in My Name anything that I did not command, or speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.”