Septuagint

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Friday, 30 September 2016 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today from the Holy Scriptures we have received the message that each and every one of us ought to be serious and sincere in our faith and devotion to the Lord, and not to be lukewarm and ignorant as what the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum had done. These were the cities in the region of Galilee where Jesus did most of His works and ministries in, healing people from their diseases and performing many other miracles among them.

And yet, these people found it difficult in themselves to believe in what Jesus had come to say to them. They were adamant in their lack of faith in Jesus, and in true commitment to His ways, as many of them came to follow Him because of what they saw in Him, as a miracle worker and wonder bearer, Who was able to made them to be awed and satisfied, but yet, when difficult times came, they abandoned Him readily and walked away from Him.

God had done so much for our sake, and yet, we often are ignorant of His love. He has blessed us with so many blessings and graces, even to the point of giving to us the greatest of His gifts, that is the gift of His perfect love, in His own Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus came into this world in order to save it, and to bring forth into the world the truth which He was telling them, that God has come into the world to dwell among His people, and be saved together with His glorious resurrection.

For He had given His all to heal us mankind from our injuries and wounds, He had voluntarily given up Himself to be the One to bear the burden of our sins, disobedience, wickedness, all of which should have led us to be punished and to fall into eternal damnation. Instead, He had decided to willingly bear those burdens upon themselves, that we may survive and not perish, and that all those who have accepted their salvation in God may find the way to be reunited with Him in eternal life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, all of us are called to reflect on our own lives, and see what we have done thus far in order to be a true and good Christian, for each and every one of us. Have we been truly devoted and be committed to Him in our own way of life? Have our actions show love, care and concern for our brethren just as Jesus Himself had cared for us and loved us?

It is important that we should heed the examples of the holy saints and all those who have committed themselves to the Lord, that we know the path that we ought to undertake in order to proceed forward towards the Lord. These people have tried their best to make use of whatever God had given them and blessed them with, and use these for the benefit of their brethren.

St. Jerome was a great saint of the Western Christendom, who lived at the time of the Roman Empire after the Christian faith had been legalised in its existence, and the faith itself was spreading very rapidly among the people. St. Jerome was a convert to the faith, who then came to embrace the calling which God had made for him, following the Lord with all of his heart and effort as a priest and as a monk, who worked hard to evangelise to the people of God, particularly through his many writings.

He wrote extensively on many matters regarding the faith, and was most renowned through his work on the translation of the Greek Septuagint Bible into the Latin Vulgate Bible. As many of the people in the western part of Christendom did not speak or read Greek, the translation was crucial in providing the basis from which the word of God in the Sacred Scriptures were then on accessible to the people of God through the Church.

From his contributions, many souls have received the word of God, understood what God’s intentions were for them, and many of these have repented their sins and left behind their old ways of worldliness, greed, hatred and wickedness. They have therefore been saved through the good works of St. Jerome and his many successors, all those who have devoted themselves and their lives as true and genuine Christians.

We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, are able to do the same. Indeed, we have been given the same gifts as those that God had given His holy saints. But now the choice and the decision lie in our hands alone, whether we want to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others, by doing what God had commanded us to do, by giving ourselves to the cause of the Lord through our dedication to help His Church and by generously giving to our brethren in need.

May God help us in our endeavours, as well as in our journey to become ever closer to Him, that we all may draw ever more righteousness and justice from our deep and personal relationship with our God. May St. Jerome and the many other holy saints of our God pray for us all, that each and every one of us may be saved and may find righteousness and justice in the presence of God. Amen.

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Friday, 30 September 2016 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 10 : 13-16

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Alas for you, Chorazin! Alas for you, Bethsaida! So many miracles have been worked in you! If the same miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would already be sitting in ashes and wearing the sackcloth of repentance.”

“Surely for Tyre and Sidon it will be better on the Day of Judgment than for you. And what of you, city of Capernaum? Will you be lifted up to heaven? You will be thrown down to the place of the dead. Whoever listens to you listens to Me, and whoever rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me, rejects the One Who sent Me.”

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Friday, 30 September 2016 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 138 : 1-3, 7-8, 9-10, 13, 14ab

O Lord, You know me : You have scrutinised me. You know when I sit and when I rise; beforehand You discern my thoughts. You observe my activities and times of rest; You are familiar with all my ways.

Where else could I go from Your Spirit? Where could I flee from Your presence? You are there if I ascend the heavens; You are there if I descend to the depths.

If I ride on the wings of the dawn and settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand shall guide me and Your right hand shall hold me safely.

It was You Who formed my inmost part and knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I thank You for these wonders You have done, and my heart praises You for Your marvellous deeds.

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Friday, 30 September 2016 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White
Job 38 : 1, 12-21 and Job 40 : 3-5

Then YHVH answered Job out of the storm : “Have you ever commanded the morning, or shown the dawn its place, that it might grasp the earth by its edges and shake the wicked out of it, when it takes a clay colour and changes its tint like a garment; when the wicked are denied their own light, and their proud arm is shattered?”

“Have you journeyed to where the sea begins or walked in its deepest recesses? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of Shadow? Have you an idea of the breadth of the earth? Tell Me, if you know all this. Where is the way to the home of light, and where does darkness dwell?”

“Can you take them to their own regions, and set them on their homeward paths? You know, for you were born before them, and great is the number of your years!”

Job said, “How can I reply, unworthy as I am! All I can do is put my hand over my mouth. I have spoken once, now I will not answer; oh, yes, twice, but I will do no further.”

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Monday, 30 September 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listened to a lesson on humility, and its importance, when we become the disciples of Christ, not to boast of our own glory, but rather boast of the glory of God, made evident in Jesus the Christ. That is because it is indeed the Lord who is worthy of all praise and glory, for His might, and even more importantly for the extent of the love that He had shown us through Christ.

The Lord wanted to teach His disciples, and through them, all of us, on the value and importance on humility and being humble, as the way to be a good and upright person, a good child of God. And Christ did not just preach and do nothing about what He taught, because in fact He truly practiced what He had preached.

How so? Jesus is truly humble and unassuming, although He is truly great, as the King of all kings. He is divine and omnipotent, and all creation is under His power and authority, as the Lord of all the universe, and yet, for our sake and our salvation from death, He is willing to make Himself small and insignificant, as small and unworthy as we are, to be man like one of us, although without sin.

In His humility too, He was born in a small stable, rejected by others, from inns and houses, that He had to be born among the animals and shepherds. He lived as a carpenter’s son and was ridiculed by His own people, the people of Nazareth, when He revealed the truth about Himself to them. He was humble in all of His ways and loving in all of His actions.

There is nothing that exemplifies His humility better than that of His ultimate sacrifice on the cross. That He lowered Himself to die a death of a slave, the death on the cross, condemned to death despite His innocence, for the sake of all of us. But that is also where the Lord’s words came true even more. That is because the symbol of the cross was transformed forever, from the symbol of shame to be a symbol of hope and victory.

Christ rose up from the dead in glory on the third day after His death, and He took His rightful place as the Lord of all things, having saved mankind through His death, that they will not die but live. On the other hand, the prideful and arrogant Satan was cast down in great shame, and forever he is condemned to the punishment prepared for him, for his prideful rebellion against the Lord.

With humility, we will go a long way, because with humility in our heart, we will be more ready to open it to the love of God, to the wisdom of God, and to His saving power. We will be more ready to listen to Him and take in all the teachings that He had told us, the commandments that He had given us to follow, that we become truly faithful and obedient to He who created us.

Humility allows one to understand one’s faults and weaknesses more readily, and also the understanding, that one’s sins had prevented one from reaching the Lord and eternal joy in heaven. That this will likely make one to atone for one’s own sins and do things that help to overcome those sins as well as doing good for others. That is how important humility truly is.

Without humility, we tend to be prone to fall into our own pride, and end up shutting the Lord and even our other beloved ones from our heart. We will tend to build up our ego, to the point that we think only about ourselves, and not for others, at all. We tend to do things for our own glory, and praising ourselves for our own greatness, without realising that, without God we are really nothing.

Today, brethren, we celebrate the feast of St. Jerome, a great writer of the early Church, and one of the greatest Doctors of the Church, as one of the original Four, together with St. Augustine, St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. as strong pillars of the Church. St. Jerome lived at a time when the faith has begun to take hold over the entire Roman Empire after it was no longer persecuted.

St. Jerome’s contribution to the Church is truly great, especially to the Church in the western parts of the Empire. The Roman Empire was a vast Empire spanning from Britain and the Atlantic Ocean all the way to the Middle East and Egypt, encompassing the entire Mediterranean Sea basin. The western part of that Empire spoke primarily Latin and its dialectic derivatives, the official language of the Empire.

The eastern part however, spoke primarily Greek and a variety of other ancient languages, and because the faith came and arose from that region, much of the Scripture that we know today was written in Greek or in the other eastern languages. It is St. Jerome who opened the doorway to the Scripture in the west, and therefore to us, by being the first to translate the Septuagint, that is the Greek Scripture, into the Vulgate, the Latin Scripture, written by St. Jerome himself.

St. Jerome also courageously defended the true and orthodox faith, defending it against every kind of aberrations and heresies that threatened to split the Church apart at that time. Through his writings and other works, St. Jerome kept the Apostolic faith alive and strong even in difficult times.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, as we celebrate the feast of this great saint, St. Jerome, let us also strive to be more like him. St. Jerome is an ascetic, one who withdrew from the pleasures of the world and reject worldly glories, putting the Lord above everything else. He is also humble, and he did his work with great humility, and yet he bore much fruits.

That is why, brethren, we too should emulate him, in doing good works in our own ways, even in small little ways. Because even in little things, good can eventually come in abundance. In humility too, we can become great, not in the way that the world sees it, but instead in the eyes of the Lord. Humility bears love, and that love will bear much good. Even in his ‘humble’ work as a writer, St. Jerome’s good works still affect us even until this day. All the Bibles that we read today eventually had their roots from the works of St. Jerome.

May St. Jerome intercede for us and pray always for us sinners, that we can remain in the grace of God, and receive His heavenly blessings. May God be with us and remain with us always. Amen.

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Monday, 30 September 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Luke 9 : 46-50

One day the disciples were arguing about which of them was the most important. But Jesus knew their thoughts, so He took a little child and stood him by His side.

Then He said to them, “Whoever welcomes this little child in My Name, welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me, welcomes the One who sent Me. And listen : the one who is found to be the least among you all, is the one who is the greatest.”

Then John spoke up, “Master, we saw someone who drives out demons by calling upon Your Name, and we tried to forbid him, because he does not follow You with us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him. He who is not against you is for you.”

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Monday, 30 September 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 101 : 16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23

O Lord, the nations will revere Your Name, and the kings of the earth Your glory, when the Lord will rebuild Zion and appear in all His splendour. For He will answer the prayer of the needy and will not despise their plea.

Let this be written for future ages, “the Lord will be praised by a people He will form.” From His holy height in heaven, the Lord has looked on the earth to hear the groaning of the prisoners, and free those condemned to death.”

Your servants’ children will dwell secure; their posterity will endure without fail. Then the Name of the Lord will be declared in Zion, and His praise in Jerusalem, when the peoples and the kingdoms assemble to worship Him.

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Monday, 30 September 2013 : 26th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Jerome, Priest and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Zechariah 8 : 1-8

The word of YHVH, the God of hosts was directed to me in this way, “I am intensely jealous for Zion, stirred by a burning anger for her sake. YHVH says : I will return to Zion and live in her midst. Jerusalem shall be called City of faithfulness and the Mountain of YHVH of hosts, the Mountain of holiness.”

YHVH, God of hosts speaks, “Old men and women will again sit in the squares, each with a stick in hand on account of their great age. The squares of the city will be filled with girls and boys playing.”

YHVH, God of hosts declares, “If that seems impossible in the eyes of those who have returned from exile, will it be impossible for Me as well?” – word of YHVH.

YHVH, God of hosts says, “See, I am going to save My people, bringing them from the east and from the west, and they will live in Jerusalem. They will be My people and I shall be their God in truth and in justice.”