sermon for Easter

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Friday, 13 May 2016 : Seventh Week of Easter, Memorial of our Lady of Fatima (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we celebrate together the feast of our Lady of Fatima, commemorating that moment on this day, the thirteenth day of May, ninety-nine years ago in the year 1917, when during the height of the World War I and at the beginning of the time of great difficulty and persecution that would face Christian Russia, at the beginning of the Bolshevik Communist revolution, that the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, appeared to three young children in the village of Fatima in Portugal.

Our Lady appeared to them and asking them to devote themselves and pray to the Holy Trinity daily, and pray the Rosary regularly for the sake of the peace of the world, the end of the war and the return of love, compassion and harmony into the world. She asked the children to spread the devotion to their fellow countrymen and all those that they had encountered, so that hopefully many people would walk in the path of repentance towards the redemption in God, and that they may seek Him through her help.

She also passed on words of advice, and many revelations to the children, including three secrets which would contain the things that were to come to the world and to the faithful people of God. She foretold of the great tribulations that would come upon the world, as we could see in the rise of Communism in Russia and in many other countries which engulfed much of the twentieth century and even until today, where those who refused to believe in God persecuted the faithful and the Church, making even many martyrs out of them.

Through the revelations of our Lady of Fatima, indeed all of us should be able to see and to feel just how much love God is showing us all His beloved ones. He has shown us His great love through His mother, who is also our mother, and that is why she is always busy at work both at the side of her Son in heaven, praying and interceding for our sake, or in the world, to stir the hearts of mankind that they may repent and turn away from their sins.

Each Marian apparitions, most famous of which were in Fatima and Lourdes spoke about the need for mankind to change their ways, repenting their sins through acts of faith and devotion, that our faith in God may be strengthened, and we may receive the grace, the strength and the courage to live our lives with faith, and to reject and resist whatever temptations that come our way, trying to pull us away from the path towards God.

And one of the advice which the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord Jesus gave us was that we should pray the Rosary often with devotion and pure intentions, to help us in this spiritual warfare that is happening daily about us. And if we think praying the Rosary is repetitive and meaningless, that means, first of all, we may not be praying it right, and we in fact may not have gotten what prayer is all about, and we may also not realise the gravity of the spiritual battle happening around us and involving us.

Many of us when we pray, we do not pray in right way. We tend to think, wrongly, that prayer is a way for us to get help from God, and it is like a request booth through which we can plea, beg, ask and even demand grace and blessings from God. And that is why our prayer becomes less of that crucial conversation and interaction which we have with God, and became instead the litany and long list of wishes, requests and demands that do not do justice to what a prayer is truly about.

Instead, all of us should come to realise that prayer is a very powerful tool indeed, and not for us to merely get gratification and to satisfy our desires by asking the Lord all that we wished and wanted. Prayer is not just a unidirectional conversation where we do all the talking and expect the Lord to listen to us and to our petitions, as sadly most of us often believed. But rather, prayer is the time for us to spend a quiet and precious moment together with God, that we may speak with Him through the silence of our hearts, and that He too may speak to us deep in our hearts and minds.

As we honour our Blessed mother, Mary, the Lady of Fatima, and as we rejoice together knowing that the Lord had given us His own mother to be our mother as well, caring and loving for us, let us heed therefore her advice, as she had reiterated many times through her many apparitions including at Fatima, of the need for us all to undergo that tremendous change that begins from the heart. And the best way to that is through prayer and discipline.

Praying the Rosary regularly and meaningfully is a great method for us to quieten down our hearts and minds, allowing us to condition ourselves and tune ourselves away from the busy things of this world, shutting out all the noise, the temptations and all the distractions that often kept us away from truly being able to realise the way that God is reaching out to us, by speaking in the silence of our hearts.

Rather, let us all, in this month of May, which we should know as the month of the Holy Rosary, devote ourselves ever more to pray and pray the Rosary in many occasions with zeal and devotion, so that we may grow ever spiritually stronger. Remember, brethren, the devil and his fellow angels are out there like lions prowling about waiting to prey on us and to devour us, the sheep of the flock of the Lord, especially when we are distracted and lost our focus in the midst pf our busy lives.

Let us ask our blessed mother to intercede for us all, so that she may ask her Son to send His Angels to us to guard us against the enemy, and that we may be able to realise the gravity and the dangers of our sins, and thus make the conscious effort to change ourselves, repent and seek God’s forgiveness for our sins. May our Lord Jesus Christ, with the help of His Blessed mother Mary, our Lady of Fatima lead and guide us on the way to salvation and eternal life. God bless us all. Amen.

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Thursday, 12 May 2016 : Seventh Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Nereus and St. Achilleus, Martyrs and St. Pancras, Martyr (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard about the moment when St. Paul was brought in front of the assembly of Pharisees and Sadducees in Caesarea, where they wanted to accuse him of wrongdoings and even through false charges. But St. Paul did not fear this and he fought back, showing just how weak and false the arguments laid against him was, as his many enemies and opponents could not even work together or find a common ground to accuse him of wrongdoing.

And in the end, he was saved from their persecution, which would likely have seen him brought up in chains to Jerusalem, and perhaps likely to suffer martyrdom there without the chance for further evangelisation. Instead, as the events went on, he managed to convince the governor to allow him to appeal to the Roman Emperor, and thus he went to Rome, and on the way, he stopped by several places where he helped to establish the Church in those places by his works.

In all these, we see that God will not abandon those who are faithful to Him. He will always be there for all those who obey His will and commandments, and also those who keep His ways faithfully. He will bless and guard these with jealous love, not allowing the forces of darkness and evil to harm them. These forces may challenge the servants of the Lord, bring tribulations and difficulties to them, but they will not bring harm to their eternal souls.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we see how much God has loved us and cared for us, so much so that He sent to us His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, that the Divine Word assumed the flesh, our flesh, and became Man like us. And by His works, the trials and tribulations which He faced for our sake, by His entreaties and prayers, made as what we heard in the Gospel today, He beseeched the Father to forgive us our sins, and made His petitions for our sake.

How great indeed is the love which God has shown for us. He is always loving and ever merciful to us. He is slow to anger and rich in kindness. He shows us His compassion from time to time, and He is willing to forgive us, but as long as we ourselves are also willing and wanting to be forgiven. If we do not act in the way that is pleasing to God and continue to act wickedly and in disobedience to God, how would we expect to be forgiven?

God will keep us and guard us as He has always done. He is forever faithful, but how about us? Are we faithful to God and committed to His ways? Let us ask ourselves how often it was that we have acted in ways that are not in accordance with God’s ways. How often is it that we have been angry with our brethren, our neighbours around us, or even resenting them or being jealous with what they had and what we did not have?

How often is it that we have been ignorant of the need of others who are around us, who need our help, and yet we did not even lift a finger to help, and pretend not to notice their sufferings? These are the questions we should ask ourselves, and indeed, we should also reflect on the lives of the three great saints and holy martyrs whose feast we celebrate today.

St. Nereus, St. Pancras and St. Achilleus were told be the martyrs of the great persecution of the Emperor Diocletian, who was known for his especially vicious and harsh persecution against the Church and the faithful during the turn of the fourth century after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. The faithful were greatly oppressed, and the Roman government and officials openly showed hostility against Christians of all backgrounds.

The three martyrs were told to be among those who were arrested and tortured at the time of the great persecution of Christians. And yet they refused to recant their faith in God, and they adamantly rejected the call to abandon their Lord and God and worship the Emperor as god instead. They courageously stood by their faith, even though they knew that by doing so, it means almost certain death at that time.

They did not compromise their faith and their life with submission to the world and its demands just in order to safeguard themselves. Rather, they totally surrendered it all to God, and went on knowing that doing so would mean facing death and painful sufferings. From their examples, each and every one of us should be aware that as Christians, we cannot be just passive and ignorant of things that we need to do, and indeed which we can do, for the sake of those who are around us, and for the sake of the Lord our God.

Let us all commit ourselves anew to the Lord, and let us be filled with strength and with the courage to carry out our lives in good faith and commitment to God, so that in all the things that we say and do, we will always bring forth the glory of God. May God bless us and keep us, and may He remain with us all forever. Amen.

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Sunday, 17 April 2016 : Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday, Vocation Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we commemorate the Fourth Sunday of Easter reckoned from the first Easter Sunday of our Lord’s Resurrection. And on this day, every year, we also celebrate a special occasion, with regards to the passages referred to in this Sunday’s reading, on the Lord Jesus as the Good Shepherd, the Shepherd of all the faithful.

Yes, today is the Good Shepherd Sunday, and which is also known as the Vocation Sunday, due to how related is the vocation to the priesthood to the concept of the ‘good shepherd’ which our Lord, the One and True Good Shepherd is showing those who walk in His path and follow His call to serve the greater purpose and higher calling to benefit the community of the faithful.

Jesus spoke of a good shepherd as those who know the sheep well, as compared to the thieves and the crooks who wanted to steal the sheep and bring these to harm. He is comparing Himself to the persona of the good shepherd in this manner, as He was leading His people like that of a shepherd to God His Father. And He as the Good Shepherd has set the example for us all to follow.

Therefore, there are a few important meanings to what we have heard in the Scriptures today. First of all, is that God is our Shepherd, and just as the true shepherd loves his sheep, thus God also loves each and every one of us. And He knows us all deep in our hearts, all of our secrets and thoughts, just as good shepherds know their sheep by heart.

And He Who loves us all will not want us to be lost to Him, as He will do His best to keep us all together and find us when we are lost. And in this, we should realise that this is why, God was willing to love us, to show us His mercy and to help us, even though we have erred and sinned many times in our lives, and even though we have indeed been very wicked. He is willing to give us another chance, as long as we are willing to change our ways, repent for our sins and return to Him in faith.

In another parable mentioned by Jesus, about a lost sheep from a flock of a hundred, He mentioned how the shepherd would leave behind all the sheep that are safe and sound, and set out to search for that one lost sheep until it is found and brought to safety. And when the shepherd had found the lost sheep, the joy of the shepherd and all the keepers will be great indeed, even greater than having all those that are already safe and sound in the flock.

That is the proof of how much God loves us, even more than the shepherd loves all of his sheep. In the first place, He did not create us all for nothing. He created everything, every beings and every creatures, all things out of love, and for us all, the greatest among His creations, He showed us all the greatest love of all. We were not intended from the beginning of time, for a life of suffering and difficulty, and neither should death have any power over us.

But it was because of our waywardness, and because of our disobedience and refusal to follow the laws of the Lord, that we have gone astray from our paths, and therefore became lost to sin and darkness. We are like sheep who are attracted to the sights and things outside of the safety of the flock and the guidance of the shepherd, and we desire to gain these things and go to them, without realising that in doing so, we expose ourselves to danger.

But our Lord, our loving Shepherd does not want us to end up in harm and in danger. And that was why He personally intervened by Himself, so that through His works and His actions, we all may be saved and brought back to His care and His embrace. And the Good Shepherd even laid down His own life for His sheep, as all good shepherds would. He allowed Himself to suffer and to be persecuted for our sake, and bearing our faults and sins, He carried that heavy cross and burden up the mountain to Calvary, where He offered Himself on the cross for our sake, to liberate us from the burden of sin and from the shackles of death.

And brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us who are now members of the Church, who have been baptised in the Holy Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are those who have been found amidst the darkness and distractions of this world, and who God had assembled to be His flock, to receive His love and grace forevermore. But we also have to realise that not all have been saved yet.

For salvation is only found, and can only be found in the Church. And this is the second meaning and message of today’s Scripture. Jesus had Himself said that He is the Gate, and all the sheep pass through the gate, and good shepherds pass through that gate, while crooks and thieves tried to find other means to enter the place where the flock is being kept.

If we are outside the safety of the flock, then we are in great danger of being harmed by those who seek our downfall, and these are none other than the devil, his allies and all the forces of wickedness and evil scattered all over the world. They are hungry, awaiting for us to fall into the darkness, and so that they may consume us and bring us into eternal damnation with them.

Thus, the third important message and meaning of today’s Scripture is related to this Sunday being the Vocation Sunday as well. God may have ascended back into heaven and left us His people still living on earth. But He did not leave us behind all alone, for He has appointed shepherds in His stead, to be those who care for His sheep, to protect them and guide them to Him, the Good Shepherd of all His creations.

And these shepherds are our priests, those who dedicated themselves to the service of the Lord and His people in His Church. The vocation to the priesthood and the flock of people joining the priestly life is what we are concerned about today, since we all well know, how with the changing times, it is getting ever more and more difficult for us to have those who are willing to commit themselves to the Lord as His servants.

There are fewer and fewer young men who are willing to join the priesthood and enter the seminaries. Seminaries are getting emptier and smaller, and many even had to shut down because they no longer have anyone passing through their gates to prepare themselves for a life of service to God. Too many have been lured in by the temptations of the world, for the life of the world today is so much more exciting and pleasurable to us mankind, rather than the hard and tough life of a priest.

But without good and faithful shepherds like our priests, then who will bring the flock of the Lord to Him? Who will bring the countless lost sheep of the Lord back to His love? It is why today, all of us, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called to reflect on this dire state of our Church and our faith, in how we have that great need for many labourers of God’s love. God Himself had said it in another occasion, that while the harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.

Therefore, let us all pray together, brethren, that God will open the eyes, the hearts and the minds of those whom He has chosen to be His servants, and that they would not resist nor refuse the calling, but instead discern on them carefully, and hopefully that they will eventually decide to walk the path of priesthood, becoming shepherds to us, God’s beloved creation, and help to bring many lost souls to the salvation of God in the Church.

May God bless our priests, and also bless our young men, that many more people will embrace the call to service, and accept the vocation to priesthood, so that by their good works, they may bring many more people closer to God, and prevent many from being lost to hell and eternal damnation. May the Lord, our Good Shepherd, bless us all, now and forever. Amen.