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Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the story of salvation, the liberation of the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. They had been brought with great power from the yoke of the Pharaohs into the new journey towards their Promised Land. In his stubborn mind and hardened hearts, the Pharaoh refused to let the people of Israel go repeatedly, valuing them greatly as assets for his great Empire, as the builders of his cities and the labour force for many of his projects. In his ambition, pride, and arrogance, he thought that he could do away with the anger of God, but as history told us, he could not.

God smote Egypt hard with plagues of fire, ice, locusts, darkness, and many others, but their lack of repentance made God to deal with them firmly in a last punishment. A punishment originally crafted by the Pharaoh to be aimed to the Israelites, was overturned by the Lord to be aimed at the people of Egypt instead, and not even Pharaoh was spared. That punishment was the death sentence for all the firstborn sons, first intended for the Israelites, but then changed by the Lord to be the firstborn sons of their Egyptian slave masters.

Those who obeyed His will gave a sacrifice of the blood of the lamb, an unblemished lamb, as a sign of their salvation, and God passed over the houses of the faithful, marked by the blood of the lamb, that none of their firstborn sons were killed by the angel of death passing through the land of Egypt at that night of the first Passover. He showed His mercy and love to the people of Israel and gave them His care.

That covenant God had with His people was renewed, in a new salvation, a new liberation. Just as once the Lord had brought His hand to save His people from slavery in Egypt, and freed them from the yoke of the Pharaohs, He made His move once again, to save mankind, and liberate all of them, without exception, from the yoke of Satan, from the slavery of evil and sin.

For that purpose, He sent none other than Jesus Christ, our Lord and God, to be our Saviour. He sent His own Son, to be born of the Virgin Mary, to be a humble man, one of us, to suffer with us, to be with us, and most importantly, to give Himself up for us, as the Lamb of God. Just as the lamb was sacrificed and its blood became the symbol of salvation for the people of Israel, so had the Lamb of God gave His Blood, the Most Precious Blood, freely for our own salvation. His Blood pouring down from the cross cleanses all of us and made us whole once again.

To those who believe and accepts His Blood, the same happened as what had happened at that First Passover. Those who receive the Most Precious gifts of the Lord, that is His own Body and His own Blood, just as the lamb sacrificed at the First Passover had given its body and blood for the people of Israel, will be saved, because, when we receive the Lord in the Eucharist, we take in the Lord Himself through His Body and Blood in the bread and wine transformed, into ourselves, and in us, the Lord will be able to see an unmistakeable mark, mark that we all belong to Him.

The Lord who sees that we belong to the Lord will then ‘pass over’ us, and we are free, free from death and the fate that awaited us, just as the people of Israel had been passed over by the Lord and His angels of death, because we have received the Lord and accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour. We who put our faith and complete trust in the Lord will not taste death but will be given eternal life. But to those who rejected Him and His free offering of Himself, He will show His wrath and anger, and they will face damnation in hell, and because they rejected Him, they too, will then be rejected.

He is the Lord of the Sabbath and the Lord of all laws, and He had rebuked the Pharisees, who had been trapped in their own petty observances of the law, which included the laws made by men, so that they entirely missed the purpose of the Law that God had given the people of Israel. That Law was meant for the people so that they will love God, and give themselves entirely, with all their hearts, with all their soul, and with all their being, to the Lord, the offering of oneself, which the Lord valued much more than the offering of sacrifices of lambs and goats.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reaffirm our commitment and dedication to the Lord, pouring out to Him our hearts and our sincere love for Him, that He will also bless us with everlasting grace and blessing. Let us follow Him and obey His will always, through both our complete faith in Him, and also through love that we show to our fellow brothers and sisters in this world, particularly those in the greatest need for our help.

Let us not be complacent, brothers and sisters, but use all the opportunities in our power to bring salvation closer to many of those who have yet to manage to listen to the Word of God. Let us be proactive in carrying out our faith, that it will always remain alive and will not be stagnant. Let us reflect life, hope, and love in all the things we say, in all the things we do, and in all our deeds. May God who has liberated us from sin and evil, bring us ever closer into His embrace. Amen.

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Thursday, 11 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Benedict, Abbot (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard from the readings about the mission that Christ had entrusted all of us with. The mission that He had given to the apostles before He left this world, that is to spread the Good News of salvation to all mankind, and to all the world. Each and every Christians baptised in the Name of the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit must uphold this mission and pledge ourselves to its cause, that is the cause of the Lord.

Christ had called all of us to be His disciples, to bring all the people of God back to His loving embrace, to open their eyes and their hearts to God’s divine and everlasting love. The Lord offers His love and His peace freely to all, without exception, even sinners, and especially sinners, because the Lord did come especially for the sake of sinners, those lost sheep lost in the darkness of evil and sin.

Christ gave up His life in sacrifice, as a worthy offering in atonement for all our sins, all of us, without any exceptions. He died for all mankind, past, present, and future so that all may live, and in this new life, be granted eternal life in glory with Him for eternity, as long as we keep to the covenant that He had made with us, a new covenant sealed by His Blood pouring down from the cross.

Our Lord Jesus loves us, brethren, so much that He is willing to suffer all the blows, lashes, and curses, the pain of the nails that pierced his hands and feet, so that all of us do not have to suffer death eternal in hell. For our sins and iniquities the Lamb of God had been slaughtered and sacrificed, innocent and pure as He is, He was made to bear all the sins of the world.

Sadly, as many as those who would accept His call and His words, and followed Him into a new life of purity and holiness, there are even many more who would prefer to remain in their state of sin and darkened life, and preferred the pleasures of the world and Satan to the Lord who loves them. Many would reject Him and reject His messengers and disciples, including all of us who had been called by the Lord to be His apostles in this modern era.

So if Christ is rejected by many, then we will be rejected too, but this does not mean that we should slacken or abandon the mission that has been given to us. Indeed, there are still those who would accept Christ and His Good News, and even among those who have rejected Him and rejected us, there is always still hope, that they will change and receive the Lord. We must remain strong and courageous, and embrace our mission with zeal, devotion, and most importantly, love.

Today, we celebrate the memorial of St. Benedict the abbot, also known widely as St. Benedict of Nursia, the founder of the religious order of St. Benedict, or the Benedictines. He was also an inspiration for our great Pope Emeritus, the beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in choosing his regnal name as Pope, together with Pope Benedict XV, his predecessor and the Pope of peace.

St. Benedict of Nursia lived in the first millenium in the late Roman Empire, and he was the founder of a great religious order, the Benedictines, who imposed on them what is well-known as the Rule of St. Benedict. The rule placed a great emphasis on the balance between piety and religiosity and the need for service and good works, which the Benedictines practiced through their charitable acts and service, and a pious and holy lifestyle, dedicated to the Lord in humility and obedience. And important to the Benedictines are also the concept of peace, the need to seek peace in this world, and to be peaceful in one’s own acts.

St. Benedict strengthened the Christian monasticism that was growing up at his era, and he laid much foundations for the future missionary works of the Church and religious orders that helped to preserve the Traditions of the Faith through the tumultous era of the ending of the Roman Empire and the advent of the Dark Ages. Through St. Benedict, the monastic communities had been strengthened, and therefore, the Church itself had been strengthened.

Inspired by the example of St. Benedict of Nursia and other great missionary saints of the monastic orders, we embark on this new journey of the faith in this modern era of secularism and consumerism, where God increasingly take a lesser importance in people’s minds and lives. It is our duty then, to continue the work of faith, to bring the Lord closer to many people around the world who have yet to receive the Good News of the Lord, or even those who had rejected the message of salvation outright.

There will be rejection for sure, for the world will reject us just as it had once rejected Christ Himself. But we must never give up and we must be courageous, to defend our faith, to defend the Lord, and to bring salvation to many who still live in the darkness of evil and sin. May St. Benedict of Nursia intercede for us, and pray for our sake, that God will send His helpers to aid us in our mission in this world. May St. Benedict also intercede for the sake of our beloved Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who is fighting for the Church in prayer and solitude. God bless us all, and God bless His Holy Church! Amen.

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Friday, 5 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Anthony Zaccaria, Priest (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we reflect on the calling of Matthew, who was a tax collector, and according to the Pharisees, a sinner. He was called from his custom-house and followed Christ, eventually to become one of the Twelve Apostles and one of the Four Evangelists, who wrote the Gospel of Matthew, which passage we are reading today.

Why did the Pharisees consider the tax collectors as sinners? We should understand the history and condition of the region at the time, of the region called Palestine today, and Judea at that time. At the time of Jesus, Judea was still a semi-independent kingdom, led by a king, Herod Antipas at that time, the son of Herod the Great, who tried to kill Jesus as a baby. But despite the semblance of independence generated by the presence of a ‘king of the Jews’ in Herod, the Romans, which had become an Empire by that time, had the overall command and control as the master of the people of Judea.

The Romans established an efficient taxation system throughout their Empire, and that made up the main source of their annual income, and Judea is no exception to the rule. The people of Judea, including the Jews, had to pay their taxes to the Roman authorities, and this was greatly despised by the Jews, particularly the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. Not just because it showed a subordination to the greater Roman authority, but it seemed that it also contradicted the fact that one should obey and give honour to the Lord alone.

The Roman coins used in the tax payment itself could be considered blasphemous by the Jews at the time, because every single coins were engraved with the facial image of the Emperor, and therefore could be considered as tantamount to idolatry, worship of the Emperor, as what was indeed happening in Rome at that time, as Emperors increasingly became more autocratic, they also attributed more divinity towards themselves, and would in time be established as the cult of the Emperors, where the Roman Emperors were worshipped as divine, living in the flesh.

All these sparked the notion that paying taxes to the Romans was a detestable idea at best, and the people did not like it for certain, for other than the religious reasons, taxes also burdened them financially, and that was why, out of all people, the tax collectors were always considered to be at the bottom of the society and were considered, particularly by the ‘pious’ Pharisees, to be morally corrupt and unworthy as well as incapable of redemption.

The tax collectors were treated and condemned as sinners, even though they might actually be good people. Remember that tax collectors often had no choice to be one, because they themselves had to earn a living, and it was indeed not an easy job to be done, as I had mentioned, being tax collectors meant that one had to endure the hatred and displeasure of the general population, the priesthood, and many other people, and endure the label of evil placed unfairly onto them.

The Jewish people themselves were very nationalistic in nature, and were very proud of their descent from Abraham, their forefather both in blood and faith. They kept mostly to themselves and married one another, in order to prevent themselves from being tainted by the pagans around them. This had happened since the time of Abraham himself, as you would have noted in our first reading today, who asked Eliezer his servant to find a wife for his son, Isaac, from among his own people, his own family, and not among the women of Canaan.

This had further made the contempt given to the tax collectors and other Roman collaborators even greater. They were barely tolerated in the society, cursed and rejected by many. They may be able to survive financially, but in terms of their lives, it was truly miserable. This was the condition that formed the backdrop of the situation as it was when Jesus called Matthew to be His disciple, and when He ate with him and his fellow tax-collectors in his house with the Pharisees.

Jesus then highlighted His mission in this world to His disciples, the Pharisees, and the tax collectors, that is to heal the world and those afflicted in this world, those who are condemned to damnation in hell, those who are suffering, those who are immersed deeply in the darkness of sin. That is because these are the ones who really need help and assistance in order to ensure that they will not fall into hell. God loves all, everyone, especially the greatest of sinners, who are in greatest need for God’s mercy and love.

That is because those of us who had been saved, and had been following the commandments of the Lord will remain safe, as long as we keep the Lord’s commandments and stay in His grace. As long as we remain faithful to the Lord, no harm can come our way. That is why it is those who are ‘sick’ from sin and evil would need much more assistance and help than we do. But we should not let Christ do that alone, but we ourselves, as the children of God, can also play our part in ensuring the salvation of all, especially those whose sins are the greatest.

The Pharisees themselves, who considered themselves most pious and blessed of all the children of God because of their strict adherence to the Law of Moses, were in fact in great need of salvation themselves. They had indeed observed ‘sacrifices’ so much that they had forgotten ‘mercy’, and forgotten love. God desires not sacrifices from man, but their love, both towards Him and towards His other children, our brothers and sisters.

The Pharisees did not love and do the true will of God, and instead became too focused on their own strict laws made by men, and even condemned those so-called sinners such as prostitutes and tax collectors as morally bankrupt and evil, while in fact, it is they themselves who were deep in the darkness, and worse still, blind to their own inadequacies and iniquities.

Today, brothers and sisters, we also commemorate the feast day of St. Anthony Zaccaria, a priest who lived in the late Renaissance era Italy. He was a priest who placed a great emphasis on the love of God and the teachings of the Church as espoused by St. Paul and the Apostles. He put the emphasis on acts of love and mercy, in addition to devotions and prayers, that made the faithful become even more devout and strong in their faith.

St. Anthony Zaccaria showed to the people of his time that to love God, is to both worship Him in prayer and supplication, in the offering of the ‘sacrifice’ of our hearts, the true sacrifice that our Lord wants from us, and also to make our love evident through our own deeds and actions, so that the love that is in us will not be an empty love, but a vibrant love in both word and action.

Therefore, following the zeal and example of St. Anthony Zaccaria, let us be loving person, loving children of God our Father, who is Love. May all of us truly show our love for Him through our complete dedication to Him, and also our loving service to our neighbours, particularly those in greatest need of help.

May the Lord be with us and remain with us, blessing us with His love and mercy at all times. St. Anthony Zaccaria, pray for us. Amen.

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Thursday, 4 July 2013 : 13th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Elizabeth of Portugal (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord loves us, He loves all of us without exception, and He wants us to be reunited with Him, but He also wants us to be free from the sins and evil that separate us from Him. That was why He sent us Jesus, His Son, that we may have hope of salvation, through His authority, for He, as the Son of God, one with the Father, has authority over all the creation, and over sin. That was why He was able to forgive those whom He deemed worthy, from their sins, such as the paralytic. The Lord loves us all, and He showed mercy to those who suffer.

Obedience to God and His will is important, because while He gave us free will in order to choose what we want to do for our lives, and He did also give us plenty of freedom in that regard. He gave us plenty of time and opportunities in order to live according to His commandments and His Law, just as Abraham had done his entire life.

Abraham did not withhold from the Lord even his only son, and this son is not just any son, but the very son that the Lord had promised him for a long time, and who had been made the heir of Abraham, as the son of Abraham and Sarah, his wife. Sarah gave birth to Isaac in her old age, in the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. Yet, then that child was requested by the Lord from Abraham, to be a burnt offering for Him.

One may only guess the emotions running within Abraham when he heard of the Lord’s request for Isaac to be a burnt offering. After all the promise and the difficulties that came before Isaac was finally born into the world, this young one was to be burned as a sacrifice for the Lord, and therefore, the entire hope and excitement over Isaac as Abraham’s heir would have been a waste. Certainly, such thoughts must have resonated within Abraham’s mind. Yet, he remained entirely faithful in God and in His plans, and His will, and he gave a full consent to God’s request, bringing Isaac to be sacrificed on the mountains of Moriah.

It is not easy to give up one’s most beloved one, especially to be killed as a sacrifice. But Abraham did it, and he proved his faith to the Lord and his obedience through that action, showing that Abraham valued nothing more than the Lord his God, and put even his own son, only son into risk for the sake of the Lord. But wait, even though we may think that Abraham had gone all the way in giving up his precious one for the Lord, there is indeed another, even far greater case and example of self-sacrifice that had happened in this world.

What is that? Yes, none other than the Lord Himself. He gave us His own Son, Jesus Christ, in sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice for all of our sins. Through His death came our redemption, and through His life, we are born again in a new life in God. He gave Himself as the ultimate offering for our sins, as His Blood, the Blood of the purest Lamb of all, the Lamb of God, is the only thing worthy for all the monstrosity of our sins, as great is our sins from our forefathers to us, and from us to our children.

Christ Himself taught that there is no greater love than those who gave their lives for their friends, and in giving up His own life, He showed the perfect nature of His love for all. He died for all without exception, and offered everybody His salvation, if only they would repent and believe in Him as their Lord and Saviour. Abraham too showed his great love through his offering of his only son, the promised son, Isaac, to the Lord. Brothers and sisters, we must always love God, and our brothers and sisters, most importantly those who are in great need for our care and our love.

Today, brethren, we also commemorate the memorial and feast of St. Elizabeth of Portugal. St. Elizabeth of Portugal was Queen consort of Portugal, and had been very devout in her devotion to the Lord and to the cause of the faith even before she was Queen, and when she became Queen, she became patron of numerous activities and organisations through which she did much effort to bring love and service to others, particularly those in need, and also preach the Gospel of Christ to those who were still in darkness.

St. Elizabeth of Portugal joined the religious life after she was widowed, and even though she was dowager queen, she did not hesitate to involve herself extensively in numerous acts of charity for the poor and sick, whom she had a special devotion to in her works. She is also a well-known peacemaker, having been a great diplomat and endowed with great intellect and charm. She brokered many peace agreements between warring parties, and even her assistance was asked after she had joined religious life, and even then, she showed her skills in ensuring peace between parties in conflict.

St. Elizabeth of Portugal is an example to all of us, brothers and sisters, that all of us should give love and life through our deeds and actions daily. We must show love in all the things that we do without exception, bringing love to those who need it, and care to those who are poor and suffering. We must also be peacemakers, to bring peace between brothers and sisters who are in conflict, that hate will never take hold in this world, and instead, in its place, love would occupy the hearts of men, that we will once again remember the love God had once given us, through the sacrifice of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, His expression of His ultimate and undying love for all of us.

May the Lord strengthen us and empower us with His love, that we will be always courageous and strong, in our increasingly darkened world, that we will become beacons of light, beacons of hope, and beacons of love. May God bless us at all times and be with us always. Amen.

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Monday, 24 June 2013 : Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our God loves us, and He loves all of us so much that He is willing to save all of us from the damnation of hell. He sent us His only Son, Jesus Christ, to be our Saviour, the One who redeemed us from the sins of our forefathers, from their rebellion against the love of God. Through Him we are saved, if we accept Him as our Lord, and His free offer of salvation to all of us.

To prepare for the Messiah, the Lord sent His messenger, in the person of John the Baptist, the precursor and the preparer of the way for Christ. His dedication to the mission for which he had been chosen for, and his tireless work had indeed straightened the way for Christ and paved the way for salvation.

Today we celebrate the feast of this great messenger of God and saint, John the Baptist, whose baptisms called the people back towards the Lord through repentance. Repentance allowed the people to set their hearts and minds right, so that they would be in the correct state of heart and mind to be receptive of the Lord and His message that is brought by none other than Christ, His Son and our Saviour.

St. John the Baptist had dedicated his whole life to the Lord, as someone set aside for the works of God, through whose hands God had worked His wonders to the people of Israel, the last of the prophets before the coming of the Messiah, who would eventually liberate God’s people from the tyranny of evil, sin, and therefore death.

God is faithful, and He remembered His covenant that He made with Abraham years ago, with the promise He had made that the descendants of Abraham, all of us, will be fruitful, and will be blessed. Even when the descendants of Abraham, as shown through Israel did not stay faithful entirely to the Lord, but fell into rebellion, in the similar way as their forefathers, God did not give up on us, just as He did not give up on mankind after the disobedience of Adam and Eve, our first ancestors.

We are all precious to God, so precious that despite the covenant broken by our rebellion and our stubbornness against God’s love and compassion, He was willing to forge a new covenant with all of us, and this covenant will never be broken, because this covenant is not made just by God’s words alone, but sealed with none other than the Most Precious Blood of the Lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who shed His blood from up there on the cross, flowing from His holy wounds, pierced by our sins and our rebellion.

St. John the Baptist had a great part to play in this plan of salvation, not only as the one who helped to bring God’s mission to perfection, and helped to convert many to the cause of the Lord through repentance, but also through his direct role in the initiation of Jesus’ ministry on this world. Through his baptism of Christ on the Jordan, he initiated Christ on His ministry, which began after that baptism, when the Lord proclaimed to the world, that Jesus is indeed His Son, and that His favour is on Him.

His humility that he showed when he declared the identity of Christ to his own disciples, so that He would increase while John himself would decrease in importance is an example for all of us, that whenever we do things, let us remember that we should do it for the greater glory of God, and not to our own personal human glory, and seek the praise of the Lord, and not the praise of man.

We can follow the many examples of Saint John the Baptist, my dear brothers and sisters, that we should emulate him in our lives. To love and serve the Lord with all our hearts, with all our minds, and with all our being, that we truly become the children of God, and people beloved by the Lord our God. May the Lord guide us at all times in our lives, that we will not be led astray in our path towards Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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(Special) Sunday, 23 June 2013 : Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Gospel Reading)

Luke 1 : 5-17

In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there lived a priest named Zechariah, belonging to the priestly clan of Abiah. Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, also belonged to a priestly family. Both of them were upright in the eyes of God, and lived blamelessly in accordance with all the laws and commands of the Lord, but they had no child. Elizabeth could not have any and now they were both very old.

Now, while Zechariah and those with him were fulfilling their office, it fell to him by lot, according to the custom of the priests, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord and burn incense. At the time of offering incense, all the people were praying outside; it was then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing on the right side of the altar of incense.

On seeing the angel, Zechariah was deeply troubled and fear took hold of him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, be assured that your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you shall name him John. He will bring joy and gladness to you, and many will rejoice at his birth.

“This son of yours will be great in the eyes of the Lord. Listen : he shall never drink wine or strong drink, but he will be filled with Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb. Through him, many of the people of Israel will turn to the Lord their God. He himself will open the way to the Lord with the spirit and power of the prophet Elijah; he will reconcile fathers and children, and lead the disobedient to wisdom and righteousness, in order to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

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Sunday, 23 June 2013 : 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we listen to the word of the Gospel, in which Jesus asked His disciples about His true identity. And we heard how Peter, the leader of the disciples, proclaimed the truth about Jesus, that He is indeed the Messiah sent by the Lord for the salvation of this world. The truth however, is not known to many, as the people, in their ignorance, thought Him merely just as another prophet sent by God, or a holy men. There were even those like the Pharisees, the elders, and the chief priests who rejected Him outright and saw Him as a rival to their teaching authority.

Christ our Lord is indeed the Messiah, and He is also the Son of God, one of the Holy Trinity, and therefore, is the Supreme King of all Creation, of all the Universe. He is the most powerful being in all creation, and yet, He lowered Himself by descending from His glory in heaven, to be like us, to be born of a humble virgin, in a stable. A king, yet born in a stable. That is also why Christ, though He is a king, He did not flaunt His power or authority, but remain humble through His service to others, to His disciples, and most importantly to the people who needed His help and mercy.

That was also why He strictly ordered the disciples not to tell anyone on the truth that Peter has shared with all of them, that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and God Himself. That is because, the mission of Jesus was not to be glorified in this life on earth and become like a king, but indeed, to suffer, through rejection, pain, and even more suffering, so that He could fulfill the mission that was entrusted to Him by His coming into this world, that is to save all mankind from their fate of death, through His own death, and the shedding of His blood.

Too long mankind had waded in the depths of darkness, in the depth of evil without the light of God, ever since creation, when they rebelled against the love of God by choosing to follow the words of Satan instead of the will of God. Although mankind seemingly prosper with wealth and affluence that they gained from their ownership of this world, but the pleasures of the flesh and the body cannot satisfy what mankind truly wants. They were hungry and thirsty, for the one thing that could solve all of their desire, that is the love of God.

God loves us, and that is why He wants to save us, save us from death that is our fate and punishment because of our forefathers’ rebellion against Him, and by our constantly sinful ways and evil doings in this world, that brought ever greater evil stain on our own souls. He came down into this world to show His ultimate love for us, to be one of us, save without sin. He lived among us, and we knew Him as Jesus Christ, and the people of Israel at that time too recognised Him through the great many miracles He had performed during His earthly ministry.

His death is the last piece of the plan of salvation that God had crafted ever since mankind left His embrace that day long ago in the Garden of Eden. The death of Christ and the shedding of the blood of the Lamb of God unites us to Christ, because He then became for us, the unending stream of the fountain of life, which water nourishes and satiates all kinds of thirst. His Blood cleanses and purifies us from our sins. If we accept Him and believe in Him as our Lord and our Saviour, just as Peter had done, He would be with us, and we would be with Him.

That is because upon accepting our Lord Jesus Christ, we become His, and He becomes ours. Through our unity with the Lord, we are made whole again, and we are once again worthy of our God and our Creator. Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, profess our faith in the Lord, just as Peter had done, but do not just stop there, but go further and make our faith truly alive, by practicing it through our love and our service to our neighbours in need, just as Christ had done during His ministry in this world.

Let us never be separated again from our Lord and our God, and let us be transformed by His love, that we will emerge from the depths of darkness we were in, and become truly the children of light. God be with us all, forever and ever. Amen.

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Saturday, 22 June 2013 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorials of St. Paulinus of Nola, Bishop, Saints John Fisher, Bishop and Thomas More, Martyrs (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 6 : 24-34

No one can serve two masters; for he will either hate one and love the other, or he will be loyal to the first and look down on the second. You cannot at the same time serve God and money.

This is why I tell you not to be worried about food and drink for yourself, or about clothes for your body. Is not life more important than food, and is not the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, they do not harvest and do not store food in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not less worthy than they are?

Can any of you add a day to your life by worrying about it? Why are you so worried about your clothes? Look at how the flowers in the fields grow. They do not toil or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his wealth was clothed like one of these.

If God so clothes the grass in the field, which blooms today and is to be burned tomorrow in an oven, how much more will He clothe you? What little faith you have! Do not worry and say : What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? or : What shall we wear? The pagans busy themselves with such things; but your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.

Set your heart first on the kingdom and justice of God, and all these things will also be given to you. Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

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Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, Christ summarises for us, the Laws of the Lord, which man at the time mostly saw as the Law of Moses, and the list of many numbers of regulations that regulate daily lives of the Jewish people at the time. Christ summarises the Law in fact, into a single commandment of Love. Yes, love. No, this love is not the lovey-dovey kind of love between enamoured teenagers who just met each other and fell in ‘love’ at the first sight.

Love is so much greater than that, and love is not just for pleasure, just as what Tobias, the son of Tobit, had stated in his prayer in the first reading we heard today, that his marriage was not based on pleasure, but love that endures, that is true love. What is love then? Love has many faces and it encompasses many things, but true love is wonderful, and is life, and it is the Lord Himself, as God Himself is Love, Deus Caritas est.

Sadly though, love is increasingly more and more difficult to be found in our world today. Love and mankind itself had been corrupted by the agents of evil that love has become perversed into something less than the true love that God embodies, and the love that is exemplified by the relationship and love between Tobias and Sara.

Even worse, in many parts of our world today, love has completely been replaced by hatred, jealousy, and all the negative opposites of love, which brought destruction and death instead of life. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, only through love that we can beget life and only through love that we manifest God’s will and show that we are truly belonging to God. If we reflect hatred and jealousy, along with all the other negative sentiments, we belong not to God, but to Satan, His adversary.

God has given His people, the people of Israel, His commandments written in stone and conveyed to them through Moses, His prophet. This is known today as the Ten Commandments, the contents of which I am sure many of us certainly know and even memorised by heart. But what is the Ten Commandments truly about, and what about all the rituals and the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Lord as written in the Book of the Leviticus and the other books of the Torah?

All of that are good indeed, but ultimately, all of them have the same purpose, and have the same meaning, that is love. All of the commandments and the rules all breath the same thing, that is love. By truly obeying the commandments of the Lord, we breath love to the world and to those around us, because by doing God’s commandments, we become love itself, just as God Himself is Love.

Love is the key to ending many conflicts and violence that is now rampant throughout the world. Mankind had not had love because they have not obeyed the commandments of the Lord and even those who obeyed did not fully understand the meaning of God’s commandments and why they were given to us.

If only everyone in the world can have love in them and expressed out to the world. Indeed, if only more people would reflect love in their lives! Our world would surely have been a much better, a much more loveable place to live in.

There is so much hatred in this world, and hatred leads to violence, and violence lead to even more hatred, and eventually leads to death. This vicious cycle continues unabated in our world today, and many people were caught in this cycle of hatred. Only love can save them from such a fate, that is death and damnation, and love can truly breach through all the falsehood of Satan and the layers of hatred that masks the purity of our hearts.

Our hearts are certainly pure and noble from the very beginning, because our God who is good and perfect created us. It is only trapped beneath layers upon layers of sin and hatred, that prevents the love that is in us, the kindness that is in our hearts to shine through.

That is why Christ gave us His commandments of love, that is essentially the same as the Ten Commandments, because all that commandments is about love, whether God or our fellow mankind, and not doing what brings about hatred and destruction. And both the commandments that Christ had taught us are equally important and intimately linked to one another.

That is because, we cannot possibly love God without loving our neighbours, and neither can we love our neighbour without loving God at the same time too. Because if we love God, we will surely love our neighbour as well, and vice versa. Because God Himself is Love and has Himself shown love so great to us, that if we love Him, we too embodies that love and as a result, would be just like Him, that is we will love our neighbours, our brethren, even those who hates us and those who persecutes us.

That is why love is important, first by loving God, because if we do not love God, we will shy away from His love and His light, and therefore will prefer to live in darkness. This darkness is the absence of the love of God, the root of all hatred and all the bad things that happen in our world today. If we do not love God, and do not love Him with all our strength and all our being, we cannot be called the children of God, but the children of darkness.

First we have to love God, because He has loved us first, by giving all of us His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our Saviour and Redeemer, through His death, and His glorious resurrection. He shows us how to love Him by His own example, that is through His own words, that the greatest love is for someone to give up his life for his friends, and that was exactly what Christ had done, that He died for all of us, on the cross in Calvary.

Then, after we love God, that love is not complete yet, because in order to love God completely and perfectly, we must also love and show our care for our brethren, especially those ostracised, those who are rejected and persecuted, because they are considered weak. Remember that Christ Himself said that whatever we had done for the sake of these people, the last, the lost, and the least, we had done it for the Lord. That is why, in order to gain true love, we must love both God, and our neighbour, with all our strength and our beings.

Today, we commemorate the feast day of St. Norbert, also known as Norbert of Xanten, a bishop in medieval era Germany, who did much work in advancing the cause of the Lord among the people and the society at the time. He embodied what we had listened in the readings today, that is love. Through his devotion and love for the Lord, he had toiled and laboured much, establishing many foundation of future evangelisation in the society, building up bases by establishing religious institutions, and making that love alive and perfect by service and care for those in the society.

Although it had been almost a millennia since the time of St. Norbert of Xanten, even in our modern world today, love is still needed, if not more than ever. Violence and hatred has always been increasing and becoming more prevalent, especially among our young people today. We have to do much work to inculcate love and compassion in the hearts of many, especially youths.

Remain in our devotion and love for God, and also in our love for our neighbours, just as Christ had commanded us to do. If we remain faithful and strong, we will be rewarded with eternal glory in heaven, and Christ will welcome us there with praise, that we had indeed fulfilled His will and the commandments He had given us. St. Norbert of Xanten, pray for us, that we will always have love in our hearts, both for God and our neighbours. Amen.

by

The Role of Priests and the Laity

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Priests and the laity have their own roles within the Church, and each have been given their missions for the glorification of God.

Priests must not be just men of service, as indeed service should be done by everyone, especially the laity! There are only so many priests, and so many more laypeople in the Church. There are in fact about 3,000 laypeople for each priest in the Church (There are only slightly more than 400,000 priests, diocesan and religious, as compared to almost 1.25 billion people i the total Catholic population)

As much as priests can do plenty of service, caring for the sick, etc, the laity cannot just depend on the priests to do all the work while they go on about their own business.

No, the primary function and duty of a priest, henceforth, is to lead the people in the worship of God, like the priests of Israel of old. This is a duty and a vocation that only them can do, and the laity cannot do. Reaching out to the poor must remain part of the mission of a priest, but it cannot be his main one, for it is the laity who must play their part to help the poor and the unloved ones.

Priests are not employed and many, if not most, are not rich, while many Catholic laypeople are in fact quite well-to-do, even having excessive wealth, that only if all of them would give a small portion of their wealth, the world can be so much better.

The key is not to strip the Church and all that has been in place, solely for the glorification of God, in the disguise of helping the poor and the unfortunate. The key is to encourage greater participation by the laity in the works of service and charity. Priests give example through their own service, but they cannot be expected to do all the work.

In fact, the laity should do at least 90% of the work, as priests are primarily, priests, and should be more focused on the worship aspect, which only they can do, and not the laity.

 
That is why, we need more holy and intellectual priests, not just priests who know how to serve others, but those who have good understanding of the faith and the liturgy of praise and worship to God in the Mass. Everyone can serve others, if they are called, including all the laypeople. But, if the priests themselves cannot be depended on in the matter of worship and the faith, who then should the laypeople turn to?