Liturgical Colour : Green
1 Corinthians 10 : 31 – 1 Corinthians 11 : 1
Then, whatever you eat, or drink, or whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. Give no offense to the Jews, or to the Greeks, or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything. I do not seek my own interest, but that of many, this is, that they be saved.
Follow my example as I follow the example of Christ.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Psalm 31 : 1-2, 5, 11
Blessed is the one whose sin is forgiven, whose iniquity is wiped away. Blessed are those in whom the Lord sees no guilt and in whose spirit is found no deceit.
Then I made known to You my sin and uncovered before You my fault, saying to myself, “To the Lord I will now confess my wrong.” And You, You forgave my sin, You removed my guilt.
Rejoice in the Lord, and be glad, you who are upright; sing and shout for joy, you who are clean of heart.
Liturgical Colour : Green
Leviticus 13 : 1-2, 44-46
YHVH said to Moses and Aaron, “If someone has a boil, an inflammation or a sore on his skin which could develop into leprosy, he must be brought to Aaron the priest, or to one of the priests, his descendants.”
“This means that the man is leprous : he is unclean. The priest shall declare him unclean; he is suffering from leprosy of the head. A person infected with leprosy must wear torn clothing and leave his hair uncombed; he must cover his upper lip and cry, ‘Unclean, unclean.'”
“As long as the disease lasts he must be unclean; and therefore he must live away from others : he must live outside the camp.”
Liturgical Colour : Violet
Offertory
Psalm 118 : 12-13
Benedictus es, Domine, doce me justificationes Tuas : in labiis meis pronuntiavi omnia judicia oris Tui.
English translation
Blessed are You, o Lord, teach me Your justifications. With my lips I have pronounced all the judgments of Your mouth.
Secret Prayer of the Priest
Haec hostia, Domine, quaesumus, emundet nostra delicta : et, ad sacrificium celebrandum, subditorum Tibi corpora mentesque sanctificet. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, Qui Tecum vivis et regnas in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
English translation
May this offering, we beseech You, o Lord, cleanse away our sins, sanctify us in soul and body, and fit us, Your servants, for the celebration of the sacrifice. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.
Communion
Psalm 77 : 29-30
Manducaverunt, et saturari sunt nimis, et desiderium eorum attulit eis Dominus : non sunt fraudati a desiderio suo.
English translation
They did eat, and were filled exceedingly, and the Lord gave them their desire. They were not defrauded of that which they craved.
Post-Communion Prayer
Quaesumus, omnipotens Deus : ut, qui caelestia alimenta percepimus, per haec contra omnia adversa muniamur. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, Qui Tecum vivis et regnas in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
English translation
We beseech You, o Almighty God, that we, who have partaken of heavenly nourishment, may be fortified by it against all adversaries. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : Violet
Sequentia Sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam – Continuation of the Holy Gospel according to St. Luke
Luke 18 : 31-43
In illo tempore : Assumpsit Jesus duodecim, et ait illis : Ecce, ascendimus Jerosolymam, et consummabuntur omnia, quae scripta sunt per Prophetas de Filio hominis. Tradetur enim Gentibus, et illudetur, et flagellabitur, et conspuetur : et postquam flagellaverint, occident eum, et tertia die resurget.
Et ipsi nihil horum intellexerunt, et erat verbum istud absconditum ab eis, et non intellegebant quae dicebantur. Factum est autem, cum appropinquaret Jericho, caecus quidam sedebat secus viam, mendicans. Et cum audiret turbam praetereuntem, interrogabat, quid hoc esset.
Dixerunt autem ei, quod Jesus Nazarenus transiret. Et clamavit, dicens : Jesu, Fili David, miserere mei. Et qui praeibant, increpabant eum, ut taceret. Ipse vero multo magis clamabat : Fili David, miserere mei. Stans autem Jesus, jussit illum adduci ad se. Et cum appropinquasset, interrogavit illum, dicens : Quid tibi vis faciam?
At ille dixit : Domine, ut videam. Et Jesus dixit illi : Respice, fides tua te salvum fecit. Et confestim vidit, et sequebatur illum, magnificans Deum. Et omnis plebs ut vidit, dedit laudem Deo.
English translation
At that time, Jesus took unto Him the Twelve, and said to them, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things shall be accomplished which were written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man, for He shall be delivered to the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and scourged, and be spit upon, and after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death and on the third day He shall rise again.”
And they understood none of these things, and this word was hidden from them, and they did not understand the things that were said. Now it came to pass, when He drew nigh to Jericho, that a certain blind man sat by the wayside, begging. And when he heard the multitude passing by, he asked what this meant.
And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth was passing by, and he cried out, saying, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” And those who went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried out much more, “Son of David, have mercy on me.” And Jesus standing, commanded him to be brought unto Him, and when he came near, He asked him, saying, “What will you want that I do unto you?”
But he said, “Lord, that I may see.” And Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight, for your faith had made you whole.” And immediately he saw, and followed Him, glorifying God, and all the people when they saw it, gave praise to God.
Liturgical Colour : Violet
Gradual
Psalm 76 : 15, 16
Tu es Deus qui facis mirabilia solus : notem fecisti in gentibus virtutem Tuam.
Response : Liberasti in bracchio Tuo populum Tuum, filios Israel et Joseph.
English translation
You are the God who alone has done wonders. You have made Your power known among the nations.
Response : With Your arm You have redeemed Your people, the children of Israel and of Joseph.
Tract
Psalm 99 : 1-2
Jubilate Deo, omnis terra : servite Domino in laetitia.
Response : Intrate in conspectu Ejus in exsultatione : scitote, quod Dominus ipse est Deus.
Response : Ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos : nos autem populus Ejus, et oves pascuae Ejus.
English translation
Sing joyfully to God all the earth. All of you serve the Lord with gladness.
Response : Come in before His presence with exceeding great joy. Know, all of you, that He is the Lord, our God.
Response : He made us, and not we ourselves. But we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.
Liturgical Colour : Violet
Lectio Epistolae Beati Pauli Apostoli ad Corinthios – Lesson from the Epistle of Blessed Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians
1 Corinthians 13 : 1-13
Fratres : Si linguis hominum loquar et Angelorum, caritatem autem non habeam, factus sum velut aes sonans aut cymbalum tinniens. Et si habuero prophetiam, et noverim mysteria omnia et omnem scientiam : et si habuero omnem fidem, ita ut montes transferam, caritatem autem non habuero, nihil sum.
Et si distribuero in cibos pauperum omnes facultates meas, et si tradidero corpus meum, ita ut ardeam, caritatem autem non habuero, nihil mihi prodest. Caritas patiens est, benigna est : caritas non aemulatur, non agit perperam, non inflatur, non est ambitiosa, non quaerit quae sua sunt, non irritatur, non cogitat malum, non gaudet super iniquitate, congaudet autem veritati : omnia suffert, omnia credit, omnia sperat, omnia sustinet.
Caritas numquam excidit : sive prophetiae evacuabuntur, sive linguae cessabunt, sive scientia destruetur. Ex parte enim cognoscimus, et ex parte prophetamus. Cum autem venerit quod perfectum est, evacuabitur quod ex parte est. Cum essem parvulus, loquebar ut parvulus, sapiebam ut parvulus, cogitabam ut parvulus. Quando autem factus sum vir, evacuavi quae erant parvuli.
Videmus nunc per speculum in aenigmate : tunc autem facie ad faciem. Nunc cognosco ex parte : tunc autem cognoscam, sicut et cognitus sum. Nunc autem manent fides, spes, caritas, tria haec : major autem horum est caritas.
English translation
Brethren, if I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, and does not have charity, I become like a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And if I should have prophecy, and know all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and does not have charity, I am nothing.
And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, and does not have charity, it does not profit me anything. Charity is patient, it is kind. Charity does not envy, it does not deal perversely, it is not puffed up, it is not ambitious, it does not seek her own, it is not provoked to anger, it does not think of any evil, it does not rejoice in iniquity, but it rejoices in the truth, it bears all things, believes in all things, it hopes in all things, it endures in all things.
Charity never falls away, whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease or knowledge shall be destroyed. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect comes, that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away the things of a child.
We see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know even as I am known. And now there remain faith, hope, charity, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.
Liturgical Colour : Violet
Introit
Psalm 30 : 3-4, 2
Esto mihi in Deum protectorem, et in locum refugii, ut salvum me facias : quoniam firmamentum meum et refugium meum es Tu : et propter Nomen Tuum dux mihi eris, et enutries me.
In Te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum : in justitia Tua libera me et eripe me.
Response : Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto, sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper : et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
English translation
May You be unto me a God, a Protector, and a place of refuge, to save me. For You are my strength, and my refuge, and for Your Name’s sake You will be my leader and will nourish me.
In You, o Lord, I have hoped, let me never be confounded. Deliver me in Your justice, and set me free.
Response : Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Collect
Preces nostras, quaesumus, Domine, clementer exaudi : atque, a peccatorum vinculis absolutos, ab omni nos adversitate custodi. Per Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum Filium Tuum, Qui Tecum vivis et regnas in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.
English translation
Of Your clemency harken unto our prayers, o Lord, loosen us from the bonds of sin, and keep us from all adversity. Through our Lord Jesus Christ Your Son, who with You lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, world without end. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, my brethren in faith throughout the Archdiocese of Singapore, today we celebrate this special occasion on Mass on the fourteenth day of February of this year, as the celebration of the Anniversary of that day when the mother church of this See, that is the direct heir of the See of Malacca and the progenitor of the Church in much of Asia and beyond, was consecrated and blessed more than a hundred years ago.
In the year of our Lord, 1897, then Bishop of Malacca, Bishop Edouard Gasnier, M.E.P., consecrated the Cathedral building, which had been built and completed just over half a century earlier in 1846. This great building and house of the Lord has been built as the heart and the beginning of the great missionary work in the small island of Singapore, which had just been founded by the British after hundreds of years of isolation and being a backwater and relatively forgotten island.
In this Cathedral, we have the proof of God’s continuing guidance to the works of His faithful servants in the Church, spreading His Good News to all the corners of the earth. The salvation of God is offered to all who wants to listen to His word, and all those who receive the word and believe, they are all saved. And the work of God continues even to this day, with many of His servants, all of us included, continuing to give praise to God and carry out His works daily amongst our brethren in this world.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, do you know why the Cathedral of this Archdiocese of Singapore was named the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd? That was because when it was first built, one of those who had great role in the establishment of that church was St. Laurent Imbert, a missionary priest who went on to become the Apostolic Vicar to Korea, supervising the missionary work in that fertile land where many people still lived in ignorance of the Lord.
St. Laurent Imbert faithfully carried out his mission, and despite the fierce and harsh opposition from the pagan Korean government, he did not fear and continued to do his best to minister to the people of God. And when the persecution by the government reached a new high, and the government offered the liberation of those they have counted for death, if the bishop was to surrender himself, St. Laurent Imbert voluntarily surrendered himself and was martyred for his faith.
In one of his last letters before his martyrdom, he explained the reason behind his decision, that is of the Good Shepherd, imitating what our Lord had done Himself. The Good Shepherd lay down His life for His sheep. And indeed our Lord and God had laid down His life for our sake, that all of us, His sheep may be freed from the certainty of death caused by our sinfulness.
In the memory of St. Laurent Imbert and our Lord’s own sacrifice as our Good Shepherd therefore we dedicate today’s celebration, just as this Cathedral was dedicated to the Lord over a hundred years ago. And what is the relevance of this celebration to all of us? That is because the readings today on the feast of dedication of a Cathedral also reminds us all that we are the Temple of God, the place where God Himself resides.
Many of us seem to forget that all of us who believe in the Lord and who keep faith in Him, having received His Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, have essentially the Lord Himself dwelling in us, in body and flesh, and in spirit and love. Thus, we have to remember always that we belong to God and He is in us. We must shun all forms of sin and wickedness and walk only in His path, as St. Laurent Imbert and all the other faithful saints and martyrs of God had.
May this joyous occasion and celebration be a time for us to reawaken the love and dedication we have for the Lord, and may all of us be able to shun evil and sin, and gain into ourselves the justification and grace which God had promised all those who are faithful to Him, our loving God and our Good Shepherd. God bless us all. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard of the fall of mankind and how mankind had been tainted by sin and evil, because of their disobedience against the Lord’s will and commandments, which He had established with them earlier on when He created them. Sin came into the hearts of men due to the vulnerability of us all mankind against the temptations which Satan arrayed against us.
Mankind received the punishment for their disobedience, and at first it might seem that they would forever be condemned and sundered from the goodness and the graces intended for them from the beginning of time. Yes, God intended not harm for us, but happiness, joy and everlasting fulfillment in Him, as the Garden of Eden was to show us all. Life before sin was perfect and complete, where mankind have all the things that they needed, and above all else, they had their Lord with them, who gave them all that they would ever need.
But mankind fell into the temptation of the evil one, who played upon our natural desire and curiosity, and when he offered our ancestors the opportunity to become equal with God, by getting beyond our boundaries and disobey the Lord, we forever therefore, all of mankind, had been tainted by that rebellion which Satan has brought upon us all mankind. Satan himself had fallen into evil because of his own pride and vanity, which he then passed on to mankind.
And by our nature, it is difficult to satiate our desire and wants. And ever since we ate of the tree of knowledge of the good and evil, our desire to know more and have more for ourselves only increased. And in that, we committed ever more sins, and ever greater in wickedness. How many times we can recognise greed and desire behind the actions of men when they sought to gain more in terms of material goods as well as other things?
And that is why our Lord want to liberate us from our slavery to our desires and wants. He came to show us that all that we need truly is to be faithful to our Lord and put our complete trust in Him, and He will provide us with all the things that we will ever need. He is our Lord, our Creator and our loving Father, and as such, He knows every one of us, in all that we need and in all the things we do.
He cares for all of us, and through Jesus, He made it all clear to us. The feeding of the hungry four thousand men in today’s Gospel tells us all about how God cares for our needs. We all naturally get hungry and we want to eat, and our Lord provided them with food, from the seven loaves of bread He gave His grace and power, and made the bread sufficient for all of them to eat until full.
Yet, one bad trait of mankind is our inability to know the limits to our desires. We always desire for more and more, and the more we are given, even more things we desire for ourselves. The people of Israel when they were on their way from Egypt out of their slavery and into the Promised Land, complained and protested against the Lord that the food that they had when they were in Egypt was much better, even though God had made large birds to come and provide them with those as food, and also with even the bread from heaven itself, that is the manna.
And God also provided them with sweet and crystal-clear pure water which He made to pour out from the earth itself. Such was the love and care that God had poured upon His beloved people, that He gave the best of all things to them. But they spurned that love and rejected Him, complaining and resisting with obstinate hearts. And destruction and ruin were what they deserved.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the feast of St. Cyril and St. Methodius, the holy saints and servants of God who were the evangelisers of the Faith in many countries and areas now known as Eastern Europe. They standardised the language used in those regions, the languages used for the means of the Church. And using those languages and the Scriptures translated into those languages, they managed to bring many people who used to be in the darkness and bring them into the light of our Lord.
St. Cyril and St. Methodius should both give us an inspiration to carry on the knowledge which we have received on the love which our God has for us, to more and more people who have yet to receive it, to those who have yet to witness it, and to all those who still lay in the darkness of the world. They have brought the light of Christ and bring about their salvation.
So much and so great is God’s great love for us that He sent us His faithful servants and called them from the world to bring about our salvation and safety. Thus, shall we all cast aside all of our pride, our greed and our stubbornness, and then carry up our cross and follow Christ our Lord? He has provided us all freely with the salvation that He bought for us through His sacrifice and death on the cross.
May Almighty God bless us all, guide us all on our way, and protect us from harm of the evil one, and while awakening in us the love which we all ought to have for Him. Let us all be thankful and grateful for the rich love and mercy which our Lord had shown us, and be grateful for all He had provided us, knowing how to say enough when we have enough for us, for what we need. God be with us all. Amen.
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 