sinfulness

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Thursday, 24 April 2014 : Thursday within Easter Octave (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the resurrection of Jesus is a fact of our faith, and it is true, despite the attempt by many people trying to disprove or ridicule the concept of the resurrection, or even that Christ is the Son of God, or even more so, the existence of the Almighty God Himself.

Mankind doubted God and His love, and they often rejected His undying love for mankind themselves, and as Peter rightly pointed out in the first reading today, that mankind likely did so because of their ignorance, or meaning the veil of darkness that covers their eyes, which prevented them from seeing the truth of God, and therefore resulting in the ignorance that mankind has pertaining God and His actions.

Yet for all of us who believe in God, we know that the Lord had indeed died for us on the cross, and He indeed rose from the dead and showed Himself to His disciples, which many had testified to its truth. We know this because we have that crucial faith in us, as well as the ability to love, that is to appreciate and comprehend the love of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to treasure this faith we have in God, as it is due to this faith that we are all able to understand God’s love and therefore understand His mission and dealings in this world. After all, who could comprehend God’s actions in coming down into this decadent and wicked world if He is perfect and all-powerful just to die for us sinners and unworthy rebels against His will? How can we understand His actions therefore, without first understanding His eternal love for all of us?

This Easter we again commemorate the resurrection of Christ, but indeed, not just His resurrection, but indeed the entire life and happenings in Jesus’ earthly sojourn, to His death and resurrection, and what He proclaimed after He was risen. This Easter is a celebration of life, that all who were once condemned to death was saved and brought to a new hope, where a new dawn has risen with Christ, to be our beacon towards eternal redemption and joy.

Indeed, the truth is sadly that we have often neglected this spirit of Easter, and we have grown decadent and lax in our lives, that we end up forgetting our true aim in life, that is to bring glory to God and follow the Lord and His ways in our lives. We have grown to worry and care only about ourselves. And we grow to be selfish and self-serving in our actions and deeds.

We often care only about the desires that we have, the wants and the concerns of the world that frequently occupy our minds. This Easter we are called to rediscover ourselves and seek the Lord once again. This is the perfect opportunity for us to make a genuine change in our lives. Let us not waste this opportunity, and as we celebrate the joy of Easter, let us also make the concrete and concerted effort to seek the Lord once again in our lives, that we no longer have any doubt about the love of God, but just complete faith in God.

May Almighty God bless us with a fruitful Easter season, strengthen our faith and guide us to be ever more faithful and loving servants of His, that our actions may ever always reflect the nature of God, and our nature as God’s children. Keep the spirit of Easter alive! Amen.

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Saturday, 19 April 2014 : Easter Vigil of the Lord’s Resurrection, Easter Triduum (Epistle)

Liturgical Colour : White

Romans 6 : 3-11

Do you not know that in baptism which unites us to Christ we are all baptised and plunged into His death? By this baptism in His death, we were buried with Christ and, as Christ was raised from among the dead by the Glory of the Father, so we begin walking in a new life. If we have been joined to Him by dying a death like this so we shall be by a resurrection like His.

We know that our old self was crucified with Christ, so as to destroy what of us was sin, so that we may no longer serve sin – if we are dead, we are no longer in debt to sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, once risen from the dead, will not die again and death has no more dominion over Him.

For by dying, He is dead to sin once and for all, and now the life that He lives is life with God. So you, too, must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

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Friday, 18 April 2014 : Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion, Easter Triduum (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Isaiah 52 : 13 – Isaiah 53 : 12

It is now when My servant will succeed; He will be exalted and highly praised. Just as many have been horrified at His disfigured appearance : “Is this a Man? He does not look like one,” so will nations be astounded, kings will stand speechless, for they will see something never told, they will witness something never heard of.

Who could believe what we have heard, and to whom has YHVH revealed His feat? Like a root out of dry ground, like a sapling He grew up before us, with nothing attractive in His appearance, no beauty, no majesty. He was despised and rejected, a Man of sorrows familiar with grief, a Man from whom people hide their face, spurned and considered of no account.

Yet ours were the sorrows He bore, ours were the sufferings He endured, although we considered Him as one punished by God, stricken and brought low. Destroyed because of our sins, He was crushed for our wickedness. Through His punishment we are made whole; by His wounds we are healed. Like sheep we had all gone astray, each following His own way; but YHVH laid upon Him all our guilt.

He was harshly treated, but unresisting and silent, He humbly submitted. Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearer, He did not open His mouth. He was taken away to detention and judgment – what an unthinkable fate! He was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for His people’s sin.

They made His tomb with the wicked, they put Him in the graveyard of the oppressors, though He had done no violence nor spoken in deceit. Yet it was the will of YHVH to crush Him with grief. When He makes Himself an offering for sin, He will have a long life and see His descendants. Through Him the will of YHVH is done.

For the anguish He suffered, He will see the light and obtain perfect knowledge. My just servant will justify the multitude; He will bear and take away their guilt. Therefore I will give Him His portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong. For He surrendered Himself to death and was even counted among the wicked, bearing the sins of the multitude and interceding for sinners.

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Wednesday, 16 April 2014 : Wednesday of Holy Week (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

The Lord is our help, brothers and sisters in Christ, and when we are in the greatest predicaments and darkness, it is the Lord who is our only hope and our salvation. He was the very One who gave Himself to us, for our sake, so that we may live in His light and not die in the darkness.

The Lord is our help and our hope, and in Him alone lies our salvation, for the Holy One of God sacrificed Himself for the unworthy ones, that is all of us. We are all unworthy for our sins and our disobedience, and yet He who loves us continue without cease to help us and guide us to Himself, offering without cease His unfailing love.

And yet, who are the ones that rejected and spurned this love and opportunity? It is all of us, every time we sin, and every time we walk away thinking that we know better about things, and following the ways of the devil instead of looking towards the Lord our guide. We are like Judas who was tempted by money and the allures of the world, and hence we tend to fall, just as Judas had fallen.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as I had mentioned, we must not blame Judas or anyone else for betraying Christ, for we ourselves have betrayed the Lord many, many times, every single time that we sinned before Him. God continued without cease to offer His help for us, and He continued without cease to love us and show His mercy on us, even as we continue in our indignant and unrepentant behaviour.

So how should we act then? We should start by imitating what the Lord had done Himself, by imitating the Christ who in His humility, is always obedient to the will of God the Father, accepting even His own death, the death on the cross. We have to learn to get rid of our ego, of our own selves, and surrender ourselves totally to God and His love.

In that way our life will be more attuned to the way of the Lord and we can walk more closely along the way of God. Brethren, we should not fall to the same trap that Judas had walked into, the trap and allure of money, the temptation and allure of the evil one. He fell because he did not remain true to God, even though he was so close to Him, but he failed to understand the way of Jesus and follow Him with all of his heart.

As we approach the holiest moments of our year, and to prepare to celebrate this sacred time, let us all fortify ourselves against the evil that is in our hearts, and be ready to reject him and all of his false promises during this Easter celebration, when we in great joy proclaim the glory of our Risen Lord and Saviour.

May we remain faithful in God, remain in His love, grace and favour, forever and be filled always with His Spirit, that we may always remain faithful. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 April 2014 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Holy Week (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Today we begin the celebration of the holiest week of all the weeks in our year. There is no greater occasion than this week in our calendar, and that is why we call it the Holy Week, or the Week of the Lord’s Passion. Why so? That is because during this week itself we celebrate the Lord’s greatest works in this world, that is manifested through His suffering, death and ultimately, His resurrection from the dead.

This week commemorates the time when the Lord finally came forth to bring His long planned salvation, the long-awaited rescue for mankind finally came, through Jesus and the events that He set in motion, to bring forth finally the salvation and eternal rewards God had promised His people since the day of Adam, when he became the first man to fall into sin.

This day is the day commemorating the beginning of that solemn week, when Jesus embark towards His goal, that is also known as the Passion of the Christ, which is why this day is also known as Passion Sunday, marking the beginning of the Passion of Jesus, which He went through out of His great and unfathomable love for us, so great that indeed, in His passion and love, He was willing to give up even His own life for us, and shed His Blood for our sake.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is why today some of us may ask, why do we commemorate both the glorification and the death and suffering of Jesus at the same time? Why do we commemorate the glory of Jesus when He entered Jerusalem with a great procession with palm fronds and leaves, only to have the Passion reading heard afterwards? Why so?

Yes, all these are related brothers and sisters in Christ, for Jesus as He headed towards Jerusalem, He perfectly knew that He would be glorified and welcomed just as the prophet Zechariah had prophesied that the promised King would come to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, and in that occasion, Jesus was glorified and acclaimed as the promised King and Saviour long foretold by the prophets. Yet, the very same people would in less than a week, betrayed Him for the powers of the world, and cried out for His death.

Jesus knew all of these, and yet He pressed on, and that is His love for us, the passion that He has for all of us, and this is why we call this momentous event, the Holy Passion of our Saviour. He marched on to His death without fear, knowing that by laying down His life, He became that perfect sacrifice, through which all mankind, that is all of us, are made righteous and worthy of new life in God.

Jesus is the promised Saviour, the Son of David, as the heir and descendant of that faithful king and servant of God, the fulfillment of God’s promise to mankind since the beginning of time. Jesus Christ is the One long awaited and One promised to Adam and Eve, the first mankind.

After Satan tricked both of them in the form of a snake, God promised them that even though Satan would follow through and haunt and dominate mankind for ages, a deliverer would come through the descendant of Eve, that is Jesus, and the woman through whom the Saviour was to be born of, would crush the snake under her heels, and this refers to Mary, the mother of Jesus our Lord and Saviour.

And God promised Abraham that He would make him great among mankind and among the nations, and He would make Abraham the father of many nations, and to David his descendant, God promised an everlasting rule of His descendant on the throne of His people Israel, and all these were fulfilled in Jesus, the Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of Man, and the Son of God, Divine incarnate into flesh.

That is why the people hailed and welcomed Jesus as He entered the city of Jerusalem, the heart of the kingdom of Israel. He came as a King, the One and true King of God’s people, and the King over all the kings and the kingdoms of the world. But He did not come as a proud and boastful King, and instead, He came knowingly of His ultimate purpose, to be the ultimate servant King, to give up His own life for the life of His beloved people.

Today, as we begin this holy week when Jesus finally began His last week on earth as the Messiah born as a human, and as we cheer Him as the King of kings, as the Son of David, let us also remember what He came into this world for, that is to rescue us, and this He did out of His undying love for us. Remember how He loved each and every one of us that He was even willing to suffer the consequences of our sins in our place, and die for us.

Therefore, as we continue to proceed into this holy week, this holy time, let us use this perfect opportunity to think about our actions, on whether we have been good and faithful servants of our Lord, or whether we have been disobedient and rebellious in our ways, just as the people of God had been. Remember always, that Christ died for our sake, and He went through all that suffering and death just so that we will not have to suffer for eternity the suffering of hell.

God offered His love freely for us, and He laid down His passion freely for us, and it is our part, to accept or to reject this generous offer. Should we then reuse this? After what our Lord had gone through for us? Let us therefore think twice and more than twice from now on, every time we are seduced by the temptations of Satan to sin against the Lord. Let us think well of the consequences of our actions, for the Lord, and even more so, for ourselves.

Let us never be separated again from God, and as we embark on this journey through this sacred time, let us appreciate what Jesus our Lord and King had done for us. Never again take His love and kindness for granted. May this holy week be truly holy and beneficial for us, that we may draw ever closer to God who loves us. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 April 2014 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Holy Week (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Psalm 21 : 8-9, 17-18a, 19-20, 23-24

All who see Me make a jest of Me; they sneer and shake their heads. “He put His trust in the Lord, let the Lord rescue Him! If the Lord is His friend, let Him help Him!”

Round about Me are vicious dogs, villainous rogues encircling Me. They have tied up My hands and feet. They can count all My bones.

Dividing My garments among them and casting lots for My raiment. O Lord, be not far from Me! O My strength, come quickly to My help.

I will proclaim Your Name to My brothers, I will praise You in the assembly, “All you who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him! All you sons of Israel, revere Him!

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Saturday, 12 April 2014 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

God desires the love of mankind, and He loves them very much. That is why He gave us all of His attention and focus, and He offered Himself to them to open for them the pathway to salvation. In a sense, He had granted them great favour, only for them to refuse Him and reject Him, and even reject the salvation which He had freely offered them.

In today’s first reading God promised His beloved people that He will love them and care for them, freeing them from the grip of death and sin, and will provide for them once again as He had once had. We can see indeed how great is God’s love for us, that He gave us chance after chance, and opportunity after opportunity. He gave us hope even when we are in the greatest darkness.

Yet mankind were selfish, and are still indeed selfish even today. We thought only for ourselves and for our own benefits and we complain when things do not go our way. That is our nature, and we often succumb to it. The Pharisees rejected Jesus because of His teachings and ways that oppose their own authority and positions of privilege and honour within the society.

How about the people then? They also rejected Christ because they were reluctant to abandon their former way of life and follow what Christ taught them, and they were also easily swayed by the offer of money and goods of the world, that we can easily see in tomorrow’s Palm Sunday Gospel and Passion readings, how the same people who cheered for Jesus as King when He proceeded into Jerusalem, within less than one week would be condemned to death by the same people. Yes, the same people who acclaimed Jesus as King also cried out for His death.

And it is a fault that we have as we tend to blame the Jews on what happened to Jesus, in how they condemned Him to death and rejected Him and His offer of salvation, because it is always convenient and easy to blame someone else. We think of the Jews to be the ones to blame for the death of Christ, but we conveniently forgot that Jesus Himself was and is a Jew, born son of David, the heir of David and the descendant of Abraham.

And Jesus when He suffered and died on the cross, He did so for all of us, and also including the Jews, both those who had no part in His death and those who had hated Him and condemned Him. He Himself remembered them even in His suffering, asking the Father to forgive them and overlook their sins for their ignorance and lack of knowledge of who He truly was.

God Himself had forgiven them, and He had forgiven us. So for those among us who thought to blame the Jews, the very people the Lord had chosen to be born into, and to those of us who like to put the blame on others, let us from now on reflect on our own actions first. Before we even judge or condemn others, have we been sufficiently pure and worthy in our own actions that we will not be judged? We often forget that when we judge others, we therefore also open the door for us to be judged ourselves.

God did not wish to punish anyone, as indeed, He wanted all of us to be reunited with Him in love. He wishes for us to be perfected in love, that we may leave behind our past sinfulness and wicked behaviour, and become more like Him and be more loving as He is. That was why He sent Jesus to be with us, to be both our Saviour, to break the chains of sin and death, and at the same time also show us how to love, like God has loved us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we approach the pinnacle of our preparation, as we proceed towards the holiest week of all our celebrations, the Holy Week of Jesus’ Passion, let us resolve to be more like God, in becoming more loving and forgiving, in being more inclusive and compassionate, helping one another to approach the Lord rather than condemning or judging each other. Let us reserve no place for Satan in our hearts! For it is in a darkened heart that Satan is happy to dwell in. Let the light of God instead be within us, that He may also guide our ways, that our ways will always be pleasing to God.

May the Lord forgive us our sins and show us how to love Him just as He had loved us first. Let us never be separated again from You, o Lord our God. Be with us always, till the end of time. Amen.

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Thursday, 10 April 2014 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God established His first covenant with our father in faith, that is Abraham. Yes, Abraham is our father in faith, because even though we may not be descended from him by blood, but we are all his descendants by our same faith, that is in the same God, the very God who had made His contact with Abraham and made him the father of many nations because of his faith and devotion.

Abraham, once known as Abram, was not chosen because of his greatness, his wealth or his power. He was not chosen because of his abilities or talents, nor because of the number of his sheep, as shepherds with many sheep were indeed very great in his time. No, Abram was chosen not because of all of these. He was chosen because of one singular but very important reason, that is his faith and his actions that were based strongly on that faith.

Abram was faithful, and he was righteous in all of his actions. He lived closely to God’s will and followed the way of the Lord all of his life. He believed in God and he trusted completely in Him, even to the point of giving up his own long promised son, Isaac, to be sacrificed at Moria, when God supposedly asked him to do so. God tested his faith in that moment, and Abram followed through with complete faith and trust in God.

He obeyed God and he believed. And that was how he became renowned and great among many and among the nations. God made true the covenant that He had established with him, and from him came forth many nations and many peoples, uncounted and numerous indeed like the sands on the seashore as God had promised Abram, who later then known as Abraham, the one whom God was pleased with.

God fulfilled the promise He had made with His people, to Jacob that he would be great and a nation would come forth from him, Israel, the chosen people of God, from whom the descendants came the people discussed in today’s Gospel, and Jesus Christ Himself. God also fulfilled the promise He had established to Israel, that He would bring them to freedom and live in happiness in the Promised Land of milk and honey.

God also fulfilled the promises He had made with David, His faithful servant. He promised that his descendants will always sit on the throne of Israel and rule over God’s people forever. Yet, just as in the case of the covenant God established with Jacob and Abraham, it was God’s people who disobeyed the Lord and broke their part of the covenant, by abandoning God and worshipping pagan idols, and committing practices wicked in the sight of God.

The people of Israel and even the kings, among the descendants of David were disobedient, and as soon as the messengers sent by God to remind them of God’s love and promise were gone, they were quick to return to their old, debauched and wicked lifestyle. That was why God gave them to the hands of their enemies, and they were scattered, not to punish them per se, but rather to remind them yet again that without God, they are nothing.

But brethren, does that mean God also forsook His covenant with Israel? No. In fact God remained faithful to the covenants and promises that He had made. Covenant is the greatest form of promise compared to other forms of promises, and it was we and our ancestors who broke the covenant we have with God. God was always faithful and He never gave up on us, unless we ourselves gave Him up for other idols.

And God showed His commitment and love for us, through the ultimate gift that He gave to us, namely the gift of Jesus, His own Son. Through Jesus, God showed yet again, and in finality, the perfect love He has for all of us, and the total commitment He has to the covenants He had made. He fulfilled the promise He made with Abraham, Jacob and David through Jesus, the son of David who is seated at the throne of God and rules for eternity as the King of all kings.

And through Jesus, God made a new covenant, the last and greatest of them all, with us, renewing the promise He had made with mankind of many generations. And this new covenant is sealed by God with none other than by His own Precious Blood, poured out by the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus, who died for us. He died so that we may live, and such is His love for us, indeed!

Yes, brethren, that is how faithful God is to us, and how loving He is towards us. He had proven again and again His dedication and yet we always spurn His love. The people rejected Him because they preferred the devil and his pleasures rather than the true love offered by the Lord through Jesus.

Shall we then follow their examples? Or shall we remain true to the Lord? Let us no longer be rebellious and ignorant of God’s love, but instead embrace His love to the fullest and prove that we can hold our part of the new covenant He had established. May the Lord see in us the love and hope that is still in us, that He may forgive us our trespasses and bring us once again closer to Him. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 9 April 2014 : 5th Week of Lent (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we go closer and closer to the time of celebration of the Holy Week, and as we continue to immerse ourselves in the dynamics of Lent, we need to make a clear and conscious choice on our part, that we resolve to be with God and be faithful to Him, or to reject Him and to follow instead, the devil and his ways of the world.

The three companions of Daniel, that is Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they are all presented with the choice to serve either God their Lord, or the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar and worship him and the statue he had built for himself. And they proved their faith for the Lord, choosing to be burned in the big furnace rather than giving up their faith and worship the king’s statue.

They dedicated themselves to God even though they know that they will suffer from disobeying the king’s order and even knowing the punishment that they would have to suffer for such disobedience. Yet, in doing that they remain true to God and to His will, and as we saw, God did not want His servants to suffer, and therefore, He protected them from the wrath of the flames in the furnace.

We cannot be servants to two masters, as another parable of Jesus has told us, that for example, we cannot be servants of both God and money. In today’s Gospel the people claimed that they were the children of Abraham by the right of descendant, and yet what they did in their words and deeds clearly did not reflect that they were worthy of being the children of Abraham.

For Abraham obeyed the Lord without condition and with the fullness of devotion and giving of his heart. He did not even shy from giving up his own son, the very one long promised by God, to be sacrificed on the Mount of Moria, and for that kind of devotion, he was praised and rewarded by God. Abraham was faithful, in the same way as the three companions of Daniel had been, and they showed that faith in God cannot be one that is arbitrary, but must be something that is concrete and done in complete and full dedication.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we cannot be like the people of Israel who rejected Jesus by claiming that they were the children of Abraham, in trying to justify their wickedness. They thought that being the children of Abraham, they were ensured and guaranteed of salvation, but they were wrong. In fact Abraham would have been ashamed that these people were born from his blood, and being his descendants.

Thus, like the three companions of Daniel, we too must make a firm and conscious choice, especially as we go on in this life, and during this perfect opportunity of Lent, to change our ways if we have erred and strayed away from God’s path. Let us make that concrete choice and action, to seek the Lord and ask Him for His mercy, surrendering ourselves totally to Him, and promise Him and dedicate our whole lives to Him, forsaking all the falsehoods of the devil and the temporal pleasures of this world.

Let us instead seek the Lord and the true happiness that only He can give. Let us be with Him and be in His grace forevermore. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 9 April 2014 : 5th Week of Lent (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

John 8 : 31-42

Jesus went on to say to the Jews who believed in Him, “You will be My true disciples, if you keep My word. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

They answered Him, “We are the descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves of anyone. What do You mean by saying : You will be free?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave. But the slave does not stay in the house forever; the son stays forever. So, if the Son makes you free, you will be really free.”

“I know that you are the descendants of Abraham; yet you want to kill Me because My word finds no place in you. For My part, I speak of what I have seen in My Father’s presence, but you do what you have learnt from your father.”

They answered Him, “Our father is Abraham.” Then Jesus said, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do as Abraham did. But now you want to kill Me, the One who tells you the truth – the truth that I have learnt from God. That is not what Abraham did; what you are doing are the works of your father.”

The Jews said to Him, “We are not illegitimate children; we have one Father, God.” Jesus replied, “If God were your Father you would love Me, for I came forth from God, and I am here. And I did not come by My own decision, but it was He Himself who sent Me.”