Sixth Week of Easter

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Monday, 2 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the words of the Sacred Scriptures telling us about the works and journeys of St. Paul the Apostle during his time when he journeyed through the Eastern Mediterranean regions, visiting cities after cities, towns after towns, and encouraging the faith of the Christian communities which he was visiting.

There were people who welcomed him and helped him just as the faithful had in some of the cities that St. Paul visited, but in even more occasions, there were also many of those who refused to listen to his words, rejected him, cast stone at him and ejected him out of their cities and towns. This is just as what Jesus our Lord Himself had foretold to His disciples, that they would be accepted, but also would be rejected as well.

And in the Gospel today, Jesus encouraged His disciples that He would not abandon them to face the challenges of the world alone on their own. He would send them the Helper, His own Holy Spirit, Whom He would send to those whom He had deemed to be worthy, His servants and people who went about preaching His truth and His Good News to mankind.

As we approach the coming of the feast and solemnity of Pentecost Sunday, which will be in about two weeks’ time, we are going to hear more and more about the promise of God’s Holy Spirit, which He shall pour down and bestow on all those whom He has deemed to be worthy. And the Spirit shall empower them, encouraging their hearts to be steadfast and steady in their faith in God.

The Holy Spirit shall inflame lukewarm hearts and strengthen the faith of those whose faith are shaken. But, in order to fully realise and utilise the graces and blessings of the Holy Spirit, we have to cultivate the seeds of faith, hope and love which it has placed in each and every one of us, that the gifts of the Spirit to us may grow and multiply, and bring all of us ever closer to God and being ever righteous and just, we may be found worthy of Him.

God always helps those who want to help themselves. And to those who have faithfully kept His commandments and walk in His ways, He shall give even greater gifts. And this grace we can find in the person of the saint whose feast we are commemorating today, namely that of St. Athanasius, a great and holy bishop, and an exemplary role model for many of those who followed him in his way of life.

St. Athanasius lived at a time when the persecution against Christians have ended, and the faithful were free to live out their faith as they wished. However, divisions appeared in the society by the vicious works of the devil, who through his persuasion and through the false prophets which he had planted among the faithful, he had lured many people away from salvation, and even threatened to corrupt the pure teachings of the Church and tore it apart.

But this is where St. Athanasius came into the fray and intervened for the love of God’s Church and the faithful, and for the zeal he has for the Lord and the Faith which he has in Him. St. Athanasius, a holy and devoted bishop, was a simple and loving man, but when he was asked to stand up for his faith in the matter of the heretical teachings and aberrations that threatened to bring countless peoples into damnation, he was inflamed and full of zeal, and spoke out harshly against those heretics who twisted and corrupted the Lord’s teachings for their own purposes and desires.

Many times, St. Athanasius encountered trouble for his vigorous opposition against the heretical teachings, particularly the false teachings of Arius, the false prophet and heresiarch, who advocated that the Lord Jesus was not God, but instead was a mere man without any link to power or divinity, as just one among God’s creations. This teaching was false, and misled many, even among the priests and bishops who in dissent followed Arius’ errors and spread his heresy among many more people.

This was where St. Athanasius did not pull back his opposition, and he was renowned for his Athanasian Creed, the creed of faith that expanded upon the original Nicene Creed, and emphasised at every step, the fundamentals of the Christian faith, particularly the divinity and equality which Jesus our Lord has with the Father, three Divine Persons but one God, the Most Holy Trinity.

St. Athanasius clearly did not have it easy. Just as there were many who accepted and welcomed his views, and proceeded on to defend the true faith, there were also many of those who refused to believe in the truth and preferred to walk the path of heresy, including even the powerful and the mighty. As a result, St. Athanasius was even persecuted and exiled from his see for a few years, and had to endure great difficulty and suffering. But he did not give up.

Through his efforts and hard work, he managed to bring many souls back from the darkness of the heresy they espoused, and these repented and returned to the true faith. Had St. Athanasius not be courageous and be devoted in resisting the pull of heresy and the false teachings, more and more people could have encountered damnation and fall into the eternal darkness of hell.

Therefore today, as we reflect on the passages from the Holy Scriptures, let us all also think of what St. Athanasius had done, and realise that each and every one of us can also follow in his footsteps. We do not have to do great things as he had done, but we should begin from even simple steps such as putting into our lives the practice of true faith, and put into real action, all that we have believed in the Lord, and become truly faithful as St. Athanasius had been.

Let us pray to the Lord, that all of us will be blessed in all of our endeavours. Let us draw closer to God and ask Him to bless us in everything we do, so that we may have our works successful and help to bring each and every one of us closer to our Lord, our loving God and Father. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 2 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 15 : 26 – John 16 : 4a

At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples at the Last Supper, “From the Father, I will send you the Spirit of truth. When this Helper has come from the Father, He will be My Witness, and you, too, will be My witnesses, for you have been with Me from the beginning.”

“I tell you all this to keep you from stumbling and falling away. They will put you out of the synagogue. Still more, the hour is coming, when anyone who kills you will claim to be serving God; they will do this, because they have not known the Father or Me. I tell you all these things now so that, when the time comes, you may remember that I told you.”

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Monday, 2 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 149 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-6a and 9b

Alleluia! Sing to the Lord a new song, sing His praise in the assembly of His saints. Let Israel rejoice in his Maker, let the people of Zion glory in their King!

Let them dance in praise of His Name and make music for Him with harp and timbrel. For the Lord delights in His people; He crowns the lowly with victory.

The saints will exult in triumph; even at night on their couches. Let the praise of God be on their lips, this is the glory of all His saints. Alleluia!

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Monday, 2 May 2016 : Sixth Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Athanasius, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 16 : 11-15

So we put out to sea from Troas and sailed straight across to Samothrace Island, and the next day to Neapolis. From there we went inland to Philippi, the leading city of the district of Macedonia, and a Roman colony. We spent some days in that city.

On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the bank of the river where we thought the Jews would gather to pray. We sat down and began speaking to the women who were gathering there. One of them was a God-fearing woman named Lydia from Thyatira City, a dealer in purple cloth.

As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. After she had been baptised together with her household, she invited us to her house, “If you think I am faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my house.” And she persuaded us to accept her invitation.

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Sunday, 1 May 2016 : Sixth Sunday of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the essence of the readings from the Holy Scriptures on this day is that we ought to be doing the works that we have been expected to do as the followers and disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ. The essence of today’s readings is one of action, that is good actions that we need to accomplish in our own respective lives, so that we will be worthy of God and His presence in us that bring us to justification and eternal life.

In the first reading, we heard about the dilemma faced by the early Church with regards to the obedience to the Law of God, and more specifically the laws of Moses passed down through the generations, with all of its modifications and additions, which resulted in a very complicated and numerous set of rules and regulations that the Pharisees and the conservatives in the Jewish society in particular, enforced on the people of God.

These rules and regulations covered everything in the Jewish society, all sorts of etiquettes and expectations in all kinds of activities, from how you ought to wash and purify your hands before you have a meal, and the rites involved in the commemoration of the Sabbath day, not withstanding the strict observation of the sabbath and its prohibition of any sorts of activities, as certainly all of us would have seen throughout the Gospels, how the Pharisees strictly enforced it.

But all these rules and regulations, are they helping in bringing the people closer to God? They are a burden and an unnecessary chore for those who wanted to follow the Lord. Indeed, the Jews themselves did not fulfil the entirety of the obligations of the human laws, and were struggling with it themselves, not to think about how difficult it would be for the different kinds of people at that time, Greeks, Syrians and Romans, and many others who became members of the Church.

These would have to abandon their old ways of life and embrace the strict rules of the Jewish traditions, if the Pharisees and the conservatives among the early Christians were to succeed in their endeavours. It would be difficult, as then those new faithful would be ostracised by their own societies and communities for being different, following a foreign culture instead of their own. But, the Apostles through the Holy Spirit reminded the whole assembly that this is not what the Lord wanted from His people.

Instead, He made it clear to them on many occasions, that if they love Him and truly love Him, they would listen to His words and do as what He had asked them to do. And His words and will are that they ought to love Him with all of their hearts, their minds and with all of their abilities and capacities, giving all of their beings and attention to Him above anything else, and then do the same to their fellow brethren.

It is what the Lord Jesus had revealed to all of us mankind, that His Law, the Law of God is truly the Law of Love. And love is that one should give it his or her all to another whom he or she love, unconditionally and with full intention of love. Love is unconditional and selfless, giving of oneself to another, just as what the Lord Jesus Himself perfectly had shown to us, by His death on the cross, the ultimate love, that no better love exist, other than for one to give His life for another.

But is love just a feeling, or something that we should enjoy with one another? No, it is not, brethren. Love without concrete and real action is empty and meaningless. Love without commitment is empty and without real significance, and it is indeed not love. Love must be active and filled with many good deeds, showing our care and concern for our fellow men and women, and showing our piety and dedication to our Lord.

This therefore ties in perfectly with today’s great celebration, which coincides with the sixth Sunday in the season of Easter. On the first day of May, in the secular world we heard about the term May Day or Labour Day, the day which commemorates all the workers of the world, all those who toil and labour for the sustenance of themselves and their families, and hoping for a better life.

But in the Church, we celebrate it with even more meaning than just worldly work and labours. Today we mark the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. St. Joseph is the foster father of our Lord Jesus, and he was a carpenter in Nazareth, both before and after the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was an upright man, who upheld integrity and justice in his profession, and worked with zeal and faith, a model worker for all.

He showed us all that a good worker is not just someone who is looking to gather and gain more money or possession for themselves. Otherwise, he himself would not have been satisfied with the job of a carpenter. A carpenter’s job was an honest and humble job, but at the same time, it was tiresome and does not produce much money, and at that time, the society tended to look down on these kind of menial works.

That was why the people of Nazareth was skeptical and indeed refused to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, because they thought they knew Him as the Son of a mere carpenter. They looked down on Him and sneered at Him, thinking that He was a nobody Who dared and tried to make Himself famous by breaking through the social prejudice. That is how mankind is, and that is how we ourselves live in our world today. We tend to categorise people and become prejudice against others based on who they are, what they are working as, or in how they act.

But again, God made it clear to all of us, that we should strive for love, and all of us should be honest and upright in all things. A good worker is someone who knows love, and a person who knows how to love is someone who can show their love for another through real and concrete actions and not just through mere words or proclamations.

Thus, all of us are called to love, to obey the Lord’s commandments, that is love. We should not be like the Pharisees who were overly attached to their human laws, rules and regulations that stifled the faithful who wanted to follow the Lord, but was discouraged by the kind of commitment they need to make by obeying those draconian rules.

Yet, we must also be aware that love is not something that is easy to do or to be attained. True love require effort, commitment and sacrifice. Jesus Himself had shown the example for us, that out of His love for us, He was willing to spend His time with us, teaching us and helping us to find the way to God through Him, and He even bore the multitudes of our sins, all the punishments intended for those sins, and bore it upon Himself, carrying that cross to Calvary.

We should walk in our Lord’s footsteps, and in the footsteps of his foster-father, St. Joseph the Worker, St. Joseph the Carpenter. We should be upright and uphold integrity and justice in all of our actions and in all of our dealings with one another. And most importantly of all, as I have emphasised again and again from just now, that we must all have love for each other, and show them through genuine acts of love, and show the same love for our Lord as well.

And all of us who have done all these faithfully, well, we know our heavenly reward is awaiting us at the end of the day. Just as all the workers are rewarded for their hard work and deeds, we too shall be rewarded, so long as we remain faithful to the Lord our God. In the second reading from the Book of Revelations of St. John the Apostle, at the end of that book, we hear about the heavenly city of Jerusalem, the City of God descending from heaven, in which all the faithful shall live forever with God.

And thus, if we are faithful, and if we show love for God and for each other, God shall find us worthy and just, and He shall welcome us into His City, and He shall wipe away all of our tears and sorrows, and place true joy inside each and every one of us. Let us all endeavour and work hard for this purpose, brethren, that all of us will draw ever closer to Him.

Let us all ask for the intercession of His foster-father, St. Joseph the Worker, that he will always intercede for our sake, and pray that all of us may persevere in our good works, for the sake of our salvation. May God bless us all always and keep us in His grace forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 May 2016 : Sixth Sunday of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 14 : 23-29

At that time, Jesus answered Judas, not Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples at the Last Supper, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him; and We will come to him and make a room in his home. But if anyone does not love Me, he will not keep My words; and these words that you hear are not Mine, but the Father’s Who sent Me.”

“I told you all this while I was still with you. From now on the Helper, the Holy Spirit Whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I have told you. Peace be with you! I give you My peace; not as the world gives peace do I give it to you. Do not be troubled; do not be afraid.”

“You heard Me say, ‘I am going away, but I am coming to you.’ If you loved Me, you would be glad that I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you this now before it takes place, so that when it does happen you may believe.”

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Sunday, 1 May 2016 : Sixth Sunday of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Revelations 21 : 10-14, 22-23

One of the seven Angels took me up in a spiritual vision to a very high mountain and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shines with the glory of God, like a precious jewel with the colour of crystal-clear jasper.

Its wall, large and high, has twelve gates; stationed at them are twelve Angels. Over the gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. Three gates face the east; three gates face the north; three gates face the south and three face the west. The city wall stands on twelve foundation stones on which are written the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.

I saw no Temple in the city for the Lord God, Master of the universe, and the Lamb are Themselves its Temple. The city has no need for the light of the sun or the moon, since God’s Glory is its Light and the Lamb is its Lamp.

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Sunday, 1 May 2016 : Sixth Sunday of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 66 : 2-3, 5, 6 and 8

May God be gracious and bless us; may He let His face shine upon us, that Your way be known on earth and Your salvation among the nations.

May the countries be glad and sing for joy, for You rule the peoples with justice and guide the nations of the world.

May the peoples praise You, o God, may all the peoples praise You! May God bless us and be revered, to the very ends of the earth.

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Sunday, 1 May 2016 : Sixth Sunday of Easter, Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 15 : 1-2, 22-29

Some persons who had come from Judea to Antioch were teaching the brothers in this way, “Unless you are circumcised according to the law of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

Because of this there was trouble, and Paul and Barnabas had fierce arguments with them. For Paul told the people to remain as they were when they became believers. Finally those who had come from Jerusalem suggested that Paul and Barnabas and some others go up to Jerusalem to discuss the matter with the Apostles and elders.

Then the Apostles and elders together with the whole Church decided to choose representatives from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. These were Judas, known as Barsabbas, and Silas, both leading men among the brothers. They took with them the following letter :

“Greetings from the Apostles and elders, your brothers, to the believers of non-Jewish birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia. We have heard that some persons from among us have worried you with their discussions and troubled your peace of mind. They were not appointed by us.”

“But now, it has seemed right to us in an assembly, to choose representatives and to send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, who have dedicated their lives to the service of our Lord Jesus Christ. We send you then Judas and Silas who themselves will give you these instructions by word of mouth.”

“We, with the Holy Spirit, have decided not to put any other burden on you except what is necessary : You are to abstain from blood from the meat of strangled animals and from prohibited marriages. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

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Saturday, 16 May 2015 : 6th Week of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today’s readings told us about how Apollos, the faithful servant of God and preacher of the faith told the truth about Christ to many people of many nations among the Gentiles or the non-Jews, and how many were converted because of his works.

But he himself was not perfect, as he did not have the full revelation of truth which only the Holy Spirit could give, and he received it once he was baptised in the Spirit by the Apostles, and the fullness of the truth of God was revealed to him through the means of fellow disciples who explained the truth to him in greater detail.

And in the Gospel Jesus spoke about how He taught in parables and stories, veiling from the people the fullness of the truth, and while they understood the meaning of the stories, but the real meaning behind all of them were not revealed until the time when the Lord deemed it right to reveal them so. And a very important truth He revealed that day, that all of us should ask when we need something, and because we want to know the truth, then we all should ask about the truth.

That means, as we live this life and live our faith, we cannot be passive or complacent or lazy. Otherwise, our faith will be empty and meaningless, and then, it is easy for Satan, the evil one, to plant all of his seeds of lies and discord within us. And this is how so many people fell into heresy and sin against God, because they did not know the truth or lacking the knowledge of the truth, and yet they took matter into their own hands and in their pride, they ended up subverting and changing the truth to serve their own purposes.

We are all prone to this, and it is easy for us to the many temptations to deviate from the truth. Sometimes, we are too proud to admit that we do not know about something, and therefore, we remain in our error and in the state of lacking knowledge. And sometimes we are too proud to ask because we do not want to lower ourselves and thus lose our prestige and ego.

Thus, let us all today reflect on this, on how we all should really open up ourselves to the Lord. All of us must be proactive in our faith, that if we know that we lack something that God’s grace can give, then we must really throw far, far away our ego and pride, and open ourselves to receive God’s grace and blessings, that is the truth which He wants to show us but we are often unable to grasp because of that same ego.

Let us all learn to be more humble in all things, especially before the Lord our God, and let us realise that firstly we are all sinners and then we are also lacking in the knowledge of the truth necessary to liberate us from the depredations of evil and sin. We often presume to know many things while the truth is that we know none. Let us ask the Lord to allow us to know more about how wicked we were, and indeed, how wicked we are now in our ways, and how we can change for the better.

May Almighty God bless us all, forgive us our sins and empower us with strength, courage and humility, so that we may grow ever deeper in our faith and stronger in our humility, realising our sinful ways and be truly converted to the Lord our God and walk humbly always in His ways. Amen.