son of man

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Thursday, 25 July 2013 : Feast of St. James, Apostle (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 20 : 20-28

Then the mother of James and John came to Jesus with her sons, and she knelt down, to ask a favour. Jesus said to her, “What do you want?” And she answered, “Here You have my two sons. Grant that they may sit, one at Your right hand and One at Your left, when You are in Your kingdom.”

Jesus said to the brothers, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They answered, “We can.” Jesus replied, “You will indeed drink My cup, but to sit at My right or at My left is not for Me to grant. That will be for those for whom My Father has prepared it.”

The other ten heard all this, and were angry with the two brothers. Then Jesus called them to Him and said, “You know that the rulers of the nations act as tyrants over them, and the powerful oppress them. It shall not be so among you : whoever wants to be more important in your community shall make himself your servant. And if you want to be the first of all, make yourself the servant of all. Be like the Son of Man who has come, not to be served but to serve, and to give His life to redeem many.”

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Friday, 19 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 12 : 1-8

It happened that Jesus walked through the wheat fields on a Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some heads of wheat and crush them to eat the grain. When the Pharisees noticed this, they said to Jesus, “Look at Your disciples! They are doing what is prohibited on the Sabbath!”

Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did, when he and his men were hungry? He went into the house of God, and they ate the bread offered to God, though neither he nor his men had the right to eat it, but only the priests. And have you not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath rest, yet they are not guilty?”

“I tell you, there is greater than the Temple here. If you really knew the meaning of the words : ‘It is mercy I want, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. Besides, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”

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Wednesday, 17 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters, today we heard the story of Moses, how he was called from his exile in Midian, from his job as a shepherd, to be the liberator of the people of Israel, how God appeared to him through the means of a burning bush that remained untouched by the fire. God called him to be the shepherd of His people, Israel, and to guide them as a leader to lead them to the promised Land that God had given to Abraham and his descendants.

The same happened to us, because Christ had called all of us to follow Him, to follow Him out of the land of our slavery, that is our world of sin and evil. He called us out of the land of sin, just as He had once called His people, the people of Israel, whom He had chosen among the nations, out of the land of Egypt and the slavery under the Pharaohs.

Just as He had brought freedom to the people of Israel from the yoke of the Egyptians, so He had brought liberation to us suffering from the yoke of Satan, that is the yoke of sin. He opened the gates of salvation just as He had opened the sea for the people of Israel to walk through in the past. He led His people to safety in His love and care for all those who belong to Him, because we are His sheep and He is our shepherd.

The Lord revealed the truth through His Son, to all of us, as we had heard them through the teachings passed down directly from the Apostles themselves, who listened to the words of the Lord, when He still walked on this earth. He hid the knowledge from the haughty and the prideful, those who trusted their wisdom better than the true wisdom of the Lord. It does not mean that God hates those who are learned and knowledgeable or wise, but in fact, the Lord wants us to focus on Him and not on ourselves, and that is why He rebuked those who thought highly of themselves and their wisdom, because they did not honour God and give due glory to Him, who is the source of all wisdom, but give glory to themselves.

Those who put their trust in human wisdom and achievements often did not give due glory to God, because without God, mankind is nothing, and they will not have wisdom, if it has not been instilled by the Holy Spirit. Only through Jesus and His disciples that the teachings they took can be passed down to us in revelation.

In our pride and natural sense of arrogance, in our human achievements and brilliance, we like to glorify ourselves upon our successes, and did not give proper thanks to the Lord who had actually made it possible for us to gain those successes. In our world of knowledge today, we tend to think that we have found what we need to know about literally everything, and begin to shun the Lord whom we think as inexistent.

But the Lord is real, brothers and sisters, as real as His death for us, for our sake that we do not have to suffer death, but gain a new life in Him. Our wisdom does help us, brothers and sisters, as our intelligence is given by the Lord, but if we do not use it correctly, our wisdom can become a trap, in that it prevents us from reaching out to the Lord, because in our wisdom, we can succumb to our sense of pride, that we would close ourselves, our hearts from the Lord.

To us, God has given wisdom and knowledge, so that we can use them for the sake of ourselves and the world around us. It is not for us to be proud in ourselves and shut ourselves from God’s love. He came so that we can be saved, from the tyranny of sin, evil, and thus, death. Just as He had lifted up the people of Israel from the slavery in Egypt and brought them to the Promised Land of milk and honey, so He did bring us up from this slavery of sin, into a new life, and eventually the eternal bliss of everlasting life in happiness in heaven.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reaffirm our faith in our God, the source of our wisdom, our intelligence, and of course, our salvation. It is from the Lord Jesus Christ that we received this new life, filled with hope, and the wisdom that came from the Holy Spirit. It is because of our Lord Jesus Christ that we no longer need to fear death, because He has taken away our sins through His sacrifice in death, that all of us who remain faithful in Him, will be free from the tyranny of sin, forever, just as the people of Israel had been liberated from the yoke of the Pharaoh.

May the Lord be with us, protect us, and empower us, that we will remain strong against the challenges of life, the yoke of suffering that is bearing down with us, and together with Christ, let us carry our crosses, walking towards the Lord our God, who loves us, and who wants us to be reunited with Him.

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Tuesday, 16 July 2013 : 15th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ! Indeed, we are all brethren, brothers and sisters to one another, because all of us share the same Jesus, our Lord and Saviour, who is our Brother. He did not leave mankind behind when we sinned against Him and rebelled against His love and His will. Instead, as the reading pointed out today, He came to dwell among us, and be with us, that we become His brethren, and will have part in Him and His salvation.

The Lord dwells within us, because we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, which must be kept holy at all times, and free from the filth of sin and evil. To do so, we must reflect Christ in all the things that we do, in all the words that we say, and in all the works of our hands. And to reflect Christ simply means to love, loving God with all our hearts and our entire being, and also to love our neighbours, our brethren as much as we love ourselves.

If we do all these, in the complete awareness of what we are doing, which glorify Christ more and more, we will be brought closer and ever be with God. He will accept us as His own, as His brethren, and He will protect us from the harm caused by the evil one. To us, He had shown compassion and love, just as the love shown by shepherd to his sheep. If we are lost, like the lost sheep, He will do all the things He can, in order to bring us back to Him again.

But we must also remain obedient to Christ, as even if we are already saved, we can be lost once again, if we do not remain faithful to our calling in life, that is to be with Christ and to love Him with all our strength. Especially, in our world today, it is easy for one to fall away from grace, because of the increasing materialism in this world, the temptations of pleasure and false happiness that this world provide to many people, that they began to turn away from the teachings of Christ.

Doing the will of God is what God truly desires from us all, and in following Christ and His teachings, we are doing the will of God, that is love, for one another, and for God Himself. If we show love in our actions, we are doing God’s will and therefore will always remain in God’s grace, and we will be save from damnation of death and hell that awaits those who disobeyed the Lord and continued their lives in sin.

Today, we are celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, an important feast day for the Carmelites, a well-known religious order, which began at Mount Carmel itself, which is located in Israel today, the same location where the prophet Elijah contested against the four hundred and fifty priests of Baal, the pagan god, in front of the people of Israel, on who is the true God of Israel.

Our Lady, the Blessed Virgin Mary, appeared to St. Simon Stock, who was the founder of the Carmelite Order, and gave him what is well-known today as the brown scapular, closely associated with this feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Carmelites themselves placed the Blessed Virgin Mary as the perfect role model for all faithful to follow, in their faith to the Lord, in following the example of Mary herself, in her dedication to her Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, from His birth, to His suffering on the way to Calvary and death on the cross.

So devoted is our Lady to her Son, our Lord Jesus, that she followed Him all the way through His suffering for our sake, to the cross, and stood by below Him, accompanying Him through the time of His greatest ordeal. Though sword pierced her heart, for seeing the cruel death of her Son, she persevered and our Lord gave her to His disciple, John, and gave him to His mother too.

Therefore, in the same way, our Blessed Virgin Mary had been given to us by the Lord Himself, and we had also been given to the care of our Lady, whom we celebrate today as the Lady of Mount Carmel, to be our mother and helper. Why helper? Because our Lady is the greatest of the saints, through her own position being the mother of God, but even more importantly because of her purity and dedication to the Lord and all God’s children.

Today we follow the example of the Carmelites, to give our love and dedication to the Lord, through His mother, our Blessed Virgin Mary. Because, just as the Carmelites stress in their formations and principles, there is no better way to the Lord other than through Mary, His mother. Mary is our greatest intercessor before the Lord for His mercy and help, because, just as at the wedding at Cana, Jesus did listen to His mother, when she pleaded with Him to help the wedding brides despite Him telling her explicitly that the time has not yet come for Him to reveal His power.

That is why we dedicate ourselves in prayer through the Blessed Virgin Mary, who became a guide in our journey towards the Lord. She helps us through her prayer, and because she is closest among the saints in heaven to the Lord, our prayers will be heard, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

That is why it is good for us to follow the example of the Carmelites and indeed, of our Lady herself, in their dedication to Jesus our Lord, on the love they have to our Lord and Saviour. Jesus did not mean any disrespect when He seemingly rebuked His own family when they were waiting for Him as told in the Gospel today. Indeed, Jesus actually affirmed the honoured position His mother had, because Jesus told the people that whoever does the will of God and do things for the sake of the Lord, they are His brethren, His family. Who else is more faithful and more obedient to the will of God other than Mary, our Lord’s own mother? The Virgin who readily accepted her role in the salvation of all mankind by accepting the Lord’s will for her, to be the vessel that brought the Saviour into this world.

Surely, today we must rejoice, that we have our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Blessed Virgin Mary, to intercede for our sake before her Son, our Lord and God. Through her we can be closer to Christ, and through her prayers for our sake, all of us who are sinners have greater hope of salvation, because Christ Himself will surely be moved by the petitions and pleas of His own mother, who cares for us just like her own children. Remember, when Christ gave His mother to John to be cared for, He also gave her to us, that we become her own, and receive the love and care that she had once shown Jesus.

May our Lady of Mount Carmel, our Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, pray for us and protect us from the harm of evil that is in our world, and through her, may we be able to get closer and reach higher to Christ, her Son, that in the future, we will be able to praise Him together with her, and all the saints and holy people of God in heaven. Amen.

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Friday, 12 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Matthew 10 : 16-23

Look, I send you out like sheep among wolves. You must be a clever as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard with people, for they will hand you over to their courts, and they will flog you in their synagogues. You will be brought to trial before rulers and kings because of Me, so you may witness to them and the pagans.

But when you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say, or how you are to say it; when the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say. For it is not you who will speak, but the Spirit of your Father in you.

Brother will hand over brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of Me, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next. I assure you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

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Tuesday, 9 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of Saints Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest and Companions, Martyrs (First Reading)

Genesis 32 : 22-32

That same night Jacob got up and taking his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons, crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream and likewise everything he had. And Jacob was left alone.

Then a Man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the Man saw that He could not get the better of Jacob, He struck him in the socket of his hip and dislocated it as He wrestled with him.

The Man said, “Let Me go, for day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let You go until You have given me Your blessing.” The Man then said, “What is your name?” “Jacob” was the reply. He answered, “You will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have been strong-with-God as you have been with men and have prevailed.”

Then Jacob asked him, “What is Your Name?” He answered, “Why do you ask My Name?” And He blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Penuel, saying, “I have seen God face-to-face and survived.”

The sun rose as he passed through Penuel, limping because of his hip. That is why to this day the Israelites do not eat the sciatic nerve which is in the hip socket because the sciatic nerve in Jacob’s hip had been touched.

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Monday, 8 July 2013 : 14th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard how Jesus healed the woman suffering from a bleeding problem and also resurrected the daughter of the official, all because of their faith in Him and in what He can do. Faith can indeed go a long way, brethren. Our Lord rewards those who are faithful to Him. He wants only our love and our obedience to His will.

Faith is essential for salvation, as without faith, there is no hope at all for us to be saved. For we have been tainted by sin and darkness, of evil and this world, that we were unworthy of the Lord and His perfection. But yet, Jesus Christ came, the very Son of God, who opened the path to salvation by His death and resurrection. Through Him hope came into the world and dwell in us, in the Holy Spirit, that He sent to the Apostles on Pentecost.

We need faith to be the anchor of our lives, and as the centre of our very being, as with faith, we will have a strong anchor in God, and we will not be easily swayed by the temptations of Satan and the evils that are in the world. Without faith, we cannot love God, and consequently we would not be able to embrace Him and the salvation He offered to all of us freely.

To Christ had been granted all the authority on the heaven and the earth, over the living and the dead. That was why, He healed the suffering of the bleeding woman, and resurrected the dead daughter of the official. The readings today showed that Jesus did not just heal anybody and everyone. In fact, He sought those who truly were repentant, and sought God’s mercy, and showed their sincere love, devotion, and most importantly faith in Him, faith in His divinity, that He healed them from their afflictions and sickness.

Yet, faith alone is not sufficient, brothers and sisters in Christ, as the Lord taught us and His disciples, that faith must be in tandem with love and hope, as the three most important values of being a Christian, that is faith, hope, and love. These three virtues embody all that a Christian must be, must become, and must aspire to.

For faith without love is akin to a faith that is dead, and a faith that is empty, because this faith does not generate love and life. Love can simply be expressed as our service and care for our brothers and sisters, that is part of doing good works. This is why we do not believe in salvation through faith alone, but salvation through faith and good works, that is faith made alive through good works and actions that reflect love, and generate hope in others.

For faith lacking in love and hope is also a selfish faith, where we are concerned only in our own salvation and not others. A true Christian desires the salvation of all mankind, himself or herself and all those around him or her. Most especially, a true Christian desires the salvation of those who had caused suffering and pain to the Christian, and those who had wronged the Christian, or in short, the ‘enemy’. That is also in tandem with Christ’s teaching that we should love our enemies and those who persecute us.

Then going back to what we talked about earlier, love can neither exist without faith and hope, for love is intricately linked to faith and hope. It is not possible to truly love someone without first having faith in that person. We certainly will not truly love someone if we cannot even trust the person completely without fear or concern, or otherwise that love will by an empty love, or infatuation in some situations, where relationships are not born out of love but sexual desires and lust.

Then love also must bring hope, because in love, there is hope, hope for a new beginning, and indeed, hope for a new life. If you allow me to digress a little bit, yes, love does bring life and hope, that is children. For marriage as we know it, must be based on love, and as far as possible, should be fruitful and bear children, the gifts of God to man. Children represent this new hope, in a new life, a promising life, that should be nurtured with love and faith. That is also why it is important for us, to always link love with faith and hope, even in our own families, in the development of the spiritual faith of our children.

Then finally, hope itself cannot exist without faith and love, for to have hope in something means that we must at least have faith in that something. Hope itself cannot exist as long as we do not have faith in Christ, because Christ is the source of all hope, because only in Christ exist salvation, and out of Christ, we can have no hope. And hope itself begets love, because when we hope, we also express love, and because we love that someone, we have hope in that one. No better example than our Lord Himself, who loves us so much, that in His hope that we will be reunited with Him, that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to be our Redeemer and our Saviour.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, in this excellence experience of the Year of the Faith, let us renew and rejuvenate our faith in God, and dedicate ourselves fully and completely in Him, together with our hope in Him and our offering of the love for Him that is within our hearts. This Year of the Faith is the excellent opportunity for all of us to renew our commitment to our God and commit ourselves to Him and His cause.

Do not be afraid my brothers and sisters, for our Lord will always stand by our side, and supporting us, comforting us, as He had done to Israel of old. He is true to His covenant and promises, as He had once promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. What we need to do, is to keep our part of the covenant, and remain faithful, loving, and hopeful, to God and our fellow men. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 29 May 2013 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (Scripture Reflection)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, to follow Christ means to suffer with Him and to carry our own crosses alongside the cross He carried on the way to Calvary. To be with Christ means to drink the same cup of suffering that He has drunk, that all of us may be saved. This cup of suffering for Christ is so great that He actually, in His agony in the garden, wanted to avoid it, but because He was perfectly obedient to His Father that He accepted that cup.

That cup of suffering, my brothers and sisters, is linked with all of us, all of us who has ever sinned and rebelled against the love of God. That cup of suffering is none other than the combined weight of our sins and those sins committed by our forefathers and our ancestors since Adam and Eve, the first to sin in this world created by God. There had been many billions if not trillions of men living and lived since creation, and you can just imagine the weight of all their sins combined together.

Sin is what has caused the wounds of Christ, and the suffering that He suffered on the way to Calvary, and on the cross itself. Yes, the cross, the physical cross is heavy, but it is nothing compared to the spiritual weight of all our sins combined, as we are truly sinful and filthy creatures who have sinned for ages since the early days of creation.

Wars, violence, hatred, prejudice, malice, and many other things that man had done in this world, that caused evil and destruction, and hurting other people and creatures, and even to the extent of causing death, has made our sins to accumulate like a mountain, and this mountain is the mountain of sin that our Lord Jesus Christ carried on His way to Calvary.

Our pride and arrogance in particular had become our greatest obstacles in achieving salvation by accepting the salvation that God has offered through Christ, His Son, whose death and resurrection had redeemed all mankind, but the gift of salvation is only ours if we truly accept Christ as our Lord and Saviour. Pride and arrogance, in our own powers and abilities has prevented us from accepting the truth that is in Christ, preferring to trust men over God.

That is why men has sinned so much, because we trusted ourselves more than we had trusted God. We give in easily to our basic instincts, greed, lust, pride, and so much other evils that had been within us. It is so much easier to follow the world and the devil because it seems to be a much easier and a better way! Following the Lord is never easy, brothers and sisters in Christ.

We have to strive to carry our own crosses with the Lord every day, brethren, that we too share in the suffering of Christ, and through His death, we too are dead to our past lives, and reborn in a new life with Him through His glorious resurrection. This too was what happened at our own baptism, when we are welcomed into the Church of God, either as an infant or as an adult.

Remember our own baptism, brothers and sisters, when we are truly baptised like Christ had been in the Jordan, when we are sealed in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus, the Son of God, was baptised by John in the presence of the Father in His voice, and the dove which is the Holy Spirit. When we are baptised, we belong to Christ and will no longer be separated from Him, as long as we remain faithful to His commandments and the mission that He has entrusted to all of us.

May God be with us in all our dealings and in our lives, that He will transform us into beings of love, no longer be prideful nor arrogant, and placing the love for God above any other thing, enabling us to love God with all our hearts, our minds, and our souls, placing Him above every other things. God bless us all. Amen.

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Wednesday, 29 May 2013 : 8th Week of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Mark 10 : 32-45

They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead. The Twelve were anxious, and those who followed were afraid. Once more Jesus took the Twelve aside to tell them what was to happen to Him.

“You see we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be given over to the chief priests and the teachers of the Law. They will condemn Him to death, and hand Him over to the foreigners, who will make fun of Him, spit on Him, scourge Him, and finally kill Him; but three days later He will rise.”

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said to Him, “Master, we want You to grant us what we are going to ask of You.” And He said, “What do you want Me to do for you?” They answered, “Grant us to sit, one at Your right hand and one at Your left, when You come in Your glory.”

But Jesus said to them, “You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink, or be baptised in the way I am baptised?” They answered, “We can.” And Jesus told them, “The cup that I drink you will drink, and you will be baptised in the way that I am baptised; but to sit at My right hand or at My left is not Mine to grant. It has been prepared for others.”

On hearing this, the other ten were angry with James and John. Jesus then called them to Him and said, “As you know, the so-called rulers of the nations act as tyrants, and their great ones oppress them. But it shall not be so among you; whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you shall make himself slave of all.”

“Think of the Son of Man, who has not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life to redeem many.”

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Sunday, 26 May 2013 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Trinity Sunday (Psalm)

Psalm 8 : 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

When I observe the heavens, the work of Your hands, the moon and the stars You set in their place – what is man that You be mindful of him, the Son of Man, that You should care for Him?

Yet You made Him a little lower than the angels; You crowned Him with glory and honour and gave Him the works of Your hands; You have put all things under His feet.

Sheep and oxen without number and even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and all that swim the paths of the ocean.