St. Monica

by

Monday, 27 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 23 : 13-22

At that time, Jesus said to the people and to His disciples, “But woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You, yourselves, do not enter it, nor do you allow others to do so.”

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows’ property; and as a show, you pray long prayers! Therefore, you shall receive greater condemnation. Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel by sea and land to make a single convert; yet, once he is converted, you make him twice as fit for hell as yourselves!”

“Woe to you, blind guides! You say : To swear by the temple is not binding; but, to swear by the gold of the temple is binding. Foolish men! Blind men! Which is of more worth : the gold in the temple, or the temple which makes the gold a sacred treasure? You say : To swear by the altar is not binding, but to swear by the offering on the altar is binding. How blind you are! Which is of more value : the offering on the altar, or the altar which makes the offering sacred?”

“Whoever swears by the altar, is swearing by the altar and by everything on it. Whoever swears by the temple, is swearing by the temple, and by God, Who dwells in the temple. Whoever swears by heaven, is swearing by the throne of God, and by Him, Who is seated on it.”

by

Monday, 27 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 95 : 1-2a, 2b-3, 4-5

Sing to YHVH a new song, sing to YHVH, all the earth! Sing to YHVH, praise His Name.

Proclaim His salvation, day after day. Recall His glory among the nations, tell all the peoples His wonderful deeds.

How great is YHVH and worthy of praise! Above all gods, He is to be feared. For all other gods are worthless idols, but YHVH is the One Who made the heavens.

by

Monday, 27 August 2018 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

2 Thessalonians 1 : 1-5, 11b-12

From Paul, Sylvanus and Timothy, to the Church of the Thessalonians, which is in God, our Father, and in Christ Jesus, the Lord. May grace and peace be yours, from God, the Father, and Christ Jesus, the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, we should give thanks to God, at all times, for you. It is fitting to do so, for your faith is growing, and your love for one another, increasing. We take pride in you, among the Churches of God, because of your endurance, and by your faith in the midst of persecution and sufferings. In this, the just judgment of God may be seen; for you must show yourselves worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are now suffering.

May our God make you worthy of His calling. May He, by His power, fulfil your good purposes, and your work, prompted by faith. In that way, the Name of Jesus, our Lord, will be glorified through you, and you, through Him, according to the loving plan of God and of Christ Jesus, the Lord.

by

Saturday, 27 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the feast of a great and remarkable saint, a loving and devoted mother, one of the cherished daughter of our Lord, who had given herself to serve the Lord, especially by her tireless and never-ending perseverance in trying to make her son, another very famous and important saint, to return to the faith in God and be saved from eternal damnation.

And as I will elaborate more on the matter later on, let us see how this great woman had fulfilled and done what the Scriptures today have heeded us to do, that we do the same things and commit ourselves in the same way that she has done it. It is important then that we take note of what the Lord spoke of through His Apostle St. Paul in our first reading today about whom God had chosen to be His word-bearers and tools among the nations, and what He Himself spoke about in the Gospel regarding the parable of the silver talents and the good and the lazy servants.

In the first reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and to the faithful ones in Corinth, St. Paul spoke passionately about being chosen by God, and whom God had chosen to be His people, and more importantly to be those who would become His bearers of the truth that He brought into the world, that through them and their works, they might bring eternal life and salvation to all those who believe in them.

In this matter, we should see how God had not chosen by using worldly standards of power, influence, fame and wealth. God did not choose us because we are great in the eyes of this world, unlike how people in this world usually gets chosen for something important. While the world praised and glorified wealth, praising those who have been successful in getting more money and accomplishments for themselves, but God chose differently.

God chose not the powerful of the world but instead what is powerful according to His standards, that is the strength of our devotion and commitment, the strength of our faith and the love that is within each and every one of us. For God, there is no greater value in us than the love which we show back to Him, He Who has loved us all and cared for us. God values not all the riches and the wealth that this world can assemble, for these are temporary and transient in nature.

And yet, it does not mean that we should just accept God’s calling and then be passive in all things. It also does not mean that we should then lay back and do nothing since after all God does not value the wealth, riches, fame and all the other worldly things, is He not? As we then need to look deeper just beyond what St. Paul had said and link it to what we also heard in the Gospel today, where our Lord Jesus spoke about the parable of the silver talents and the servants.

In that parable, God spoke about a master who entrusted his silver talents to several servants, each of which did differently with the silver talents entrusted to them. But the gist of the matter is that while the good and devoted servants invested those silver talents which they have received, and received back not just the silver talents they invested but also even more silver talents as profit, the lazy and wicked servant just hid the silver talent, never investing them, and in the end gained nothing.

This is a comparison which we can make with our own lives in this world. We are all the servants to our Master and Lord, and we have been entrusted with different kinds of gifts that God had blessed us with, our talents and abilities, as well as the seeds of faith, hope and love that He has planted in each and every one of us. And yet, how they would come to be depends indeed entirely on us and our ability to grow them and prepare them through our work and effort.

To be a Christian means that we must be active, and indeed be actively involved in the actions that God has called us into, that is to serve and to love one another with sincerity and generosity from deep within our hearts, probably just as how much as St. Monica, the holy woman and a devoted mother had done in her own life. She devoted her life for the sake of her son, St. Augustine of Hippo, who would go on to become a great saint in his own right.

We mostly would know St. Augustine of Hippo as a very great saint who is now known as one of the four original Doctors of the Church, and who with St. Jerome is among the two pillars that helped to establish the Church in the West, that is Rome and thus what our Church today is about, and what we believe in. His writings are still widely read today and continued to inspire many, but these all would not have been possible if not for the tireless efforts of St. Monica, his mother.

St. Monica was a Christian who married a pagan husband, who was an important administrator in the public service. Their son, St. Augustine was given the best of education possible and available to him, and yet, he drifted slowly into the wickedness and the debauchery of the world, seeking pleasures and hedonistic pursuits in life, following the examples of his peers and friends.

Certainly, no mother would ever want her child to fall into the abyss, and no mother would ever want to lose her child to the darkness of sin. And as a Christian herself, we can simply imagine what kind of pain and sorrow existed in the heart and mind of St. Monica, who was faced with that great agony of seeing how both her husband, a pagan, and her son in particular, were slipping into the embrace of the devil and eternal damnation.

Then we have to note what St. Monica did ceaselessly without fear and without stop, that she prayed and hoped without end, knowing that God would answer her prayers, and rescue the soul of her beloved ones from the chasm of death. And God did answer her prayers and her charitable efforts, and touched by her loving care, first it was her husband who turned to the Lord, and then St. Augustine himself, as he felt that longing for something that he could not find in the debauchery of the world, that is God alone.

The perseverance and the love that St. Monica had shown us is truly exemplary, and she had shown us the love of a good and devoted Christian mother, as how a Christian is supposed to be like. Let us all learn from what she had done, and how she had devoted her life to God, to her husband, and more famously from these, is how she had loved her son and had not given him up to the darkness.

Therefore, shall we also do the same to our brethren around us? Shall we not show love, care and compassion for our brothers and sisters who are now struggling in the darkness? Let us endeavour to break free from our comfort zones and seek out to be the light and the bearers of God’s salvation to these brethren of ours.

May God help us in our work and efforts to bring each other closer to His presence, that all of us may be saved and may receive the glory of eternal life, just as what St. Monica had done, never ceasing to believe that her son, St. Augustine, could be saved from eternal death in sin. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Saturday, 27 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 25 : 14-30

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Imagine someone who, before going abroad, summoned his servants to entrust his property to them. He gave five talents of silver to one servant, two talents to another servant, and one talent to a third, to each according to his ability; and he went away.”

“He who received five talents went at once to do business with the money, and gained another five. The one who received two talents did the same, and gained another two. But the one who received one talent dug a hole, and hid his master’s money.”

“After a long time, the master of those servants returned and asked for a reckoning. The one who had received five talents came with another five talents, saying, ‘Lord, you entrusted me with five talents, but see, I have gained five more.’ The master answered, ‘Very well, good and faithful servant, since you have been faithful in a few things, I will entrust you with much more. Come and share the joy of your master.'”

“Then the one who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you entrusted me with two talents; with them I have gained two more.’ The master said, ‘Well, good and faithful servant, since you have been faithful in little things, I will entrust you with much more. Come and share the joy of your master.'”

“Finally, the one who had received one talent came and said, ‘Master, I know that you are a hard man. You reap what you have not sown, and gather what you have not scattered. I was afraid, so I hid your money in the ground. Here, take what is yours!'”

“But his master replied, ‘Wicked and worthless servant, you know that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered; so you should have deposited my money in the bank, and on my return you would have given it back to me with interest.'”

“‘Therefore, take the talent from him, and give it to the one who has ten. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who are unproductive, even what they have will be taken from them. As for that useless servant, throw him out into the dark, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'”

by

Saturday, 27 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 32 : 12-13, 18-19, 20-21

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord – the people He has chosen for His inheritance. The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole race of mortals.

But the Lord’s eyes are upon those who fear Him, upon those who trust in His loving-kindness to deliver them from death and preserve them from famine.

In hope we wait for the Lord, for He is our help and our shield. Our hearts rejoice in Him, for we trust in His holy Name.

by

Saturday, 27 August 2016 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Monica (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

1 Corinthians 1 : 26-31

Brothers and sisters, look and see whom God has called. Few among you can be said to be cultured or wealthy, and few belong to noble families. Yet God has chosen what the world considers foolish, to shame the wise; He has chosen what the world considers weak to shame the strong.

God has chosen common and unimportant people, making use of what is nothing to nullify the things that are, so that no mortal may boast before God. But, by God’s grace you are in Christ Jesus, Who has become our wisdom from God, and Who makes us just and holy and free.

Scripture says : Let the one who boasts boast of the Lord.

by

Friday, 28 August 2015 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we celebrate the feast of a great pillar of the Church, one of its original and among the greatest of the Doctors of the Church, because of his numerous and countless contributions to both the Church and to the faithful as a whole, in leading them to Christ. He is St. Augustine of Hippo, a great man and a great saint, and yet with an interesting origin and story of his life, in how he became such a great servant of God.

Yesterday, we celebrated the feast of St. Monica, his mother, a holy woman completely devoted to the Lord and to her family, particularly that of her son, St. Augustine himself. And we have to understand where they came from and what were their lives like, so that we can understand and benefit most from today’s sharing of the Scriptures and the lives of the saints.

St. Augustine of Hippo was born in a noble Roman family, between a rich Roman nobleman named Patricius who was a pagan worshipper, and St. Monica, his mother, who was already a Christian, and one who was truly devoted to the Lord. St. Augustine lived in a family well connected and in position to enjoy all the favours and benefits of worldly life, and therefore, he got the best education and treatment, and grew to be an educated person and a philosopher.

But all these could not satisfy St. Augustine, as he desired for something more to fill the emptiness in his heart. And so, influenced by his peers and friends at that time, he fell into the company of those who believed in the syncretic and pagan religion of Manichaeanism, where he gave in to the Manichaean ways and teachings of hedonism and worldliness, involving himself with various forms of the pleasures of the flesh.

Nonetheless, even though St. Augustine had started on a path towards sin and therefore towards ruination, it was the hard effort and ceaseless tears and prayers from his mother, St. Monica, who eventually turned St. Augustine back into the light. Firstly, his own father decided to be baptised on his deathbed and accepted fully the Lord Jesus as his Lord and Saviour, and then St. Augustine himself also realised the errors of his ways and repented.

St. Augustine went on to be a teacher, and growing more and more disillusioned with the ways and falsehoods of Manichaeanism, where he did not manage to find true satisfaction, he eventually gave himself to be baptised as well, as a member of the Church, and the prayers which his mother had made for his sake. And thereafter, St. Augustine dedicated himself to the service of God.

And by his many works, including the publications, the City of God and the Confessions which he had written, as well as various other discourses and traditions passed down to us by the other Church fathers, this once great sinner had indeed been transformed completely by the will and by the grace of God to be a great tool for the salvation of mankind and for the deliverance of mankind from our sins.

In today’s Scripture readings we also heard how Jesus told the people the parable of the five wise women and the five careless and foolish women. Many of us knew this story, but do we truly understand its significance? The wise women and the foolish women represent all of us, while the bridegroom represents the Lord who will come again even as He had promised all of us.

The examples of St. Augustine of Hippo should have shown us that all of us have a choice in this life, and this choice is for us to follow either the Lord and His ways, or whether we follow our own whims and our own heart’s desires. God always gives us opportunities, one after another, for He is loving as well as merciful, and despite all of our sins and wickedness, we still have the Lord on our side, holding us and keeping us against the tides of darkness rising against us.

Nevertheless, we should not take this for granted. The Lord loves all of us, for we are indeed the greatest and the most treasured and loved of all the things that God had created, but this does not mean that He just let us all be with all the things we are doing, or condoning all of our sins and wickedness. He continues to watch over us, and it is painful for Him to see how we continue to live in sin and in direct disobedience and rebellion against Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all learn from the examples of St. Augustine of Hippo and many other saints, who were once sinners and then they turned their lives around, and sought out a new life in God. This is also an inspiration for all of us to do the same. No one was born perfect, and no one was blameless, except for our Lord Jesus Himself. All of us made mistakes in some parts of our lives, but what matters, is whether we take those mistakes to task and learn from them.

May Almighty God be our help and our guide, as we walk in the footsteps of St. Augustine of Hippo, that we may also be like him and many other great saints, who took the step to get out of their past sinfulness, repent from those sins, and follow the Lord in all their ways, and by their righteousness, they were brought into eternal glory and life promised by our Lord. May God bless us all. Amen.

by

Friday, 28 August 2015 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Matthew 25 : 1-13

At that time, Jesus said to the people and to His disciples, “This story throws light on what will happen in the kingdom of heaven : Ten bridesmaids went out with their lamps to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were careless, and the others were sensible.”

“The careless bridesmaids took their lamps as they were, and did not bring extra oil. But those who were sensible, brought with their lamps flasks of oil. As the bridegroom delayed, they all grew drowsy and fell asleep. But at midnight, a cry rang out, ‘The bridegroom is here, come out and meet him!'”

“All the maidens woke up at once, and trimmed their lamps. Then the careless ones said to the sensible ones, ‘Give us some oil, for our lamps are going out.’ The sensible ones answered, ‘There may not be enough for us and for you. You had better go to those who sell, and buy some for yourselves.'”

“They were out buying oil when the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him to the wedding feast, and the doors were shut. Later the other bridesmaids arrived and called out, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered, ‘Truly I do not know you.”

“So stay awake, for you do not know the day nor the hour.”

by

Friday, 28 August 2015 : 21st Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 96 : 1 and 2b, 5-6, 10, 11-12

The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the distant islands be glad. Justice and right are His throne.

The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim His justice, all peoples see His glory.

You who love the Lord, hate evil, for He preserves the lives of His faithful, He delivers them from their foes.

He sheds light upon the upright, and gladness upon the just. Rejoice in the Lord, you who are blameless, and give praise to His holy Name.