St. Norbert

by

Friday, 6 June 2014 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the calling and the commissioning of St. Peter the Apostle, when the Lord Jesus talked to him, heart-to-heart on the shore of the Lake of Galilee after His resurrection. He asked Peter three times whether he loved Him more than anything or anyone else, and Peter affirmed his love and faith in Jesus. And Jesus gave him His sheep to care for, as His vicar on earth, which is the position inherited by our Pope today as the successor of St. Peter the Apostle.

For those of us who do not realise the significance of such an action by Jesus in today’s readings, Jesus asked Peter three times for his answer whether he loved Him is exactly because, for the same number of times, Peter had betrayed His Lord by denying Him on that night when Jesus was brought before the Sanhedrin, that is the Council of the elders and the chief priests to be condemned to death.

Peter surely knew that the Lord did such when He asked for his love three times, that the Lord knew of His denial, and how he had fallen as a disciple of His, but yet when Jesus asked him and affirmed his love for Himself, Peter had truly been forgiven by the most merciful Lord, and from then on, became the greatest servant of the Lord, leading the flock of Christ as His vicar on earth.

Today we focus on the Lord in His merciful and loving aspect, just as He is caring to all of us. But He also revealed today that to be His followers and servants is definitely not easy, and various challenges will await us if we decide to remain true to His path, as St. Peter himself had been told and what truly happened to him at the end of his life, as well as what had happened to St. Paul, who had to endure prison and incarcerations after incarcerations.

Jesus told Peter himself how he would die at the hands of the godless, and those who refused to listen to the truth of Christ. This was in fact the same fate that awaits all those who went on to preach the Good News, including the other Apostles and disciples of Christ, and St. Paul himself. They all met their deaths in various ways, but nevertheless, through their death, they brought glory to God, and through them more and more people came to know of the Lord and be saved.

All of these bring about the reality about our faith. For too long we have indeed been complacent in our faith, and we often take a laid-back attitude about it, pretending that we have easy and blissful life all the time in this world. On the other extreme is also that we are afraid to seek the Lord and ask for His forgiveness whenever we have committed sins in our respective lives. We therefore become isolated and do not receive the Lord’s forgiveness and instead we fall into even greater darkness, committing even greater evils.

We have to realise, brothers and sisters in Christ, as today’s Scripture readings had highlighted it to us, that we have to accept the realities it presented to us, that first, God is loving and merciful, for to those who have the will and desire to love God, He will grant them pardon and rich blessings. And secondly, that His way is different from the ways of the world, and this is why, suffering and persecution will be a part of the lives of those who keep their faith in God.

But God is always with us, and He will guide us, if we remain faithful, and that He assured the disciples and the Apostles, and rich indeed would be their reward for keeping the faith in heaven. And today, brethren, we also commemorate yet another faithful servant of God, that is St. Norbert, a bishop of Germany, who lived during the middle of the Medieval era Europe, and was also known as St. Norbert of Xanten, for he was born in that city.

St. Norbert led a very holy and religious life, and a life of simplicity and humility, especially after an incident which almost took his life, which he attributed to divine protection, and ever since, he deepened further his spirituality and dedication to the Lord. He established and strengthened religious orders and helped to spread the teachings of the faith to many people, and gained great following in the process.

He was a great reformer of the Church and the faith, adamant and strong in his principles in reforming the Church for the better, especially after he was appointed as the Archbishop of Magdeburg, an important position in the Church. And in conducting and pushing forward with his reforms, he made many enemies, many of whom sent assassins after him. Nevertheless those attempts failed, and St. Norbert continued to carry out his good deeds and works until his passing from this world.

We have to realise, brethren, that we have many graces awaiting us if we allow God to come to us, and do not close ourselves to the loving hands of the Lord, which He extends freely to us, offering us forgiveness and everlasting love. May St. Norbert intercede for us, that we may be brought ever closer to reconciliation with our God, and receive great blessings in our lives. Let us also face the challenges and opposition in life with joy and happiness, knowing that God is always with us, His beloved children. God bless us all. Amen.

by

Friday, 6 June 2014 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

John 21 : 15-19

After they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” And Jesus said, “Feed My lambs.”

A second time Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” And Peter answered, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Look after My sheep.”

And a third time He said to him, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was saddened because Jesus asked him a third time, “Do you love Me?” and he said, “Lord, You know everything; You know that I love You.”

Jesus then said, “Feed My sheep! Truly, I say to you, when you were young, you put on your belt and walked where you liked. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will put a belt around you, and lead you where you do not wish to go.”

Jesus said this to make known the kind of death by which Peter was to glorify God. And He added, “Follow Me.”

by

Friday, 6 June 2014 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : White

Psalm 102 : 1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab

Bless the Lord, my soul; all my being, bless His holy Name! Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget His kindness.

As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His love for those fearing Him; as far as east is from the west, so far does He remove from us our sins.

The Lord has set His throne in heaven; He rules, He has power everywhere. Praise the Lord, all you His angels.

by

Friday, 6 June 2014 : 7th Week of Easter, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Acts 25 : 13b-21

As King Agrippa and his sister Bernice were to stay in Caesarea for several days, Festus told the king about Paul’s case and said to him, “We have here a man whom Felix left as a prisoner. When I was in Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews accused him and asked me to sentence him. I told them that it is not the custom of the Romans to hand over a man without giving him an opportunity to defend himself in front of his accusers. So they came and I took my seat without delay on the tribunal and sent for the man.”

“When the accusers had the floor, they did not accuse him of any of the crimes that I was led to think he had committed; instead they quarrelled with him about religion and about a certain Jesus who has died but whom Paul asserted to be alive. I did not know what to do about this case, so I asked Paul if he wanted to go to Jerusalem to be tried there. But Paul appealed to be judged by the emperor. So I ordered that he be kept in custody until I send him to Caesar.”

by

Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Scripture Reflection)

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, Christ summarises for us, the Laws of the Lord, which man at the time mostly saw as the Law of Moses, and the list of many numbers of regulations that regulate daily lives of the Jewish people at the time. Christ summarises the Law in fact, into a single commandment of Love. Yes, love. No, this love is not the lovey-dovey kind of love between enamoured teenagers who just met each other and fell in ‘love’ at the first sight.

Love is so much greater than that, and love is not just for pleasure, just as what Tobias, the son of Tobit, had stated in his prayer in the first reading we heard today, that his marriage was not based on pleasure, but love that endures, that is true love. What is love then? Love has many faces and it encompasses many things, but true love is wonderful, and is life, and it is the Lord Himself, as God Himself is Love, Deus Caritas est.

Sadly though, love is increasingly more and more difficult to be found in our world today. Love and mankind itself had been corrupted by the agents of evil that love has become perversed into something less than the true love that God embodies, and the love that is exemplified by the relationship and love between Tobias and Sara.

Even worse, in many parts of our world today, love has completely been replaced by hatred, jealousy, and all the negative opposites of love, which brought destruction and death instead of life. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, only through love that we can beget life and only through love that we manifest God’s will and show that we are truly belonging to God. If we reflect hatred and jealousy, along with all the other negative sentiments, we belong not to God, but to Satan, His adversary.

God has given His people, the people of Israel, His commandments written in stone and conveyed to them through Moses, His prophet. This is known today as the Ten Commandments, the contents of which I am sure many of us certainly know and even memorised by heart. But what is the Ten Commandments truly about, and what about all the rituals and the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Lord as written in the Book of the Leviticus and the other books of the Torah?

All of that are good indeed, but ultimately, all of them have the same purpose, and have the same meaning, that is love. All of the commandments and the rules all breath the same thing, that is love. By truly obeying the commandments of the Lord, we breath love to the world and to those around us, because by doing God’s commandments, we become love itself, just as God Himself is Love.

Love is the key to ending many conflicts and violence that is now rampant throughout the world. Mankind had not had love because they have not obeyed the commandments of the Lord and even those who obeyed did not fully understand the meaning of God’s commandments and why they were given to us.

If only everyone in the world can have love in them and expressed out to the world. Indeed, if only more people would reflect love in their lives! Our world would surely have been a much better, a much more loveable place to live in.

There is so much hatred in this world, and hatred leads to violence, and violence lead to even more hatred, and eventually leads to death. This vicious cycle continues unabated in our world today, and many people were caught in this cycle of hatred. Only love can save them from such a fate, that is death and damnation, and love can truly breach through all the falsehood of Satan and the layers of hatred that masks the purity of our hearts.

Our hearts are certainly pure and noble from the very beginning, because our God who is good and perfect created us. It is only trapped beneath layers upon layers of sin and hatred, that prevents the love that is in us, the kindness that is in our hearts to shine through.

That is why Christ gave us His commandments of love, that is essentially the same as the Ten Commandments, because all that commandments is about love, whether God or our fellow mankind, and not doing what brings about hatred and destruction. And both the commandments that Christ had taught us are equally important and intimately linked to one another.

That is because, we cannot possibly love God without loving our neighbours, and neither can we love our neighbour without loving God at the same time too. Because if we love God, we will surely love our neighbour as well, and vice versa. Because God Himself is Love and has Himself shown love so great to us, that if we love Him, we too embodies that love and as a result, would be just like Him, that is we will love our neighbours, our brethren, even those who hates us and those who persecutes us.

That is why love is important, first by loving God, because if we do not love God, we will shy away from His love and His light, and therefore will prefer to live in darkness. This darkness is the absence of the love of God, the root of all hatred and all the bad things that happen in our world today. If we do not love God, and do not love Him with all our strength and all our being, we cannot be called the children of God, but the children of darkness.

First we have to love God, because He has loved us first, by giving all of us His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to be our Saviour and Redeemer, through His death, and His glorious resurrection. He shows us how to love Him by His own example, that is through His own words, that the greatest love is for someone to give up his life for his friends, and that was exactly what Christ had done, that He died for all of us, on the cross in Calvary.

Then, after we love God, that love is not complete yet, because in order to love God completely and perfectly, we must also love and show our care for our brethren, especially those ostracised, those who are rejected and persecuted, because they are considered weak. Remember that Christ Himself said that whatever we had done for the sake of these people, the last, the lost, and the least, we had done it for the Lord. That is why, in order to gain true love, we must love both God, and our neighbour, with all our strength and our beings.

Today, we commemorate the feast day of St. Norbert, also known as Norbert of Xanten, a bishop in medieval era Germany, who did much work in advancing the cause of the Lord among the people and the society at the time. He embodied what we had listened in the readings today, that is love. Through his devotion and love for the Lord, he had toiled and laboured much, establishing many foundation of future evangelisation in the society, building up bases by establishing religious institutions, and making that love alive and perfect by service and care for those in the society.

Although it had been almost a millennia since the time of St. Norbert of Xanten, even in our modern world today, love is still needed, if not more than ever. Violence and hatred has always been increasing and becoming more prevalent, especially among our young people today. We have to do much work to inculcate love and compassion in the hearts of many, especially youths.

Remain in our devotion and love for God, and also in our love for our neighbours, just as Christ had commanded us to do. If we remain faithful and strong, we will be rewarded with eternal glory in heaven, and Christ will welcome us there with praise, that we had indeed fulfilled His will and the commandments He had given us. St. Norbert of Xanten, pray for us, that we will always have love in our hearts, both for God and our neighbours. Amen.

by

Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Gospel Reading)

Mark 12 : 28b-34

A teacher of the Law came up to Jesus and asked Him, “Which commandment is the first of all?”

Jesus answered, “The first is : ‘Hear Israel! The Lord, our God, is One Lord; and you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ And after this comes a second commandment : ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these two.”

The teacher of the Law said to Him, “Well spoken, Master; You are right when You say that He is one, and there is no other besides Him. To love Him with all our heart, with all our understanding and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves is more important than any burnt offering or sacrifice.”

Jesus approved this answer and said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask Him any more questions.

by

Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (Psalm)

Psalm 127 : 1-2, 3, 4-5

Blessed are you who fear the Lord and walk in His ways. You will eat the fruit of your toil; you will be blessed and favoured.

Your wife, like a vine, will bear fruits in your home. Your children, like olive shoots, will stand around your table.

Such are the blessings bestowed upon the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion. May you see Jerusalem prosperous all the days of your life.

by

Thursday, 6 June 2013 : 9th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Norbert, Bishop (First Reading)

Tobit 6 : 10-11 and Tobit 7 : 1, 9-17 and Tobit 8 : 4-9a

When they had entered Media and were already approaching Ecbatana, Raphael said to Tobias, “Friend, we shall spend the night at the house of Ragouel. He is a relative of yours. He has no son, just an only daughter called Sara.”

When they arrived in Ecbatana, Tobias said to Raphael, “Friend Azarias, take me straightaway to our friend Ragouel.” So Raphael led Tobias to Ragouel’s house and they found Ragouel sitting by the door of the courtyard. Ragouel and his wife killed a sheep and served them numerous dishes.

After they had bathed and washed, as they were relaxing before the meal, Tobias said to Raphael, “Friend Azarias, tell Ragouel to give me Sara my kinswoman. Talk about what you were saying during our journey, that the matter may come about and be accomplished.”

Ragouel overheard the conversation and he said to Tobias, “Eat, drink, and be merry tonight. You are the man who has most right to take Sara my daughter because you are my kinsman. Indeed it is impossible for me to give her to any other man but you, because you are my closest relative. But, my son, I must tell you the whole story.”

“I gave her to seven husbands from among our kinsmen. They each died on the wedding night. But, for the moment, my son, eat and drink, and the Lord will arrange things for you.”

Tobias said, “I shall eat nothing if you do not stop now and bring this matter to a conclusion.” Ragouel said to Tobias, “Take her from now on; I give her to you according to the Law of Moses and you have to understand that God Himself gives her to you. Receive your kinswoman, from now on you are her brother and she is your sister. She is yours from today and forever. Now God will bless you this night and may He give you both His mercy and peace.”

He called his daughter Sara and taking her by the hand, he gave her to Tobias as his wife. He said, “According to Moses’ Law, take her now and bring her to your father’s house.” And he blessed them. Ragouel then called Edna his wife; taking a sheet of parchment, he wrote down a matrimonial contract and they both affixed their seals. Then they all began to eat.

Ragouel called his wife and said to her, “My sister, prepare the other room and take Sara there.”Edna did as Ragouel told her and she took Sara to this room and Sara began to cry. Edna dried her daughter’s tears and said, “Have courage, my child, the God of heaven and earth will change your sorrow into joy. Have confidence, my daughter!”

When Sara’s parents had left the room and closed the door, Tobias got up from the bed and said to Sara, “Get up, my sister, and let us ask the Lord to have mercy on us and save us.” She got up and they began to pray, asking that they be given life.

Tobias began like this, “May You be blessed, o Lord God of our fathers, and may Your holy and glorious Name be blessed forever. May the heavens and all creatures bless You. You created Adam and You gave him Eve, his wife, as a helper and companion, so that from these two the human race might be born.”

“You said : ‘It is not good that man should be alone, let us give him a companion who is like himself.’ Now, Lord, I take my sister to myself in sincerity and love, not merely seeking pleasure. Have mercy on us and grant us a long life together.” Together they said, “Amen,” and returned to bed for the night.