suffering of our Lord

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Wednesday, 17 June 2015 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all reminded, of the purpose of our actions which we do as part of our faith in God. All of us ought to pray and to devote ourselves to God, through actions such as charity to others and fasting at the allotted time, such as during the season of Lent and on Good Friday, and abstain from meat on Fridays.

But all these observances and practices would mean nothing to us if we do not understand or know the significance of such practices. As an example, Jesus often criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their very rigid and unbending observance of the Law, and while the intention may be good, but their blind obedience and devotion was their undoing.

When we pray, do we do it for the sake of fulfilling our faith obligations? And when we go to the Mass, do we do so out of fear that if we do not go to the Mass on Sundays then we will be deemed as sinful? Do we truly believe in what we do? Or do we do it without knowing its purpose? When we pray, we ought to know that we are communicating and talking with God in our hearts, so we open our hearts and allow God to enter into us and speak in the depth of the silence of our hearts.

When we do something charitable, we also open ourselves to the rich graces and love of God, and we become the extension of God’s love, through which He showed His mercy and love to men. And when we fast, we do so because we want to die to our desires and to our human needs, and therefore be more capable of focusing our attention to the Lord. It is truly about God, and not about ourselves.

Therefore, if we look at the examples, we should know that when we pray, when we go to the Mass, when we fast and when we do something charitable to others, it is truly about the Lord, and also about those whom we do our charity for, and not about ourselves. It is however a tendency for us to look into ourselves and become too focused on ourselves as we do all these good things.

It is imperative therefore, for us to reexamine ourselves and our focus in life, especially in how we live our faith lives. Have we been genuine in our devotion to God, or have we instead been so selfish and self-serving in our actions? If we are truly faithful, then we would try our best to do everything with proper understanding. It is also a lesson for all of us to take our faith seriously.

Remember, we need to have a correct understanding of our actions so that our actions may benefit us. When we do something, let us all do it for the sake of God and for the sake of others around us, and less for ourselves. Many of the vices and evils happen in our lives exactly because we put ourselves first above God and above others.

Indeed, let us all not seek praise for ourselves and the approval of the world. Let us all be more humble in everything and let go of the pride that often had its grip on our hearts. Let us seek to understand more of what we need to do to be truly faithful to the Lord our God. Give thanks to Him who have given us so much, and for all of His generous graces and blessings for us.

Our prayers and actions should not be dead or filled with self-gratification. Rather, they should be filled with the expression of love and devotion to the Lord, filled with joyful thanksgiving for God’s grace, and also for the mercy and forgiveness for all the sins and wickedness which we have committed in this life. May Almighty God be with us all, fill up our hearts with His love, that we may love Him ever more, through our prayers and through our actions in this life. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 16 June 2015 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard about how we ought to love in our lives. Should we love only those who also show love and care for us? Or should our love and care be extended to all the peoples around us without exception, including those who have hated and despised us? What is love really, and how do we express it then?

We ought to first understand what Christ had taught us through His disciples, and most importantly what He had shown by action to show us what love really is, for He is Love Himself. He showed us that love should be impartial, unconditional and selfless, and not the kind of love that we are often exposed to, love that is selfish, filled with desire and lust. This is worldly and selfish love that does not bring benefit to us.

When we expect our love to be reciprocated back to us, then this is where the root of many problems came from. A lot of conflict and disputes between families and members of families, and a lot of discontent and discord that happened between the people of God, can be traced back to how we in our selfishness were afraid and fearful that we would lose the love and the attention of others. We treasure that human friendship and approval, and we fear the moments when we are not loved by others around us.

And when this happens, we either become resentful on others, being jealous on the loving relationship that others have, and desiring it as our own, or otherwise we seek to capitalise on that relationship, resulting in disloyalty and lack of commitment, because we see how relationships are just assets and things to be possessed and manipulated, and once they have outlived their usefulness, we abandon them and cast them aside.

This is why we have seen a great increase in the occurrence of divorce, where married couples could not commit to their wedding commitment, and decided to disobey the Lord and His Law, by breaking the union which had existed between them through divorce, and therefore sinning against God. Divorce is sin, plain and straightforward, no matter how the world tried to argue against this fact. But this would have been preventable had they understood what love really is.

Love in reality is selfless, the selfless giving of oneself to another. And when in a married couple, love ought to be truly a selfless giving of each other to one another, so that in the couple is cultivated true love, where both of the couple, man and woman are bound by the indissoluble bonds of love. This is exactly what our Lord had shown us by His example, of having loved us all first even when we were still sinners.

St. Paul in his letter pointed out this fact, that God loves us so much that even when we are still sinners, He was willing to give up His life for us, so that we may have life in ourselves through His love. If He had not genuinely loved us, and wanted returns from us, it is unlikely that He would have died for our sake. After all, we mankind had shown unfaithfulness and untrustworthiness from the example of the Israelites, who continued again and again to defy the Lord and committed sins after sins.

But did the Lord hesitate to invest His time and attention, and ultimately His love and care to this rebellious people? No, He did not, and in fact, He offered Himself freely, and He even gave Himself for the sake of those who have rejected and persecuted Him, namely the chief priests, the teachers of the Law, the elders and the Pharisees, who had given Him so much trouble during His ministry.

Jesus Himself gave example by loving even His enemies, and indeed, He prayed for them, when He asked His Father not to hold their sins against them on the account of ignorance and blindness to the truth. Thus, He did not just preach with words only, but also with real action. When Jesus spoke about us having to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, He showed it Himself by using Himself as the prime example, so that we too may believe in Him and follow His examples.

Therefore, on this day, brothers and sisters, let us all reflect on this which we have just discussed. Do we really know and understand what love is? It is an important question for us to ask ourselves, if we are to continue to live faithfully as the children and servants of God. Truly, if we practice the same kind of love as what Jesus had shown us, all of us will have our lives transformed for the better. Thus, let us all pray that God will continue to love us, and show us the way to love ever more and ever better, that we may love Him and one another with true sincerity. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 15 June 2015 : 11th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day, we heard about how God taught His people that the way of revenge should no longer be practiced, and instead, they should practice mercy and love from then on. This law of strict and retaliatory justice had been practiced by the people of Israel since the days of Moses, when the Law was first revealed to men and when it was first instituted.

As with the law on divorce, which the Pharisees also made into an issue on another occasion with Jesus, these laws actually do not reflect what God truly wants with His beloved people. For God Himself is true Love, and His ways are mercy, compassion and gentleness. Why then, God gave us such a draconian and harsh law, where people who have caused someone pain in something must repay it in exactly the same way, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth and others?

That is because of how stubborn the people of God was, that they continued to repeatedly defy the will of God and committed what is wicked and evil in the sight of God, breaking the commandments of the Law in various occasions. They even broke the covenant as soon as God established it with them, by replacing Him with a golden calf, a pagan idol, whom they deemed as their god.

They constantly rebelled against Moses, His servant and made complaints after complaints, not being happy of having been liberated from their slavery in Egypt. They would rather live in the pleasures of the world and their stomachs while enslaved, rather than to be freed and to walk in the way of the Lord. And this stubborn people did not trust in the Lord and feared the Canaanites, and as a result, God punished them to wander in the desert for forty years.

In order to deal with this kind of people, as we do with people who are difficult to handle, sometimes, it is indeed necessary for us to use force and strictness in order to make things work. In the same way therefore, what God truly wants us is that, we must become more compassionate in our dealings with others. We should not seek revenge for what evil that others had afflicted on us.

Why not, brethren? That is because revenge only brings about even more pain and evil, and more often than not it brings only more revenge and destruction upon us. It is a vicious cycle that will never end if we continue to engage ourselves in the act of revenge and violence. Forgiveness and mercy is what is capable of breaking this vicious cycle, and allow harmony and peace to reign again among the parties involved.

But, we also have to take note that forgiveness should not be taken for granted, as many falsely thought that they can just do as they want and then they deserve to be forgiven. At the same time as we show mercy and forgiveness, se must also make sure that the person to whom we show mercy must also snow true and genuine desire for repentance, or otherwise, it would be false mercy that we are showing them.

It is particularly troubling that even within the Church there are those who are the proponents of this giving of false mercy, which in the end, while it shows our Christian tenderness and love, but it also at the same time does not lead people into righteousness, as it causes the people to continue to live in sin. In the end, it will only deceive the people, and in this deception, instead of bringing the people back to God, we are casting them out to hell.

Mercy must be tempered with justice, and vice versa. Compassion must be tempered with discipline, and vice versa. Therefore, we must balance our approach in everything that we do. In all of our actions, let us firstly learn how to forgive and let go, letting go of the pride and the hatred in our hearts so that we may learn to forgive, and then we must follow it up, by giving out the love from our heart, showing that we are concerned about their well-being, and seek to help and guide them to change their ways and to repent.

In this manner, not only that we stop the vicious cycle of revenge and hatred from happening, but as we heard from the first reading today, our actions will bear many fruits, by inspiring many others who witness what we have done, and practicing the same in their own actions, and in this, a small ripple of good action, will eventually become a huge wave of charity and love, and we can bring many souls towards the salvation in our Lord. May Almighty God be with us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.

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Saturday, 13 June 2015 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate both the occasion of the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of our Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, the well known preacher and saint whose devotion is widespread even until now amongst the faithful.

On this day, we commemorate the loving and sacred heart of Mary, the mother of our Lord, which is celebrated very closely to that of her Son’s Heart, for the two indeed were very, very close. Not only that she was His mother, but she had also gone through a lot of things with Him together, and she also lived with Him and followed Him during much of His earthly ministry.

It began since just a few days after Jesus was born, and Mary brought Him to present Him at the Temple. The prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna met them, and there the prophecy regarding Mary was mentioned, that a sword would pierce her heart. This is a foreshadowing of the fact that when Jesu went through His Passion on the way to Calvary, Mary was there, and she was there too on the feet of His cross, watching how her Son is dying for the sake of the world.

No mother should ever see her own child dying before her. But Mary endured all that patiently and quietly. She was truly sorrowful and anguished, but she kept everything in her heart. The same she had done when she was told of the prophecy earlier, she kept everything in her heart. She also kept everything in her heart when we heard in the Gospel today, that Jesus was left behind in the Temple of Jerusalem, He mentioned that He must be in the house of His Father.

Have we taken note, brothers and sisters in Christ? Mary and her heart is so immaculate and pure, that she does not complain or make any issue, when she encountered all these things, from the time when she received the Good News from the Archangel Gabriel, to the prophecy of her sorrow, to the time when Jesus was left at the Temple, to the time when she followed her Son in His ministry, and eventually until when she met Him on that day when He took up the cross, and followed Him to the feet of His cross.

We can imagine how strong and wonderful her heart is, for her to take everything up and endured them in her heart. She suffered in silence, in her sorrow, and she looked up to see the face of her beloved Son. And in the same way therefore she is now looking at us, for many of us are in the danger of falling into eternal damnation in hell for our sins and lack of repentance.

Jesus gave Mary to be our mother too, just as she is His mother. From the cross, Jesus entrusted Mary to John, and He also entrusted John to His mother Mary. In this manner, by the representation of John, God entrusted all of us mankind to the loving care of His mother Mary. Thus, the same pain and sorrow which she had experienced for her Son, she also experienced for us.

If we are wondering why so many of the Marian apparitions and visions occur in the world, if we understand what I had just mentioned, all of it will make perfect sense. Mary through various means continues to watch over us and she is always thinking about us. As she is the closest one to the throne of her Son in heaven, indeed we have no better person, be it men or angels, to ask for help, so that we may be freed from the depredations of evil and sin.

Today we also celebrate the feast of St. Anthony of Padua, a renowned preacher who lived during the High Middle Ages in what is now Italy. St. Anthony of Padua worked hard in his devotion to the Lord, to bring the truth of God to the people, casting out heresies and redeeming people who had lived in the darkness. He was also renowned for his great homilies that he was famously known for having a ‘golden tongue’.

Through his works many people found their way back to God, and many of them found the truth through him. St. Anthony never ceased working for the good of many in the Church, just as what our Blessed mother Mary had done for us, by reminding us again and again, to repent from our sinful ways and hearken ourselves to the words of truth found only in God. Let us be inspired by the examples of the works of St. Anthony of Padua.

Threfore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all today pray and ask for the intercession of Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the mother of all of us. Let us plead to her most immaculate and loving heart, which is filled with the love of a mother for her children. May our mother pray for us always before her Son, our most loving and merciful God, so that our sins may be forgiven, and may all of us be awakened to our sins, realising how great is the love that both He and His mother have for us. God bless us all. Amen.

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Friday, 12 June 2015 : Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, World Day of Prayer for the Sanctity of Priestly Life (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate one of the great feast days of the Church, where we commemorate one of the great aspects of our Lord, namely that of His most loving Heart, which He has for all of us. The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus our Lord is filled with perfect love, just as God Himself is Love, and this love is the perfect and unconditional love which our Lord had for us, so much so that He was willing to lay down His life for us sinners and bring us by that to our salvation.

On this day, we celebrate the love of God which had been made evident through Christ. The crucifixion and its aftermath as we heard in today’s Gospel reading is the culmination in God’s everlasting love and good works for us. But since the beginning of time we have seen how great is the love that God has for us His people. It all began with our creation, when God created us and gave life to all of us.

Indeed, for God to show such great love for us, in creating us and giving life to us is already a love great enough, and yet, when we fell into sin, He continued to show even more love and compassion for us, by giving us chance and mercy after He had punished our ancestors for their sins. When Cain murdered his brother Abel, God punished him by having him pursued all his life for having committed such a sin, but He also gave him help by preventing others from killing him.

When mankind have sinned greatly against Him, He did not destroy them outright, but He tried to find the good in mankind. That was how He rescued Noah in the Ark that He commanded Noah to build, so that what is good in mankind, could be preserved. And when mankind sinned in their pride by building up the Tower of Babel, He scattered them and confused their languages, and yet, He also planted the seed of reunion and salvation through His chosen one, Abraham, whom He called out of the nations to be His own.

He did this so that He may one day bring all of His peoples back to Himself and reunite them once again as one people. He blessed Abraham and his descendants, and brought them to great blessings. When they suffered in Egypt in slavery, He heard them and showed forth in might His power to liberate them and brought them to the Land which He had promised to their ancestors.

And when they disobeyed and walked away from His covenant and His love, He punished them hard, and made them to wander in the desert for forty years, causing almost an entire generation of sinners to pass on, before their descendants were finally found worthy to enter into the Promised Land. But God also showed them mercy and love by feeding them with the bread from heaven and the food of angels, with water that is sweet and crystal-clear from the earth itself, even in the middle of the desert.

And despite their continuous and constant disobedience, God remains ever obedient and loving. He shows His mercy from time to time, by rescuing His people through the means of His prophets and messengers, whom He had sent into the world in order to reveal to them the path to salvation in God. This He had done again and again, until the point of time when He truly revealed the fullness of His Heart’s intentions through Christ.

For the Heart of God is filled with so much love and compassion for us that He was willing to come Himself and give us the ultimate hope for rescue and redemption. Through Christ He had established the unshakeable and permanent bridge between Him and ourselves. So that all who believe in Him and in His Most Sacred Heart filled with love for us, may be saved and be brought into our everlasting life and happiness.

The devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is a clear reminder for us all, of the love which God had shown us, the ultimate and perfectly selfless love through His suffering and death on the cross. And indeed, we pray to Him and trust in His Most Sacred Heart, that God in His unfailing love will not cease to love us and forgive us our sins when we repent and change our ways.

There is still time, brothers and sisters in Christ, for us all to accept the love of God and be forgiven. If only that we all realise how much God has loved us and how He is willing to cast aside our sins and allow us to begin anew again. The problem is that many of us do not realise this fact. We are either too proud to admit our sins and faults, or we are too fearful to approach the Lord.

We must not be either of this. We have to realise how loving God is, and therefore not to be afraid to seek His forgiveness, as He will not punish us without good reason. Our punishment comes because we have not turned from our ways and continued to repeatedly sin against Him, just as what the people of Israel had done in the past, by repeatedly refusing to repent, and by continuing to disobey His Laws and commandments.

At the same time, we must also realise that we cannot also be too proud to admit our sins. Many of us are not willing to admit that we have committed sin or made mistakes because we think that we are always in the right. Let us all make the effort to throw away our hubris and pride, and to open our hearts with humility, to approach the throne of our Lord’s merciful love.

Today on this Solemnity of our Lord’s Most Sacred Heart, let us all remember the love which His Heart had poured down unto us throughout the ages, both to us and to our ancestors. Let us all find the courage to approach His loving and sacred Heart, to entreat and move Him to show mercy to us when we have gone astray and sinned before Him and men alike.

Let us all also grow stronger in our trust to the Lord, as all who put their trust in Him shall never be disappointed. Remember that the Lord said to His disciples and to the people, “Come to Me, all you who labour and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest? This is exactly what will be ours if we keep our faith and devotion to His Most Sacred Heart alive and strong.

If we adhere strongly to the Most Sacred Heart of our Lord, then His love will be with us, and all of us will be strengthened and encouraged by knowing that He is always there with us and for us. No matter what evil or challenges we are going to encounter, we will always keep true to Him, and if we do our part faithfully, in the end, God and His love will bless us and give us the eternal inheritance He had promised us.

Let us never cease to entreat and look upon the Sacred Heart of Jesus, knowing that our Lord who have saved us with His life, had generously offered us His salvation, shown by the outpouring of the blood mingled with water when His Heart was pierced with a lance after His death. This is a symbol of God’s love, that by His death, He purifies us with His living water and His Blood, and that as God and Man united in Jesus, He made us all worthy, and as the Paschal Lamb of sacrifice, His offering to redeem us has been accepted.

May our Lord continue to love us as He has always loved us so far, and may He forgive us our trespasses day by day, as we commit ourselves ever more strongly to Him and to His ways. May Almighty God in His Most Sacred Heart always find the good in us so that we may be found worthy and receive the fullness of His grace. O Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us! Amen.

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Thursday, 11 June 2015 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great feast day of one of the Holy Apostles, namely St. Barnabas the Apostle, the Apostle who worked together with St. Paul in his various journeys to the cities in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Through his works, many people converted to the true Faith, as we heard in the first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles.

The work of the Apostles were not easy, for they were sent by the Lord against the world that had rejected Him. As Jesus Himself had said, that if the world had hated Him, then it would also hate and reject all of His followers as well. And just as the world had persecuted and made the Lord suffer, thus the disciples and the Apostles would also face the same kind of persecution and suffering.

One example of this we had seen in the same passage from the Acts of the Apostles, where it was mentioned how the first of the Apostles was martyred. St. James the Greater, son of Zebedee and brother of St. John the Evangelist, was martyred at the hand of king Herod, who wanted to please the Jewish authorities and thus did so by persecuting the faithful.

St. Paul himself was once Saul, the great enemy of the Church and the faithful, who persecuted and brought suffering to countless thousands of the faithful, both men and women alike. And there were many other stories and tales of how the faithful were persecuted through the many years of tribulations and difficult times. The world indeed truly hated and rejected the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, and showed it by attacking His faithful people.

Yet, the Lord sent His Apostles and disciples, as we heard in the Gospel today, to proclaim His Good News to the nations, and to bring about the healing of both body and soul to many people in many nations, that they may be saved and brought to the eternal life God had promised all those who are faithful and true to Him. These poor and hardworking servants of the Lord were sent by the Lord to bring about goodness to the world even though the world itself rejected them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the work of the Apostles were not yet done, and indeed, what Jesus had commanded them throughout His ministry remain still true throughout the ages that had passed since then until now. There is always a need for the disciples of the Lord to go forth and preach the Good News and the truth of God to the people who still live in darkness.

Therefore, all of us who are the members of God’s Church are called to be faithful and devoted servants of our God, through our actions, words and deeds, that we may also bring about the evangelisation of the world and the nations. The duty and responsibility now falls on us, to carry on the works of the Apostles, for the good of many and for the good of the world.

Indeed, the path would not be easy, as shown in the readings today, that there will be always rejection just as there will be acceptance. And therefore, there will also be sufferings and persecutions, where the world that rejected Christ will try to silence us by various means. We should not be afraid, brethren, for God Himself is with us and He will reward us for all the faithful works we have done.

But we must also be wary and be careful of the lures of the world, the temptations of evil that the devil is placing on our way, trying to distract us and lure us away from our mission. Therefore, as the Apostles had done, each of us should help one another in this work of evangelisation, and we have to pray as well. This is because prayer is our link with the Lord our God, the source of our strength.

If we all depend on the Lord and draw our strength from Him, we truly have no need to fear, for nothing that the world do can bring eternal and lasting harm to us. Let us all remember this, and show our love to one another, particularly those who still have not yet heard the word of God and the truth of salvation in God. May all of us be ever more faithful and dedicated in our faith to our Lord. Amen.

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Wednesday, 10 June 2015 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard the words of the Scriptures reminding us all on the matter of obedience to the Law and to the will of God. Jesus mentioned how the entirety of the Law has to be obeyed and followed if we truly belong to the Lord, and if we truly profess our faith in Him. And what is this Law that all of us should obey?

Is it all the rituals and details that we all ought to remember? Is it all the ordinances and rules that the Church had taught us and stipulated for us all to follow? Is it the things which we have heard and which we have been instructed by our teachers in faith and by our priests? Yes, indeed they are, but we also have to question ourselves, with this question, “Are we following the rules and the laws because we are told to do so? Or do we follow them because we understand the Law and its intention for us?

God had first given His Law to His people through Moses His servant while they were in the journey towards the Promised Land. But the people failed to understand the true meaning of the Law, and with the addition of how many people who refused or failed to comply with the observance of the Law. And this is shown by how many of the people of God who followed the Law blindly and without understanding, as shown by the actions of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Do you all remember or notice how Jesus mentioned that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law are like the blind ones leading the blind? It is exactly this very fact which He had mentioned there. They were blind because they demanded blind obedience to the Law without understanding. They were strict and inflexible in how they taught to the people, in the manner of how the Law should be observed.

They focused on all the wrong things, by focusing on the minute details of the Law, on the externals in particular, but they completely forgot and ignored the true meaning of the Law itself. They were unable to comprehend the meaning of the Law because their hearts and minds had been hardened against the Lord, and in their stubbornness they have sinned and caused people to also sin against God.

Therefore, Jesus made it clear to the people through the revelation of truth which He brought to the people, by teaching them that the Law of God is truly Love, for God Himself is Love. The purpose of the Law is to bring mankind closer to God through love, by firstly loving God with all of their might and strength, and then to show the same kind and intensity of love to their fellow brethren, that is loving one another.

This is true obedience to the Law of God. The laws and rules which the Church had established and taught to us for obedience have been designed to help us to remain true and obedient in our Faith, so that we may hopefully grow in understanding and in our observance in the Laws of the Lord. Therefore, we too should obey them and follow them with understanding. If we are not sure, we can always ask and look for assistance.

Our faith is one of action, brothers and sisters in Christ. We cannot be passive or ignore the laws and rules which had been placed for us, for our own good. Let us therefore seek to be more active in our participation in our faith and devotion to the Lord, and let us all truly be obedient to the Lord our God, following His commandments, by showing love and care to both Him as well as to our fellow men. God bless us all. Amen.

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Tuesday, 9 June 2015 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Memorial of St. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green or White (Doctors of the Church)

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard the two phrases that we surely are familiar with, namely the salt of the earth and the light of the world. These two are the qualities that our Lord Jesus Christ described as those that are part of the virtues of the faithful ones.

All of us have been given our respective skills and talents, which differ from one to another person. Each of us were given unique abilities so that we may be able to use them to complement each other and help each other. Each of us have our own strengths and weaknesses. This is important to take note because many of us do not realise the gifts which had been given to us, or on the other hand, we just use them to satisfy our own needs and wants.

What is the meaning of salt of the earth and light of the world? Just as Jesus Himself had explained it to His disciples, it means that we have a duty and indeed responsibility, to use the gifts which had been given to us, for the sake of the Lord, in serving our community and helping each other in the larger community of the faithful in the Church and in the world at large.

And on top of that, we who have been baptised and received into the Church of God, and having been confirmed in faith gave received the Holy Spirit from God Himself, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit itself are plenty in form, and abundant in nature. If we who have received the Holy Spirit in us do not make use of the gifts in us, then indeed, we are like salt that has lost its saltiness and light that had been hidden under the table.

For salt and light have their uses, and each of them are used to add flavours and goodness to whatever they are used in. When there is blandness in the food, the salt gives it good taste and flavours, while when there is darkness, the light reveals things in the darkness otherwise not visible to our eyes. If salt is no longer salty then it is useless and it adds no flavour to the food, and if light is hidden, it does not help anyone who need it in the darkness, and thus they become useless.

Remember, brethren, that one commonly forgotten and overlooked form of sin, is the sin of ignorance, of omission and of the lack of action. We do not sin just because we do something wicked and obviously in direct opposition to God’s ways, but also when we see an opportunity to do something good, and when we are in position to help and contribute when there is someone who needs us and fail to do so.

Jesus said that at the Last Judgment, the righteous will be separated from the wicked and the condemned. Do we remember what Jesus rebuked the wicked ones with? He rebuked them for having ignored the plight of others around them, particularly that of the least and weakest in the society, the ones most hated and unloved. They had not shown love and compassion, and neither have they lifted up their hands to help. And thus they receive their just reward.

Today, we commemorate the memory of St. Ephrem, Deacon and Doctor of the Church. If we examine his life and work, we can see how this faithful servant of God had done so much good things for the benefit of many of the faithful, through his numerous writings and works that discussed and explained many tenets and teachings of the Church.

St. Ephrem used his writings and his other works to combat heresies in the Church and among the faithful. Through them, he explained the true faith in great clarity and depth, to bring the people who had fallen into darkness into realisation of their sins and mistakes, that they may repent and be saved. St. Ephrem had therefore done what God had asked us to do, and he was truly a genuine salt of the earth and light of the world.

Let us all be inspired by his examples and commit ourselves to an ever stronger faith to our God. May we all be more active in our faith and commit it through real actions, showing love for each other, so that we may truly become salt of the earth and light of the world. God bless us all. Amen.

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Monday, 8 June 2015 : 10th Week of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard in the Gospel the famous Beatitudes, or the Sermon of Jesus on the Mount. In this Beatitudes, we heard the series of blessings which our Lord gave all those who have listened to Him and followed in His ways. Thus blessed are all those who are peacemakers and those who are merciful and gentle, loving and caring for others, and those who are unbending even in the face of persecution, keeping their faith in God peacefully.

In the Beatitudes, what Jesus wanted to tell the people is that those are the qualities and virtues which He expects the faithful to have, so that having done all these, or some of those qualities, they would be found worthy to share in the eternal glory and life everlasting which the Lord our God had promised all those who have kept their faith in Him.

And another theme of today’s readings which we heard, is the reward which God has given to all those who have done all that He had instructed, and which He will also give to those who are walking in His ways. In the first reading from the second letter of St. Paul to the faithful in Corinth, he also affirmed this that God will succour and comfort all those who have suffered and grieved because of their continued faith in Him.

God will grant all that we need, and to those who walk in His ways, He shall show His favour. They will never be in need again, for God Himself is with them. We have to take note that it is often that the ways of the Lord are at opposites and at contradiction with the ways of this world. And therefore, those who seek to be accepted by the world, shall likely not receive the blessings and graces of the Lord.

After all the way of this world is selfishness, self-aggrandisement, violence, war and conflict, desire and greed, and the glorification of the self, shutting out the call of others around us who are in need, and ultimately, the closing of ourselves against the love of God. And indeed, we cannot serve two masters at the same time, just as Jesus said that we will love one and despise the other, so that we cannot both serve the interests of the world and the interests of God at the same time.

The Beatitudes is there not just for us to admire or to dream about. Otherwise, it would forever remain just like that, a dream and a wish, forever beyond our grasp and reach. On the other hand, Jesus taught the people and showed His generous blessings in the Beatitudes is to push us all to be proactive, that is to take up the challenge and responsibility which has been entrusted to us as the children and servant of the Lord, to be the bearers of the Good News of God.

We have to break free from norms and the confines of the world, and often we may need to stand up for our Faith and its truth, even against the opinions of the world and the society around us. Where there is war and conflict, let us all bring peace, even while many people clamoured for fighting and violence. Let us be the ones who challenge the world and its ways, and show to others around us that the Lord has the truth that will dispel the darkness and lies in the world.

When we see anyone unloved, ostracised and abandoned around us, instead of becoming bystanders or worse by joining in ostracising these people, we should go forth and embrace these brethren of ours who need our love. We must not be afraid to do this, or else we will be forever passive and we will forever do nothing. Our Lord wants us all to have a proactive faith, and not a passive one.

Therefore, on this day and from now on, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, that we may grow ever stronger in our faith, and become more committed in our hearts and be more stirred to do something to help our brethren in need around us, to love them and to love and serve the Lord our God. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 7 June 2015 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate a very great solemnity, that is the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, or the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. If last week we commemorate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, celebrating the Triune nature of our God, He who is One but exists in Three distinct Divine Persons : Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then on this day, we commemorate how that same Lord our God had come down upon us and dwells with us even now.

It is also a core and central tenet of our Faith to believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. What is the Eucharist? It is not just mere bread and wine that we have offered to the Lord during the Mass. Indeed, the Mass itself is a holy sacrifice, which is truly the same Sacrifice which our Lord Jesus Christ had gone through for our sake as He hung from the cross that day on Calvary. It is the exact same sacrifice intended by God to seal His new and eternal Covenant with us mankind, sealed not by any mortal blood, but by the very Blood of the Lord Himself.

As in the first reading we heard how Moses gathered the people of Israel and sanctified them, and offering sacrifices of bulls and goats to the Lord through the priests chosen by the Lord, the blood of the animal sacrifices were collected and then sprinkled on the people, and the blood as the sign of the covenant which God had made with them. The blood is the pact and the seal that validated the whole covenant that God established with Israel.

By the blood of the lambs also God had rescued the people of Israel from their suffering and slavery by the Egyptians. God instructed them through Moses to take the blood of the Passover lambs and mark their houses on the doorposts and lintels with it. The houses marked with the blood of the lambs was then spared by the Lord and His angels of death passing through Egypt that night.

But the blood of mortal animals, lambs, bulls and goats do not last and neither did they constitute a lasting mark and seal on the covenant which God has made. Indeed, the priests chosen by God would have to renew the covenant again and again by constantly offering sacrifices to God. And in time, this became a problem when the people became engrossed with how the sacrifices were done instead of understanding the reasons behind such actions.

Instead of empty meaning of sacrifices done without proper understanding, what God intended was for us all to know that He is Love, and it is truly about His Love that we rejoice. The love of God therefore has been shown clearly in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God Himself who had allowed Himself to take up the humble form of Man, so that He may walk among us and dwell with us, as the ultimate symbol of God’s everlasting love and faithfulness.

For we mankind since the beginning of time had been intended for good things and for greatness. But we have not done our part of the covenant and the promise, and we broke the trust of the Lord by preferring to listen and obey the devil instead of obeying the Lord and His commandments. And even later on, the people of Israel continued to sin and worshipped even the pagan gods and following the pagan customs of their neighbour, in a blatant disregard of the covenant which God had established with them.

God is however ever faithful and He never went back on His words, or on any of His promises. It was always us mankind who betrayed the Lord and followed our own path, often leading up to damnation and distraction. And from time to time again, God forgave us and gave us a new chance, but there were not many who took up this generous offer of mercy. And so many of our kind fell into damnation.

Yet, for all of our disobedience, God wants us all His beloved to be sanctified and consecrated to Him, that we may be marked as His own, just as Israel in our first reading today were consecrated by the blood of the animal sacrifices before the Lord. However, this time round, it is no longer just the people of Israel and the descendants of Jacob only, but the new Covenant that God has established through His Son Jesus Christ encompasses all mankind.

And this new Covenant is perfect, far more perfect than the previous covenants, for God sealed it Himself with His Blood, the Blood of the Paschal Lamb, our Lord Jesus Himself, even as He hung on the cross. It was by His ultimate sacrifice on the cross that on the Altar of Calvary, on the Altar of the earth, He was hung between the heavens and the earth, as the perfect sacrifice and oblation for our sake. And while the blood of lambs, goats and bulls did not offer lasting purification for our sins, but the Blood of Christ our Lord offers eternal liberation from sin for all those who are true to His Covenant.

What is this Covenant? It is a Covenant of Love between God and us mankind, that is we ought to first love the Lord our God, with all of our heart, our mind, our strength and with all the capacity of our beings. And then secondly, we ought to love one another just in the same manner, as we have loved our Lord and just as we have loved and cared for ourselves. It is the Ten Commandments of God, revealed in the entirety of truth by Jesus Himself, that God is love, and His commandments is love too.

And He Himself gave the perfect example, by giving the perfect and most selfless love, by dying on the cross for us. Remember that Jesus said that the greatest love is for someone to die and lay down his life for his friends? It is therefore at that moment of the crucifixion, that Jesus laid down His life for us His beloved ones. And how is this relevant to us all, brethren? That is because it is the same sacrifice that we celebrate again and again every time we celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

At the Last Supper, on the day before He died, Jesus had instituted the Eucharist itself by showing His disciples what they ought to do from then on, in the memory of Him, and not just memory indeed, for what the disciples would do from then on, and from them to our bishops and priests today, in an unbroken chain of peoples consecrated to God, they would become the Alter Christus, or the Christ personified in the person of the priests.

It is because they have been given the authority by the Lord Himself, to change the very substance and matter of the bread and wine which we offer, just as on the Last Supper when the Lord Jesus transformed the bread and wine into His own Body and His own Blood, to be given to us all, so that all of who share in them, may receive the eternal life promised to us.

And that Body is real Body, and real food. The Blood is real Blood, and real drink. Did Jesus not say that to the people of Israel, when He said that His Body and Blood are real food and drink? And how those who did not share in them do not have eternal life in them? And many of His disciples left Him after that, simply because they could not take the fact, and because they failed to understand the truth.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, do not be afraid if others mock us for believing in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, for people have rejected Jesus Himself in the past for stating the same truth. We believe that the bread and wine we see in the Holy Mass are transformed in matter and substance completely to the substance of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Body and Blood, and what we receive at the Holy Communion is not just a memory or a symbol, but the very Real and True Presence of our Lord Himself.

That is why we ought to adore the Most Holy Eucharist and know that it is the Lord Himself who had given Himself to us, so that by receiving Him into us, we may share in His death and resurrection, and receive the keys to the eternal life and happiness that He had prepared for us. That is why also, any profanation or improper treatment of the Real Presence of God is absolutely unacceptable.

And at the same time, let us take note that because the Lord Himself now dwells in us, we have become the Temple of His Presence, and the Tabernacle of His dwelling, just as we reserve the Eucharist in the Tabernacle at the heart and the centre of the Church. Therefore, we must make sure that we keep ourselves worthy and holy, so that we are truly worthy to have the Lord, the Giver of all Life and the Source of all that is good, dwell within us.

If we have sinned, in a small or big way, let us all endeavour to seek to be forgiven first, by doing penance and seeking God’s forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance, looking for a priest to confess our sins. Let us not be afraid to ask for forgiveness and to go to confession. It is better that in our humility we are forgiven and brought to perfect reconciliation and be found worthy once again, rather than for us to receive Him in an unworthy state and then be condemned for defiling the Holy Temple of God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all seek to be more committed to our faith in the Lord, and let us all seek to be closer to the Lord our God, who is really and truly present in the bread and wine transformed by the priests, the Alter Christus, into the very Body and Blood of our Lord Himself. Let us all who receive Him worthily gain the blessings and graces He had promised all of us who believe. God be with us all, the Temples of His holy Presence. Amen.