Sunday Mass homily

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Sunday, 23 April 2023 : Third Sunday of Easter (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we enter into the celebration of the Third Sunday of Easter, all of us are reminded yet again of the very reason why we celebrate joyfully during this time and season of Easter. We are reminded that particularly during this time of Easter, all of us should focus our attention on the Risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who has won for us such a great victory through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross, and then through His glorious Resurrection from the dead. Through all of that, Christ our Lord and Saviour has opened for us the pathway to eternal life, the road to eternal glory and true joy with Him. We are no longer separated and sundered from the love and compassion of God, and we have been brought closer once again to God.

In our first reading today, we heard the testimony of faith by St. Peter who proclaimed to all the people assembled in Jerusalem at that time, of the truth regarding Jesus Christ, the One Who had been crucified and put to death, just weeks prior to that time, and which according to the Apostles and the other eyewitnesses, had risen from the dead in glory, and appeared to them, showing them all the fulfilment of God’s promised salvation, and the triumph that He had shown us in our battle against sin and death. St. Peter told all of the people assembled of the Messiah that the Lord has promised His people, and how everything has been fulfilled through this same Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Crucified One. He and the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord went forth courageously, encouraged and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, proclaiming the Risen Lord to all.

Most importantly, this Messiah’s story did not end with His death. Indeed, many of those same people had witnessed how the Lord Jesus was condemned to death and was crucified by the Romans, with the support of the Jewish authorities, who gave Him off to the Romans in the first place. But, the Lord Jesus rose gloriously from the dead, and His Resurrection has proved to be the fulfilment of everything that God has promised to His people, to all of us. For through His Resurrection, the Lord has cast out and destroyed the chains and the dominion of sin and death over all of us, and He has made His sacrifice and death a most worthy offering to His heavenly Father, for the atonement and forgiveness of all of our multitude of sins. The Lord has become the Paschal Lamb, the Lamb of the New and Everlasting Passover and Covenant that God has established with us.

This is what St. Peter himself also testified and spoke of in one of his Epistles, that is our second reading today. The Apostle spoke of how all of us have been saved through the Precious Blood of the Lamb, the Paschal Lamb, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, and saved by the One Who has risen from the dead, and Who raises the dead with Him, to share in the eternal life and inheritance meant for all of us from the very beginning. Through this, all of us are reminded of just how important the Resurrection of the Lord is to our faith and belief in the Lord, for without the Resurrection, then Christ’s death on the Cross would have been meaningless. Without the Resurrection, then it would have been proven that no one could escape the power of death, and yet, the Lord’s glorious Resurrection overcame that. Without the Resurrection, the death of the Lord Jesus would just be the sad and tragic death of a Man condemned to death because of the jealousy and political intrigues within the Jewish community back then.

It was truly the Lord’s Resurrection that made it all possible for us to have hope once again, and to be lifted up out of our despair and the darkness surrounding us. This has happened as we heard in our Gospel passage today, when the Lord appeared to two of His disciples who were travelling on their way to the village of Emmaus, very shortly after the Lord’s Resurrection. Both of those two disciples had been distraught and demoralised by the persecution and the death of the Lord, and despite hearing the words of the women who went to the tomb of the Lord and telling them of the Resurrection, they still could not believe that the One in Whom they had placed their hopes in, would have been crushed and killed in such a way. It was there that the Risen Lord appeared to them, as He came by them on their way from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The Lord discussed the passages of the Scriptures with them, particularly the part where it concerned the suffering and the hardships that the Messiah had to suffer, in referring to what had happened to Himself.

And as we heard in that same Gospel passage, the Risen Lord encouraged and strengthened the spirit and the faith of the two disciples as they went on their journey with Him towards Emmaus, before finally revealing Himself to them at the breaking of the bread with them. That was what brought the two disciples to rush back immediately all the way to Jerusalem, to tell all the other disciples of what they had just witnessed about the Risen Lord appearing to them in the flesh. This amongst other evidence of the Resurrection, and the fact of how many of the Apostles and disciples of the Lord were willing to die and suffer for this truth, are more than enough proofs that the Lord Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, has truly risen from the dead, and did not remain in the tomb, in death. Despite the efforts by the members of the Sanhedrin to silence and hide the truth about the Lord’s Resurrection, even to the point of bribing the guards who were at the tomb of the Lord, they failed to contain the continuously and rapidly growing Christian faith and believers.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we heard from all the Scripture readings today, let us all be reminded that as Christians, that is as members of God’s Church and as those who belong to Him, as His beloved sons and daughters, we have the responsibility and duty to be good role models and inspiration to one another in our way of life and faith. It means that each and every one of us have to lead lives that are in accordance to our faith in the Lord and not to scandalise the Church and the Holy Name of Our Lord by our inappropriate and sinful actions, works and deeds. This is why, all of us are reminded that we all should be Christians in truth and reality, in all things and not just in name or for formality only. Unless we commit ourselves wholeheartedly and completely to the Lord, to His path and His Law and commandments, we may end up being easily distracted and tempted by the many temptations all around us.

This Sunday, as we have entered into the third week of the Easter season, let us all ask ourselves, whether we have truly made good use of the time we had these past two weeks during this joyful season of Easter, or whether we have squandered the time and opportunities presented to us. All of us are reminded that we are all the people whom the Lord had loved and redeemed from sin, and by our common baptism, all of us have been made partakers of the New and Eternal Covenant that He had sealed by His own Most Precious Blood. Therefore, all of us should follow in the examples of our holy predecessors, the Holy Apostles, the innumerable saints and martyrs, who have courageously stood up for their faith and proclaimed their dedication to the Lord, as they endured challenges and trials, one after another, in their ministry and lives. They proclaimed the Risen Lord, His love and truth to the world, through their every actions, words and deeds.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore be missionary and evangelising in our every words, actions and deeds as well, and let our every efforts bring more and more people closer towards the Lord, that all those who witness our works and actions, heard our words and experienced our interactions with them, may experience the truth and love of God through us. Let us all inspire our fellow brothers and sisters much as how the Apostles themselves had inspired us with their courage and dedication to God. May all of us continue to carry on living our lives with zeal, with commitment and devotion, and may each and every one of us be good role models and examples in our Christian faith and living. May the Risen Lord, Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, continue to guide us all and give us the strength and courage to proclaim His truth and Resurrection to the world. Amen.

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Sunday, 16 April 2023 : Second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us have come to the completion of the glorious Easter Octave, the Second Sunday of Easter, as we continue to embark on this joyful journey and time, and as we gather together to celebrate joyfully the Lord’s glorious Resurrection, we are reminded as always of the love and kindness that He has always shown us. Through His Passion and death, His glorious Resurrection, the Risen Lord has brought us all from the darkness into the light, and He has rejuvenated all of us, restored hope to all of us who have been suffering in the darkness, so that each and every one of us may once again live with Him in true joy and happiness. This is why, Pope St. John Paul II through his decision, named this Second Sunday of Easter as the Divine Mercy Sunday, in reference to the vision of St. Faustina Kowalska on the Aspect of the Lord as the Divine Mercy, focusing on the merciful and compassionate nature of our loving God and Father.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Acts of the Apostles of the early beginnings and the early days of the Church, after we have heard in the past week of the many deeds of the Apostles in proclaiming the truth about the Lord’s Resurrection, and how many people have become convinced that the Lord is the Saviour of the world, and believed in Him. That was the beginning of the Christian Church and community, and we heard how the early Christians lived, sharing their goods and properties, living in wonderful peace and harmony with each other. They lived in God’s grace and cared for each other, living righteously and faithfully in God’s path. They truly embodied the spirit of being true disciples and followers of the Lord. They did what they had been taught by the Apostles and the Christian missionaries, striving to do what they could to glorify the Lord by their lives, by their every actions, words and deeds.

They trusted in the Lord and obeyed Him, focusing themselves and their lives on the Risen Lord, and in loving one another in the manner that the Lord Himself has shown His love upon them, that everyone who witnessed them and their works, their lives and actions were indeed touched by the love of God made manifest and real through the actions of His called and chosen people, those who are called Christians. They embodied what we heard in our second reading today from the First Epistle of St. Peter. The Apostle spoke of how Lord has shown all of us, His beloved people the hope and salvation through the Resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord and Saviour, through Whom all of the people faithful to the Lord had been brought to reconciliation and reunion with our beloved Father and God. St. Peter also spoke of how each and every members of the Church ought to put our trust in the Lord, and hold fast onto this faith we have in Him.

St. Peter also mentioned how putting our trust in the Lord is much better and far more important, a wiser and better choice than putting our trust in worldly means, by comparing between gold and faith, and how gold provided something that will not last forever while faith gives us things that the world cannot give and lasts forever. For while gold, wealth, riches and the resources of this world may fail us and may be destroyed and lost from us, as long as we entrust ourselves to the Lord and remain faithful to Him, the Lord will always be by our side, guiding us in our path and providing for us, even in the midst of our darkest and most difficult moments. The Resurrection itself was the strongest proof of this, as coupled with the Passion and death that Our Lord and Saviour endured on His Cross, it proves that God’s love endured even through His death, and through His Resurrection, we have seen once again His love and compassion for us, undimmed and shown to us in all its fullness.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the example of how the Lord showed His beloved ones that He truly remembered all of them and loved them, appearing before them at the moment when they were still confused and lost at what had just happened in the preceding days. Back then, right after the Resurrection, the disciples of the Lord were still filled with fear and uncertainty, as they experienced a great whirlwind of events from the moment when the Lord Jesus entered Jerusalem, hailed and glorified like a King, only to be betrayed by one of His own disciples, abandoned by everyone and rejected by the same ones who had welcomed Him with such great joy and festivities. They witnessed how the Lord was persecuted, tortured and broken, forced to carry His Cross to Calvary, pierced with nails and suffered until His death, and His Body interred in a tomb. Then, a most bewildering news were told to them by the women who went to the Lord’s tomb, telling them that the Lord had risen from the dead.

In truth, the Lord Himself has predicted that all these would happen, but none of the disciples realised the truth until everything had happened. The Lord appearing before those same disciples therefore revealed all of the truth that He has been telling them all the while, and relighted the hope in the hearts of those who have been afflicted by fear and darkness. The Lord appeared to all of them except for St. Thomas who have been away during the time that the Lord appeared to His disciples. We heard of how St. Thomas refused to believe what the other disciples had told him, and refused to believe that the Lord had indeed risen from the dead, even to the point of proclaiming that unless he could verify everything right up to touching and putting his fingers into the Lord’s wounds, he refused to believe in the resurrection of the Lord.

It was there then that the Lord proved Himself and His Risen glory to St. Thomas, appearing before him and the other disciples and telling him to do exactly as what he had wanted to do. St. Thomas was awestruck, and he immediately professed his faith in the Lord, with the words that we are now familiar with, ‘My Lord and my God’. These are the exact same words that we usually say whenever the Most Holy Eucharist, the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Christ is presented before us, at the moment when the Eucharist is elevated by the celebrant, at the Consecration during the Eucharistic Prayer. We utter the same words as St. Thomas, ‘My Lord and my God’ and more significantly, just as the Lord had said, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believed.’ Unlike St. Thomas, who have seen the Risen Lord Himself and believed in Him, we have not seen the Risen Lord and yet we believed.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, in essence that is what our Christian faith is all about. Our Christian faith is the belief we have in the salvation and eternal life that we have been offered most generously by the merciful and compassionate love of God, the Divine Mercy. This Sunday that is the reason why we commemorate this Divine Mercy Sunday, to remind us all that the Resurrection of the Lord is the proof of the Lord’s ever enduring Love and Mercy towards us, in His ever loving actions and works to reach out to us and to reconcile us to Himself. He has sent us all His own beloved Son after all, to suffer most grievous injuries and hardships, persecution, humiliations and rejection so that by His wounds, pains and sufferings, He might save us all and redeem us from our many sins and faults. By His sorrowful Passion, the Lord, our most loving and compassionate Divine Mercy have redeemed us and healed us from our fallen state of sin.

Now, as we celebrate the Divine Mercy of God and this joyful Easter season, let us all therefore spend our time to proclaim the most Divine Mercy of Our Risen Lord to the whole world, to all those whom we encounter in life. All of us as Christians have the solemn obligation and mission to proclaim the Lord to the world, and the best way that we can do this, is by doing His will, obeying His Law and commandments, and living our lives in the manner that is truly worthy of the Lord, much as how the early Christians mentioned in our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles had lived their lives. We have to show that we truly believe in the Lord, truly present in our midst, and by Whose works of mercy we have been redeemed from our terrible state in life. Do we truly believe in the Risen Lord like how the disciples, the numerous saints and martyrs of the Church, our holy predecessors, had done? Or do we doubt Him like how St. Thomas once doubted Him?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us therefore ask the Lord, our Resurrected Saviour and God, to show us all His mercy and forgiveness, pouring down from His own Most Sacred Heart upon each and every one of us. What St. Faustina Kowalska had seen in her visions, and the words she has received reminded us that the Lord first and foremost loved us all, although He despised our sins and wickedness. He wants us all to change our way of life for the better, so that we may truly embrace His mercy in full. Forgiveness and healing for our many sins can come from the Lord alone, and it is in Him therefore that we should put our full trust in, entrusting ourselves wholeheartedly from now on if we have not yet done so. Let us all draw ever closer to Him, to the Divine Mercy, to the Lord’s Throne of Mercy, beseeching Him to remove from us the blight of these sins we have committed. May the Risen Lord, the Divine Mercy continue to bless and guide us all to Himself, and may He remain with us always, now and at all times. Amen.

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Sunday, 9 April 2023 : Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Alleluia! Christ has risen from the dead, Alleluia! He has been triumphant over sin and death, Alleluia! We have finally arrived at the Easter season after the forty days and six Sundays of the season of Lent, during which time we have prepared ourselves physically, mentally and spiritually, striving to be closer to God and to change our way of life, distancing ourselves from sin and from wicked things that can keep us separated and distanced from the Lord, our God. This Easter is a reminder for all of us of the coming of spring, the advent of a new hope and light for our lives, as Christ our Risen Lord has led us out from the depths of the darkness of evil, sin and death, into the new life and existence blessed and graced by God and His love. By the Lord’s death and resurrection, we share with Him this passage from death into life, from darkness into light, and from despair into hope. That is what each and every one of us have shared through our common baptism.

In our Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday liturgical celebrations, we commonly celebrate baptisms as we welcome many of our fellow brothers and sisters who have journeyed for some time in their search for their Lord and Saviour, as they come, just like us, in finding our hope and light, our salvation in Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world. The Risen Christ has shown us that there is hope beyond darkness and sin, there are way out of the wickedness of this world. While once we have been cast out in the darkness and suffering because of our disobedience and failure to obey the will of God, we have not been left alone, as the Lord truly loves each and every one of us, though we are sinners, and He has always patiently reached out to us, loving us and caring for us, desiring to be reconciled and reunited with us. It was never His desire to punish us or to cast us out into the darkness, but it is by our own conscious and deliberate choice that we have rejected God’s generous love and resisted His constant efforts to reach out to us. But the Lord did not stop trying, and He did all He could so that we can truly regain our state of grace and be reconciled fully with Him.

That is why, He has sent us all His own most beloved Son, incarnate in the flesh, the Son of God and Divine Word of God, Incarnate as the Son of Man. He did all these so that by sharing in our humanity, Christ, the Son of God, Our Lord and Saviour, may come to lead us by His own hands, manifesting perfectly the love of God, to His Father’s loving Presence, reuniting us and acting as the Bridge that leads us mankind back to our loving God and Creator, crossing over the once unbridgeable and unpassable chasm existing between us and God. Our disobedience, wickedness and evil deeds led to sin, and sin became the barrier and obstacle separating and sundering us from the fullness of God’s love and grace. But Christ, as the Son of Man, showed us all what it truly means for us to be faithful and obedient to the will of His heavenly Father, showing us just how much He loved His Father and how willing He was to fully obey His will, that He willingly endured all the sufferings, pain, humiliations, rejections and hardships, bearing His Cross and all the burdens and punishments for our sins, so that we may be saved through Him. By His obedience, Christ has broken us free from the results of the disobedience of Adam, our ancestor, and the disobedience of our forefathers.

Today as we listened from our Scripture passages, each one of us are reminded of everything that the Lord has done for us, in sending us His Son, to bring us up from the depth of our sins, raising us up with Him, that through His glorious Resurrection all of us have the new hope that pierces through the darkness of despair all around us, and He has called us all to be His own people, gathering us and finding us from this world. For He is our Good Shepherd, Who went out all His way to reach out to us, His lost sheep, and having found us, He called us all to follow Him, just as the disciples had done. In our first reading today, we heard of how the disciples went forth out to proclaim the Lord’s Resurrection, and we heard how St. Peter led them all in proclaiming the truth about Jesus Christ, about how the One Whom the people had rejected, humiliated and persecuted, and condemned to die like a criminal on the Cross, was the One Whom God had actually sent into their midst to be their Saviour. St. Peter spoke of this courageously despite the fear that he and the other disciples once had of the Jews and their leaders.

Back then, the High Priest and the other chief priests, as well as the other members of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish High Council had declared the Lord Jesus as a Criminal and as a rogue, banning His teachings and works to be spread and published, and for that reason, the disciples of the Lord had been in hiding ever since the Lord rose and then ascended into Heaven, and hence, they were hiding for a while, fearful of the repression and the opposition of the Jewish people and their elders. This happened until the coming of the Holy Spirit, on the day and moment of the Pentecost Sunday, when the Lord sent His Holy Spirit to dwell among His disciples and followers, strengthening them and giving them the courage, Wisdom and strength to carry out whatever it was that He had tasked and entrusted them to do. That was what drove the Apostles, led by St. Peter, to go forth and proclaim the truth about the Lord, everything He had done, His Resurrection and His calling on all of the people to follow the path of the Lord.

Now, as we heard these from our Scripture passages, together with the account of the Lord’s resurrection in our Gospel passage this Easter Sunday, we are all reminded that as the witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and glorious triumph over sin, evil and death, all of us are called and have been entrusted with the same mission that the Apostles had been entrusted with by the Lord. All of us have received the same truth and revelation through the Church, and through our teachers of faith, the bishops and priests, that we have also become partakers in the same mystery of the Lord’s Resurrection, and also His Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, the Eucharist. Since all of us truly believe in these, the very core tenets of our Christian faith, it is therefore important that we have to profess our faith well in our way of life and in our every actions and deeds.

The Church has been entrusted with the mission to proclaim the truth of Christ, His Resurrection and all that He had done, and God’s love for all of us, and we are all missionaries and messengers of God’s truth to the world. If we do not live our lives in the manner that Christians should have done, and if we have not been sincere in our faith and dedication to God, and worse still, if we do things that are in fact contrary to what the Lord had taught us to do, all these will bring about scandal to our faith, to the Church and to the Lord’s Holy Name. How can we convince others to believe in the Lord if we ourselves have not shown true and genuine faith in Him, and if we have continued living our lives in wickedness and evil? That is why, just as we enter into this glorious and most joyful season of Easter, each and every one of us as Christians are reminded to be faithful to the Lord, and we are to believe in Him wholeheartedly in all things.

It means that in everything we say and do, in our every actions and interactions, all of us should truly practice and show our Christian faith and beliefs, in all of our deeds and works. That is what we all should do as Christians, and as those who truly believe in the Lord’s Resurrection and truth, let us all begin from this Easter Sunday henceforth, if we have not yet done so, to be joyful and dedicated disciples of the Lord, proclaiming His Resurrection and glory with great joy and zeal. And let us also remember that this time of Easter, all of our celebrations and joy do not end on this day. Instead, this Sunday is just the beginning of the Easter season, that lasts for a whole period of fifty days right up to the Pentecost Sunday. In fact, it does not mean that our Easter joy and works should end there either, as we are all called to proclaim the Lord henceforth and beyond, in every moments of our lives.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, if our faith in the Lord is still not strong yet, and if we are still filled with fear and doubt, like how the two disciples who were journeying to Emmaus from our Gospel passage for this Easter Sunday evening Mass showed us, then we should let our Risen Lord to come into our midst and to encourage and strengthen us all with the courage and faith, so that each and every one of us may be filled with the conviction and the desire to glorify God by our lives, and to proclaim His truth to all the whole world. Let us all be inflamed and strengthened by the Word and Wisdom of God, just as how the Lord Himself had strengthened those two disciples journeying towards Emmaus, so that like them rushing back towards Jerusalem with great joy, to tell the other disciples of what they had experienced and witnessed, we may also exhibit the same strength and spirit to proclaim the Lord and His truth.

Let us ask the Lord to strengthen us with the grace of His Wisdom and the power of His Holy Spirit, so that all of us who have placed ourselves in the trust of the Risen Lord, may continue to shine forth as the bright beacons of His light, proclaiming His love and truth to our fellow brothers and sisters, so that each and every one of us may indeed become most faithful disciples and followers of Our Lord, in all things. May our actions, words and deeds, our interactions and works be exemplary and be inspirational to each other, and to all those who witness them, so that we may truly be good and worthy missionaries of our faith, and that many more will come to believe in the Lord through us. Let us all renew the promises that we have made at our own baptism, be it recent or long time ago, that we will resolutely reject and resist the temptations of evil, Satan and the worldly desires, and strive to do what the Lord has asked us to do. Let us remember that our baptism is not the end of our journey of faith, but instead was just the beginning of a new journey of our lives, a journey blessed by God.

May the Lord, our Risen Christ, risen gloriously from the dead continue to inspire and strengthen us. May He bless us and strengthen us so that we may always be committed and ready to live our lives wholeheartedly, dedicated to Him and to proclaim His Resurrection, His truth and love to all those whom we encounter daily in life. May all of us continue to live with faith and with the joy of the Risen Christ in each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us all and may His light shine upon us, illuminating our path forward in life. Wishing all of us a most blessed Easter season, and may the Risen Christ be with us and our loved ones always. Alleluia! Amen!

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Sunday, 2 April 2023 : Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday, also known as Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord marks the beginning of the Holy Week and the entry into this most solemn and important period of time when we commemorate the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world, the moment when He suffered for us all, bearing all the burdens of our sins and mistakes, our faults and iniquities, all the wickedness and evils we have committed, so that by His most generous and selfless love, shown to us in His loving sacrifice on the Cross, all of us may be saved and be brought into the assurance of eternal life and glory with Him. The Lord has willingly done all of these, in obedience to the will of His heavenly Father so that by His sacrifice offered most worthily on our behalf, each and every one of us may find the path to eternal life by the full reconciliation and the New and Eternal Covenant that He made, as our Eternal High Priest, all of which we commemorate during this most Holy Week.

In our Gospel reading today, which was read at the beginning of the Holy Mass, we heard the passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew detailing the time when the Lord was about to enter into the city of Jerusalem for His upcoming Passion as we all certainly well know of, that moment when the Lord rode on a donkey and welcomed into the city of Jerusalem with the people waving palm branches and putting their clothes for Him to pass through, as if He is the King that came in glory to enter into His City. This is why we call this Sunday’s celebration as Palm Sunday in the first place. It marks first of all the commemoration of the glorious entry of the King of Kings and the rightful King of Israel, the Son and Heir of David, entering into the City of His glorious inheritance and dominion, as the Lord has revealed in advance through His prophets and messengers, like that of the prophet Zechariah, who prophesied that the King and Messiah would come to His City riding on a humble donkey.

All of that had been fulfilled in the actions of the Lord Jesus that day, Who chose a donkey with its colt, or its young one, which had not borne any burden before. The donkey that had been tied on the pole itself is rich in symbolism, as it represents the first-called among God’s people, the Israelites, that had been burdened by many of the sins of their ancestors and by their enslavement in the hands of many rulers and oppressors, and the Lord freeing the donkey from its bondage has the symbolic meaning of His coming that is meant to bring true freedom to the people of God, beginning with the descendants of Israel, and then the colt, which represents the Gentiles, or the non-Jewish people, who followed along as the Lord rode on the donkey, representing His dominion and rule over not only the Jewish people, the descendants of the Israelites, but also over the Gentiles and hence over the whole world. His Kingship is Universal and inclusive, and all encompassing instead of just ruling over the Jewish people only.

Then, there is the symbolism of the donkey itself, as a humble beast of burden typically used as the means to carry the weight of cargo and objects that were not usually meant for carrying a human being, less so for One Who is a King, and less still supposedly for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the King of all the whole Universe, coming upon His City and people. Yet, the fact that the Lord rode into Jerusalem on a humble donkey and not on a mighty warhorse or other extravagant rides that other worldly rulers often rode on, highlighted the true nature of His Kingship and His mission in this world. He did not come to this world to conquer and to destroy, unlike what earthly and worldly kings usually do, and He did not come to lead His people in a war of liberation and resistance against the Romans or any others, unlike what many of the Jewish people in the past often mistakenly believed.

Instead, He came into this world and into our midst to bring His Peace upon us, to show us the love that He has always had for us from the very beginning, real and tangible in the flesh. He came into this world to serve and not to be served, to reach out to the least amongst us, and to every single one of us without exception. He does not discriminate against us, and He wants each and every one of us to be reconciled with Him, and that is why He came into our midst, to dwell and walk amongst us, and to show us His most generous love, so much so that He was willing to pay the ultimate price in order to do so. And that leads us to the second part of our celebration today, that as we proceed triumphantly with Christ to the Altar, entering with Him to the Holy City of Jerusalem, we then enter into a new phase of this Sunday’s events, as we remember what would take place within merely days after that glorious event.

That is when we remember how it was likely that many of the same people who have cried out with great joy and enthusiasm, ‘Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord’, were the same ones who later on cried out on Good Friday, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ and ‘We have no King but Caesar!’. Through that we can see just how the mood and the attitude of the people so quickly changed within just a matter of a few days, from one of jubilation and adoration to one of disgust and rejection. No doubt that there must have been some coercion, persuasion and jockeying going around back then, as the members of the Jewish High Council or the Sanhedrin, which were mostly against the Lord and some were even openly hostile, must have encouraged, coerced and persuaded many of the people that the Lord Jesus was the False Messiah and a traitor to the Jewish nation and people, for His supposedly blasphemous teaching and actions against God.

All of these had been predicted beforehand by God Himself as He revealed it through His prophets, in what we heard from our first reading today, as we progress from the glorious procession of palms into Jerusalem towards the true nature of our Lord’s ministry and what He would do for each and every one of us. The prophet Isaiah spoke curiously on the Suffering Servant, the One Whom God would send to be with His people, and how this Servant of God would suffer and endure grievous beating and hardships, torture and trials, as He obeyed perfectly the will of the One Who had sent Him to us. He would be humiliated and made to suffer for the sins of the people of God, a reading that we shall further explore on Good Friday, in which that passage refer to the same Servant, Who would be lifted up high and exalted, that by His wounds and stripes, all of us would be healed, a clear reference to what the Lord Jesus Himself would do for our sake.

We heard how the Lord humbled Himself and emptied Himself of all glory, as we heard from our second reading passage from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in Philippi. The Apostle St. Paul spoke of how the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly, and humbled Himself such that He was willing to endure a most humiliating and painful death on the Cross, so that by His most selfless offering of Himself, and by His obedience, He became the Source of Hope and Salvation for all of us mankind, for the whole entire world. Through Christ, all of us have become sharers and partakers in the New and Eternal Covenant that He has established with all of us, as He is the Mediator of this Covenant, through which He has brought us into full reconciliation between us and the Lord God, our loving Father and Creator.

This is what we have essentially heard through the long Passion narrative this Sunday, reminding us all of everything that Our Lord had done for our sake, in Him enduring the worst of punishments for us. He has not ignored or abandoned our plight and suffering, and by His ever enduring love and compassion towards us, He willingly took upon His shoulders and embraced us fully, and in His sharing of our human nature and existence, He took it upon Himself to offer on our behalf a most worthy offering, the offering of His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood, as the Paschal Lamb of God, crushed and sacrificed for us, that He offered Himself on the Altar of His Cross at Calvary, He brought upon us the certainty of salvation and eternal life. All of us who believe in Him and in the truth that He has revealed to us, will receive from Him the gift of everlasting grace and life.

Thus, this Sunday as we mark the beginning of this most Holy Week, the Week celebrating and commemorating the most important events in the history of our salvation, let us all therefore immerse ourselves more deeply into the Lord’s Passion and all that He had done for us, as we remember how He began the final week of His most important mission, that is to offer and sacrifice Himself for our sake. Let us all remember the actions of our great and most loving King, Who has come into our midst to be with us, and to redeem all of us. Let us remember how He came humbly riding on a donkey into Jerusalem, hailed and adored by the people only to be cast out and rejected just barely a few days later, betrayed by His own disciple and condemned to death for sins and faults that He Himself did not commit. Yet, He had borne all of that upon Himself because He loves each and every one of us, and He wanted that by His selfless offering and sacrifice, and by His suffering and death, all of us may be saved, and has sure path to eternal life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore as we enter into this most solemn and important week, the holiest of all the weeks of the whole entire year, let us all spend some time to reflect on our Lenten journey thus far and how we have lived our lives in this world. Lent is a time for us to rediscover our true path in life towards God and to recalibrate and reconnect ourselves with God and His path especially if we have erred and wandered down the wrong path. And as we enter into this Holy Week of Our Lord’s Passion, each one of us are called to remind ourselves why our Lord has done all these for us, and that again, first of all, is because of His love for us. We have sinned against the Lord, and we should have deserved damnation and destruction for our faults and sins, and yet, God willingly came to us, and through His Passion, He showed us the path to a new life with Him, and by His sufferings, He shouldered the punishments of our own sins meant for us.

Let us all remember how God has been so patient with us and how much He has loved us, that He came into our midst to live amongst us and to suffer with us and for us. Let us all no longer harden our hearts and minds, and be no longer stubborn as many of our predecessors who have frequently and constantly rejected the Lord and His generous offer of love and mercy. Let us all look upon the Crucified Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, and see His loving gaze, ever always directed at us, so that we may indeed be ashamed by our many sins and wrongdoings, all of which had inflicted the many injuries and wounds that He had to painfully bear for our sake, and yet which He bore willingly and lovingly nonetheless because He truly and really loves us very much. Therefore, let us all deepen our appreciation of everything that Our Lord and Saviour had done for us, and deepen our relationship with Him.

May the Lord, our King and Saviour, our High Priest and our Paschal Lamb, He Who has done so much for us for our salvation, continue to be with us and guide us patiently as He has always done, so that we may grow ever more in faith in Him, and learn to love Him more and more, especially as we enter into this time of most solemn commemoration of His Passion, His suffering and death during this Holy Week and the upcoming Easter Triduum. Today, let us not just acclaim Him with our words and mouth only, but let us all acclaim Him from deep within our hearts. May He help us all to remain focused on Him and may He empower each every one of us so that we may persevere ever more against the many challenges, trials and temptations in life. May God bless us all in our every good works, efforts and endeavours, so that in everything we do, we may truly be ever more faithful to Him and be exemplary role models and good examples for others to follow, that through us and our actions, many more may come to believe in God and be saved. Wishing all of us a most blessed, holy and fruitful Holy Week. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 March 2023 : Fifth Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we mark the occasion of the Fifth Sunday of Lent and therefore we are reminded that it is just another one week from the beginning of the Holy Week and two weeks from the glorious season of Easter. As we come closer to the most solemn and important parts and celebrations of our whole entire liturgical year, each and every one of us are reminded at this point and juncture, of what we have to do as Christians, in living our lives in accordance with the way of the Lord and in having His Presence in our lives, to be filled with His Spirit and His love. Each and every one of us have been blessed with many great and wonderful gifts from God, and it is truly up to us whether we want to live our lives in a way that is worthy of the Lord or not. This Sunday, as we enter into this time of deeper reflection, all of us are reminded that if we have not yet done so, we should make good use of the remainder of this time of Lent to reexamine our path, our actions and way of life.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Ezekiel in which we heard the Lord’s words to the prophet Ezekiel and to His people, the Israelites and their descendants, of how He still truly loved them and cared for them, and how through Him they would have life once again. The Lord told them all that He would put His Spirit in them again and they would live, as a reference to the earlier part of the same chapter of the Book of Ezekiel, in which the prophet Ezekiel saw a vision of a valley filled with many dry human bones, and how suddenly right before his very own eyes, all those bones began to reassemble themselves and becoming humans once again, becoming covered with muscles and sinews, and then the Spirit of God coming down upon them all, and before Ezekiel was laid a huge throng of the people of God, all living and breathing.

This was a symbolic representation of how God would restore His beloved people, and how He would grant them new life and restore them to grace and happiness with Him. He would gather all of them and give them His Spirit, to rejuvenate them and bring them back from their land of exile into the land that has been promised and kept for them, the land of their home and the land of their ancestors. God would save them all just the way He has once saved their ancestors from the land of Egypt. Back then, the people of Israel at the time of the prophet Ezekiel had been scattered away from their homeland, exiled in distant lands and had their cities, towns, villages and land ransacked, destroyed and crushed. Their great Temple of God, long defiled by their wickedness and evils, the worship of idols by their ancestors, were destroyed and the great Ark of the Covenant disappeared.

Therefore, this was akin to some kind of ‘death’ in the psyche of the people of God, and God therefore was revealing through Ezekiel that He would restore them back to a new life through Him, when He would rescue them and bring them all back to their homeland. The Lord revealed what He would do in allowing them all to return to their homeland, as how it would indeed happen, when several decades later, He moved the heart of the Great King of Persia, Cyrus the Great, to allow the whole people of Israel to return back to their homeland and even to rebuild their cities and the Temple of God in Jerusalem. The Lord reminded His beloved people that He would not abandon them and leave them behind despite the rebellious attitude that the people has shown Him, and despite them having abandoned and rejected Him first. He did not want them all to perish but live forever with Him, as He has always intended.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the well-known story of the Lord Jesus resurrecting one of His friends, Lazarus, from the dead. In a similar theme to the first reading we heard from the Book of Ezekiel, we heard how God restored life to His beloved ones, and in this case to one of His own close friends. Lazarus was the brother of the sisters Mary and Martha, who were also good friends of the Lord and often followed Him in His ministry. Back then, as we heard from the Gospel passage, Lazarus fell really ill and was on the verge of death when his sisters sent a message to the Lord telling Him about their predicament. The Lord truly loved and cared for Lazarus, but at the same time, the events had also likely been preordained by His heavenly Father, to be the example and showcase of the truth behind the true identity of the Lord Jesus, as the One sent into our midst to be our Saviour, and to rescue us from destruction and death.

Thus, the Lord intentionally delayed His departure for Lazarus’ place near Jerusalem until eventually, the latter passed away before the Lord arrived. The Lord was indeed struck deeply by the passing of Lazarus, and that was the origin of the famous shortest sentence in the entire Gospels and Scriptures, ‘And Jesus wept.’, which highlighted the love that He has for His beloved friend, and the love which He also has for each and every one of us. That sentence, though short, delivered to us the very powerful meaning and revelation that God truly loves us, from deep within His heart, and He does not want any one of us to be lost to Him through death, which is an echo of what we heard in our first reading today. God’s love was made manifest to us in His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, Who came into our midst to show the perfection of this Love incarnate in the flesh, and which was made even more tangible to us, by the tears that Our Lord Himself has shed.

This was one of the several occasions that the Lord shed tears, the other one being the Lord weeping over Jerusalem, and lamenting all the sins and wickedness that the people had committed, which would have led them into the path towards damnation. God does not want any of them to fall into this path precisely because He loved all of them very much, and does not desire to see their destruction. The other occasion that some Biblical scholars argued as the occasion when the Lord shed tears was when He was in agony in the Gardens of Gethsemane just before He was to be betrayed and condemned to death during His Passion. At that time, the Lord agonised over the great responsibility and burden that He had to bear for us, but He bore it all with love, and some experts said that it was likely that the Lord might have shed tears too at that time, when He remembered each and every one of us and willingly took upon Himself the burdens of our many sins.

Thus, this is where all of us need to realise just how blessed and fortunate all of us are, to have been beloved so much by the Lord, Our God and Saviour, our loving Father and Creator. He Who loves us so much certainly does not want us to be lost from Him or to be separated from Him, and as mentioned, He gave us all His only begotten Son, the Son of God, incarnate in our midst, for this very purpose. He, the Master of Life and Death, the Lord and the Giver of Life, endeavoured to lead us all out of the darkness of our current existence, just as what He has proclaimed to the people of Israel back then through the prophet Ezekiel. We have sinned against God, disobeyed Him and refused His love and mercy many times, but He still cared for us and loved us very much nonetheless, and sent us His many servants, messengers and reminders to help us in our path, that hopefully His words may touch us and lead us to repentance and reconciliation with Him.

Through what we have heard in our Scripture passages today, we can see that not even death can part us from the love of God. God loves us all and He desires to lift us all up to Himself, freeing ourselves from the bondage of sin and death. And since death is the just consequence and punishment for sin, He sent His Son to us, in order to break the chains of sin holding down us once and for all. This is what we have been preparing ourselves for this whole season and time of Lent, which is to bring our attention back towards the Lord and everything that He had done for us, in everything He did, by leading us out of the darkness and bringing us by His own hands to the path towards righteousness and eternal life. We look forward to the celebrations of the deepest mysteries and aspects of our faith in the Holy Week of Our Lord’s Passion, His suffering and death, and ultimately glorious Resurrection from the dead, to remind ourselves firstly of God’s love for us, and also that in Him alone we can have true life and joy.

That is what St. Paul reminded the faithful in Rome in his Epistle to them in our second reading today, and which is also an apt and timely reminder for all of us as well. The Apostle spoke of how those who have life ought to have the Spirit of Christ within them, or else, they will not have any part with the Lord, and hence, on the day of Judgment will be cast out and destroyed. This means that we must receive the Spirit of God, the Spirit that renews and rejuvenates us in the same manner as how God turned that valley of dry bones into a vast multitude of living and breathing people, and how He has raised Lazarus from the dead. He had put His Spirit into us, and we have been restored into life, a new life and existence that is blessed by Him, and by this reconciliation and renewed unity we have with the Lord, all of us may enter into the glory of the kingdom and eternal life promised to all of those who have remained firmly faithful in Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we enter into the period known as the Passiontide, beginning on this Fifth Sunday of Lent, traditionally known as the Passion Sunday, let us all therefore deepen our immersion into the penitential nature of this season of Lent, a time of preparation of our hearts and minds such that we may come into deeper understanding of the mystery of our faith, the love that God has for each and every one of us, and the acuteness of the sins and the wickedness that have afflicted us deep within our beings. Sin comes from our disobedience against God, from our rebellion against His will and the rejection of His love, and God has given us all the freedom to choose our path in life. Now, it is really therefore up to us whether we want to embrace God’s path and love, or whether we prefer to follow the path of sin and evil that many of us have often walked in all these while.

Let us remember that the path of sin and evil leads to nothing but eternal damnation and destruction, and while that path may seem to be easier or much more convenient than the path that God has shown us, we have been given the Wisdom, knowledge and revelation of what awaits us should we continue to walk down that path. On the other hand, if we follow the path that the Lord has shown us and willingly lead us all by His own hands, we shall attain the perfection of His love and grace, and the new life, blessed existence with Him, that begins right here in this world, and then continuing for everlasting life beyond death. Death has no hold or power over us who adhere to the love of God and to the path of His righteousness and grace, because He, the Master of Life, will deem us worthy of Him, and deserve therefore the gift of eternal life and blissful existence forever in His Presence.

Let us therefore do our best, brothers and sisters in Christ, to live our lives well and to contemplate our choice of action, beginning from this Lent onwards, and through each and every moments of our lives so that we may no longer fall again and again into the trap of sin and the vices of the world. May the Lord our most loving God, He Who raised Lazarus from the dead, the Lord and the Giver of Life, through His Holy Spirit, grant us strength, courage and rejuvenate our spirit, that we may continue to persevere in this life and overcome the many temptations and obstacles surrounding us in our journey and path towards Him, Our Lord and Saviour. May God bless us all, in all things, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 March 2023 : Fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Rose or Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we mark the Fourth Sunday in the season of Lent, all of us notice that today we have a somewhat more festive and joyful atmosphere in our celebration of the Holy Mass, as we mark the occasion of Laetare Sunday, one of the only two days in the whole liturgical year that the colour rose is used as the colour of the day. Together with Gaudete Sunday during the season of Advent, this Laetare Sunday marks the moment when amidst the more penitential and sombre nature of both Advent and Lent, we remind ourselves of the great joy and the exultation that we are expecting and looking ahead towards in Christmas and Easter respectively. Thus, as we continue to progress ever closer to the coming of the Holy Week and the Easter season, all of us ought to remember what we have been preparing ourselves for in this upcoming celebration and festivities, and remind ourselves of our penitential practices this Lent which are meant to prepare ourselves wholly for the great celebrations to come.

In our first reading this Sunday, we heard from the Book of the prophet Samuel regarding the story of the time when God told Samuel to visit Jesse the Bethlehemite, a man of Judah whom we know as the father of the then future King of Israel, the famous King David. Back then, Saul was the king of Israel, the first one to rule over the people of God, but he has fallen into disobedience and sin against God by not following the instructions and the commands that God had given him and instead following his own desires and whims. Thus, God chose David to be the new king to rule over His people, and sent the prophet Samuel to anoint him with the holy oil. We heard how Jesse presented his seven sons before Samuel, and none of them except David pleased the Lord. When Samuel saw the eldest son of Jesse and thought that he was good in appearance and stature, the Lord told Samuel that He did not judge by appearance but by what is in the heart of man.

David truly loved God, and was a righteous, good and faithful man, who led the people of God faithfully and with great wisdom in his reign as King over them, leading them down the path of faith in God. And despite him failing in some occasions later on throughout his reign, by far and large he remained firm in his faith in following God, and he was also a humble man at heart, who was always ready to humble himself before God and man alike. Compared to other kings and rulers who have been swayed by the temptations of worldly pride and glory, or by their own success and greatness, including that of David’s own son and successor, Solomon, the Lord’s choice of David as King of Israel was indeed reflective of how God chose the best not by their appearances or their outward facade, but by their interior disposition and real self, which God knows all about.

This sets the tone for what we have heard in our Scripture passages today, that is about our ability to see the truth and light of Christ, and seeing the path towards God’s salvation and grace, as well as being truly sincere and genuine in our faith and life. Today, as we remember the love of God and look forward to the joyful celebration of Easter, in our anticipation of that Joy to come, our Laetare Sunday celebration and Scripture passages remind us that each one of us are called to be truly filled by the light of God, His truth and His love. We are reminded that each and every one of us are the children of God, and as the children and people of His light. Therefore, it is important that all of us truly embody in all things, in our whole lives and existence, the true values and beliefs of the Lord’s teachings, His Law and commandments, and not be like those hypocrites who outwardly believed in God but inside, they are all rotten and wicked.

This is also what St. Paul told to the faithful people in Ephesus, calling on them all to arise from the darkness of the world and abandon that darkness for the light of Christ’s truth and love. The Apostle reminded the faithful that they are the children and people of God, and they belong to the Light, and therefore, their actions and way of life should indeed reflect this nature, and that they should be genuinely faithful in all things. They should not scandalise the faith, the Church and all the other faithful people of God because of their wickedness and sinful actions. That is why he has called on all of them to embrace the Lord fully and wholeheartedly, to truly love God with all of their hearts and minds, with all of their strength. Unless they commit themselves wholly to God and if they continue to allow the temptations and attachments to worldliness to sway and distract them, then the path towards God and His salvation will truly be a difficult one.

That is why in our Gospel passage today, we are reminded yet again about this by the story of the moment when the Lord healed a man born blind, who was blind since birth. The Lord performed that healing on the blind man, opening his eyes and allowed him finally to see the light of this world. Immediately, that brought about the attention of the people who remembered this man who had been blind all the time since his birth, and then suddenly could see clearly. As this happened on the Sabbath, some of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law present there immediately questioned the formerly blind man, who it was that healed him, and how he was healed in the first place, with some even doubting that he had been blind in the first place. This was because those people cannot reconcile with the fact that someone had performed this miraculous healing on the Sabbath day, as it had happened.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had often gotten in conflict and disagreements with the Lord because He often performed His healing on the Sabbath, which was to highlight the point that He wanted to bring across that it was truly foolishness that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were interpreting the Law in the way that brought about inconveniences and difficulties for the people of God to live their lives, not only in making it an offence to do anything on the Sabbath, but even forbidding and preventing anything good from being done on the Sabbath. Their way of obeying and observing the Law was based on external and ritualistic observance, on literal understanding of the precepts, but failing to understand the true intention and purpose of the Law, which was in truth meant to help the people of God to live their lives in accordance with His truth and love.

That is why, the Lord told them all that while they might be physically capable of seeing, unlike how the blind man was, but they were suffering from spiritual blindness. Their pride and ego, their arrogance and greed for power and worldly glory and praise led them to shut the doors of their hearts and minds, and also their spiritual eyes to the truth and the light of God. That is why although they could see perfectly well and had witnessed many of the miracles that the Lord had performed before them, but they consistently and stubbornly refused to believe, kept on asking the Lord for more signs when they had witnessed so many things and heard so many words of Wisdom and truth that the Lord had done before them. They even doubted Him and cast doubts in the hearts of others by openly challenging Him and accusing Him of colluding with the demons in the action of His miracles.

All those things happened because they allowed sin to cloud their minds and to make them blind to God’s truth and love. They had practiced their faith outwardly and were pious in the sight of others, showing all their ritual expertise and knowledge of the Law, but most if not all of those were superficial in nature. Below all of that, there was no true love for God. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is possible for one to be outwardly faithful to the Lord but in the inside, to have no real or genuine faith in Him. It means that they were just going through the motion as they practiced their faith, and they just carried on doing all their works without real understanding and appreciation of the true intentions of God’s Law and commandments. They were like a brilliant pot that is highly polished on the outside, but the inside is empty, or even ugly and dirty. That is what St. Paul had warned the faithful against, that they should not be bereft of the light of Christ in their hearts.

How do all these then relate to us, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that as we continue to progress through this season of Lent, all of us are called to reflect deeply in our hearts, and look within us if Christ’s Light can be found within, and if His truth and love are the bedrock and strong foundation of our faith and lives. What the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had been doing, are exactly what we ourselves had been doing as well. How many of us practiced our faith in the way that we were just going through the motion? How many of us went and attended the Holy Mass or other celebrations of our faith, and yet we were not spiritually or mentally present there. How many of us cannot wait until everything is over so that we can go back to our usual daily routines and pursuits in life? Some of us even have the bad habit of leaving before the Holy Mass had concluded, even when we did not have the legitimate reason to do so.

The list can go on and on for us, like how many of us prayed by reciting the prayers and devotions and yet did not mean what we were saying. That is why I call these recitations and utterances rather than true, genuine prayer. We may think that we have done what our faith has been asking us to do, but we forget that what the Lord wants from us is to build a genuine and living relationship with Him, that of course begins from us spending more quality time with Him and nurturing that relationship we have with God. We do that by refocusing our lives and our attention truly on the Lord, and by learning to listen to Him instead of us just keep on reciting, telling or demanding for Him to do something for us. And we can also spend more time to reflect on our way of life and actions as well, on whether they have been truly a reflection of what God’s holy people should be like.

In this season of Lent, all of us are called to spend more time in prayer so that we may deepen and build up a genuine relationship with God, and we are also called to practice fasting and abstinence, not so that others may see how pious or great we are in our faith, but so that we may restrain the allure of worldly pride, greed and desire. All those things are great obstacles and barriers that keep us separated from God, and which have also kept causing us to fall again and again into sin. That is why this Lent we are constantly being reminded to distance ourselves from those sinful way of life and from all the obstacles that have been making it difficult for us to reach out to God. We are also called to be more generous in sharing our love and blessings to others, by practicing more almsgiving, again not for fame or praise from others, but so that others who are less fortunate than us may also truly experience joy and relief in their lives.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore as we look forward to the coming of our true Joy in Christ this Easter, let us all open the barred doors of our hearts and minds, and humble ourselves, seeking God for His forgiveness and compassionate mercy. Let us all remember the love and kindness that He has always shown us, and endeavour therefore to live our lives from now on in accordance with the path that He has shown us. Let us all be good examples and role models for each other, and inspire the people around us by our genuine faith and love-filled hearts, that also shine with the Light of Christ, so that more and more people may also come to believe in God through us. Let us all be thoroughly good and worthy of God, not just outwardly only, but our interior orientation should also be attuned with God. May God bless us all in the remaining time we have this Lent and help us to continue doing our best in living our lives and faith as good and truly devoted children of God. Amen.

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Sunday, 12 March 2023 : Third Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday is the Third Sunday in the season of Lent, and as such we are reminded again to place our focus on God and not on things of this world. When we allow worldly desires and attachments to lead us in life, more often than not it will lead us down the wrong path that bring us into the slippery slope into sin and more. We have to resist those temptations and trust in the Lord wholeheartedly, allowing the Lord to lead and guide us in our lives. We often hardened our hearts and minds because of our stubbornness and refusal to let go of all those unhealthy attachments in life, all the temptations and wicked things surrounding us that led us to sin. This is why this Sunday, all of us are reminded and called again to turn away from sin and embrace God and His forgiveness fully.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Exodus, we heard of the moment when the Israelites, the people of God, rebelled against God and whined against Him greatly at a place known as Massah and Meribah. Massah and Meribah was infamous for generations afterwards as the place where the people of Israel went into open defiance and rebellion against God, and even Moses, their leader, was driven into despair, for the refusal of the Israelites to budge from their demands. The people of Israel were angry against God and complained that God had led them out of Egypt to die in the desert with their children and cattle, and regretted that they had moved out the land of Egypt, the place where they were enslaved for many decades and treated with disdain and contempt by the Egyptians and their Pharaoh. God has liberated them by His own hands from the dominion of the Egyptians, and led them to the land He has promised them and their ancestors.

Yet, the people of Israel were looking with some kind of nostalgia at the kind of life that they had in Egypt, that while they were enslaved but they had what they wanted to eat and even things they wanted to enjoy. When the Lord freed them and led them on the journey towards the Promised Land, quite evidently many of those people were still attached to the life that they had back in Egypt, regardless of their slavery and status there. Hence, although the Lord had provided for them and all their needs throughout their journey, they would always make comparisons and desire for things that they actually did not really need, and began to grow arrogant and greedy in their actions. They disregarded God’s love and kindness, and hardened their hearts against Him even though God had truly cared and provided for them, not only by delivering them from the hands of the Egyptians, but also in giving them what they needed in an empty, lifeless and terrible desert.

If we look through the account of the journey of the Israelites, we see how God provided them all with the bread from Heaven itself, the manna, every single day, and even accounting for the Sabbath day, the Lord provided twice of the manna needed to cover the Sabbath itself. Not only that, but the Lord also sent flocks of large birds every evening to feed the people with more food, and provided crystal clear and good quality water to drink throughout the entire journey in the desert. If we consider just how dry, terrible and lifeless a desert is, to have the whole multitudes of the people of Israel travelling through the desert, and cared for in such a way by the Lord, from our perspective we can only stare in awe at just how wonderful God’s love for them was, and yet, the people refused to acknowledge that love, and still complained for what they have already received in abundance.

Not only that, but the Lord even provided for all of the people after they had rebelled against Him and were punished for a whole period of forty years in the desert, before they could enter the Promised Land. He still cared for them and loved them despite of their many sins, wickedness, lack of gratitude and faith, and disobedience. And then, linking to what we heard in our Gospel passage today, regarding the account of what happened when the Lord Jesus travelled through the region of Samaria, during the Exodus, it was told that a ‘Rock’ always followed the Israelites, providing them with water even in the driest and most barren part of the desert, that everyone had enough water to drink and survive on, despite their constant groaning and complaints. This water is referred to by the Lord Jesus in His conversation with the Samaritan woman, as the ‘spring of the living water’ that will never cease.

In that Gospel account, we heard of the encounter between the Lord and a Samaritan woman, who belonged to the group of people often considered by the Jewish people as pagans and wicked, unworthy of God. The Samaritans inhabited the region where Samaria, the old capital of the northern kingdom of Israel was located at, and they were descended from a mixture of people that the Assyrians brought in to settle in the land after they conquered and destroyed the northern kingdom, and the resulting mingling of those foreigners and some leftover members of the ten northern tribes of Israel eventually became the Samaritans. The Samaritans, based on their practice, also believed in some form of worship of God, although they believed, as the Samaritan woman mentioned, that the correct way of worship was in the mountains that they dwelled in, and not in Jerusalem as the Jews argued. They could not be reconciled as each party proudly maintained their views and ideas as the correct one while the other one was wrong.

The Lord told her that ultimately, seeking the Lord, the true Spring of Life, is what matters, and not how each of the people argued whether their way of doing it was correct. The woman was looking for a water in the well at the area, known as the ‘Well of Jacob’ after the well that Jacob, the patriarch of the Israelites established in that area, and which the Samaritans considered as their forefathers as well. The Lord told her that the water that she sought would not truly satisfy her, as she will become thirsty again, while the ‘Spring of Living Water’ that He has, will provide for eternity, and she will never be thirsty anymore. This was a reference and can be compared to how the Lord provided for His people throughout the period of the Exodus, that Rock that always provided water without cease, that came from the Lord Himself. But in deeper level, this refers to things that the Lord alone can provide, that worldly things cannot.

If we recall back in the First Sunday of Lent, of the account on the temptation of the Lord Jesus by Satan, Satan tried to tempt Him first with food, by asking Him to turn stones in the desert into food, and also by offering Him the glory and power of the world, which were all rejected, as the Lord rebuked Satan, first of all, with the words, ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every words that come from God.’, as a reminder to all of us that all the things of this world that we often seek, like material possessions, food, wealth, riches, fame, glory and all those things are all superfluous and impermanent in nature. None of those things will last forever, and no one can retain them beyond this world. We come into this world with nothing, and will leave this world without whatever we have gained in this world. But what we truly have is the love of God, the love that comes from God Who loves each and every one of us unconditionally.

However, many people are still distracted by the many temptations found in this world and life, and we often find it hard to resist those temptations, coercions and pressures all around us to do what are against God’s teachings and ways. The Lord has called upon us to resist those wicked things and not to give in to the many temptations we may often face as part of our journey in life. This is why this Sunday, as we approach the halfway point in this season of Lent, each and every one of us are reminded to reflect on our own respective way of life, and our actions. Have we truly put our lives around God, our true focus in life, He Who can provide us all that we need, and Who can give us all things that last forever and not just merely temporary like worldly glory and possessions? Have we put the Lord, the Spring of Living Water and enthrone Him in our hearts, so that from Him we will receive the Wisdom and grace to carry out our lives worthily as Christians?

This season of Lent, all of us are called to redirect our attention in life to follow the Lord and to commit ourselves to Him more wholeheartedly. Each one of us have been given the grace and gift of faith from God, to live our lives in accordance to His path and His truth. If only that we have more faith in Him and not be easily swayed by the temptations around us, we will come closer to Him and get further and further away from the path of damnation, and closer indeed to the path towards eternal life. The choice is ours, brothers and sisters, as God has given us the freedom to choose how we will live our lives, whether we want to follow the examples of the Israelites in the past, who disobeyed the Lord and walked down the path of sin and wickedness, or whether we are willing to embrace God and His path wholeheartedly, in living our every moments in life in accordance to His will?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us spend our time this remaining season and period of Lent carefully, that we do whatever we can to discern our path in life going forward. May all of us deepen our relationship with God and rediscover that faith and love that we ought to have for Him through our Lenten observance. Let us all do our best to be exemplary Christians in our way of life and be good examples and inspiration for one another, that more and more people may come to believe in God as well through us. May God bless us in our every good efforts and endeavours, all the work we do for His greater glory, not only just for the duration of this season of Lent, but continuing on for the rest of our lives. Amen!

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Sunday, 5 March 2023 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we gather together to celebrate this Second Sunday in the season of Lent, all of us are reminded of this Sunday’s Scripture theme that is on the topic of calling and mission, which God has called each and every one of us to do, in following Him and entrusting ourselves to Him, to obey Him and listen to His words, as He guides us down the right path, one that is not necessarily the easiest and happiest path for us. But as long as we follow Him and remain faithful to Him, we shall find our satisfaction in the Lord, and we shall gain true joy in Him and with Him. Yet, we have to keep ourselves rooted firmly in faith in God, and focus our attention wholly on Him or else, we may find it easy to be distracted by worldly temptations and all the things which may mislead us down the wrong path in life.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis, the story of how God called a man named Abram from the land of Ur in Mesopotamia, in the present day Iraq, to follow Him. Abram obeyed the Lord and listened to Him, chose to depart from his homeland, which he never saw again in his lifetime, and went first to the land and city of Harran just at the boundary between Syria and Mesopotamia, together with his father, before he embarked on his own journey with his wife, Sarai and his household and belongings to the land of Canaan, following God’s instructions and commands, and it was mentioned that Lot his nephew also followed Abram as well. This was how Abram went and follow the Lord’s calling wholeheartedly, even when he could have done otherwise and just enjoyed the riches and the comfort of where he used to live in. He instead entrusted himself to the Lord completely.

Abram listened to the Lord and trusted Him, even when there were so many uncertainties in the path that he embarked on. He had great faith in God and consequently, he was greatly blessed by God, who promised him that he would become the father of many nations, by the Covenant which God Himself established with Abram. Abram dedicated and committed himself to this Covenant, and changed his name to Abraham as a mark of his commitment. Back then, a name change often signified this commitment which one made, in establishing a pact, which in this case is the solemn Covenant that Abraham had made with God. Sarai, his wife also went through the same change, known as Sarah henceforth, as would be his grandson, later on, Jacob, who was known as Israel after he renewed the same Covenant with God.

From the examples made by our forefathers in faith, all of us can see how each and every one of us are called to do the same as well, reminded that God has always been faithful to His Covenant, in how He fulfilled everything that He has ever promised to man, to Adam and Eve, to Abraham and Sarah, and then to Jacob, also known as Israel, and his descendants, with whom God continued to renew and reestablish His Covenant. St. Paul in our second reading today in his Epistle to St. Timothy, his godson and protege has highlighted how the Lord has called us to Him, and how He has always renewed His Covenant and showing His love for us, especially through His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the whole world, of all mankind. Christ has come into the world, into our midst so that by His coming, God might fulfil everything that He Himself has promised to us.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the story of the Transfiguration of the Lord, detailing the moment when the Lord Jesus Christ was transfigured before three of His disciples, His inner circle, of St. Peter, St. James and St. John, who went up to Mount Tabor with Him. There, they witnessed how the Lord revealed the glimpse of the truth about His true nature, as the Divine Son of God, the Divine Word Incarnate in the flesh, God Himself, taking up our human nature and existence, coming down into our midst and walking among us, so that through His coming, He may reach out to us and embrace us truly, as His own. He came to us as God Who truly loves each and every one of us, gathering us from among the nations, and calling on us all to follow Him, turning away from our sins.

By His Transfiguration and appearance with Moses and Elijah at Mount Tabor, Christ our Lord also highlighted to us all yet again everything that He has done for our sake. Moses represented the Law of God, the Law and the Ten Commandments, and everything that God has provided to His people Israel, during the time of their Exodus from Egypt and journey to the land promised to them and their ancestors, while Elijah represented the Prophets of God, the many prophets through whom God had sent His reminders and assurances to His people, reminding them of His love and faithfulness, of the coming of His salvation, and the revelation of His love and truth. The appearance of Moses and Elijah together with the Transfigured Christ therefore affirmed us all that the Lord has truly been faithful to the Covenant that He has established with us, and He wants us all to put our complete trust and faith in Him, and follow Him.

Like Abraham in the past, and Sarah, and Jacob, who have all witnessed the Lord present in their midst and journeying with them, St. Peter, St. James and St. John who have all witnessed the Lord Transfigured before their very own eyes, have seen for themselves the love of God manifested in all of His glory. That was why, after the Lord had died, and risen in glory, and then ascended into Heaven, they together with the other Apostles and disciples of the Lord, having witnessed and received, shared and understood this same truth, they all went forth fearlessly and courageously, dedicating themselves completely to the Lord and His cause, following Him in much the same way as how Abraham trusted wholeheartedly in the Lord, and all of us have also received this same truth passed down to us through the Church of God.

Those three disciples obeyed and listened to the Lord, despite having initially wanted to stay on that mountain with the Lord, in that blissful glory, with Moses and Elijah. We must understand that this request as mentioned by St. Peter was likely made because if they were to stay there in that blissful place, then they could enjoy being there and away from the hardships of the struggles and trials that they had to endure in following the path of the Lord. But God reminded all of them to listen to His Son, and to follow Him. The Lord Himself could very well have stayed there, in a great moment of blissful glory, revealing for a moment, His true glorious nature. He did not need to endure sufferings and hardships, persecution, humiliation and pain, and if we recall the Gospel passage from the last Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, that was exactly the intent of the devil too when he tried to tempt the Lord to give in to the many temptations he presented to Him.

Yet, all those things did not prevail as the Lord showed us all true obedience, and as the Son of Man, He shows us all mankind, how to be truly obedient to God, to listen to Him and follow Him wholeheartedly, as He Himself showed by His coming down from Mount Tabor, ready to go forth to His Passion, His suffering and death in Jerusalem, to be betrayed by one of His own disciples, to be rejected by His own people and the chief priests, condemned to death and blamed for mistakes and sins that were not His own. The Lord our Saviour obeyed His Father’s will so perfectly that He offered Himself for our own behalf, and from that, gained for all of us the promise and assurance of eternal life. He showed all of us the perfect example of perfect and most selfless love, and showed us that trusting in Him and putting our faith in Him is indeed something that we should do, because He Himself has given us His promises, not just in mere words, but He truly showed us all these in person.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to this Sunday’s Scripture passages and reflect upon them, let us all be truly touched by the Lord and be inspired by Him and His own examples, and also the examples of our holy predecessors, who had followed the Lord and answered His call. Let us also follow the Lord in our own way, and listen to Him calling on us to follow Him, and discern carefully our path in life so that, in whatever it is that the Lord had led us towards, we may indeed be able to commit ourselves fully to His path, and strive our best to walk in that path throughout our lives, so that our lives may truly be worthy of Him, and our deeds and actions may truly reflect who we are, that is God’s holy and beloved people, as Christians, called to be the disiples of the Lord and as the beacons of His light and truth in our communities today.

May this season of Lent be a time for us to recommit ourselves to the Lord once again, turning ourselves away from the many temptations of the world all around us, and spend more time with God in prayer and by other means, so that we may come to know fully what God truly wants us to do, and what He has called upon us to do as well. Let us do our best to make use of the time and opportunities that had been given to us to draw ever closer to God and to know Him more. May God bless us all and guide us through this season of Lent so that we may be able to resist the many temptations all around us, and be ever more faithful and better role models and inspirations in faith in all of our actions and deeds, throughout our lives. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 February 2023 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday is the First Sunday of Lent, the first of the five Sundays of the season of Lent before we enter into the Holy Week, as we all prepare ourselves for the coming of the great mystery of the Passion of the Lord and all of His saving works, and the glorious celebration at Easter. On this Sunday we are all brought to the very beginning of how sin came into us and led us all into corruption and our downfall, so that hopefully we may realise just how dangerous and terrible sin can be, and why we have to remain vigilant and careful throughout our lives such that we do not end up falling down the slippery path towards damnation because of us being tempted to sin. It is quite easy for us to fall into sin unless we remain strong in our conviction and faith in the Lord, as how it had happened to many of our predecessors. And this is why we need to make good use of this season of Lent to remind ourselves to be more faithful and committed to God, resisting the temptations of sin.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis the story of how the first mankind fell into sin, that is of Adam and Eve, the ones whom God created in the beginning of time. God created mankind after He had created the whole universe and existence, and prepared everything all well and good, crafting man in His own image. God made everything to be all good and perfect, and He intended for us to enjoy forever the happiness, bliss and joy of our existence, full of grace and love for God, for eternity. That is what why we had been created, to share in the love of God, and to enjoy the blissful existence in Eden as our ancestors had once enjoyed. Yet, unfortunately they fell into sin because they chose to listen to the sweet lies and falsehoods of Satan rather than to trust in the Lord and His love.

Satan tempted Adam and Eve by playing into their desires, their curiosity for knowledge and understanding, their willingness to try out new things and to experience what it may be like to know good and evil like how God Himself is all-knowing. Yet, it was by their disobedience against God that they allowed sin to enter into their hearts and minds, corrupting them and their descendants henceforth, and because of that, we have to wander off in the hardships of this world, away from the fullness of God’s grace and love. This is because sin and wickedness have no place before God and His perfection, His all good nature. Sin has therefore held dominion over us all ever since then right up to the moment when the Lord sent us His salvation, through none other than Jesus Christ, His own beloved and only begotten Son. Through Christ, all of us have seen, witnessed and received the perfect manifestation of God’s love.

The fact is that God truly loves each one of us, brothers and sisters in Christ. He could have crushed and destroyed us easily for our disobedience and wickedness, but He chose to be patient with us, reaching out to us with genuine love and compassionate mercy. He gave us His beloved Son because through Him, we are going to be led out of the darkness of sin into the eternal life and justification in God. This is what St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Rome has spoken about, as he highlighted to them all how sin had entered into this world through the first man, but then, God gave us the gift of His only begotten Son, to come into our world and becoming Man like us, as the Son of Man, so that by the perfect example of His obedience to the will of His heavenly Father, He may lead us all into the right path towards full reconciliation and reunion with the Lord, our loving Father Who loves each and every one of us, without exception.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, St. Paul clearly highlighted the comparison and difference between what Adam, the first man had done, in listening to Satan instead of listening to God, choosing to obey the words of Satan together with that of his wife Eve, so that they ended up disobeying God and doing what the Lord had forbidden them to do, with Jesus Christ, Whom St. Paul mentioned sometimes as the New Adam, the New Man, through Whom He showed us all the example of perfect obedience to the will of God. Our Lord Jesus obeyed the Father’s will so perfectly and well, that He obeyed even when He had to bear the burden of His Cross, that is the multitudes of our many and innumerable sins, evils and wickedness, our faults and corruptions, all of which should have led us to our deaths and destructions. Yet, by His great and ever patient and enduring love, God Himself has willingly done all He could for us, so that by His most loving and selfless sacrifice on the Cross, He could save us from our fated destruction.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard how the Lord Jesus Himself was tempted by Satan after He was baptised in the River Jordan by St. John the Baptist, at the beginning of His ministry in this world. In this quite well known story, at that time, the Lord Jesus went through a period of forty days of physical fasting and spiritual exercise in the wilderness and desert, where Satan came to Him and tried not just once but three times to tempt Him to stop His work and mission in this world, by offering Him the same kind of persuasions and temptations that He had once tempted our ancestors with. Satan struck with all of his persuasions, tempting the Lord with all sorts of the most dangerous temptations, by first striking at Him with the satisfaction of the flesh through food, and pride, and yet again another one through hubris, ego and pride, and finally the greed and desire for worldly glory and fame.

Satan tempted Adam and Eve with the allure of knowledge and greatness, so that by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, expressly prohibited by God, they could become equal like God, to be like God in His might and knowledge, tempting them with glory, power and knowledge, among others, which moved them to disobey the Lord and choose to walk their own rebellious path as Satan himself had done before them, instead of trusting in God and His providence. But this failed to tempt the Lord, Who as the Son of Man, the New Adam, showed us the perfect example of great obedience as He obeyed His Father’s will, and refused to bend to the demands of Satan, or even paying attention or any heed to his falsehoods, his sweet lies and wicked words. He refuted Satan’s claims and lies, and spoke courageously of the truth that He Himself has brought into this world.

When Satan tried to highlight to the Lord that He is the Son of God in order to make Him to be swayed by pride and ego, to do something for His own selfish gain and benefit, by turning the stones into bread to nourish Himself, the Lord rebuked Satan and rejected his effort in tempting Him, by saying that mankind do not live and survive on bread alone, but on every words that come from the Lord. Instead of doing something for the sake of His own benefit, the Lord chose to do what is most unconventional, and that is to do what He had done for everyone’s sake, in giving Himself to them all. Instead of turning the stones into bread for His own consumption, He, Who is the Bread of Life, chose to be broken Himself, and to offer Himself for everyone, in a most selfless sacrifice and offering of love, for the salvation of the whole world.

And when Satan brought the Lord over to the top of the Temple of Jerusalem, telling Him using the phrases from the Scriptures to try to trick Him and to make Him be swayed by the fame and glory that he offered, the Lord told Satan off once again, that one should not put the Lord to the test, which is an important reminder for each and every one of us not to lose faith in the Lord and His providence. Instead, we have to keep our faith in Him and put our focus on Him, and not to indulge in the desire to be seen or to be praised for our actions. Everything we do in our lives, all of them should indeed be to glorify the Lord by our own exemplary life and works, which should be in accordance to the will of God. We should not seek to be selfish and pursuing personal glory and satisfaction over our obedience and faith in God, and also our love for one another.

Lastly, the Lord also rebuked Satan when he showed Him the whole vastness of the wealth and the greatness of the world, as the latter desperately tried to bring the Lord to succumb to the temptations of worldly glory and riches, to no avail. The Lord told Satan off and rebuked him hard with the words that the Lord alone is worthy and ought to be worshipped, and not Satan. This last effort from Satan that was greatly rebuffed by the Lord struck at the very core of Satan’s own rebellion against God, as he aspired to ascend even the Throne of God and become the ruler over all of Creation. Essentially, the Lord proclaimed to Satan that in the end, the justice and goodness of the Lord will triumph over him, and that the faith in the Lord alone will lead us mankind to salvation through the same Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. Meanwhile, Satan and all those who choose to side with him will be crushed and destroyed.

That is why, each and every one of us are reminded today at the early beginning of this season of Lent, that we must not allow ourselves to be swayed by the lies and false promises of Satan and all other tempters and those sent to convince us to abandon our path and journey towards the Lord. We have to be ever vigilant and not allow ourselves to be twisted and corrupted by our own pride, ego, arrogance, hubris, desires and greed, jealousy, lust and other things by which we often encounter serious obstacles in our journey of faith towards the Lord. We must follow the examples shown by Our Lord Himself, as well as the innumerable saints and martyrs, our holy predecessors, those holy men and women who have resisted the temptations to sin, the temptation of worldly glory, fame and ambition in our hearts and minds.

During this season of Lent, all of us are called and reminded to deepen our relationship with God through the three pillars of Lent, that we all should be well aware of. These three pillars are that of prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and our whole season of Lent should be filled with them. Not only that, but when we carry out those actions and fulfil what we have been recommended to do during this solemn period of Lent, we should do them with the right intention and purpose, that is to bring ourselves closer to God and to restrain the many temptations from outside and within us, so that hopefully we may come ever closer to God and His salvation, and distance ourselves from Satan and all those who seek nothing else but our destruction and damnation. We should make good use of whatever opportunities and time provided to us, and do what we can to live our lives worthily of the Lord.

We must of course have a good and vibrant prayerful life, as for Christians, it is inconceivable for us not to spend any time in prayer. But our prayers must also not be one that is merely reciting and saying words, as we should use prayer as how it is intended to be, for us to communicate with the Lord. All of us may come to deeper appreciation of God’s love and actions through our interactions and time spent with Him in prayer and through our other means of reaching out to Him. And when we fast, we should do so because we want to restrain the temptations of our flesh, which can be indeed weak in the face of relentless attacks and temptations present all around us. We should not fast because we seek renown or praise for our actions, but rather we fast because we have that genuine and strong desire to distance ourselves from sin and come closer to God and His merciful love.

We should also be ever more generous, in almsgiving, that is in giving whatever we can spare for all those around us who are less fortunate than us. And almsgiving should not just be limited to material giving, but rather, should also include our time and attention, our love and care in particular for all those who are less fortunate and unloved, all around us. During this time of Lent, each and every one of us are reminded to sharpen the side of our humility and faith, deepening our relationship with God through charity and love, while at the same time rejecting Satan and all of his false promises and lies, and resist the many temptations all around us to commit what is sinful against the Lord. We are all called to be ever more faithful to God and to be good and worthy role models in our faith, inspiring many others to follow in our footsteps as well.

May God be with us always and may He empower us all throughout this Lenten season so that we may continue to serve Him and to walk in His presence, now and always. May God bless us all in our every good works, efforts and endeavours for His greater glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 February 2023 : Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in this Sunday, which marks the last Sunday before the beginning of the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday just this coming Wednesday, all of us are reminded to be holy and loving, to be filled with all righteousness, virtues, goodness and justice so that we may truly become worthy disciples, followers and children of our Lord and God. We are all reminded that as Christians, as God’s followers and people, all of us are expected and called to be His holy people, as the ones to be the examples and beacons of His light and truth in this world, and this call is truly timely and right for us at this moment, just as we are about to enter into this holy season of Lent in preparation for the most solemn and joyful celebration of the Holy Week and Easter.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Leviticus in which God spoke to His people, the Israelites, reminding all of them of the obligations that each and every one of them have as His people, in doing His will and obeying His Law and commandments, in being holy and devout people, that are truly worthy of being called His children and His flock, as the people whom He had rescued by His own hands from their enslavement in Egypt. God reminded all of His people that they all have to be righteous, virtuous, holy and good just as He is holy, or else, if they did not do so, they would scandalise their faith and the Lord Himself. He told them all to be loving to one another as well, which is essentially doing what He has decreed and taught them through His Law and commandments.

Then, in our second reading passage today from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, we heard of the call of the Apostle telling all the faithful to keep themselves holy and truly worthy of the Lord, echoing what the Lord Himself had told Moses in the Book of Leviticus. St. Paul told the faithful and hence to all of us that we have to keep in mind that we are all Temple of the Lord’s Holy Presence, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and thus because we are the dwelling place of the Almighty and Most Holy God Himself, we must not defile this Temple that is our body, mind, heart and soul, our whole being with wickedness of sins and our unworthy actions, words and deeds that bring about scandal to our faith and lives as good and dedicated Christians.

Contextually, we must understand that the Temple of God is a most holy and sacrosanct place where God Himself dwelled, His Presence coming down from His Heavenly Throne to be with us all His people. In the earliest days, during the time of the Exodus from Egypt, the Israelites built the Holy Tent of Meeting as the centre of their entire community, and it was upon the Holy Tent that God’s very own Holy Presence descended upon, to the Ark of the Covenant placed inside the Holy of Holies within the Holy Tent, with God Himself seated upon the Cherubim atop the Ark of the Covenant. The Holy Tent and especially the Holy of Holies was considered so holy only those who were allowed could be permitted entry, and like the later Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem, the House of God, even the High Priest was only permitted to enter the Holy of Holies only during one solemn occasion in the whole entire year.

Similarly, the Ark of the Covenant was also considered so holy and sacrosanct that touching it is considered taboo, and in fact, an incident happened earlier on in the Scriptures where a priest of the Lord died on the spot the moment he touched the Ark upon trying to hold it and prevent it from slipping and falling down to the ground as it was being transported by King David to Jerusalem. The point that I want to highlight here is that, the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy of Holies of the House of God, where historically God’s Holy Presence resided, were all considered so holy and sacrosanct that no imperfections, wickedness and sin can or should ever be in its presence and place. How is it related to us all then, as the aforementioned Temple of the Holy Spirit, as the Temple of God’s Holy Presence?

Each one of us have received the Lord Himself, wholly in the flesh, in His own Most Precious Body and Blood that He has given us all most generously and lovingly in the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, that He has instituted Himself at the Last Supper, and passed down to us through His Apostles and other disciples, through their successors in the Church, right up to our Pope, bishops and priests, all those who have been given the faculty and the authority and power, in their role as Alter Christus, in offering the same gifts that the Lord Himself has offered, and turned the bread and wine into the very essence, reality and Holy Presence of God, in the Most Precious Body and Blood, the Most Holy Eucharist that we all have partaken and received.

As we believe that the Lord Himself has come into our midst and dwelled within us through the Eucharist, which is not just mere symbol or reminder, but real Body and Blood of Our Lord, hence, how can we not then endeavour to keep ourselves holy, blameless and spotless just as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies of the House of God were kept holy and sacrosanct? In addition, as St. Paul mentioned, we are also the Temple of the Holy Spirit, as the Holy Spirit has also come upon us through the Church, since the day of the Pentecost right up to now, as all of us who have received the Sacrament of Baptism has also received the Holy Spirit from the Lord Himself, and for all of us who have received the Sacrament of Confirmation, this gift of the Holy Spirit has been further reaffirmed and strengthened in us all.

That is why as Christians, all of us must do what we can to keep our lives holy and worthy of the Lord, distancing ourselves from sin and wickedness of the world, from the excesses of worldly desires and ambitions, and from the corrupting nature of sin. We must resist the temptations of sin, and do what we can to help and inspire one another to continue keeping our beings, the Temples of God’s Holy Presence, good and worthy of Him. How do we do this, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is by heeding what we have heard from the Gospel passage today, in which the Lord highlighted to all of His disciples and hence to all of us, what it truly means to become one of His disciples and followers, to be truly filled with love of God, and the righteousness and virtues that He has taught us all.

As we heard from our Gospel passage today, what is important for us as Christians to do with our lives is essentially to love, to be filled with God’s love, which in itself is already obeying God’s Law and commandments. The Lord Jesus Himself in another occasion, before the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had summarised the Law as a whole into two main commandments, that is to love God first and foremost with all of our hearts and strength, and then to love our fellow brothers and sisters in the same way, just as much as we love ourselves. It is our Christian calling and vocation for all of us to be always grounded in love, in our every words, actions and deeds, so that by our love everyone may truly know God’s love and that we truly belong to the Lord, and hopefully more and more people may be inspired to follow our examples and believe in the Lord as well.

We have to love sincerely and generously, and as the Lord mentioned in our Gospel passage today, we should not just love because there is something in it for us, or that we stand to benefit from loving that person, as that kind of love is not the kind of true, Christian love that we are called to show. We have to show what the Lord Himself has shown us by His own examples, that in loving us all so greatly, all of us who have often hurt and betrayed Him, abandoned Him and rebelled against Him, He chose to willingly embrace His Cross, bearing upon Himself the whole burden of the innumerable sins of the world, of all mankind, past, present and future, so that by loving us that way, He may bring us all to eternal life. Christ Himself has shown us how we ought to live our lives with genuine Christian love, as He Himself had done, and now, the question is, what are we going to do then, brothers and sisters?

Let us all therefore embark on a new journey of faith, and renew our conviction to remain faithful to God, as we are about to enter into the season of Lent this Wednesday with the Ash Wednesday. Let us all renew our conviction to love the Lord wholeheartedly once again, and with the resolve to love one another most generously, forgiving those who have hurt or pained us, and helping one another to grow ever stronger in faith, by living our own lives most worthily and by doing what God has taught and shown us all to do. Let us all make good use of whatever time and opportunities that God has given us all, and do our best to make our whole beings truly worthy and holy Temples of His Holy Presence, not just for this upcoming Lent, Holy Week and Easter, but for the rest of our lives, till the day we encounter the Lord once again in His heavenly abode. May God bless us all and be with us always in our journey of faith and life, now and forevermore. Amen.