Sunday Mass homily

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Sunday, 28 August 2022 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded of the need for all of us as Christians, as God’s people to be full of humility and virtues, and not to be prideful and arrogant. We are all called to open our hearts and minds to the Lord and allow Him to guide our path. We should not allow our ego and pride to mislead us down the wrong path. We must always remind ourselves that we exist by the grace of God and everything we do, are ultimately to glorify God and to serve Him.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Sirach, on the matter of humility before God and how the faithful should act and behave in this world, with humility and obedience to God, and not to be filled with ambition or self-aggrandising attitudes. As Christians, all of us are challenged to put aside the temptations of greed and pride, of the many allures of worldly pleasures, power, glory, fame and human praises. This is of course easier said than done, as temptations will always be abound in trying to steer us away from the path of God’s righteousness and into the path of selfishness and wickedness.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord speaking to His disciples and the guests regarding how some of the Pharisees were seeking the most important places on the dinner table, as with other events and gatherings. The Lord highlighted that we should not do such things, and should not seek the pride of honour, desire renown and compete for prestige and honour with each other, or indulge on our status, our privileges and other things which can lead us down the slippery path into sin and damnation. That is because pride and ego, desire and greed can easily lead us into doing things for our own selfish aims and purposes.

Contextually, we should understand that the Pharisees and the other respected members of the community were at the apex of the Jewish society, together with the king and his nobles. The Pharisees were greatly respected as well as feared because of their great intellectual abilities, being those among the few who were educated and had the knowledge and understanding of the Torah or the Hebrew Scriptures. They were also the ones who were entrusted with the maintenance and preservation of the Law of God as passed down from the time of Moses through the generations, adopting an especially strict interpretation of the Law.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law often made a show of their piety and faith by praying openly and loudly in the public places, wearing their wide prayer shawls and showing their obedience to the Law, while at the same time also shunning and criticising those whom they deemed to be less than worthy than they were, which in this case was essentially everyone else besides them, and in particular, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the people who were possessed with evil spirits and who suffered from illnesses and sickness, from various conditions and maladies. Those people were viewed with disdain and even open hostility from the same Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

While not all of the Pharisees were living their lives in that manner, but quite a number of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had the same attitude towards their faith. They focused more on appearances and external applications of the Law, and misused their privileged positions among the community in order to advance their own egoistic aims and ambitions. They thought that their righteousness and their piety made them to deserve the grace and salvation, honour and praise from God and man alike, but they had forgotten that everyone is equal before God, and their attitude, their boastfulness and their hardline attitude in fact turned people away from the faith and made it difficult for some to come back towards the Lord.

In our second reading today, from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we heard of the words of the author of this Epistle that all of us the faithful have been called to come into the presence of God Most High, Who through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, have formed a New Covenant with us mankind, with Christ as the Mediator of this New Covenant. It is by God’s grace that we have received His pardon, His mercy, His compassionate love and care. It is through the works of His Son, that by His suffering and death on the Cross, by which we mankind have been made partakers of the New Covenant He has established with us, that will last forever.

What this highlights is that, while all of us have to be active in living our lives with concrete actions, with efforts based on our faith, but we do not justify ourselves based on those works and deeds alone. It is God working through us, as we carry out His will and as we do our actions in this life that allow us to come to the grace of God and become worthy of Him. Without God, and without His love and providence, and without faith, then all of our actions are empty and meaningless. Like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, while they were outwardly pious and faithful, but as the Lord Himself pointed out, that their hearts were not filled with the love for God, but with love for themselves and their pride and ego.

That is why, on this Sunday, all of us are reminded through all these passages from the Sacred Scriptures, that we should always be vigilant and be careful with the temptations of our desires, our pride and ego, all of which can mislead us down the wrong path, in causing us to do things that are contrary to the will of God. Each one of us should always strive to remain focused on the Lord and remind ourselves of what we have been called to do as God’s followers and disciples. We have to restrain the temptations of our flesh, the desire for pleasures and for false happiness and other temptations that are aplenty all around us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us always strive to be humble and to do God’s will in each and every one of our actions, making good use of whatever opportunities that He has given each one of us so that we will not end up falling into temptation, or falter in our journey towards Him because we end up doing things to satisfy our selfish wants and desires first instead of doing what God wants us to do. And the more responsibilities we have, the greater the position we have in life, in whatever achievement we gained, in whatever honour we receive, let us not allow our pride and ego to overcome us as they had done to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

Instead, as the Lord had reminded us through the Scriptures, the greater we are, the humbler we should become, and there is no greater example for that than the Lord Himself, the Mediator of the New Covenant, Who although is the Almighty, All-Powerful God, willingly humbled and emptied Himself of His infinite glory, to be stripped and to be scourged, punished and broken for our sake, as He laid suffering and dying on the Cross. The Lord’s most loving sacrifice on the Cross is truly a reminder for us, of the virtue of Christian humility which the Lord Himself had shown us. At the Last Supper, the Lord has also washed His disciples’ feet, and told them to do the same as He had done, reminding us that as Christians, as God’s followers, we have to put God and others ahead of ourselves.

Let us all therefore do our best to live our lives with Christian virtues, particularly that of humility, so that we may draw ever closer to God and also be inspiration for one another, in striving to live our lives more worthily for God and His glory. May all of us distance ourselves from the dangerous temptations of pride and greed, excise from us that pride and greed, that ego and ambition, and instead, serve the Lord humbly at all times, and do our best to glorify God by our lives at each and every opportunities. Amen.

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Sunday, 21 August 2022 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we are all presented through the readings from the Sacred Scriptures, the Lord reminds us of His ever patient and amazing love, in gathering all of us His scattered and spread all throughout the world. All of us are God’s beloved people, His children whom He treats as His precious ones. He wants to be reunited and reconciled with us, and hence He called on us all to follow Him, and He also corrects us whenever we erred and made mistakes. He gave us help along the way and He sent us His messengers and servants, through His Church to guide us down the right path.

In our first reading today taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard the Lord mentioning to Isaiah how He would call His people from among the nations, from the foreign lands far and distant from the land of Israel, from the different nations and origins, and the Lord also mentioned how He would even call His priests and the Levites from among the people of those nations. This is a premonition of God’s calling which He made to all the nations, to all the people of all races and origins, that His people and kingdom is no longer limited to just the descendants of the Israelites, but extending to the whole entire world.

The Lord had indeed called the direct descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the people of Israel to be the ones to form His first people, a first gathering of God’s nation among the others in this world. To them, God has given His Law and commandments, and He established and renewed the Covenant which He had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their forefathers. But the people of Israel had often disobeyed the Lord and refused to believe in Him, abandoning and betraying Him for the pagan gods and idols, or for the service of the worldly desires and temptations, in selling their souls for worldly glory and pleasures.

Hence, what the Lord spoke through the prophet Isaiah was significant because He revealed to all the people His true intention, which is to save all the sons and daughters of man, a promise which He had made from the very beginning, from the time when man first fell into sin. The same calling which He made to the people of Israel, has now been extended to the whole entire world, to all the sons and daughters of mankind, regardless of their race or origin, regardless of their birth and ancestry, or of their status and occupations. All the children of mankind are equally beloved by God just as He had created them all in the beginning with pure and perfect love.

He called on all the people of the whole world just as our Gospel passage today highlighted to us. In that passage, we heard how the Lord said that entering into His kingdom is truly not a really easy feat unlike what some might have otherwise thought. That is why the Lord reminded all of His disciples through that teaching and revelation, how entering into the kingdom of heaven will require one to make the effort and the sacrifices to resist the temptations of worldly glory, ambition and the pleasures of the world, all of which can lead us down the wrong path.

From what the Lord had told His disciples, it was quite obvious that the path to enter into the kingdom of God and hence into the eternal life and joy with Him will be a rather difficult and challenging one. And in the context of what happened at that time, during the time of Jesus, there were those who thought that they were saved simply because they belonged to the race of the descendants of the Israelites and therefore claimed privilege through their descent and blood. However, they had not listened to the Lord or obeyed His commandments, and refused to receive Him or His truth, when He came into their midst. Those people would not enjoy the salvation that is reserved only to those whom God finds to be worthy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we listened to these words of reminders for us, let us all first and foremost remember that all of us have received the same privilege to come to the Lord and to return to Him, to be reconciled with Him because He has always been welcoming to all of us, and He has called us all to be His beloved people. As part of His Church, through our baptism each one of us have been made sharers in His kingdom and grace, and we have received the revelation of His truth and love in greater details, and not only that, but we also have the responsibility and the calling to live our lives in a most Christian manner each day and at all times.

All of us must remember that in the end, our every actions and deeds, our contributions and commitments, whether great or small will be held for us or against us. Our every lack and failure to act whenever we are able to, will also be held against us on the Day of Judgment, and in the end, those who are righteous and faithful will receive the fullness of God’s promises and the eternal life and glory that will be ours forever, while those who fail to be faithful and continue to walk in the path of sin will fall into eternal damnation and suffering unless we change our ways for the better.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded that we cannot take our faith for granted and we have to make the effort to be faithful to God, in real and concrete actions and not just through mere lip service only. We have to be genuinely faithful and active in living out our Christian lives so that in all things we will always ever be worthy, and we will draw ever closer to God, to His grace and love. God has always patiently extended His loving hands to us, to reach out to us and embrace us, and it is really now up to us to accept His generous and compassionate mercy, and it is up to us to make a commitment to follow Him.

May the Lord, our most loving God, continue to guide us all and bless us in our every endeavours, our every good works and efforts to serve Him and to glorify Him by our lives. May our lives and actions be ever exemplary and bring inspiration to each other so that we may strengthen and inspire each other to walk ever more faithfully in God’s presence, distancing ourselves from sin and from the temptations to sin. May God be with us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Monday, 15 August 2022 : Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate together the great Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God. The Assumption of Mary refers to the moment when she was taken up body and soul into Heaven, as she came to the end of her existence here in this world, and went to be reunited with her beloved Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. The Church has always held the belief and tradition that Mary, by God’s grace, did not suffer the lasting effect of death, and while she did die, but her Son took her up very soon after into His Presence in Heaven.

According to Apostolic tradition, as Mary loved her Son so much, after having lived several more years past the time of her Son’s Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven, the great love that Mary had for her Son led her to experience death, sharing the same death that her Son experienced for our sake. And when the time came for her to say goodbye to this world, the Apostles were gathered and asked for Mary’s last blessing, and she entered a sleep of death, and she was placed in the tomb. One tradition stated that because St. Thomas, one of the Apostles could not be there to see Mary one last time, he demanded to see the Mother of God one last time.

When the Apostles and the other assembled disciples opened her tomb, they were all surprised to find that not only that there was no trace of decomposition, but the body of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God herself had disappeared, replaced by a bed of roses. It was evident to all then that because her Son had been triumphant over sin and death, He would not have let her to experience the degradation of death, and took her up into Heaven, body and soul. And that is the story of how the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and its equivalent in the Eastern Churches, the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin came to be.

The belief in the Assumption comes logically as Mary, the Mother of God is the Mother of the Lord and Saviour of the world, Who had triumphed over sin and death, and as our second reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians had highlighted to us, Christ, Mary’s Son, has conquered and triumphed over death. Sin and death had both been conquered and crushed by the Lord, through His glorious Resurrection. How can it be that Christ saved the world but did not save His own Mother? Surely because of His great love for her, He would have led her away from death and would not allow her to suffer from it? That He Who raised Lazarus and the daughter of the synagogue official could definitely have raised His own Mother to a new life with Him too?

And not only that, but as Mary herself has borne the Lord and Saviour of the world, as highlighted in St. John’s heavenly vision of the end times in the Book of Revelations, our first reading today, and from the account of St. Luke’s Gospel on the Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth, Mary as the one who bore the Lord Himself inside her womb was hallowed and full of grace, free from sin throughout her life, right from the moment of her conception. This is the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which stated that Mary, by the singular grace of God, had been preserved from the taint of original sin, and full of God’s grace, she remained immaculate and pure throughout her life.

That is essential because the Lord’s Presence could have not tolerated the taint of sin, and as He were to spend the time in the womb of Mary, hence, He could not have been borne through a body tainted by sin. And because Mary was without original sin, and also remained pure and full of grace, free from any sin throughout her life, she did not deserve death at all, because death is the natural consequence of sin. Since Mary did not sin, she could not have been made subject to the punishment due to sin, which is death. That is why the Church believes that Mary was taken up body and soul into Heaven, as was right and just for her, and also based on the testimony of the Apostles who witnessed it all.

Then, the Assumption should also not be confused with the Ascension, as the Assumption refers to the moment when Mary was taken up into Heaven by the will of God, by the power of her Son, taking her up body and soul into Heaven to be by His side, while the Ascension refers to the moment when the Lord Himself, the Son of God, by His own power and will, ascended into Heaven to return to His Throne and rightful place. There now the Lord reigns over us, with His mother Mary by His side, and her always interceding and praying for our sake. She has always watched over us all these while, and has always shown concern over us, falling ever so frequently again and again into sin.

Through the Assumption, first of all, we have the assurance that Mary is there in Heaven, by the side of the Lord, her own beloved Son, as our greatest ally and help in the battle against the forces of evil surrounding us and desiring our destruction. Through her constant intercession, Mary helped us all to get closer to God and helped to open the gates of God’s ever generous mercy towards us. She herself has also appeared in many well-known occasions, at Guadalupe, Lourdes, Fatima and elsewhere, calling on all the faithful children of God to turn back towards the Lord and repent from our sins.

Then, Mary’s own faith in the Lord, her commitment and total surrender to God, her willingness to follow the Lord and to obey His will completely in her life, carrying out her calling from the beginning to the end as the Mother of God, caring for her Son and loving Him, following Him even to the foot of the Cross, all these dedication should inspire each one of us in our own faith in God. Through Mary’s examples, we should be inspired to lead an ever worthy life that is full of faith and dedication to Him. We should do our very best to make sure that our every actions, words and deeds, every moments of our lives be worthy of God.

Mary’s Assumption into Heaven also gave us all a glimpse of our own fate in the end, if we choose to remain faithful to God, just as her own Son’s Transfiguration a few days ago had shown us as well. In the end of time, after the Final Judgement, all of us will rise up body and soul to be reunited with God, and to enjoy forever an eternity of true bliss and happiness. However, we have to be faithful to God and to be judged worthy of Him, or else we will end up in the eternity of suffering instead in the eternal damnation. The Lord has given us many opportunities and chances, and He has reached out to us generously with love, so that we may find our way to Him, and His blessed Mother Mary has shown us the most direct and surest path to Him.

May all of us draw ever closer to God, in each and every moments and opportunities available to us. May He empower each one of us to live ever more faithfully and with greater conviction and commitment from now on, following the examples of Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, who we remember of today in her glorious Assumption into Heaven. Holy Mary, Mother of God, gloriously assumed and taken up to Heaven, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 August 2022 : Vigil Mass of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this evening we celebrate the Vigil Mass of the glorious Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In this celebration and occasion, we are all reminded of the moment when Mary, the Blessed Mother of God was taken up body and soul into Heaven, to enjoy forever the glorious inheritance and the honour that she has been worthy of, as the Mother of God and faithful servant of the Lord, full of grace and love for God and for her Son, the Saviour of the world. Her Assumption into Heaven marks the end of her existence in this world as she entered into heavenly glory.

First of all, the Assumption does not equate to the Lord’s own Ascension into Heaven, as this is one of the most commonly misunderstood aspect of the Assumption of Mary. The difference is that while the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven by His own power and will, being the Almighty God and All-Powerful Divine Word Incarnate, Mary was assumed into Heaven by the will of God, and not by her own will or power. She was taken up or assumed into Heaven rather than ascending on her own volition and power. That is the clear difference between that of the Ascension and the Assumption that we all need to know.

Then, we may ask and wonder what the significance of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God is to us? The Assumption marks the occasion when Mary did not experience the lasting effect of death, but went on to assume her rightful place in Heaven at the side of her Son’s Throne, and she experienced that because she was first of all conceived without the taint of original sin, and according to tradition, remained free from sin throughout her life, and therefore because sin leads to death, and the latter is the consequence and punishment for sin, then sin has no hold or dominion over Mary. This is in conjunction with what we heard in our second reading from the Epistle of St. Paul to the faithful in Corinth.

Mary was conceived without original sin as the Church taught through the Dogma of Immaculate Conception, another Marian Dogma besides the Assumption itself. And this has Scriptural basis as we ourselves have heard in our first reading today from the Book of Chronicles, where King David of Israel was welcoming the Ark of the Covenant coming into the city of Jerusalem, to come to dwell with His people after having been placed in the Holy Tent of Meeting for all the years previously. That Ark of the Covenant contained the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, the Law of God passed down to Moses, as well as the staff of Aaron and the manna, the bread eaten by the Israelites during their time in the desert.

The Lord’s own Holy Presence descended onto the Ark of the Covenant, and in the Scriptures, in the Book of Exodus and others, it was mentioned how God’s Presence came and sit upon the Cherubim crafted upon the top of the Ark of the Covenant. As such, the Ark of the Covenant itself was crafted using the finest materials of this world, from precious metals and other materials, and God had also blessed and hallowed it. No one could touch the Ark of the Covenant, and even the High Priest could only come into the Holy Presence of God once a year. When a priest accidentally touched the Ark to prevent it from slipping during an earlier, unsuccessful attempt by David to move it to Jerusalem, that priest was immediately struck dead.

Then why is the comparison with the Ark of the Covenant? That is because Mary is the New Ark, of the New Covenant. As the Ark of the New Covenant, she has been hallowed, blessed and prepared by God, unique above all other of His creations, to be the most worthy vessel bearing His Holy Presence. For no taint of sin can come even close to the Sinless One, the Lord, the Divine Word Incarnate, and when He came into this world through His mother Mary, being in her womb for nine months as all other human beings have experienced, the very vessel of His entry into this world ought to be as perfect and immaculate, as Mary herself, the Immaculate Conception.

If the old Ark was so precious and treated so respectfully despite it being made and crafted by the hands of men, then all the more that Mary is hallowed and blessed beyond all, since she was made by God Himself. And when the Archangel Gabriel hailed her as ‘Full of Grace’, this also refers to Mary as being completely free from sin even throughout her life, as for her to be the bearer of the Messiah, the Son of God Himself, she has to be perfect and immaculate. What may seem to be impossible for us, is possible for God, Who willed in singular grace for Mary to be so created and maintained in a state of full of grace.

It means that Mary loved God so much and was always in state of perfection of grace, that she remained faithful completely to God and the taints of sin, of pride and worldly desires, of lust and greed and many other worldly vices had no hold over her. And because of this, as mentioned, Mary did not deserve death and neither should she succumb to it, because it would have been so ironic for the Mother of the Saviour to succumb to death when her own Son had been victorious and triumphant over death. Yet, according to tradition and agreement by Christian scholars, Mary still did die in a way, but how?

That is because, it was explained that Mary, when it was time for her to rejoin her Son in Heaven, having loved Him so much, she could not be separated from Him, and therefore, just as He had endured death temporarily, she also went through it momentarily. Apostolic traditions stated that when the appointed hour came, the Apostles were gathered and asked for Mary’s last blessing, and she entered a sleep of death, and she was placed in the tomb. One tradition stated that because St. Thomas, one of the Apostles could not be there to see Mary one last time, he demanded to see the Mother of God one last time.

When the Apostles and the other assembled disciples opened her tomb, they were all surprised to find that not only that there was no trace of decomposition, but the body of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God herself had disappeared, replaced by a bed of roses. It was evident to all then that because her Son had been triumphant over sin and death, He would not have let her to experience the degradation of death, and took her up into Heaven, body and soul. And that is the story of how the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and its equivalent in the Eastern Churches, the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin came to be.

The Assumption matters to all of us because first of all, now that Mary is in Heaven by her Son’s side, she became our greatest help and intercessor, constantly praying for us, her adopted children, for us all sinners who are still separated from her and her Son. The Assumption gave us the hope that through the Mother of God, assumed into Heaven, we may have the sure way towards the Lord and His salvation, by following Mary and her examples, and through her constant intercessions. She has always showed her maternal care to us, and it has been evident in multiple occasions how she appeared in various instances to different people, calling on us to repent from our sins and to return to God.

Then, not only that, Mary’s Assumption into Heaven also gave us all a glimpse of our own fate in the end, if we choose to remain faithful to God, just as her own Son’s Transfiguration a few days ago had shown us as well. In the end of time, after the Final Judgement, all of us will rise up body and soul to be reunited with God, and to enjoy forever an eternity of true bliss and happiness. However, we have to be faithful to God and to be judged worthy of Him, or else we will end up in the eternity of suffering instead in the eternal damnation. The Lord has given us many opportunities and chances, and He has reached out to us generously with love, so that we may find our way to Him, and His blessed Mother Mary has shown us the most direct and surest path to Him.

May all of us draw ever closer to God, in each and every moments and opportunities available to us. May He empower each one of us to live ever more faithfully and with greater conviction and commitment from now on, following the examples of Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, who we remember of today in her glorious Assumption into Heaven. Holy Mary, Mother of God, gloriously assumed and taken up to Heaven, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 August 2022 : Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday after we have heard all of our readings and passages from the Sacred Scriptures, it is clear that the message the Lord has given us through His Church is that, all of us as Christians must remember that being the followers of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, is something that is not trivial and which will often require from us time, effort, commitment and even the willingness to suffer and to endure persecution in the midst of us living our lives with faith. Persecution has been part and parcel of the lives of many Christians from the very beginning, and that is true even right to this very day.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah detailing to us what happened to the prophet as he was almost brought to death’s door as his many enemies, the officials of the kingdom of Judah, rose up against him and demanded the king to punish him to death for all that he had said and done in delivering the words of God’s truth, but which his enemies used as accusations to persecute him and to remove him, using accusations such as him being a traitor to the nation and to the people for his works, so that he would be put to death. It was then that the king told the men that they could do all they wanted to Jeremiah.

Contextually, Jeremiah brought God’s words to the remnants of Judah, who was then rebelling against the rule of the king of Babylon. Jeremiah warned the people of the impending destruction of Judah and Jerusalem, the city and its Temple, and how many of them would be brought into exile far away from their ancestral lands. All those things were due to the people’s own disobedience against God, their stubbornness in refusing to listen to Him and to the prophets and messengers whom God had sent to them to remind them of their obligation to follow the Law. They had closed their hearts and minds from God and refused to listen to His call.

But Jeremiah had help from God, as He sent some who were sympathetic to Jeremiah and his cause, and helped him to get out from the cistern in which the enemies of Jeremiah had hoped that the prophet would die from drowning and hunger. Not only that, one of them would also house and protect Jeremiah, even as the whole kingdom and city eventually fell just as Jeremiah himself had prophesied, and protected him from harm’s way. Nonetheless, we have heard just how terrible was the persecution and the challenges that Jeremiah had to endure in the midst of his ministry and work.

In our second reading today from the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author of this Epistle spoke of how many of the witnesses of the Lord and His truth had suffered because of what they believed in, and the author also encouraged all of them by telling them to look upon the Lord Jesus, their Lord and Saviour, Who has suffered Himself as He faced rejection and persecution from the world, from His enemies and from all those who refused to listen to Him. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorted all of his target audience to be faithful and strong in enduring those challenges and trials, remembering how the Lord Himself suffered, and how they were all suffering the same thing together with the Lord. They were not alone in their suffering.

There had been many saints and martyrs, most prominently during the early days, weeks, years, decades and centuries in the history of the Church, when the Church and the faithful were still facing a lot of hardships, having to proclaim the truth of Christ, His Gospels and the Good News of His salvation against the various oppositions and hurdles from firstly the Jewish authorities, the members of the Sanhedrin composed of the Pharisees, the Sadducees and other most influential members of the Jewish community, many of whom were against the Lord Jesus and His teachings. There had been many early persecution against Christians by the Jewish authorities, and before his conversion, St. Paul the Apostle as Saul was one of the leaders of these bitter and harsh persecutions.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard from the Lord Jesus Himself, how He revealed before His own disciples that becoming His followers would not mean having good and peaceful lives. Instead, His teachings and truths would more likely than not bring about hardships and challenges, divisions and misunderstandings to arise even between close family members, relatives and friends. The Lord highlighted that fact, saying how family members would even rise against each other just because of their differences in opinion regarding the Lord and His truth. This would in fact presage how quite a few of the martyrs came to be because they were persecuted by the members of their own families, for refusing to abandon their faith in God.

That is the reality for us as Christians, as the followers of Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in following Him and dedicating ourselves to Him. Our Christian faith and truth often come at odds against the acceptable norms and practices of the world, not only back then during the early years of the Church, but also even throughout history right up to this very day. There are still areas and parts of the world where believing in God and to be Christians may mean great sufferings and even high chance of death, from persecution and other reasons. We must never take our faith for granted, especially if we live in places where being Christians are acceptable and comfortable, or where everyone are Christians.

The Lord has revealed to us that more often than not being Christians require us to make a stand, and even at times we may have to go against those who are closest to us. But that is the reality and nature of the world, as not everyone readily accepts the Lord as their Saviour and King, while others may also be more lukewarm in their faith, accepting the ways of the world and as a result, also find our way of living our faith through life to be incompatible and unsuitable. Frictions and difficulties, disagreements and divisions are often then unavoidable, at times even when we have tried to avoid that from happening.

That is why this Sunday as we listened to these readings from the Scriptures, all of us are invited to reflect and discern on our lives as Christians. Have we as Christians been truly faithful and dedicated to God as we should have? And have we lived our lives in accordance to the Law and commandments that God has revealed and given to us through His Church and His servants? If we have lived our lives more in conformation to the world’s expectations and ways, then perhaps it is time for us to reassess the way how we lived our lives so that we may grow to be better and more committed Christians.

Let us all also keep in mind all of our fellow brothers and sisters who are suffering just because of their faith in God. May their courage and commitment to God just as what the saints and martyrs had shown us, continue to inspire us to live our lives ever more worthily in God’s path. Let us all remind one another that God is and will always be with us, His faithful servants, by our side at all times that we may be strengthened and inspired to do more for the glory of God. May all of our actions, words and deeds also always therefore be exemplary, that we may strengthen one another in faith, and perhaps even inspire more people to come to believe in God. Each and every one of us also share the same mission and expectation as God’s followers and disciples to proclaim Him and His truth to the people of all the nations.

May the Lord therefore continue to guide us and bless us, and may He strengthen and encourage us in faith that we may always be faithful to Him to the very end. May He bless our every works and good efforts, and our every dedication to His cause. Let us all strive to be ever more committed to the Lord and be good Christian role models in our everyday living, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 7 August 2022 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are called to remember the faithfulness of God to His Covenant and promises which He had made with us and our forefathers. We are reminded of the love that God has for each one of us, and how fortunate we truly are for having received such wonderful blessings and graces from God. All of us are also reminded that at the same time we have the responsibilities and obligations entrusted to us, as servants and stewards of God’s creations, this world and all within it.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Wisdom, we heard the author speaking about regarding the historic moment of the first Passover which happened in the land of Egypt, before the Lord freed and delivered His people out from slavery into freedom, and before He led them to the Promised Land. The people of God back then had seen nine of the Lord’s ten great plagues which He sent to the land of Egypt to punish the Egyptians and their Pharaoh for enslaving the Israelites, and for the Pharaoh’s stubborn refusal to let the Israelites go free. The Lord had sent Moses to deliver His words and to bring forth the plagues on Egypt, so that the Egyptians would finally let the people of God go free.

The people believed in the Lord and obeyed His instructions for the first Passover, slaughtering the unblemished young lambs and painting the doorposts of their houses with the blood of the lambs, and having the Passover meal together as families and a community, a mark of sanctification and also a symbol of how God had chosen and kept apart His people, as a chosen race and people called to holiness with God and in God’s path. They were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and therefore were the inheritors of the Covenant which God had established with their forefathers.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, from which our second reading was taken from today, spoke of the faith of those same predecessors who had followed the Lord and dedicated themselves to the Lord. The author mentioned Abraham and Sarah, who have followed the Lord from the land of their ancestors, with Abraham entrusting himself completely to the Lord, knowing that the Lord would provide and that He was always faithful to the promises He had made. Abraham and Sarah followed the Lord into a foreign, distant land, and although Abraham was then childless and already relatively old, but he believed in the Lord when He said that Abraham would be the father of many nations.

God made a Covenant with Abraham and his descendants, and He blessed him and all of those descendants, saying that they would be all His people while He would be their God. And He fulfilled that promise to Abraham when He gave him Isaac, the son that He had promised to Abraham and Sarah. And then, earlier on as mentioned, when the descendants of Abraham, the Israelites were suffering in Egypt, they were remembered by God and God sent Moses to guide them out of Egypt, showing His might and power before the Egyptians, and saving them all, as they ate of the Passover, keeping them from harm while the Angels of God were killing the firstborn of the Egyptians, and later on, He also opened the sea before them all, allowing them to escape and also crushing the army and chariots of the Egyptians sent to chase them.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we have seen throughout history, as shown in the Scriptures and other traditions of our faith, how God has always been faithful to His Covenant with His beloved people, and He renewed that same Covenant again and again, culminating in the New Covenant which He had made with all of us mankind, all the children and descendants of Adam. He made the New Covenant through His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that through Him and the loving sacrifice He had made on His Cross at Calvary, all of us received the sure guarantee of the Lord’s salvation and grace.

In the old and original Covenant, God renewed His promises through the Passover meal, while the people ate of the unblemished Passover lamb, while in the New Covenant, the Lord gave us all the fulfilment of His promises and gave us all His own Precious Body and Blood, in the Eucharist to partake, the Paschal Lamb, our Lord Himself, His Body broken and His Blood poured out for us and for our salvation, delivering us from our enslavement to sin and death just as the Israelites were delivered from their slavery in Egypt. The Lord has again shown us His enduring and powerful love, which He has always given to us freely and generously, and the Covenant that He had made with us always endures.

Now, brothers and sisters, having heard the love that God has shown us, His faithfulness to the Covenant that He had made with us, all of us are then called to remember that a Covenant is a solemn agreement and pact made between two parties, and in this case, it is a Covenant between God and us mankind. God promised Abraham and his descendants of His blessings and providence, which He had fulfilled all the time, but at the same time, much had also been expected of us as partakers of that same Covenant. Each and every one of us have been entrusted by the Lord to be the stewards and caretakers of this world and this life we are living in.

That is why we also heard from our Gospel passage today, the very appropriate parable for today’s theme, that is the parable of the diligent and lazy stewards. The Lord Jesus told His disciples and the people who were listening to Him about this parable in order to show all of them that as God’s followers, one cannot be idle or inactive, ignorant of our mission and calling, as each one of us must embrace the mission and the calling which our Lord had given us. All of us have been given the gifts, talents, opportunities and many more things to help us in our journey, and we all should embrace all these wholeheartedly.

Like what the parable had mentioned earlier on, the stewards were entrusted with care of the properties of the master, who went away for some time, and while the diligent steward did everything as he was told to do, fulfilling his duties and obligations, and perhaps doing even more than what he had been tasked to do, the lazy steward delayed in doing the work and engaged in merrymaking and even abusing his authority and office, and when the master returned suddenly, the diligent and good steward was rewarded wonderfully while the lazy steward faced his just punishment and condemnation.

Through the Covenant God had made with us, God expects us to be active and committed party to His Covenant, and this involves us doing whatever we can to be the good stewards of this world, of our community and of God’s creation. That is why He had taught us all His Law and commandments, telling, teaching and guiding us on how we ought to be living our lives, so that we can be good role models and sources of inspiration for all those who are around us. Each and every one of us are called to show this faith we have, the love that we have for God in concrete ways through how we live our lives, in each and every one of our words and actions.

Otherwise, brothers and sisters in Christ, imagine if we profess to believe in God and yet we act in a manner that is totally contrary to God and His ways? That would have scandalised our faith and the Lord Himself for all those who have witnessed and experienced our actions and interactions with them. God has loved us so much and He had done so much for our sake, and yet more often than not, it is we mankind who had disobeyed Him, distanced ourselves from Him, not listening to His words and advice, ignoring His calling and abandoning the missions which He had entrusted to us.

Today therefore, as we reflect on the messages of the Sacred Scriptures that had been presented to us, and also what we had discussed just earlier, let us all discern carefully what each and every one of us as Christians are expected to do in our lives, so that we may truly live up to the expectations and the commitment that we ought to make as part of the Covenant that God had so kindly formed with us. In Him, we will find assurance and certainty of true joy, happiness and satisfaction as God has always been faithful to us, to the Covenant of love that He made with us. Hence, we are all called to commit ourselves as well, dedicating our time, effort and attention to Him.

May the Lord, our most loving God and Creator, Who has kindly looked upon us, His beloved children, though sinners and disobedient, help us all to find our way back to Him. May all of us rediscover once again the joy in serving and loving the Lord our God, and may we draw ever closer to Him, in each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 31 July 2022 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us heard the words of the Scriptures which essentially delivered to us one key message, and that is for us to shun and avoid excessive attachments to worldly desires and pleasures, to all the ultimately meaningless and endless pursuits of power, fame, glory, influence, riches, properties, and many other things that we often crave and desire for in our world today. All those things are obstacles and hindrances in the path of our journey towards God. That is why each one of us are reminded this Sunday of the need for us to reject the temptations for all those worldly things and desires.

In our first reading today from the Book of Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth, we heard the author exhorting the people that all of their pursuits of knowledge, of worldly matter and desires, of wealth and riches, all of those were ultimately nothing and meaningless. He pointed out how all the efforts that we put into accumulating and amassing all of them for ourselves would not last in the end, and they were really superficial at best. All of the hard work and the busy actions of the people, seeking for more profits, money, for more glory and fame, for more achievements and other worldly matters, in the end, they would not have peace.

Why is that so? That is because by our own human nature and our societal norms, we often crave for more and more of these worldly things that we desire for, and when we have gotten our hands on them, more often than not, we will not truly be satisfied. That is because those things do not provide us with lasting and true happiness and satisfaction. As soon as we are happy and satisfied with what we have gained and received, we are likely to desire for more, and we will never have enough, and the temptations to seek for more of what we desire will be great. And in the end, we spent many, countless hours in trying to gain more of those things.

The Lord is reminding us through the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes that if we continue to indulge ourselves in worldly desires and attachments, then in the end, we cannot keep all those things anyway, and nothing that we keep or gain in this world will be brought with us to the life that is to come. Whether we end up in the blissfulness of God’s presence in Heaven or whether we end up in the deepest pits of hell, our worldly possessions, status, riches, wealth, fame, and other things that often define us in this world are not brought over with us. When we pass on from this world through death, all of us shall leave it with nothing on us, just the same way as how we entered this world.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the Lord speaking to His disciples and followers, and also particularly to a person who asked Him to be the arbiter in their family conflict over inheritance, by asking Him to persuade his brother to share with him the family inheritance. As we all are aware of, matters of family inheritance are usually always very complicated and protracted, with the conflicting parties desiring to get more portions of what they considered themselves as being entitled to. And what usually made it difficult to resolve is because each party tend to keep making demands and no one can truly be satisfied with the arrangements made.

And not only that such conflict and struggle leads to extended suffering and hardships for everyone who are involved, but it also ruined and destroyed relationships between people, between families and relatives. In the end, no matter who received more of the inheritance or property, everyone lost. They lost precious time, relationships and love that cannot be repaired and time as we know cannot be turned back. How can all the values of the properties, the riches and the valuables that we squabble over, ever compare to the value of our relationship with one another, the familial bond and friendships among other things?

Not only that, but all those things that we often spend a lot of time worrying and being concerned about, in the end, can be lost and destroyed within merely short amount of time. What can be destroyed by fire, by water, by moth, decay or any other worldly means, are not true treasures, brothers and sisters in Christ. And even if what we have are not destroyed or overcome by those, in the end, death is the ultimate end of all of them. As the Lord’s parable in our Gospel passage today may show us, each one of us are reminded not to be blinded and misled by our attachments to the world and our desires.

The Lord told the disciples and the people a parable in which He mentioned how a rich man who had a vast holding of farms and estates had so much harvest that he was planning on how to extend his already vast possessions even more, planning to build more granaries and storage barns and spaces to contain more of his harvest and wealth, thinking of the bounty and prosperity that he was to enjoy for many more years to come. The Lord then ended the story with a bitter anticlimax and reality for the rich man, as He said that the rich man was about to die and to leave behind everything that he had worked so hard for, accumulated and assembled, as was his fate.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as what we have heard from the Scriptures revealed to us, all of us have to keep in mind and be vigilant that we do not allow ourselves to be easily swayed by the temptations and attachments we have to worldly things and matters. The Lord warns us not against having worldly possessions or for gathering money or other things that we may need in the world. What He warns us against is the excessive attachments and obsessions for those things which can lead us down the path to ruin, distracting us from the path that we should be taking towards God and His salvation.

In our second reading today, we heard from the Epistle that St. Paul wrote to the Church and faithful in the city of Colossae, the Colossians, we heard of the reminder that we should put our focus and attention on things that are above, and not on worldly things and matter. St. Paul exhorted the faithful to get rid from themselves the immoral and improper attachments to worldly desires and vices, all the things that have always kept us all back from finding our way to God. All that made us to continue to be stubborn in refusing to listen to God and His calling, which He had repeatedly made for us. We are all reminded and called to holiness, and to be rid of excessive attachments to worldly desires and pursuits.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all live our lives from now on as faithful and genuine Christians, no longer enslaved or burdened by our many unhealthy attachments to worldly desires and temptations. All of us should do our best to focus on the right things in life, and not to be distracted by all those things that can lead us down the wrong path. We have to heed what we have heard today from the Scriptures and what we have just discussed earlier on, so that we can be living our lives as Christians as good role models and inspirations to one another, in our lives that are focused on God and His truth, following His ways and not being overly and excessively obsessed on worldly matters and things.

Let us all instead seek to serve the Lord and to live our lives to the fullest, loving God and loving our fellow brothers and sisters, appreciating all the blessings we have received, sharing whatever love and joy we have, and not to be greedy, selfish or filled with greed. Let us all dedicate our time and effort therefore to do what we should do as Christians, in being generous with love and kindness to one another, building up for ourselves the true treasures that we can find in God alone, and not the illusory and temporary treasures of this world. May the Lord be with us always, and may He give us the strength and the courage to persevere through the hardships in life, the challenges and trials, the temptations that we may have to face, in each and every moments of our lives. Amen.

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Sunday, 24 July 2022 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us heard the words of the Lord calling on us to come to Him and to put our faith and trust in Him, because He as our loving God and Father will always listen to us and show His love for us, at every opportunities. Today’s Scripture readings remind us of just how beloved we are by God and how precious we are all to Him, that He has always been willing to communicate with us and to accommodate us, as we heard from those Scripture passages. Hence, as we spend the time to reflect on those passages let us constantly remind ourselves of God’s ever present love for each one of us.

In our first reading today, we heard of the story of the encounter between God and Abraham in the Book of Genesis during the time when God visited Abraham in human disguise to announce to him the coming of his long awaited promised son, Isaac, of which God told Abraham that Isaac would be born within the year. At that time, the Lord also spent time with Abraham to discuss regarding Sodom and Gomorrah, and told him of what He planned to do with the cities and their people who had committed grievous sins and wickedness against God. God would destroy and erase the memory of Sodom and Gomorrah as a punishment for their sins.

Abraham was immediately reminded of his nephew Lot, who had parted ways with him earlier on and was dwelling in Sodom with his family. Therefore, Abraham tried to ask the Lord for clemency and patience, and begged Him to reconsider on behalf of any of the righteous who could have been there in Sodom and Gomorrah, which would have included Lot and his family as well. Hence, we heard how Abraham negotiated with God, and continued to ask Him if God would destroy the cities should there be some of the faithful there in those cities, in cumulatively decreasing number of five.

God listened to Abraham and reassured him that if He could find the number of the faithful that he mentioned, He would reconsider and not bring harm to the two cities and the people in them. Unfortunately, based on what happened, Lot and his family alone were considered righteous among all the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and there was not even ten people who could be considered righteous, and hence God did not spare the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. But God did send His Angels to help Lot and his family to get out of Sodom to safety, and He brought them all out safely, save for Lot’s wife who hesitated, looked back against God’s warnings and was turned into a salt pillar.

Nonetheless, Abraham tried and asked the Lord, and the Lord heard him. The Lord rescued Lot and his family from harm, and He also provided for them afterwards, just as He has also provided for Abraham, giving him the promised son, the inheritance and more blessings. The Lord has always ever been faithful, to the Covenant which He had made with us, His people, all that He had done for our sake, in all the promises He made and then fulfilled to us, among others that He had done, again and again throughout time and history. All these are because God truly loves each and every one of us.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard the words of the Lord Jesus speaking to His disciples regarding the matter of prayer, how to pray to God and also on the matter of asking God, for help and attention. In that passage, we heard the Lord teaching the disciples how to pray, with the prayer that He Himself had composed, directed to God, Who is our Heavenly Father, the prayer we now know well as the Lord’s Prayer or the Pater Noster. The Lord’s Prayer is a model and exemplary prayer which embodies all of what a prayer is all about, as it combines thanksgiving, supplication and petition, praising and glorification, as well as seeking for forgiveness and mercy from God.

How this is significant is that, because God is our Father and like any fathers, as the Lord Himself mentioned, He would not purposely let us down, reject us or harm us. He loves each and every one of us because we are all like His children, and as both our Father and Shepherd, He listens to all of us just like how He listened to the petitions and prayers of Abraham, as well as those of many of our other predecessors. He did not turn His ears or heart away from us when we ask, plead or beg Him. Instead, He listens to us patiently, even when we make a lot of often outrageous demands and wishes on Him, or when we expected Him to do something for us, or to fulfil our desires among other things.

However, many of us often do not even seek the Lord in the first place when we are in need of help. We instead turn to other sources of comfort and possible solutions, turning to money, worldly means and others, to the idols of our world instead of entrusting ourselves in the Lord’s care and love. That was precisely how and why so many of our predecessors had fallen into the wrong paths, as they did not have strong faith and relationship with God. They were easily shaken and tempted to abandon the Lord for the other worldly refuge that brought us further and deeper into troubles in various ways.

Too many of us are also easily disappointed whenever we feel that the Lord is not listening to us or that He does not fulfil our wishes and wants, our demands and desires. But this is exactly where we must realise and remember that God as our Lord and Master, and our Father and Creator, has no obligation whatsoever to fulfil our needs and wants. But God knows us well, and He knows what we truly needs, and everything will happen according to His will, rather than our will and desire. We must not forget that we cannot and should not impose our will and desire on the Lord, as that is not how prayer and our relationship with God work. That is why, the Lord in His prayer, the Lord’s Prayer, has these words, ‘Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven’.

And those of us who do not dare to ask the Lord, we did not realise that often we just have to speak to Him and ask Him. God knows what we want and what we need, but at the same time, He also wants to engage us in a conversation much as how we also want to engage in active conversation with our family and friends. It is by building up that genuine and strong, living relationship with God that we may come to know more of our path in life and what we need to do for us to achieve a more wholesome and faithful life as the disciples and servants of our Lord. We have to knock on the Lord’s door, and call on Him, ask for His help and kindness.

To do this, we often require the humility to do so. Often times, our pride and ego may come between us and God, as we become reluctant to lower ourselves and humble ourselves so that we may be the listener in our communication and relationship with God. That is why, for us to develop a truly genuine and vibrant relationship with God, we will need to be open-minded, humble and be willing to listen to God speaking to us. He has always been patient like that of a father patiently guiding his children, sometimes disciplining and punishing at times, rewarding at others, but with the intention for our own good and true happiness. But we as children, we often acted naughtily by being stubborn and not listening to our Father’s words.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all called to be grateful to God and to open ourselves to Him, with us having received so much favour and blessings from God, our loving Father Himself, so much so that as St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Colossians in our second reading today, that He has given us the ultimate gift of love through Jesus Christ, His Son, by which He has provided us with the sure path to return and to be reconciled with Him. That is because through Christ, all of us have been made sharers in the new Covenant that He established with us, by His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross.

God has given us so wonderful a gift, even before we asked Him, and without us even asking for it. Through Him and all that He had done, He opened for us the path to eternal life and everlasting joy. God has not spared for us even His most beloved and only Son, so that through Him, we may receive the sure guarantee of salvation. Therefore, all of us are reminded and called to turn our hearts and minds fully towards the Lord, entrusting ourselves to Him. Let us all not harden our hearts anymore, but open them to allow God to come knocking at us and enter into our lives, just as we come to Him, knocking on His doors seeking for His grace, love, compassion and mercy.

May the Lord, our most loving God and Father be with us always, and may He continue to guide us in our lives and journeys of faith, and may He continue to encourage us and strengthen us that we may persevere through even the worst of challenges and trials in life. May God bless us always, in all of our deeds and efforts, in all of our good endeavours, for His greater glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 17 July 2022 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Scriptures, all of us are called to remember to trust in God and in all that He has planned for each one of us. We must have trust and faith in Him, because through God alone that there is true hope and way out of our troubles and predicaments. God knew all that we need and all things in our hearts and minds. In how the Lord cared and provided for Abraham, our renowned father in faith, and how He reassured both Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, the Lord showed us that all of us have nothing to fear.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis, the account of how the Lord came to visit Abraham and his wife Sarah in a disguise. The Lord was immediately recognised by Abraham, who welcomed Him into his tent and dwelling place, giving Him the best hospitality that he could provide. The Lord then came and ate of whatever Abraham provided for Him, before telling him the good news that He had come to personally tell Abraham, by saying that what He promised to him when He made and sealed the Covenant, would finally come true at last.

The Lord made a Covenant with Abraham, then named Abram, a middle-aged man who was childless because Sarah, then known as Sarai, was barren and unable to have any children. As such, Abraham was prepared to pass on his inheritance to his servant named Eliezer, as he was without a son. God promised Abraham that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars, through the means that God would give him, and despite the age of Abraham and his wife Sarah, everything was possible for God.

Abraham did falter for a while in this, as he listened to the advice and pressure from Sarah, for him to take one of her slaves, named Hagar, to bear for himself a son. That led to the conception and birth of Ishmael, the son of Abraham and Hagar. Although now Abraham technically had a son then, but the Lord again reiterated and emphasised that the son through whom Abraham would pass on his inheritance would be that of his son with Sarah, to be named as Isaac. And even the name Isaac itself has a deep and profound meaning which may not be immediately apparent to us.

The name Isaac means, ‘the one who laughs’ or ‘the one who rejoices’ which can be a reference to the great joy which Abraham and Sarah must have experienced when their long-awaited child was finally born. At the same time it also refers to what happened after today’s first reading passage, when Sarah heard about what the Lord spoke to Abraham, how Sarah would bear a son within a year, and Sarah, in partial disbelief, laughed upon hearing those words, which the Lord knew about and told her when she tried to deny it, that she did laugh.

We can see from the first reading story of Abraham, Sarah, God and the son promised by God to both Abraham and Sarah, that trusting and having faith in God will not lead to disappointment. Instead, when man tried hard to do things their own way, that would lead to complications that they might not have foreseen earlier on, as for example, the birth of Ishmael, the son between Abraham and Hagar, Sarah’s slave eventually became friction and trouble for both Hagar and Ishmael when Isaac, the promised son for Abraham and Sarah was born. Ishmael and Hagar had to be cast out and sent to the wilderness, although in the end, God did provide for them and made Ishmael the father of many great nations too, for he was also a descendant of Abraham.

We see in that how God even made what was imperfect and flawed into ideal, still fulfilling His promise to Abraham that he would become the father of many nations. Not only that Isaac, his promised son and heir became the father of nations, but even Ishmael too, the son born because Abraham and Sarah were impatient with God’s promise. God still showed His love, care and providence for us all, His beloved ones, no matter what. He blesses those who are faithful to Him, and even those who have fallen off the path, God still patiently tried to reach out to and to be reconciled with them.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the story of the moment when the Lord came to visit the house of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, who were all His friends. Mary and Martha welcomed the Lord into their house, and we heard of how while Mary was by the Lord’s side throughout the time, listening to the Lord speaking and teaching to her, Martha was very busy preparing everything for welcoming the Lord, likely busy with the cooking and all the other house chores and works.

And as we heard, Martha became a little irritated that Mary did not help her at all with her work and preparations, and she told the Lord to tell Mary to give her some help. That was when the Lord told Martha that what Mary did was not wrong, as she was truly making good use of the time, and welcoming the Lord not with all the busy preparations and celebrations, but by opening her heart and mind, and by being present there with the Lord, cherishing every single moments of His Presence.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through what we have heard in our Scripture passages today, we are all called to realise just how often we have ignored the Lord and not cherishing His Presence, His love and grace in our lives, all because we are too busy with too many things and preoccupations that we fail to focus our attention and efforts on the Lord. The Lord has always been present in our midst, but many of us are too preoccupied with our worldly desires and other things to be able to notice His Presence.

What Martha did was not wrong. In fact, Martha busied herself because she wanted to give her best to serve the Lord, to be the best provider of hospitality and care, love and attention to Him. She did all that out of love for God, but her way of doing things made her distracted from her main purpose of serving the Lord. And if that action done out of noble and good intention could end up distracting Martha, then all the more if our worldly pursuits and desires ended up distracting and leading us away from God’s path.

In our second reading today, we heard St. Paul writing to the Colossians, in his Epistle to them, regarding the revelation of God’s truth and love to His people, which He had made available to all of us through His disciples, the Apostles and saints, and through His Church. He did all these so that we may come to know Him more, and therefore, will be able to follow Him with greater commitment and dedication. If we do not know the Lord as much, then how can we become close to Him, and how do we know what we need to do in order to be faithful to Him? That is why as Christians we are called to deepen our relationship with God.

And that is also why through our Scripture readings this Sunday, all of us are called to appreciate more the Lord’s Presence in our lives, just in the way Abraham immediately recognising the Lord’s Presence even when He came to him in disguise. All of us often fail to realise that God is ever present in our midst, watching over us, and caring for us. Many of us are too focused on our troubles and trials, or are too preoccupied with our worldly ambitions and plans, our many attachments and other matters that we overlook the Lord’s ever present love and kindness in our midst. God is and has always been there, but we are often too blinded and distracted to notice Him.

That is why we are all called to be committed in our Christian living and work like Martha, but at the same time not forgetting the presence of God and cherishing His presence in our midst like Mary, and like our father in faith, Abraham, we should recognise the Lord and His loving works and presence among us. Each and every one of us as Christians are called to be true and faithful disciples of the Lord in all things. Let us allow God to lead and guide us in every opportunities so that we may grow ever closer to Him, and continue to glorify Him through our lives, our words, actions and deeds, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 10 July 2022 : Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, through what we have heard in our Scripture passages this Sunday, all of us are reminded of the Law and the commandments that God had put in place and revealed to us. He has taught us His Law and commandments so that through them we may learn how to be true Christians, in all things. Through what we have heard today, we are all reminded to live our lives as genuine Christians should, in devoting and spending our time and effort to act in the manner that the Law of God has shown us, and not merely paying lip service or being outwardly pious and yet, deep inside, we do not have a firm and living faith within us.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Deuteronomy, the words of the Lord reminding His people during the time of the Exodus, at that moment when they were still on the journey towards the Promised Land. The Lord told them all through Moses that they all ought to obey the Law and the commandments that He had given them, and they ought to be faithful and to observe what He has revealed and taught to us. At that occasion, the Lord also proclaimed that His Law is not something that is too difficult or impossible to be accomplished, and in a prophetic way, mentioned how the Law has been brought to them, dwelling in their midst, and would later on come even closer to them, through the One Who came down from Heaven.

The Lord back then mentioned to the people that there was no need for anyone to go to Heaven or to reach out to Him, for everything had been provided for them, and the Word of God has dwelled among them. For truly, the Law of God as passed down through Moses is itself a part of the Word of God, which Moses revealed to the people. However, it was not just that, for later on, as we all know that the Word of God has become incarnate in flesh, descending into our midst and dwelling amongst us as one of us, taking up our human nature and appearance, in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.

And it was through Christ our Lord that the Law is revealed to us all in its full meaning and purpose, and He revealed to us what the Law is truly all about, what the commandments of God were meant to do for us. Those commandments were meant to help us to learn more on how to love God and to love one another, to grow ever more worthy and to lead a more righteous and holy life and existence so that we may grow ever closer to God, and we may find our way to do His will and obey His commandments and laws in each and every moments of our lives, not merely paying lip service or being outwardly pious, but truly and genuinely filled with righteousness, virtues and love for God and our fellow men.

That was essentially what the Lord mentioned in what we have as our Gospel passage today, regarding the interaction between Him and one teacher of the Law who asked the Lord about who would gain eternal life and how to gain it. The Lord pointed out exactly to the same Law of God, which the teacher of the Law was surely very familiar with. The teacher summarised the whole Law, in what the Lord Himself also mentioned, that the Law is about loving God with all of our strength, might and capacity, and then loving one another in the same manner, showing that love at all opportunities.

It was also then that the Lord told the teacher of the Law what it means to love and to show that love to one’s fellow brethren. Through the well-known parable of the Good Samaritan, which I am sure we are well aware of, the Lord presented the story of a man from Jericho who was beset with robbers who left him almost dead. Then we heard of the three men who came to the place, beginning with a priest and then a Levite, followed by a Samaritan. Among the Jewish people and society, the first two men occupied a very high and respected place among them, as those were the ones whom God had called to be His priests and servants, sanctified and dedicated to God.

On the other hand, the Samaritans were those who lived in the region of Samaria, the old capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, north of Jerusalem and Judea. That region was occupied by a mixture of peoples, descendants of the Israelite remnants and other foreigners that were brought in to replace those whom the Assyrians had exiled during their conquest of Israel and Samaria. Those people had their own customs and traditions, different from the descendants of the Israelites in Judea. As such, the Jewish people and society tended to have a very negative and even hostile opinion on the Samaritans, whom they saw as heretics and pagans.

Hence, it would be indeed most impactful hearing how those two respected men, the priest and the Levite just passed the injured man by and leaving him behind, while the often reviled and hated Samaritan was the one who stopped by and helped the injured man. Not only that the Good Samaritan helped the man, but he even provided for the injured man everything he needed to recover fully, and promised the innkeeper to return and to provide more for the injured man should he have the need for it. The Good Samaritan went the extra mile not only for someone he did not know, but presumably for one belonging to the people who had always hated and despised him and his people, the Samaritans all those while.

And that, brothers and sisters in Christ, is what the Lord told the teacher of the Law and all of us about what true Christian love and obedience to the Law is all about. One cannot be true Christians if he or she had not placed himself or herself after the Lord and that of his or her other fellow brothers and sisters. In this world today, there are plenty of unfaithfulness and wickedness because mankind put themselves before God and others, putting their own selfishness, ego and pride, their desires and greed ahead of the love they ought to have for God and for their fellow brethren. That is how we have caused so much wickedness in this world to happen.

When they begin to seek to advance their own glory and achievements, that would be when man begin to persecute and inflict suffering on others, or that like the priest and the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, they ignore the plight and suffering of others. And some even feed on and grow fat and happy on the exploitation of the poor and the marginalised, those who are unable to defend themselves, those who are vulnerable and weak, and all those who have no means to protest against the exploitations done on them. As Christians, all of us are called to heed on the good examples of the Good Samaritan, and not only that but also that of the Lord Himself.

For the Lord Jesus Himself acted in the same manner as the Good Samaritan. Although each and every one of us have often been disobedient to Him, treated Him badly and with disdain, being sinful and wicked in our actions and lives, and in how we treated Him when He came into our midst bearing His love and truth. Despite all of that, Christ still loved each and every one of us, as our loving Father and Creator, God has shown His love through His Son, His compassion, mercy and patient kindness, which He extended to us by His loving sacrifice on the Cross. He willingly took up the burden of His Cross, battered, rejected, humiliated, tortured and broken for our sake, out of love for us.

He showed us His most generous and selfless love, shedding His own Precious Blood and dying for us, because He loves us all and took the extra mile to reach out to us, just as the Good Samaritan in His story had done. The Lord showed that He did not just speak of love, but He showed it through direct action and dedication, by presenting that love to us in the best way possible. He showed us that His love transcends everything, even our sins and all of our disobedience and evils. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, and God as the Head of the Church according to St. Paul in his Epistle to the Colossians in our second reading today, He is showing us in concrete ways how we all ought to obey the Lord and His Law and commandments.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore seek to follow the Lord ever more faithfully in our lives, from now on. Let us all do our best to walk in the path that the Lord has shown us, putting Him above all else and loving Him with all of our might, and doing the same to our fellow brethren as well. Just as the Lord has loved us so greatly all these while, let us devote ourselves to Him in love as well, and learn to fill ourselves up with the same love in how we interact with with one another. Let us all strive to be holy just as the Lord is holy, to be loving just as He is filled with love, and to do our best to glorify God by our lives. May He continue to guide us and empower us all to be true and devout Christians, following the examples of the Lord in the way the Good Samaritan acted towards his suffering fellow brother. Amen.