Sunday Mass homily

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Sunday, 29 September 2019 : Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, all of us are all called to live a holy and virtuous life that is centred not on worldly possessions and the many temptations present in this world, but rather on God alone. We have to remember this at all times, lest those same temptations pull us into the wrong path, as the evil one is always ever ready and ever busy to strike at us with all of his capabilities.

In our first reading today, we heard the words of the prophet Amos being directed at the Israelites conveying the anger of God at those people because of their refusal to believe in Him and His prophet, their refusal to listen to those whom God had sent into their midst to remind them to follow His path. They have hardened their hearts and closed their minds to God, and they preferred to live in sin and worshipped pagan idols and gods instead of the One and only True God they should have been worshipping.

The prophet Amos worked and ministered to the people during the last years of the northern kingdom of Israel, which was referred to in the first reading passage today as ‘Samaria’, which was the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. It was a foreboding and warning to those people that should they continue to live in sin and refused to change their ways, they would see the end of their kingdom and had to endure exile, as how it actually happened in the end.

And this is related to what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus used the parable of Lazarus and the rich man to highlight how important it is for us to live a truly God-centric life and resist the many temptations found in this world. In that well-known parable we heard how the Lord Jesus told His disciples the story of a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus, who was always by the gate of the house of the rich man, hungry and suffering while the rich man feasted and dressed well every single day.

Through this parable, the Lord wanted us all to know that it is not that He is against us having wealth or that being wealthy is something that is sinful and wrong, but rather, it is our unhealthy and dangerous attachment to those worldly possessions, be it wealth in any forms, in money and other goods of pleasures, even in matter of dress and food that we must be wary of. Those goods on their own are not evil or bad by nature.

In fact, having greater wealth and possessions is actually a blessing from God, that God has given us more and provided us with greater blessings in our own unique way. However, we must also remember what the Lord Himself also said in another different occasion, that ‘To those who have been given a lot, a lot is also then expected from them’. This means that the more blessings we have received from God, the more that we are actually challenged to make good use of them.

The very fact that Lazarus, the poor man stayed at the gate of the rich man’s house day after day, again and again showed just how oblivious the rich man and his household had been to the plight of Lazarus. The rich man and his household partied and celebrated without end, with all the goodness the world could have offered, enjoying to the fullest all of earth’s wonderful pleasures, satisfying themselves in great excess.

That poor man did not ask for much, just for food to alleviate his hunger and basic human needs and dignity. Yet, no one would give him what he deserved, and left him all alone to suffer until the day he died and went into heaven in the presence of God and Abraham, his forefather. Then as mentioned, the rich man also died, and he went into the eternal suffering in hell, suffering as the Lord said because during life, he had done what is wicked and enjoyed life as it was, while Lazarus suffered so greatly.

Being rich is truly not something that is inherently evil or bad. God does not despise the rich and the powerful as I have just mentioned. But when we misuse what God has given to us and blessed us with for our own selfish purposes, just as the prophet Amos spoke against the Israelites for their wicked and unjust actions towards one another, then we have committed a great sin against God.

But this is something that each and every one of us must always be wary about, as the temptations are always there, pulling us into the path of disobedience and sin. By our exposure to sin, and by the frailty of our body, mind and flesh, we are naturally predisposed to various desires, be it for wealth, money, for worldly things and possessions, for glory and power, for other pleasures of this world, to satisfy our own selfish desires.

This is where we must always stand ready to resist those temptations, which Satan and all the evil forces ever present around us are always ready to push onto us, trying to lure us away from the path of righteousness. And this is where in our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy, the Apostle reminded us that each and every one of us must strive to be holy and godly, and strive to resist all the negative emotions and temptations that threaten to take us away from God.

And looking again at the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, let us remember and realise just how futile our pursuits for worldly things and glories have been. For all of his wealth and power, his popularity and all the fame he had, the rich man was left with nothing when he entered into death and thrown into hell. In the end, he was just left by himself, in despair and total hopelessness, and no matter what he is doing and how he want to get out, once he is in hell, there is absolutely no hope for him, for he has rejected God completely and refused His love totally.

Satan purposely wants us to indulge in all those wicked things, and to be tempted to sin so that we will in the end lose everything, and he will never cease to tempt us and to push us into sin, and we should resist his efforts and seek for help in this constant battle raging daily for our souls. And today, as it happens, we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael.

Today, let us all ask for the help and protection from the three Holy Archangels, who is always ready to help us with the legions of Angels and our own Guardian Angels to protect us all from the attacks of the evil ones. But we also have to make the conscious effort to resist those temptations and realise that we have to hold onto the right things in life, that is not the false joys and happiness in worldly things, but rather to trust in God.

Let us all therefore make best use of whatever God has blessed us with, for the benefit of our fellow men and not be selfish like the rich man or the Israelites of the time of prophet Amos, who put themselves, their ego and pride ahead of their love for God and for their fellow men. Let us seek to be humble in all things and love God and place Him at the very centre of our lives and our existences. Let us not be ignorant of the needs and the plight of those who are less fortunate than us, but instead, let us be generous in sharing whatever happiness, joy and blessings we have received from God.

May the Holy Archangels, St. Michael, St. Gabriel and St. Raphael protect us all and may they intercede for us and be our guardians in this constant, daily spiritual warfare that we may emerge triumphant, keeping ourselves away from unworthy and wicked attachments to false pleasures, joys and temptations of this world so that in all things we may become ever closer to God and be worthy of His promised inheritance and glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 22 September 2019 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of God in the Sacred Scriptures reminding us all on the matter of being truly faithful and dedicated to God in everything. We have to trust in the Lord and follow Him with all of our hearts, with all of our minds and with all of our strength. But it is often that throughout our lives, we are distracted and tempted by various temptations present in this world.

In our first reading today, as we heard from the Book of the prophet Amos, we heard the Lord rebuking His people through the prophet Amos because of their wicked attitudes, in cheating others and treating others badly, in how they acted without care for the well-being of their fellow brothers and sisters. All of them were wicked and unjust, greedy and seeking only to satisfy their own selfish desires.

And God was angry at those people because of their wicked intentions and desires. He was displeased at their attachments to worldly things such as wealth, power, fame and other things that kept them distracted and prevented them from truly being connected with God. This is reinforced by what we have heard in our Gospel passage today when the Lord used the parable of the dishonest steward to teach the people.

In that parable, the Lord spoke of a steward who was caught in doing fraudulent service and was reported to his master, who then decided to dismiss him for such a dishonest and disloyal act. The steward wanted to protect himself and provide for his needs, and that was why he did all that were mentioned in the parable, as he looked for two other servants of his master who owed certain debts to the master.

The dishonest steward manipulated the details of the debt, probably because he was the one in charge of the accounts and in fact his fraudulent service would probably have been exactly what was described in his action with the two servants. By rewriting the debts of the two servants, the dishonest steward in fact cheated his own master. Perhaps the fraudulent service he had been found out earlier was meant to enrich his own pockets, but the actions he took with the two servants were no better.

Why is that so? That is because it is still cheating and being dishonest in order to protect himself and provide for his desires. The dishonest steward himself put it clearly before us just before he acted, as he thought in his mind how he was ashamed to beg for money, now that he had lost his job. This thought showed us what his attitude was, and showed us how he had always been selfish and proud, refusing to admit that he was wrong and continued to do what was wrong even in trying to provide for himself.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is what can happen to us all as well if we allow the temptations present in our world to affect us and to overcome us. It is very easy for us to fall into those temptations unless we consciously try to resist those temptations. Indeed, it will not be easy for us to resist because there will be many moments when we will feel pressured or pulled to follow those temptations.

Often we may end up following those temptations and fall into their snares. As long as we embrace worldly ways and think in the manner that the world approves, we will not be able to truly love God with all of our hearts and with all of our focus and attention. That is what the Lord Jesus wanted to point out to the disciples and to the people, and also to all of us when He said that “No servant can serve two masters… and that you cannot give yourself to both God and money.”

The Lord did not mean that we must avoid money altogether, or that we should not make use of worldly means in our daily lives. We still need to make good use of what the Lord has blessed each and every one of us with and not to misuse those things. However, the key here is that of self-restraint and control, which many of us are lacking or are not cultivating, which leads to us being easily tempted and led astray.

We have to be wise and discerning stewards of God, for God has indeed entrusted us with many blessings, talents, gifts and all sorts of things He has given us with, and it is our free choice and by the free will God has given us that we choose what we want to make use of those gifts and blessings for. Are we going to make use of them for our own selfish gains and desires? Or are we going to make use of them responsibly and for the good of everyone?

If we allow ourselves to be overcome by greed and worldly temptations for wealth, for power, glory and fame, that is why we can end up like that of the dishonest steward in our Gospel passage today who compromised on just principles and also like the merchants and people rebuked by God through the prophet Amos in our first reading today as those who put their own selfish and greedy wants and desires over other things.

Instead, let us all make good use of what God has entrusted to us, and heed what the Apostle St. Paul wrote to St. Timothy in our second reading today, that indeed, the Lord Jesus Christ alone is the Mediator of the New Covenant between God and us. This means that the Lord alone is the true focus and true satisfaction and destination that we should be seeking for in our respective lives in this world.

All other worldly things and desires, all those tempting and seemingly pleasurable and wonderful things are in the end, just illusions and distractions I have discussed earlier, all that can prevent us from finding the path to eternal and true joy in the Lord. We need to overcome all these temptations and all the attachments to worldly satisfaction so that we can become God’s good and worthy servants and disciples.

Let us all reflect on this and see how we can make the necessary changes in our lives, in how we live our daily lives and in our even small little actions, in our words and deeds, that we can become ever more attuned to God’s will and grow in our loving relationship with Him. Let us all strive to be better Christians from now on. May the Lord continue to guide us all in our journey of life. Amen.

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Sunday, 15 September 2019 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday a very powerful recurring theme throughout the readings of the Scripture is reminding us all that God is so great in His forgiveness and mercy, in His desire to be reconciled with us by forgiving us from our many sins and wicked actions and deeds throughout our lives. There is no sin that God cannot forgive, but when we mankind refuse God’s free and generous offer of love and mercy, then we are truly not going to be forgiven.

God has always been ready to welcome us back and He has always been patient, trying again and again hoping that we will have a change of heart and turn back to Him. He knows just how stubborn and how attached we are to our sinful and wicked ways, but He also know that each and every one of us are not yet lost as long as we have not completely rejected and refused His love. God still loves each and every one of us as dearly as always.

If He has not loved us so much, then He would not have created us in the first place, as God has never had any need in His perfection and perfect love, and He created us because He wanted to share that perfection of love that is in Him with us. And that love He has for us remains even after we have betrayed Him and abandoned Him for Satan and his many temptations. Had His love been diminished or been gone after we have sinned against Him, then God would have destroyed and crushed us very easily with a mere thought of His will.

But He did not do so, and instead He gave us chances one after another, again and again despite us being so stubborn and so rebellious that we continuously disobeyed Him even after He has forgiven us many, many times and sent us reminders again and again, wanting us all to be reconciled to Him by forgiving us our sins. And there is no sinner, no man in this world that has sins too numerous or too great for Him to forgive, as after all, God is all powerful, Almighty and omnipotent, and He can do everything including forgiving us of all of our sins.

That was what happened in the time of the Exodus as our first reading passage today taken from the Book of Exodus tells us. At that time, the people of Israel had been so wicked in their actions, just right after God had brought them out of the land of Egypt and just after He had punished the Egyptians and their Pharaoh so severely for refusing to let the Israelites go free. Instead of being thankful and being deeper in commitment towards God, the Israelites became wayward.

They built for themselves a golden calf, crafted likely in the image of the pagan Egyptian idol, which they took for themselves to be the ‘god’ who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. Rather than putting their trust in God and in His servant Moses through whom He has revealed His plans for them and His assurances of the promise that He has given them, in bringing them to the rich lands promised to them and to their ancestors.

They chose to follow the whims of their desires and the temptations of worldly pleasures, worshipping pagan idols and gods, following their ways and thoughts, and in succumbing to the demands and ways of the world. They abandoned their faith in God in exchange for temporary satisfaction and joy, for worldly comfort and satisfaction of their stomachs and bodies. And even after that occasion, the Israelites would go on to disobey and betray the Lord many more times.

That is why it is understandable why God’s anger was directed at His people, for their constant faithlessness and stubbornness. Yet, He still loved them all and wanted them to be forgiven despite His anger against them. Moses was the one who also stood by the people before the anger of God and the sinful Israelites, beseeching God to reconsider when He wanted to bring destruction upon them and to wipe out the whole nation save for Moses who remained faithful.

God forgave His people and made a Covenant with them, forgiving their disobedience and sins, except for all those who willingly and consciously rejected Him totally and refused to repent. And that was in fact a prelude to a far greater act of mercy and love that God has done for us, in the renewal of the Covenant He had made, and how He established forever a New Covenant that is everlasting, by the sending of His own Son to be our Saviour.

And much like that of Moses in the time of the Exodus, the Lord Jesus also stood by the breach between God and us mankind. And just like the Israelites of that time, all of us mankind have disobeyed God and sinned against Him. Because of this, we should have been doomed to destruction and eternal damnation that was our certain fate, for because of sin we have been cast out of God’s grace and love.

Yet, it was His constant and infinite love for each and every one of us as illustrated in our Gospel passage today which allowed Him to continue to love us and to forgive us, and through what He has shown us by the sending of His own Beloved Son, He wants to forgive us and to be reconciled with us just as what Christ Himself has revealed to the people through the use of the parable of the prodigal son in our Gospel passage today.

In that parable, which we are surely quite familiar with, the prodigal son left behind his father after demanding his portion of the inheritance and squandered off all of his wealth and possessions in sinful living, and only when he had nothing left then the prodigal son came to realise just how meaningless and useless all of his pursuits for worldly things had been, as all those who were his friends were only befriending him for his money and possessions.

In the end, in the midst of his suffering, the prodigal son remembered his father and the love which he used to enjoy from his father, and comparing it to the then miserable and despicable state he was in at that time, having to stoop down to the worst possible condition, being a helper in a pig farm, feeding food to the pigs, food that not even he could take, essentially being treated less in importance even to the pigs, an animal which was already treated badly in the Jewish traditions.

It was at that time when the prodigal son was at his lowest that he decided, definitely after going through a lot of thinking and struggles, to go back to his father and humbling himself like a servant, beseeching and begging him to take him in not as a son, but rather as a servant and slave. He would rather be taken in as a servant and slave rather than to suffer forever in the distant place away from his father.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the prodigal son is a representation of all of us, each and every one of us who have sinned against God. The father of the prodigal son is God Himself, Who constantly loves His beloved children, but truly is saddened to see the prodigal son going off with his inheritance, tempted by the temptations of worldly goods and things, fame and glory, wealth and pride. This is what we have experienced ourselves, as those temptations pulled us away from God and His righteous path.

But this is then that we have to realise through the story of the prodigal son, and also looking back at the story of the Israelites at the time of the Exodus, when they built the golden calf idol for their own, on how we should proceed from now on, in our journey to be reconciled back with God. As I mentioned earlier, God, our loving Father and Creator is always full and rich of mercy and love, compassion and tenderness. He is just like the father who immediately embraced the prodigal son the moment when he saw the son returning from the faraway lands.

In that same passage we also heard of a similar comparison with that of the lost sheep, whom the shepherd naturally looked for, leaving behind the other sheep which were already safe in the flock. That He was willing to go all out looking for us is proof enough of His dedication and love for us all. Unfortunately, brothers and sisters in Christ, it is often we who reject His generous offer of mercy and love, and that is because of the ego and pride within us.

Look at the prodigal son again, brethren, and let us all discern why he did what he had done. He could have remained proud and stubborn even in his moment of distress, thinking that he could not have done anything wrong, and he could have tried to resolve everything by his own power. Yet, he chose to humble himself and throw away all of his ego and pride, and returning to the father in shame, he won for himself instead true and lasting happiness.

And this is where Our Lord Jesus Christ comes in again. Remember that God has sent Him into the world to be our Saviour? He was in fact assuming the role of the prodigal son in the moment of His Passion, death and resurrection, and this whole parable is in fact a premonition of what He was going to do in order to save all of us. Through the humanity which He has assumed in the flesh, He took up upon Himself, all of the punishment and sufferings due for our sins, and put it on Himself through the Cross.

He emptied Himself of all glory and dignity, power and respect, and became the lowest of all beings, treated far less than that of a human, rejected and made to suffer the most humiliating and painful death. He was stripped almost naked and made an example before all who saw Him, a bloodied and battered Body, as the ultimate supplicant on our behalf before God His Father in heaven.

It is then by offering Himself in perfect love and humility that Christ won for us, like that of the prodigal son, a reconciliation between us and God our loving Father. Through His Cross, Christ has rediscovered for us the path that lies between us and God, which had once been destroyed by our sins and rebelliousness. Through Him, God has restored hope for us and showed us the path to full reconciliation and true happiness in Him.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, are we all ready to follow the path that Christ has shown us all? Are we ready and able to follow Him in all humility and throwing away all of the ego, pride and greed in our hearts and minds just like what the prodigal son had done? As I mentioned at the start of today’s discourse, God is always generous with His love and is always willing to forgive us, and yet, unless we truly repent from our sins and desire to turn away from those wickedness, we cannot be truly forgiven.

Let us all spend some time to think about this and discern well what we are going to do from now on. Let us all remind ourselves if we are still living in the state of sin and doing whatever it is that God has forbidden us to do or taught us to avoid, all sorts of fornications and sinful conduct, all sorts of selfish and immoral behaviours, and all things that are against His truth and His love. God has given us all these many opportunities again and again and He is always ever patient in waiting for us to return to Him.

Thus, what are we waiting for, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is indeed easier said than done for us to humble ourselves and to throw away the great ego and pride in our hearts, but let us all begin from those small sins and all the hurtful and wicked things we have done in our daily lives. Let us all recognise that through these and many other sins we have committed, we have been made corrupted, dirty, unworthy and deserving to be destroyed, and yet, God through His infinite love for us continues to love us all the same.

Let us all renew our conviction and faith in God from now on, brothers and sisters in Christ. And let us all turn our hearts, minds and indeed our whole being towards God with love, devoting ourselves wholeheartedly from now on to Him. May the Lord continue to guide us and bless us all in our daily lives, and may His loving mercy continue to come down upon us, His beloved children. Amen.

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Sunday, 8 September 2019 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are called to reflect on the importance of trusting and putting our faith in the providence of God, and all of us are encouraged to discern more deeply about how we can be better disciples and followers of the Lord in our daily living. We are called to discern carefully what it truly means for us to be a disciple of Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

To be a disciple of Christ, which means as Christians, all of us must be willing and committed to accept the cross of Christ as He Himself mentioned to His disciples in our Gospel passage today, that those who follow Him must carry their crosses in life. This cross that they carry is the cross of suffering united to the cross of Christ’s suffering, on which He has borne all of our punishments for our sins and died for our sake.

Through all of these that God had spoken to us through His words in the Sacred Scripture today, God wants each and every one of us to know that following Him is not going to be something that can easily be done or something that will be all pleasant and good. In fact, the reality is such that to be a follower of Christ will often mean that we will endure the same kind of rejection and suffering that the Lord Himself has suffered.

And that is why He put it plainly before all of us without sugarcoating any of the details. He put it clearly and plainly that being His disciples will often lead us to be in difficulty, in moments of trials and challenges, in rejection and persecution, all of which will lead us to doubt, or question or even wanting to give up our faith entirely. But we must not give in to those temptations and pressures, and instead we must learn to put our trust in God.

In our second reading today, in the letter which St. Paul had written to Philemon, this servant of God addressed himself as a prisoner of Christ, which highlighted the plight and suffering that he was then going through as someone being persecuted for his faith and dedication to the Lord. St. Paul has endured a lot of trials and challenges throughout his ministry as an Apostle during his evangelising missions.

He has been rejected by many people just as there were many others who accepted him and listened to him and his message of God’s truth. He has been cast out of towns and cities, ridiculed and almost stoned to death, persecuted and almost killed by his enemies and those who despised the Lord and the Christian faith. He has been betrayed and made to suffer pains in the physical, mental and spiritual dimensions, and yet, he remained true to his faith.

And why is that so? That is because St. Paul united his sufferings and trials to the very sufferings of Christ. He did not carry his cross all alone by himself, or just by carrying them with some others. In fact, as I have mentioned earlier, he carried his cross in union with Christ Himself, knowing that for everything he had suffered, the Lord has suffered infinitely a lot more, having had to endure the punishments for all of our sins.

There were also many other saints and holy servants of God who have suffered in the same manner as St. Paul or even more. Throughout the history of the Church there had been countless men and women who endured willingly those many pains and sufferings in the defence and witnessing of their Christian faith. They committed themselves to God, again knowing that they carried out their crosses in their respective lives and circumstances being united with Christ’s own sufferings.

There must have been a lot of questions that would have arisen amidst all those sufferings. Just as is in our human nature, it is bound for us to doubt, or to question or to wonder why is it that we have to suffer in this world, especially as those who believe in God and considered as God’s own beloved ones. It is common for us to hear questions such as ‘Why is there suffering if God is so good and loving?’ or ‘Why does God let His people suffer if He loves us all so much?’

This is where then we need to understand first and foremost why we have to suffer and carry our crosses in life as we follow the Lord in His path. Our sufferings come about because of the abuse of human freedom and our own stubbornness in refusing to listen to and to accept God’s truth. All of us are all beloved by God, every single one of us without any exception. Thus, by that nature, all of us ought to enjoy God’s full grace and love for eternity as He has intended.

Unfortunately, because we refuse to obey Him and chose freely to embrace the tempting fruits of sin and wickedness that Satan has presented to us, that we become corrupted and attached to those sins and temptations. And therefore suffering comes because we willingly chose to abandon God’s fullness of grace, love and providence, and preferred to walk down our own path to ruination. We chose the path of sin and disobedience and in doing so, we become reluctant to follow the Lord.

That is also why those who remained in sin and refused to believe in the Lord ended up persecuting their brethren who chose to believe in God. They refused to listen to the truth often because the truth pointed out to the defects and what are lacking in their hearts. Their pride and ego, their greed and desire for acknowledgment and superiority and unwillingness to let go of those negative things led them to persecute those who believe in the truth, that is us as Christians.

But, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where then each and every one of us must truly contemplate what we should be doing with our lives from now on. Again in our Gospel reading passage today, God spoke to the people with regards to a parable He chose to portray and deliver His message to them. He spoke of a person building a house who ought to be thinking of what would be needed in order to build the house and complete it thoroughly or else, the house cannot be completed and the builder would be shamed.

Similarly then, the Lord spoke using the example of a king who was about to go into war with another king, who ought to discern and examine carefully the prospects of victory before engaging each other in battle. Essentially, using these two examples, the Lord wants us to discern carefully on our own respective lives as well, given that He has presented to us the truth of everything, and how each and every one of us have been given the free will to choose between following Him or to follow the path of the devil and the world.

Following God, as I have mentioned earlier, will often mean for us to suffer and to have to endure difficulties and challenges for His sake. Of course the extent of sufferings, trials and challenges will be different for each and every one of us, and no two same people will encounter the exact same conditions and sufferings as each other. Nonetheless, it is a fact and reality that the path that we have to take as faithful Christians will be an uphill one.

On the other hand, it is often so much easier for us to take the other path, that is the path of disobedience and sin, the path which Satan and his fallen angels, our tempters have presented to us all the time. This path is likely to be much more appealing and enticing to us than the path that God has shown us. Yet, the Lord also made it very clear and had revealed to us, that those who choose the path of sin and willingly and constantly going down that path has nowhere else to go but the damnation in hell, while those who persevered in the path of faith will receive the eternal and true glory of God.

Now, all of us have been given the wisdom and the ability to discern carefully what our course of action in life should be, that we have known what the two possible ultimate outcomes are. But a lot of times, we end up being distracted and fall into indecisiveness because we tend to worry, be concerned about ourselves and our worldly well-being, about being accepted by others and by the community.

This is where our first reading passage today from the Book of Wisdom should enlighten us and help us in our decision, as it was mentioned there that ‘our human reasoning is timid and our notions are misleading’ and how our ‘physical body weighs down on the active mind’. All of them reminds us of our own mortality and our own vulnerability to the temptations of the body and the flesh, the weakness of our body that become obstacles in our journey of faith.

That is why, because of our own weaknesses and inability to understand many things around us that we have to learn to put our trust in God and to focus our whole attention and our whole being on Him. The more we try to comprehend things or make decisions by considering all the concerns and thoughts we have, the more we will be confused and easily be trapped by the devil and his snares.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us all pray and spend more time building a healthy and good relationship with God from now on, and trust in Him with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, knowing that He has provided us with everything that we need, and despite the sufferings, trials and challenges we may encounter in life, let us remember that He Himself has endured those same sufferings and worse, all for the love He has for each and every one of us.

Let us all therefore spend this time and moment to grow ever stronger in our faith, and to walk ever more faithfully in the path towards God. Let us be ever closer to God with each and every passing moment. May the Lord continue to guide us and journey with us, as we strive to carry up our crosses with Him, entrusting ourselves completely in His hands. May God bless us all and all of our good works and endeavours. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 September 2019 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we are contemplating on a topic which many of us often find difficult to practice in our daily lives and as Christians, especially in this world which is often filled with many temptations and desires that prevent us from practicing this very important. Christian virtue that can lead us to be closer to God. And what is this virtue, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is humility.

Humility is something that we often profess to have and preach as Christians. We always like to say that we have humility in us, and yet, very often and more than not, we do not practice humility in our daily lives, and we do not act humbly in how we interact with one another and in how we utter our words and in reaching out to others. On the contrary, we are often tempted by the pride within us, and acted with ego, pride and arrogance.

In our Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus Himself presented to us what is the problem with ourselves in how we act in our daily living. He mentioned how people often jostled and even fought over the places of honour in events and banquets, seeking places of greater honour and exposure, so that one may gain more prestige or satisfaction from having a position of greater honour and esteem than that of another person.

And yet, as the Lord Himself said, there will always be bound to be others who have greater esteem and honour than us, and it is bound that we will be displaced by another who is of greater rank and honour than us, and as Our Lord said, those who want to glorify and honour themselves will end up being humiliated and dejected of having been asked to step aside for those with greater power and honour.

In the end, for all of our pursuits of glory, power, fame and influence, what do we all gain, brothers and sisters in Christ? We gain nothing, and indeed, we end up losing as Satan will have a great time trying to persuade us to take revenge and be angry, to be jealous with one another and to strive to be more powerful and more famous than another person. We spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves more beautiful or handsome, more attractive and more acceptable to others as a result.

In fact, we also cause a lot of sufferings to one another because of our pride and our greed, our inability to resist the many temptations of power, of glory, of fame, of wealth and worldly pleasures. Many conflicts and wars have been caused by the insatiable desires of man who desired more power, more prestige, more wealth and everything else that often corrupted us mankind into the path of sin and wickedness.

The Lord has given us many blessings and good things in life, and yet we mankind are always hard to be satisfied. In truth, we will never be satisfied as long as we try to seek satisfaction in all these worldly things, in all the glory and wealth and riches of the world. The Lord has blessed us with what we need but we seek more than what we need and succumb to the temptations of the flesh, and we therefore fell into sin.

Today, all of us are called as Christians to look deep into our own lives and reflect on every actions, words and deeds we have done and spoken all these while. We are called to contemplate on how we have lived our lives thus far, and most importantly, whether we have truly put God at the very heart and centre of our whole being, and as the whole reason and purpose of our every words, actions and deeds.

Surely, more often than not, as we have discussed just earlier, we have lapsed from this path and fell into the path of pride, the path of greed and the path of sin. We fell into this state because we are weak in the flesh, and temptations are always plenty all around us. And unless we take the concrete action and efforts to resist those temptations and grow stronger in our relationship with God, we will likely end up continuing down this slippery path towards damnation.

Now, let us look at the impetus for all these temptations and for all the wickedness we have committed. In truth, everything leads to one thing, and that is pride or ego. Pride and ego is the greatest and most serious of all forms of sins, just as Satan himself was once the most brilliant and greatest among the Angels of God who was tempted by pride and fell from grace, and ended up in perpetual rebellion against God because of that same pride.

Similarly, pride has entered into our hearts and minds, corrupting our whole being and pushing us deeper towards sin. Pride is the source of all other sins, just as greed and gluttony comes about because of our own pride and ego, that desire to satisfy ourselves and our ego, sloth and lust that come about because of the same desire and want to please ourselves and gain things for ourselves, often at the cost and suffering of others, and many others.

That is why pride and ego are such dangerous enemies that we constantly have within ourselves, which become a great obstacle to us in our journey of faith towards God. How do we then resolve or counter this? The answer lies in what we have discussed earlier today and throughout today’s Scripture readings. It is humility that is the greatest weapon we have in our constant battle against pride and ego within us.

And the Lord wants us all to grow deeper in this humility, a most difficult and rarest of all Christian virtues in my opinion, as it is always very difficult for us to go up against our pride and ego, the ambition and arrogance and the selfishness that are present within us. But humility can be cultivated and it can grow within us, brothers and sisters in Christ, if only that we make the conscious effort to grow in humility and in our relationship and faith in God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all remember what the prophet Sirach mentioned in our first reading passage today, that the greater we become, the more humble we should be, and how we should submit ourselves to the power of God and not seek for things beyond our means, or as I have mentioned, causing even suffering and pain to others in our endless pursuits for power, glory, fame and worldly things.

Then, in the second reading today, I want all of us to remember what the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews pointed out in the passage, that God truly is great and Almighty, far beyond our comprehension, full of power and glory. In how God was shown as the Lord of lords, King of kings, with innumerable Angels glorifying and serving Him, the Master and Lord of all the universe, it serves to remind us all, that no matter how great we are, how glorious we are, how famous and powerful we may be in this world, we are truly nothing before the Lord.

Therefore, for all our pursuits for more power, fame, influence, glory and all worldly things, all of these are truly meaningless and futile because after all, we must realise that all these things do not last, and will not last into eternity. These are the treasures of this world that the Lord has told us to be false treasures, as distractions for us in our pursuit for the true treasure, which is truly found in God alone.

Today, henceforth, all of us as Christians, we are all called to be more humble in our lives and in how we act, in how we interact with one another, in how we live out our lives in this world today. And even more importantly, humility is something very important that we must have in today’s world, especially because today we also mark the occasion of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation.

On this day, we remember our roles as the Lord’s stewards of creation, which means that this world we are living in today, we have been entrusted to its care, just as God entrusted the world in the very first chapters of the Book of Genesis to the first men, the whole world with all of its living creatures and the whole earth itself to our care. And this is truly a very great responsibility for us all to bear.

In this regard, we need to be humble in knowing how God has entrusted with this great responsibility and duty, because He trusts us all to perform our responsibility with the best of our abilities, making use of the many gifts and talents that He has provided us with. Instead of exploiting and bringing harm to this world by our ego, by our greed and insatiable desire for wealth and worldly glory, why don’t we love what God has created for us instead?

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, from now on let us all be truly devoted to God in all things and strive to be faithful always to Him, and show our faith and dedication through our every words, actions and deeds. Let us all be filled with humility in every actions, knowing that we are truly nothing without God, and all the glory and the wonders of this world are nothing and meaningless if we are not in God’s loving grace.

May the Lord continue to bless us all with His love and tender compassion, and may He grant us all the strength and conviction to live our lives faithfully from now on, with all humility and resisting the many temptations of this world, especially that of pride within our hearts. May the Lord bless us all and our good works, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 25 August 2019 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, we listened to the Lord speaking to all of us through the words of the Sacred Scripture focusing on this one important question that we may have often asked ourselves, “Who is it that can be saved?” Or sometimes we may also ask ourselves the same question in a different way but with similar meaning, such as “Are we worthy or good enough to be saved?”

In what we have heard in today’s Scripture passages we are all reminded that unless we are truly faithful and try our best to do what the Lord wants from us, we will not have any part in the promised inheritance of God which He has promised to all those who are faithful to Him. To do that, we will have to show that we are truly faithful and good in our faith by our conscious and constant actions grounded on this faith that we have.

In our first reading passage today from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard a great prophecy by Isaiah made with regards to the gathering of many nations and peoples from all origins to come to worship the Lord, the prophet spoke of how those people will come to glorify God and to praise Him, and surprisingly, how God will choose even the priests and the Levites from among them, people who were used to be considered as pagans and unworthy of God.

And this is closely related to what the Lord Jesus revealed in our Gospel passage today from the Gospel of St. Luke in which He spoke to the people with regards to the matter of salvation, and how people who assumed that they were saved by God and worthy will be disappointed to know that they are not counted among those whom God will invite to enter his eternal kingdom of glory. Conversely, there will be those people whom the earlier group considered to be unworthy and yet manage enter the kingdom of God.

In fact, the Lord Jesus was criticising the actions and attitudes of the people of Israel, who since the ancient times had been proud of their unique heritage and status as the chosen race and people of God since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They looked down on the pagan peoples and the races of people outside the direct inheritance of Israel, considering those people to be inferior, unworthy, unclean and as sinners.

Yet, they failed to look at themselves and realise just how they themselves have been unworthy, unclean, sinful and rebellious in their attitudes towards God, in their refusal to obey Him and their stubbornness in rejecting the truths and the messages of the prophets sent into their midst to remind them to be faithful to God. They assumed their salvation to their status as the descendants of God’s faithful servants and treated it as their birthright.

But that is not how God’s salvation works, brothers and sisters in Christ. Through today’s Scripture passages, God wants each and every one of us to know that first and foremost, all of us, each and every one of us are equally beloved by God and we are all equal without distinction and without prejudice, for God is good to all of those whom He loves, even to all of us sinners. He does not distinguish between us but continues to love us all regardless and always tries to reconcile us to Himself.

It was just that He called some first from among the multitudes of His people, to be His first chosen ones and first-called, but He never meant to exclude everyone else, and with the end goal in mind of the salvation of the whole race of man. God desires that all of us who have been sundered and separated from Him will eventually be reunited with Him through repentance and by the power of the love which He has shown us, through which He hopes to bring a change in our hearts, minds, attitudes and way of life.

Yet, many of us are often unaware of this loving aspect of our God, His desire to love us and to show His merciful forgiveness to us, despite of all the things we have done, all the wicked and unbecoming behaviours and attitudes of sinful people. In the second reading today, taken from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we heard how God is represented like that of a father who loves his children, who cares for them and their needs.

And in the same passage, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews also described how the father who cares for his children will chastise the children whenever it is necessary to do so. This is done not because the father does not love the children, but rather precisely because he loves the children that he wants them all to be good and to walk in the right paths, and not to fall and remain in the wrong paths because of wrong thoughts and influences.

That was why God chastised His people, the Israelites many times throughout history, if we explore through the many chapters of the books of the Old Testament. Ever since God had made and renewed the Covenant He established with them and their ancestors, He has always tried to guide them and to discipline them along their journey, by punishing and chastising them as necessary and by weeding out all those who had no love for Him at all, those who were totally unrepentant.

The people living at the time of the Lord Jesus were no different, and it was to them that the Lord addressed what He has revealed to the people in today’s Gospel passage. Many of them professed to believe in God and to be pious, and yet, they did not truly have faith in Him, and their beliefs and piety were often just empty gestures and meaningless because ultimately, in their hearts, God did not have the most important place at all.

They became proud because they thought of themselves as the privileged and chosen people, and those who were most afflicted were those with power and authority, intelligence and knowledge, such as the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, many of whom took great pride in their piety and observance of the laws of Moses, and looked down even on the other people of Israel, especially those whom they considered to be sinners and unworthy.

But they forgot that it was not them who determined whether they are worthy or not. It is truly only God Who is capable and worthy of judging the worthiness of a person. And we have to remember this fact, that it is not we who make ourselves worthy before God, but rather, He calls us to be worthy for Him. He has called us again and again, reminding us and wanting us to seek Him and to be righteous and just once again, free from sin and from all corruptions of our past wickedness.

Contrasting the attitudes of the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and many among the people of Israel at the time of the Exodus, who doubted the Lord and refused to believe in Him, in His prophets and in His truth, these people who often took great pride in their status, in their privileges and supposed superiority, paled in faith and in righteousness as compared to those people mentioned throughout the Scriptures as the righteous people from the pagan nations.

Take for example, Rahab, the Canaanite woman who helped the scouts of Israel to escape the city in their time of great predicament, and then Ruth, a Moabite whose faith and dedication to God was exemplary and eventually became one of the ancestors of the great king David of Israel. And we also heard of Naaman the Syrian, who although initially was skeptical of the Lord’s power, but devoted himself wholeheartedly after he was healed from his leprosy, and many others who have shown great faith in God.

And in the New Testament, we heard of the faith of the Syro-Phoenician woman who dedicated herself and trusted the Lord so much that despite the apparent rejection and humiliating insults the Lord spoke to her, she remained truly faithful and adamant that the Lord was capable of healing her daughter. This faith mirrored that of the widow of Zarephath at the time of the prophet Elijah, as she took care of the prophet during difficult years.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day all of us are reminded through what we have heard from the Scriptures and what we have discussed throughout today’s discourse, that God’s love is truly great and boundless, sincere and true, never-ending and not being biased. He loves each and every one of us equally without being prejudiced or biased by any of our worldly parameters, the parameters that we often use to divide ourselves into different groups and cliques.

God did not divide us or loved us based on prejudices by skin colour, or language, or height, or our appearances. All these things do not affect His love for us in any way, and as I mentioned many times today, God loves each and every one of us equally without distinction, and each and every one of us have been given opportunities after opportunities, chances after chances to turn away from our sins and to return to our Lord’s loving embrace.

And the number one obstacle that often prevented us from doing so is our pride. As mentioned earlier, those who claimed to know the Lord and claimed salvation to be their own, and even looking down on those whom they deemed to be inferior or less worthy than them, are all due to the pride that are in our hearts. And the more we entertain this pride present within us, the more this pride will grow and suffocate the faith present in us.

Now, we are called by God, as we have been called many times thus far. If we have responded to Him and walked in the path that He has shown us, then it is good and we should continue our journey. But if we have not yet responded to His call and instead we have been so busy and preoccupied, so full of our pride, arrogance, greed and all sorts of things that have prevented us from truly being faithful and from truly loving God, then we should do something at once with our lives.

Instead of being proud and arrogant, let us all be humble, knowing that after all, we are all sinners, and no matter whose sins are more or less serious than the other, all of us have been made corrupt and unworthy by those sins. And those whose sins are greater and repent wholeheartedly will be saved, while those with lesser sins and yet proudly refuse to repent will not be saved. While sin made us corrupted and separated from God, what matters is our desire to repent from those sins and our willingness and sincerity to love God, our loving Father and Creator.

Are we willing to allow God’s love, compassion and mercy to enter into us and make a difference in our lives? Or are we often too full of ourselves, with too much pride and worldly desires that we have not allowed God to enter into our lives and transform them into new lives of grace? We are all called to be true Christians, and the path for us have been shown to us, and the best way to start is for us to be humble, and to be open to the Lord entering into our hearts, into our minds and into the deepest parts of our beings, that from now on, we exist no longer for ourselves, but for the love and for the greater glory of God.

May the Lord continue to guide us in this journey of faith, and may His love continue to sow in us all the same genuine and strong love that He Himself has shown us first, and which we are now called to do the same as well. Let us all be witnesses of God’s love, and show this same love in our interactions with one another, that truly we will be ever righteous and just, and in the end, God will welcome us all into His eternal kingdom and glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 18 August 2019 : Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the words of the Scriptures through which God wants us to remember that being followers of His, as Christians, as those who have faith in Him will inevitably lead us to face difficulties, challenges and sufferings in life, in whatever form that we may encounter these. We must be prepared to face the trials and opposition throughout our lives as faithful Christians and we cannot expect to have an easy and comfortable life.

There are those among us who think that becoming Christians mean for us to have good, blessed life, as after all, does God not love all of us and does He not provide for all of our needs? And because God loves each and every one of us, then how can we not be happy and good in everything, blessed and be abundant with all kinds of riches and good things in this world? This is what some are thinking wrongly, as what some label as the ‘Prosperity Gospel’ among other labels.

First and foremost, we have to understand that yes, God does love each and every one of us very much, and He has blessed us all wonderfully, first and foremost with the precious gift of life. If God has not loved us, then we would have not existed in the very first instance, and He would not have patiently cared for us, because all of us are sinners, disobedient and rebellious in our ways. And yet, because of His love, God constantly forgives us and wants us to be reconciled to Him.

But just as God has given us so much love, so many blessings and wonders in this world, we mankind inherently allow ourselves again and again to fall into the temptations to sin, to disobey God and to follow instead the path of evil and wickedness. We have listened to the words of Satan and his false lies instead of the truth and the love of God. And that is why there are so much suffering and challenges in this world, especially those facing us Christians.

We all know how Satan hates seeing us being saved from destruction, for ever since the beginning of time, he had plotted for our downfall, right up from the time when he struck against our first forefathers, tempting them to sin and therefore fall from the grace of God. It was him who tempted Cain to kill his own brother Abel when the former became jealous of the latter, and it was him who tempted the people to be proud and build the tower of Babel.

It was him who moved the hearts of the people to sin, to cause the brothers of Joseph to send him into slavery because of the same jealousy they had, it was him who tempted the Israelites throughout the ages and through many years, as they fell again and again into sin, succumbing to the temptations of worldly desire, pride and greed, opposing the good works of those prophets whom God had sent among His people to keep them in the right path.

And that is what we have heard in our first reading today, from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, in which the plots against the prophet Jeremiah were mentioned, and how those enemies of Jeremiah almost in fact managed to kill him by their plotting. The prophet Jeremiah was among the last prophets to work in the kingdom of Judah, the last of the successor kingdoms of Israel, just before the kingdom and the city of Jerusalem fell to the hands of the Babylonians and were destroyed.

The prophet Jeremiah had many enemies, even though he had faithfully served the Lord and spoke His truth among the people. Many of the people, including those powerful nobles were angry with him because they saw him as a troublemaker and as a doomsayer. But Jeremiah was merely conveying the Lord’s warnings and truthful words, rebuking the wicked behaviours of the people of Judah at that time, who had fallen deeper and deeper into the path of sin.

Thus, we heard how the prophet was thrown into a dark cistern totally unfit for human dwelling, where his enemies hoped to condemn this faithful prophet to death. Many earlier prophets had suffered that fate, being tortured, persecuted and killed for their faith and dedication to God. There were also many false prophets who spoke the words of falsehoods, the agents of Satan who opposed the good works of God and misled the people.

But amidst all of that, we also heard in the same first reading passage today of the actions of some of those who were still upright and faithful, who counted Jeremiah as a friend. They tried to protect him and to save his life, by pleading with the king to intervene and prevent the enemies of Jeremiah from having their way with the prophet and killing him. And they managed to get the prophet out of his predicament and protected him from further danger.

All of these things serve to highlight exactly what the Lord Jesus told His disciples in our Gospel passage today, and also to dispel some of our own misconceptions and the false ‘Prosperity Gospel’ I have mentioned earlier. The Lord Jesus clearly stated in His discourse in the Gospel passage that His coming into this world would bring about divisions and struggles, conflicts and troubles for all those who believe in Him.

For the context of what the Lord had said, we have to understand that most of the Jews if not all of them believed at that time that the Messiah’s coming would lead them into an eternal new era of joy and happiness, of the restoration of the glorious kingdom of Israel as how it was at the time of king David and king Solomon, when the people would once again be powerful and be free from all of their troubles.

The Lord pointed out clearly that this was not to be the case. And very importantly, we must understand that this is not because of the Lord’s own doing or intention. It is very easy for us to misunderstand what the Lord said in today’s Gospel, becoming confused and even disillusioned at what He had said about bringing conflict and division, struggles and persecutions into our midst. Rather, it was by the works of the same Satan that caused all these things to happen.

The Lord has come into this world, revealing His salvation to all the nations, through none other than Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of all. And Satan worked hard to undermine His works, by trying to tempt Him, by trying to dissuade Him through His Apostles and disciples, speaking through them at times to weaken His resolve, and tempting Him in the Gardens of Gethsemane during the time of His agony.

But when all these failed, Satan struck through those who condemned Jesus to death, death on the Cross, thinking that by killing the Messiah of God just as he had managed to make the people to persecute and kill the prophets in the earlier days, he could finally bring mankind to ruination and destruction as he has always intended. Yet, it was through that same Cross that Satan was handed the ultimate and greatest defeat, for Christ triumphed with His Cross, delivering the salvation of God by His act of ultimate sacrifice.

Satan has indeed been defeated, but he is still always ever desperate, for he knows that even though salvation has been delivered to us, but as long as temptation is around us, he can still strike at us through those same temptations by which he has seduced our race for time immemorial. Many had fallen into his allure and temptations, and through all of the means in his disposal, he strikes especially at those whom the Lord had gathered from the nations, that is all of us Christians.

And that is why Christians throughout the history of the Church has been persecuted in various circumstances and conditions, facing difficulties and oppressions, rejections and ridicule, having to endure humiliation and difficult trials and even unto martyrdom. Many Christians have paid dearly for their faith with their lives, as the lives of the many martyrs of the Church can tell us. Many of these are those who were mentioned in our second reading by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

In that passage, we heard the encouragement spoken by the author of the Epistle, of the innumerable witnesses of the faith which have been present and who have shown their undying faith, even in the face of the toughest persecutions and difficulties. Many of them have been rejected and persecuted even by those who were closest to them, and yet, they persevered and showed love instead of hatred towards their enemies.

And first and foremost among all of them was the Lord Himself, Who showed us what the true meaning of suffering is. The Lord suffered all the painful punishments intended for us because of our sins, but He bore them all willingly because He loves each and every one of us, and that love allowed Him to endure through the many bitterness and sufferings, and how He can also forgive even those who have condemned Him to such suffering and death.

Are we then able to have the same faith and commitment to God, even knowing that we will encounter difficulties and challenges in our path, even from those who are close and dear to us, brothers and sisters in Christ? Being Christians truly mean for us to embrace Christ fully in our lives as Our Lord and Saviour, and we can only do so by truly and wholeheartedly believing in Him through words, deeds and actions. And often, to stand by our faith in Christ means going against the norms and ways of this world.

The Lord wants us all to realise this, and how He has also done so much for us, out of His so great love for us, that He was willing to shoulder the burden of His Cross, suffer and die for us sinners. If He has suffered in such a way, then it is just right that we will likely to suffer as well, for Satan strikes at all those who are faithful and good, and all these persecutions and trials come about because of him and his wicked allies. But we must not lose hope and we must be courageous and strong in faith, for God is truly always by our side.

And let us all also follow the examples of those who have helped Jeremiah to escape his terrible predicament, realising that as fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord, all of us as Christians should take good care of one another and be concerned with each other, showing care and concern for those among us who are less fortunate and are in difficulty. Let us all journey together as one family of believers, as the members of God’s one Church, that we may truly find our way to God, our loving Father and Creator.

May the Lord continue to guide us and may He strengthen in us the faith which we should have for Him. May He continue to empower us to persevere through the difficulties and obstacles we may face on our way. Let us all look forward instead to the eternal glory and true happiness that God promised all of those who remain true and faithful to Him to the very end. Amen.

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Sunday, 11 August 2019 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday our attention is brought to the need for us all to be faithful, to be prepared and to be committed to God, at all times throughout our lives so that we may truly be ready and be worthy of Him. Through the passages we have heard, we received the assurance from God that all those who have been faithful to Him shall not be disappointed, because He has loved them all very well and blessed them.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Wisdom, we heard of an assurance for the people of God, relating to them the memory of their ancestors, the Israelites during their time of slavery in Egypt. By linking the experience to the well-known story of how God saved His entire people and liberated them from slavery, God wanted His people to know and to remember that even in their darkest moments, God always remembers those whom He loves.

The reference to the Passover in that passage is a reference to how the Passover is passed on year after year, from generation to generation, as a reminder of the moment of salvation for God’s people, when God intervened personally to save His people, holding them by hand out of the land of Egypt, foiling the plots their slavemasters and enemies had on them, and saved them by the gift of His love.

And then in the second reading today, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the author who wrote to the audience who were likely the Jewish converts to Christianity, spoke of even more examples of how God rewarded His faithful servants and how He remained true to the promises which He has made to His beloved ones. The examples of Abraham and Sarah were given in that passage, detailing how Abraham followed God faithfully and constantly, despite of the journey and challenges he had to face.

God made a great Covenant with Abraham because of his faith, promising that his descendants will be great and numerous, countless like the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. And God remained true to that Covenant, being with Abraham and his descendants, with the people who have come from among his descendants, right to this very day, caring for all of us and protecting us, providing for us and loving us dearly.

Sarah was also mentioned, as having a son that she and Abraham had waited for a long, long time. She remained faithful to God in the end, although during the many years of waiting, according to the Book of Genesis, she faltered a few times, in her attempt to get a son through her slave Hagar, in how she doubted initially when the Lord came to Abraham and her telling them that she would have a son within the year, even in her very old age.

We see in that occasion, of how God is so generous and ever-loving, ever-patient, in caring for His beloved people, even giving chances to those who have faltered, as Sarah had done, and as later on, the Israelites themselves had done. In the rest of the Books of Exodus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, we can see how the Israelites often rebelled and disobeyed against God, and how God punished them many times. But in the end, He continued to care for them and loved them.

Now, having heard so much about how God loved His people, and if we read on through the rest of the Scriptures, we can see even more examples of such love and faithfulness from God to His people, to the Covenant He has made with them. And God gave us the perfect proof of His love by giving us the ultimate gift in Christ, His own Beloved and Begotten Son, to be Our Saviour and Our Liberator.

And through Christ, God has once again brought His people to freedom, and this time, not just the people of Israel, but the whole race of man, for through Christ, Who is the Divine Word Incarnate, God made Himself incarnate in the flesh of Man, fully Man and fully Divine, all of us have come to share in the humanity of Christ and therefore become God’s adopted children, and as the children of Abraham by faith, for Christ is also born of the race of Abraham.

God fulfilled the promises He made to His servants, establishing the descendants of Abraham, that is all of us who have been faithful to Him, and granting us the promise of eternal glory and inheritance He has kept and prepared for us. He has blessed His people and made us great once again, rescuing us from the fated destruction and promised us that at the end of time He will come to gather all of us to Himself.

And that is what we are reminded of through the Gospel passage today, when the Lord Jesus Himself used a parable to remind all of His disciples and followers to be ever faithful and to be ever vigilant in faith so that they would not be taken by surprise if the Lord comes once again, in fulfilment of the promise which He has made, and which He had adequately forewarned to all of us, that is the timing of the Last Judgment and the end times.

As we have heard and discussed earlier, God is ever patient, ever forgiving and ever loving, giving us many opportunities, again and again, one after another, just because He truly loves us all that much. But we must not take His love ever for granted, as the time will come for us to have to reckon for our decisions and commitments in life, whether we follow God or refuse to walk in His path.

The Lord has always been faithful to His words, He is ever true and ever just, and therefore, if He has promised of His second coming in glory, to judge all of us according to our deeds and to our faith, then it will eventually happen, at a time not of our choosing but at a time we will not expect at all. God alone knows when the exact time of this moment of reckoning will happen, and what each and every one of us should do is that we must be prepared for Him.

In the parable that the Lord used to teach His disciples, He spoke of two types of servants and stewards, one are those who are faithful to the commands of the master, obeying his will and doing whatever they can to fulfil the works of the master, being diligent and hardworking, ever prepared and ever ready, while the other stewards are those who delayed and were being complacent and lazy in their work, thinking that their master would not come back so soon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us are those stewards whom the master has entrusted with his household, that is this world, entrusted by God, Our Lord and Master, to be our responsibility. The Lord has also given us all the free will to choose between obedience and disobedience, between faith and impiety, between the path He has shown and the path of temptations and sin showed to us by Satan.

Are we then able to commit ourselves to a wise choice, thinking carefully and discerning well on what we are to embrace in our lives from now on? Should we choose the Lord Who has been faithful to us all these while, ever loving and ever forgiving, ever compassionate and generous in everything? Or should we choose the way of this world, all the false offerings and temptations of the devil?

Beware, brethren, for the lure of the devil is very powerful indeed, and unless we have genuine and true faith and love for God, we will be easily trapped by the devil’s lures, and end up falling into disobedience and sin, and therefore into damnation and eternal suffering. Are we able to commit ourselves to the path that Christ our Lord has shown us? This requires us to be persistent and resilient, to persevere through the temptations and challenges we may face through this journey in our lives.

Today, all of us are called to be dutiful and good stewards, to be always exemplary in our lives and be ever prepared and ready for the Lord. And this means that we should be faithful just as Abraham, Sarah and all other faithful servants of God have been faithful. And we should not be afraid of failures or being distracted in our journey of faith, as no one in this world is perfect, and because of that, it is perfectly normal for us to falter or to encounter obstacles from time to time.

However, the most important thing here is for us to pick ourselves up and remain strong despite the challenges we encounter, despite the failures we have encountered and all the downfalls we have experienced. Remember that God always loves us, and He has always given us chances after chances, and He is always willing to help us up through those challenges. If He has not given up on us, then all the more we should not give up on ourselves. We must persist and remain strong in our journey, so as to draw ever closer to God and to be worthy of Him when He comes again.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all pray asking God for the courage and the strength to go through these respective journeys of our lives, that we may bear the crosses and trials of our lives with faith, with courage and with determination and passion, burning love for God. May God continue to guide us throughout this journey and may He empower us all to live ever more faithfully in His presence from now on. God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 4 August 2019 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are brought, through the Sacred Scripture passages we have heard, to reflect on our own respective lives, and what pursuits and attention we have given to the various desires we have in life all these while. The Scripture passages today have a very clear direction and meaning, that is to remind us of our own mortality, smallness, imperfections and powerlessness precisely because of our mortality.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of Ecclesiastes or Qoheleth, we heard about the author mentioned about the many meaninglessness in life, in the gaining of knowledge, in the toiling and hard labour in work and efforts for sustenance and perhaps for income and money, among many others. It is meaningless not because those things themselves are meaningless, but rather, we have to understand that the author focused on the impulsive and often overly addictive pursuits for these things among us mankind.

These are the things that are presented very well and clearly by the Lord Jesus in our Gospel passage today, in which He spoke of the parable of the rich man and his wealth to His disciples and to the people who were gathered before Him. It stemmed from a question and request from a man who wanted the Lord to persuade and to advice his brother to share with him the family inheritance, a common issue that often face the members of our many families.

From what we have briefly heard being described in the Gospel passage, we can assume quite well that the man was having a dispute with regards to the family inheritance and possessions with his brother. This is something that we must have heard a lot of times, in families and communities all around us, and even perhaps in our own families, how the members of the family bicker, disagree and even fight against one another disputing and seeking, desiring and wanting a part of the family possessions, wealth and other things.

Thus, the Lord made it clear to the people, making use of the opportunity as a teachable lesson both for the man who asked Him to advice his brother, as well as the rest of the people and His disciples that seeking, desiring and wanting the worldly possessions and goods, wealth and other forms of worldly satisfaction is truly not worth what we may think they are, just as the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes mentioned earlier.

In the parable the Lord told the people, we heard of a rich man who was very proud of his achievements and wealth, his many granaries and riches stored in those granaries, and how he planned and thought a lot on how he could enlarge the granaries he had so that he could store even more of the grains harvested from his vast tracts of rich and fertile farmlands. He has planned in his mind how he wanted to gain even more riches and enjoy the many more years of living with all those riches.

And the Lord through that parable showed His people how futile their searches and many ambitions for power, worldly glory, wealth, fame and glamour are, as the rich man was destined to die that very night, and none of his numerous wealth and plentiful stored riches could have saved him from the inevitable. No one can escape death, and death is a certainty that we mankind have to face, and when we die, nothing that we gain for ourselves in this world, all the worldly treasures and goods will be brought with us through death.

Unfortunately, brothers and sisters in Christ, this is exactly what many of us have been doing wrongly all these while. We have put our focus, effort and attention so much on trying to gather for ourselves all these worldly goods, glories and achievements that we become intoxicated and addicted to them, and in our endless pursuits for these things, we end up forgetting why we live in this world and the reason for our existence all these while.

In our second reading passage today, St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful people of God in the city of Colossae, he spoke of what each and every one of us as Christians are called to do in our lives, and that is to seek for greater things in Christ, and not to seek the false treasures and the futile pursuits for worldly glory in this world. He exhorted the people of God to follow the Lord faithfully, and to reject all sorts of immorality, sin and the many temptations being present in this world.

That is why today, all of us having heard and listened to the words of the Scripture passages that strongly urged and reminded us to seek the true treasures of our life, we are now called to reflect on how we have lived our lives thus far and how much progress we have actually made in trying to find this true treasure of our life. Have we been acting like that rich man who cared for nothing but for the greater glorification of himself and for the greater wealth of his own?

On this day we are called to reflect on how futile is the pursuit of wealth, glory, fame, worldly pleasures and all sorts of excesses of this world. And as I mentioned earlier in this discourse, we must be careful and not misunderstand that we must abandon everything that is worldly and all sorts of worldly possessions, wealth or anything related to this world. We must understand that we do still need to have these things, but it is just that we cannot be overly obsessed and preoccupied with them as what many of us often do.

While we live in this world, we should be smart and make good use of whatever resources and blessings that God has given each and every one of us. However, we must not allow these things to overcome us and rule over us instead. We make use of them and not they make use of us instead. Unfortunately, it is our weak human nature and predisposition to desire and greed that often brought us to fall into sin.

We are easily tempted by the many worldly glory, temptations, pleasures and all the things that cause us to forget about God and our true treasure in life. We seek for glory and happiness in this world that do not truly last, and often we are not able to overcome our attachment, and as a result, we fail to notice how we should go forward in life seeking true happiness and joy, and instead, are trapped in the endless cycles of desire.

We have to strive to look beyond the meaninglessness of our endless pursuits of power, glory, fame and all those things that often prevent us from finding our true treasure, which is nothing less than God, our true treasure and destination, the only One Who is capable of granting us true happiness and joy that is beyond anything else that this world can give us. For no matter how wonderful, joyful or great all the treasures of this world can be, and how good they may seem to be, they will not last.

In fact, much sufferings present in this world are caused by our own desire for all these things, and how our conflicting desires with one another cause us to bicker, to fight, and to exploit those who are weaker than us, so that we can gain for ourselves more of what we desire and want. And we can never be truly happy since whatever we do to gain all those desires, we will have inadvertently or even consciously caused unhappiness or suffering all around us.

As the Scripture says, ‘What does it gain for us to gain the entire world and yet lose our soul?’, we are reminded today that we must resist the temptations of false pleasures and happiness in this world. Satan, our great enemy knows this very well, and he is doing whatever he can in order to tempt us and to bring us to our downfall, by showing us all sorts of false pleasures in life that seem to be better, more enjoyable and more wonderful than the path leading towards God and His salvation.

Are we able then to make good use of whatever blessings and worldly goodness God has given us, but without being overcome by our desires and greed? Are we able to grow deeper in our relationship with God, and in our love for Him so that despite all those temptations and challenges we will have to face, we will always remain steadfast in faith and stay faithful in all things?

May the Lord guide us all and may He empower each and every one of us to live faithfully in His presence from now on, if we have not done so. May He continue to love us and bless all of our good works, that we may come to seek the true treasure and happiness in our lives, that lies in God alone, in being with Him and enjoying forever the glorious inheritance and blissful life He has promised us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 28 July 2019 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we heard from the Scripture passages on the matter of trusting in God and how each and every one of us can ask Him and approach Him, seeking for Him to help us and to provide us with what we need. This is in fact something that many of us as Christians may have taken for granted throughout our lives, not realising that God has always been by our side all these while without fail.

In our first reading today, we heard of the encounter and exchange between Abraham and God Himself, as He revealed to him what He had planned for the great wickedness of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He would destroy the two cities for all the sins the people in them had committed and their stubborn refusal to repent from those sins and continuous living in wickedness and corruption.

Abraham naturally asked the Lord to show mercy, because first of all, we have to remember that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were also the places where Lot, Abraham’s relative has been living at that time after he and Abraham went on their separate ways. Surely Abraham wanted his relative and his whole family to be saved from such a destruction, and that was why Abraham pleaded for the sake of him and for the people of the city.

But at the same time, we have to also take note that Abraham could have just asked God directly to spare the lives of Lot and his family, instead of asking God to spare the lives of everyone in the two cities. After all, weren’t the people living in those cities very wicked and sinful? They surely had deserved death while Lot and his family deserved to be saved. Why is that, brothers and sisters in Christ?

That is because Abraham must have firmly believed that God is so loving and merciful that He would not have done what He had revealed to Abraham He would do to Sodom and Gomorrah. Just as Abraham himself had been so beloved by God, he must not have been able to believe that God wanted to bring such a fate of destruction on so many people living those two cities. That was why, he continued to plead for the sake of the two cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, asking God to spare the city should there be fifty, forty-five, forty, and so on until if there were even only ten righteous people living there.

And God did listen to Abraham, brothers and sisters in Christ, just as He was patient listening to his many pleas in His presence. Linking with what we have also heard in our Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus taught His disciples who asked Him how they ought to pray, and making comparison of God as One Who will listen to those who ask of Him, Abraham in our first reading today is truly like a child asking for favours from his father.

The Lord Jesus was making a comparison between God and His actions with those of a friend and to a father of a child. He was mentioning to His disciples how even a friend, no matter what happens, will move to help should we ask for help, even when that causes that friend discomfort and unhappiness, just because by helping that friend of ours can get rid of our constant nagging and requests. And God, in truth, is much more than just a friend to us.

And a father, no matter what, will not give something that will harm his child, or give whatever that is totally contrary to what the child has been asking for. And God indeed is our Father, our heavenly Father and Creator, Who created us all out of His perfect love for each and every one of us. He is far more than all of our earthly fathers, and because of that, His love for us is truly genuine, true and powerful beyond comparison.

Now, as highlighted just earlier, prayer is the way how we communicate and ask God, our loving Father and Creator. But then now, we need to spend some time reflecting on prayer, on how we pray and if we have even made our prayers faithfully in our own respective lives so far. Have we made our prayers with the right intentions and purposes in mind? Or have we fallen into the same mistake that so many of us have done in making our prayers?

Many of us have this misconception and misunderstanding that prayer is like a magic and works like magic, fulfilling whatever we wanted. And many of us may have thought that God will listen to us no matter what and that He will fulfil every single one of our prayers. Consequently, we reduced our prayers into the ones consisting of litanies of requests or even demands. And when God did not fulfil what we wanted, we ended up being angry at God or left Him behind for other ‘gods’.

We have to understand that, first of all, we cannot reduce God into One that is subservient to us, since He is after all, the Creator, Lord and Master of all the universe, and He is the Master of us all. How can we act in our prayers as if He is our slave that will heed all of our every biddings and demands? This is a wrong attitude and way of praying, and if we are guilty of this, then we should reflect again on the Scripture passages today.

If we read on after the part taken for today’s first reading from the Book of Genesis, we should know that eventually, Sodom and Gomorrah would still be destroyed by God, with a rain of fire and brimstone from the heavens. Then we may be wondering, did Abraham not ask the Lord to spare those two cities for the righteous who lived in them and for the sake of Lot and his family, Abraham’s own relatives?

We must then understand that everything that happens in this world and indeed, in the whole universe and creation, must follow the will of God and all that God had intended everything to be. It does not mean that God does not listen to His people and to our prayers. He did listen and He is a much better listener than all of us are. He answered Abraham’s prayers by rescuing Lot and his family through His Angels that He Himself sent to Sodom and Gomorrah to rescue them.

But it was fated and by God’s will that the two cities were destroyed because not even ten righteous people could be found in them, like Abraham requested from God. Only Lot and his family, who were less than ten in number, could be considered as righteous, from what we read on from the Book of Genesis’ accounts. And in that occasion, when Lot begged God through His Angel to spare the small town of Zoar because he was afraid that he would not be able to reach safety in time, God listened to him and spared the small town.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us then recall what the Apostle St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Colossae, our second reading today, when he mentioned about our baptism and the wonderful gifts that God had given us from that baptism. This is significant because by baptism, all of us have not just received pardon and forgiveness from all of our sins as mentioned in that Epistle, but even more so, that we have been made nothing less than sons and daughters of God Himself.

And that is because through baptism, we become sharers in Christ’s Passion, suffering, death and Resurrection. We share in the glory of the Cross, by dying to our past sins and by embracing Christ and believing in the glory of His Resurrection. Just as Christ is the Son of God, we share through His humanity as the Son of Man, the same relationship with God, our loving heavenly Father.

Today, let us all realise that the best way to pray and communicate to God, our loving Father, is to follow the example of Christ, Who prayed to His heavenly Father in the purest and best prayer known to us, which we all know as the Pater Noster, or the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer, all the four essence and intentions of prayer is covered, namely that of ‘Adoration’, ‘Thanksgiving’, ‘Atonement’ and ‘Petition’.

Rather than beginning His prayer with petition after petition, or request or demand one after another, the Lord showed us all that we begin by glorifying and adoring God, thanking God for everything that He has done for us, for all the wonders and glories He had shown us, and also admitting that after all, God’s will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, not our own will or desire.

The Lord’s Prayer is a model upon which our personal prayers should be made, as prayer is in its pure essence, as all of us must realise, is an intimate form of communication between God and us, much like how Abraham communicated in private with God as shown in our first reading today. A true communication is two-way between the two parties, and not unidirectional. That was why, in prayers, we must open our hearts and minds to God just as God listens to us.

Even with all of our concerns and petitions that we wish to make in our prayers, first and foremost we must understand and realise that everything will ultimately be in God’s hands, and His will shall be done. And we must make our petitions with the openness in mind and heart at all times, allowing God to make known to us what His will is for us, just as we pray and ask Him to intervene for our sake, whatever it may be.

Can we trust in God and believe in Him wholeheartedly from now on? God will never abandon us, and He will always provide for us, as the Lord Jesus Himself assured us all. If an evil person, or any ordinary person, or any fathers know how to do good and take care of those who are dear to them, what more will the Lord will do for us, as each and every one of us are truly dear to Him? Remember all that He had lovingly done for His servants throughout history, and what He had done to Abraham and in rescuing Lot and his family from destruction.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God is always listening to us, and in truth, we do not even need to say anything at all. Of course God Who knows everything, has already known everything in our hearts and minds, even our deepest secrets and thoughts. But are we opening our hearts and minds to listen to God? Are we allowing Him to speak to us just as we speak to Him? Let us all reflect on this, and strive to improve our prayer life, so that we may truly spend the time in quality prayer with God, our loving Father.

Let us be ever more faithful from now on, and do not let the business of our life in this world, all sorts of worldly concerns and temptations to distract us from God. Let us all be open to God’s grace and be willing to listen to Him, by being ever more prayerful in our daily living. May the Lord continue to guide us and strengthen us all in faith, and may He empower us all to live in accordance with His will, as Abraham, our father in faith, has done. Amen.