Sunday Mass homily

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Sunday, 21 July 2019 : Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, we are all reminded of the revelation of God’s truth to us, which He has reserved to all those who are willing to listen to Him and His truth, that all of us who listen to Him and come to believe in Him may come to embrace righteousness and justice in God’s truth. All of us are reminded that God has showed us all His love and generous compassion all these while, and how it is us mankind who are often ignorant of His love.

In our first reading today, we listened to the words of the Scripture speaking to us about the encounter between God and Abraham, His servant by the oaks in Mamre when Abraham stayed in Canaan. God appeared to Abraham to reveal to him that whatever He has promised to him in the Covenant He has made with him would be upheld, through the miracle of a son that Abraham would receive from God.

Even though Abraham had earlier on contravened God’s provision by the insistence of his wife Sarah, who tried a shortcut of having a son through her slave, Hagar, but God revealed to Abraham that His Covenant and promise would remain true as how He has planned it, and not as how man planned it. Although God did bless Ishmael, the son that Abraham had with Hagar, but the fullness of His promise and Covenant lies only in the promised son that Abraham then would have with Hagar.

Before we move on into the New Testament readings, it is important that we see what God has revealed to Abraham, and, although not included in the first reading passage today, exactly how Sarah, Abraham’s wife, responded to the revelation. Sarah did not believe in the words that the travellers spoke to Abraham, not knowing that those travellers were actually God Himself in person. She laughed secretly on hearing that she would have a child even though she had been very old then.

But God knew what was in her heart and mind, and asked Sarah why she laughed at what He has revealed to both her and Abraham. Sarah denied it, but God reminded her that He knew everything, and that to prove to her, she herself would indeed bear a son, and that son would be named Isaac, whose name means ‘he laughs’ in reference to the lack of faith of Sarah in God’s revelation of truth.

From what we have heard and discussed, we can see that Sarah did not fully trust in God and placed more faith in her own thinking and perceptions, in her own capability to sort things out, when she chose to take things into her own hands by using her slave to bear Abraham a son on her behalf, and then as mentioned, when she laughed at the words of God, probably thinking that it was ridiculous for anyone to have the notion that she could bear a son at such an age.

And now, let us all compare what we have heard in the first reading from the Book of Genesis to the Gospel passage today, in which the Lord Jesus interacted with two sisters, Martha and Mary, who ended up becoming those counted among His closest friends and disciples. In that occasion, Martha and Mary welcomed the Lord Who came into their house, and then we were shown the contrast in how the two of them welcomed the Lord.

Martha was busy preparing the house, getting ready for the meal and doing everything to show as hospitable a welcome as possible for the Lord. She did have good intentions in doing so, and most likely she believed that it was her best way of welcoming the Lord, as perhaps many of us would have also done. If a guest comes to our house, certainly we will do our best to prepare the house for the guest’s coming.

Meanwhile, Mary was with the Lord by His side, listening to Him preaching and teaching to her. Mary spent her whole time and focused all of her attention and effort to the Lord, unlike Martha who was preoccupied and busy with all of her preparations. Martha became angry at her sister and asked the Lord to tell Mary to help her in her preparations, justifying that she was so busy doing all the work by herself while Mary did not help out at all.

That was when the Lord reminded Martha that Mary has chosen a better path, one that is not clouded by our human and worldly fears and concerns, our desires and our prejudices. Mary focused her whole self on God and had total faith in Him, and that was all that matters. It was not that Martha was wrong in what she had been doing. Surely, Martha loved the Lord too, for otherwise she would not have even made the effort to prepare to welcome the Lord properly according to her standard of hospitality.

However, it was her great preoccupation and indeed, distraction caused by all of the things she was doing in the midst of her efforts and preparations that became obstacles for her in her effort to welcome the Lord into her heart. She was so busy trying to welcome the Lord into her house that she has forgotten to welcome Him into her even more important house, the house of her soul, that is her heart!

And that was what happened with Sarah in the Book of Genesis as well, because she was so busy and distracted being concerned of trying to have a son with her husband Abraham, that she had less faith in God and tried to have a shortcut instead by using her slave Hagar as a means to achieve her goal, and when as mentioned, God came up to her and told her what His plan was for her and Abraham, she did not believe, because she forgot to welcome God into her house properly, that is her heart.

Contrast that with Abraham, who like Mary, welcomed the Lord and brought Him into his own house, both literally and also figuratively, because Abraham trusted in God and believed in Him, and he listened to Him with all of his heart and attention. That was why in another occasion, when God asked Abraham to test his faith, by asking him to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, Abraham listened to God and complied with faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how about us then? Do we also act in the manner of Sarah and Martha, who were distracted by their business and concerns in life, or do we act in the manner of Abraham and Mary, who had true and sincere faith for God? Let us all reflect on our own lives, our own actions and deeds in life thus far. Have we been faithful as we should have been faithful? Have we made the effort to welcome God into our hearts, into our minds and into our beings?

This is a reminder for each and every one of us not to allow our busy schedules, the many distractions and temptations in life to prevent us from appreciating the faith which we have in God. Let us all overcome those temptations and turn ourselves wholeheartedly from now on to God, focusing our whole attention to Him just as Abraham and Mary had done. As St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle today, to all of us, God has revealed the wonderful truth of His love.

Let us all therefore be faithful bearers and witnesses of God’s love, from now on, so that in our every actions and deeds, we will always be true and be dedicated in all things, devoting our every moments and opportunities to bring glory to God and to show His love and wonderful mercy to all of our fellow brethren in this world. May God bless us all and may He guide us in our journey of life. Amen.

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Sunday, 14 July 2019 : Fifteenth 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 us about the matter of the Law of God being put inside our hearts and minds, that each and every one of us may know how to live our lives truly in accordance with what God has willed for us and with what He has taught us all to do. For God’s Law is not just a mere formality or law to be obeyed without understanding what the Law is all about, or else, our obedience will be without meaning and purpose.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, we heard of the reminder from God to His people that He has given them His Law and His commandments, and He has revealed these to them so that they may come to be faithful and be obedient to the way which He has shown all of them. God showed them all how they could be righteous and upright in their words, actions and deeds.

Unfortunately, they frequently disobeyed Him and rebelled against Him, walked away from His path and turning away from His laws and commandments, preferring to follow their own volitions and obeying false gods and idols instead. And all these were because of their failure and refusal to listen to the will of God and to the Law of the Lord, which they thought as a restraint and oppressive regulations.

But they failed to understand what the Law truly means, as were their descendants, who preserved those very same laws and commandments, and failed to understand their meaning even until then. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law preserved the Law and enforced strict obedience to them on the people. They enforced hundreds of rules and regulations, and were focused on the details of the Law, but failed to know why the Law was there in the first place.

And the Gospel passage which we have heard today put our understanding of the Law into a new understanding, as what the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples using the famous parable of the Good Samaritan can tell us. We know this story of a good Samaritan man who helped a person robbed on his way to Jericho, while two other people, a priest and a Levite ignored him and just passed him by without helping him.

Now, we should understand deeper the symbolisms that exist in this parable, as the Lord wanted His disciples and all of us to know that it was not external piety and obedience to the Law that matter, but rather, our internal disposition, alignment, understanding and harmony with the Law that actually matter. The reality is that at that time, the society and the people of God were quite biased and had quite a bit of prejudice on the three people mentioned in the parable by Jesus.

The priest is usually a very respected person, as the priest symbolised the unity and link between God and man, as the one who is not just knowledgeable about the Law and God, but also as the one who offer the people’s sacrifices to God. Priests were also anointed by God to be His servants, and therefore, they were very essential in the livelihood of the people of God, and thus, commanded a large amount of respect.

Meanwhile, the Levite belonged to the tribe of Levi, from which priests were usually selected from. They were so important and honoured in their role, chosen by God, that they were traditionally not counted among the twelve tribes of Israel because they were supposed to be dwelling in all places, wherever there were need for priests. They were the descendants of Aaron and the priestly caste, and therefore also commanded a great deal of respect.

But the Samaritan was usually treated with disdain and prejudice, indifference and even hostility at times, just because they were seen as outsiders, pagans and people who were unworthy of God and His grace. The Samaritans were those who lived in the region of Samaria, the former site of the northern kingdom of Israel and were descended from a mixed heritage of some of the northern tribes of Israel and those pagan peoples that were brought into that place when the Israelites were exiled.

As such, the Jewish people in Judea and Galilee were often very wary, prejudiced and opposed against the Samaritans, whom they deemed to be pagans and unworthy. But yet, in what the Lord Jesus presented in the parable, it was exactly the same Samaritan who the people despised and often treated badly that was moved by the plight of a person who was robbed and left to die on the roadside.

And we should understand this with the fact that the Jews would not even touch or talk to a Samaritan, as evidenced in another part of the Gospels when the Samaritan woman of the Samaritan town of Sychar found the Lord Jesus strange for willingly talking to her, a Samaritan while He was a Jew. But that Good Samaritan not only showed pity on the injured Jew, but even took him to an inn and paid for his whole stay and mended his wound.

If we compare the behaviours and actions of the three people mentioned, the priest, the Levite and the Samaritan, it is quite obvious that the Samaritan did what the priest and the Levite did not do or refused to do. The greatest irony is that the two people who were commonly highly respected and praised for their obedience and observance of God’s laws did not do what the Lord has commanded them to do.

And on the contrary, the person everyone thought the least likely to be obedient to God, namely the Samaritan, had shown true faith and obedience to God’s commandments, by loving one of his own brethren, even though he was a Samaritan and the injured man was a Jew. That is the true essence of the Law and what God has wanted us all to do ourselves. The Law of God is about love, love that is pure and true, genuine and does not discriminate.

There is no point for us to be externally pious and appear to be good and law-abiding, if in our hearts we do not internalise and understand the meaning of those laws. That was what the priest and the Levite had done, which the Lord also used to subtly criticise the lives and the actions of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who have lived their lives in such a way, focusing on the external applications of the Law but not understanding why the Law was given to us.

Instead, all of us are called to love generously and be truly creatures of love, imitating the examples of none other than our beloved Father, Our Lord and God Who has loved us so generously and patiently, caring for the needs of all those who are dear to Him. God cares for each and every one of us without exception, and even we have sinned against Him and even after we have been obstinate in our rebelliousness, He continued to love us all regardless.

This is what the true essence of the Law of God is about, the love which God has for us, and which we therefore should also have for Him. And the love which we have, we should also love our fellow brethren, our brothers and sisters in our midst. Let us all be true disciples of the Lord from now on, and show love in our every words and actions from now on, so that we will be filled with true faith and love for God.

Let us all therefore not be hypocrites in our faith, but instead be sincere in our faith and in everything we do from now on. Let us all put the Law of God, the Law of His love in our hearts and minds, and make ourselves the instruments of His love. May God, our loving Father, be our guide and be our example, that each and every one of us may follow in our own lives, living our faith with dedication and conviction. Amen.

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Sunday, 7 July 2019 : Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the Scripture passages in which we heard of the coming of God’s salvation as prophesied and spoken in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, which was fulfilled in the time of the New Testament, with the coming of the Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, fulfilling all the promises which God had promised to all of His people from the beginning of time.

In our first reading from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, God spoke to His people through His prophet, speaking of the coming of a joyous and good time when God will bless Jerusalem, which represent the people of God, once again, and will give them the fullness of His grace and loving care again. And this must be understood in the context of what had happened at that time, in the land of Israel and Judah.

At that time, the kingdom of Israel and Judah, which were long separated for many centuries due to the divisions caused by the sins of the people and their kings, had been in great decline and experienced many sufferings and ruin, and in fact, right at the time of the prophet Isaiah, the northern kingdom of Israel fell into the hands of the conquering Assyrian Empire. The cities of the northerners were destroyed and many of the people were brought away to exile in far-off lands.

In their place, foreigners were brought to stay in the northern lands, lands used to be populated by the ten tribes of Israel. Over time, the people there intermingled, between the remnants of the Israelites and the foreigners who were put to take their place by the Assyrians. These were the ancestors and the origin of the people later known by the time of Jesus as the Samaritans, as those people who inhabited the land of Samaria, the ancient capital of the northern Israelite kingdom.

At that time, the remnants of Israel living in the southern kingdom of Judah would not have realised what the Lord meant in what He spoke through the prophet Isaiah, but the time would indeed come, when at the time of the coming of the Lord’s Saviour, Jesus Christ, all is revealed and God’s true intentions were made clear to everyone. And this beautiful truth is that God loves each and every one of His children, that is all mankind.

Unfortunately, by the time of the Lord Jesus, the people had become bitterly divided, in what is typical of ‘us against them’ mentality, in which the Jewish people, the descendants of mainly the old exiles from the fallen kingdom of Judah, thought that they alone out of all people that deserved God’s love and inheritance. They took great pride in themselves being the descendants of Abraham and as the inheritors of the chosen people of God.

That ended up in them looking down and despising the other people whom they thought to be unworthy of God and His love and salvation, chief of which were the Samaritans, and then also the Greeks and the Romans, as well as other non-Jewish peoples and all those who did not preserve and follow the laws of Moses under the strict interpretation of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law.

But they failed to understand God’s true intentions and desire to love everyone, regardless of their nationalities or origins, language or background, culture or history. Each and every one of us mankind are God’s beloved creation and children, the fruits of His generous love for each and every one of us, without exception. Everyone is precious and important before the Lord, equal and without distinction.

That was what St. Paul wrote about in this day’s second reading, the part taken from his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in the region of Galatia. St. Paul spoke of how the faithful has been united by their common faith and love for God, and how there was no more distinction between the Jews and the non-Jews, as everyone has experienced the same love of God, and have been brought into a new existence in God.

They all received the same faith through the hard work of the disciples and the Apostles, whom God had sent to propagate His truth and salvation to all those who are willing to listen to the truth and those who are willing to believe in Him and follow Him. Without the dedication of those faithful servants of the Lord, many would not have heard the truth of God and not be saved.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard of the sending of the seventy-two disciples by the Lord, who were sent in addition to the Apostles to the various places that the Lord Himself was to visit, to proclaim the Good News of God before those people and to call them to believe in the Lord’s salvation through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. They were sent to the people with the expectation that their missions and works would not be an easy one.

Yet, the Lord also encouraged them that they would not be working alone. For the Lord Himself would guide them on their way. He told them of what they should do and what they should bring, essentially to put themselves completely in the hands of God, trusting in Him rather than in their own abilities or in whatever things they have brought with them. He sent them two-by-two to His people in order to save them all, because He loves everyone, without exception.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are called to reflect on our own lives as Christians. Do we realise that we are the modern day successors of those disciples whom the Lord had sent? We are all called, as Christians, to be witnesses of our faith for the Lord as well, in whatever capacity we are in, in whichever community or opportunity we have, to bring forth God’s truth and love to the people He has loved so much.

Are we able to be good role models in faith as the disciples of the Lord had been in theirs? It is through our exemplary and righteous life that we become inspirations for others to follow, in reaching out to everyone and to bring them to the same faith which we now have. Let us all therefore be courageous and be inspired to follow and walk in the footsteps of the Apostles and the disciples of the Lord, and be witnesses of our faith in God.

May the Lord bless us always and may He guide us in all of our actions, so that in everything we say and do in our respective lives, we will lead more people towards God. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 June 2019 : Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the whole theme of this Sunday’s Scripture passages, if we go through them again, is actually about being called to follow the Lord. We are all called to be His servants and followers, and because of that, the Lord wants us to follow Him wholeheartedly without being distracted or without being overshadowed by any other concerns in life. If we want to be God’s followers, we must be truly sincere and genuine.

In our first reading today, we heard of the story from the First Book of Kings in which God told Elijah, one of His faithful prophets to anoint Elisha, the one whom God had called and chosen to be the successor to Elijah. At that time, in the northern kingdom of Israel, the kings of Israel like Ahab had been very wicked and sinful, disobedient against God and led the people to sin by their pagan and idol worship and through their own decadence and wickedness.

The prophet Elijah was one among the very few prophets who were left to go against the wickedness of the king and the people. Surely we have heard of another story where the prophet Elijah went up alone against four hundred and fifty priests of Baal in Mount Carmel, where he alone went up against the multitudes of his enemies in the presence of the people, and God was with him, sending fire from heaven to prove that He and not Baal is the true God.

It was for this purpose that God chose and called Elisha to be the one to continue the many good works that Elijah the prophet had done earlier. It was in our first reading passage that Elijah came up to Elisha speaking to him about what God had willed and revealed to Elisha the responsibilities that he was about to undertake. Elisha responded with faith and dedication, and leaving everything behind, he followed Elijah and eventually became his successor.

Elisha would go on to perform many good works and glorifying the Lord in his own ways, obeying the commands and the will through which God has called him to do the many things that he has been sent to do. And the same calling has been made in our Gospel passage today, to the disciples whom Our Lord Jesus had called. When a man came up to the Lord saying that he wanted to follow Him, the Lord asked from him his commitment and sincerity in following Him.

Yet the man said that he still had matters that he wanted to settle and he wanted to go back to his family to say his goodbyes first. The Lord’s response to the man might indeed then seem to be quite harsh, as He said that those who look back and have second thoughts about following Him are not fit for the kingdom of God. But we have to understand the purpose and context in which Our Lord spoke those words.

What the Lord wanted the man, His disciples and all of us to know is that following God is something that each and every one of us must do seriously and with commitment. We cannot say that we want to follow God and yet we are divided and uncertain in our hearts and minds with regard to following Him. What He wants each and every one of us to know is that God must always be the first and foremost in our every thoughts and living moments, and we must learn to trust in Him rather than in our own human concerns and desires.

He did not mean by His words that we should leave behind our families and everything behind, as what the prophet Elisha had done when God called him to succeed the prophet Elijah. If every Christians were to leave behind everything and all of their families behind, then in the end, who would be left behind? Who will take care of the young and other members of the Church who need those who give them care and provision?

Rather, the Lord wants us to do our best in our own respective ways, wherever we are in our lives, so that in everything we say and in everything we do, we will glorify God and put His interests and obeying His will to the best of our abilities. To each and every one of us God has given unique and wonderful gifts that we must make good use of in order to be truly Christians in how we live our lives.

There are also of course those whom God had called to be His servants in the way that He has called the prophet Elisha and His Apostles, to leave everything behind and to commit themselves wholly to His cause. And these are those who have given themselves to the consecrated and holy lives, those who have responded to the Lord’s call and become His holy priests and servants.

We should pray for all of them and support them in whatever way we can, for their works are set up for them, and there are many challenges that they will have to face just as we also have our own challenges and trials to face in life. Let us all pray that God will give them the strength, the courage and the conviction to carry on their mission and their calling with all of their abilities even in the midst of persecution and challenges, just as the prophets Elijah and Elisha had done.

And for ourselves, let us all pray to God, that He will continue to inspire us and to be our source of strength, so that according to what St. Paul had written in his Epistle to the Galatians which is our second reading today, we may truly be free from the slavery of sin and from the bondage to our human desires and concerns, and walk instead faithfully and courageously in the way of the Spirit.

Let us all devote our energy, our time and effort to live righteously in God’s presence, doing whatever it is that He has taught and called us to do, that even through our own little ways and little contributions, we may be genuine and sincere in our faith and in our desire to follow God, with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, and not be distracted by the many concerns and temptations in life.

May the Lord guide us always, and may He continue to give us the encouragement and strength to live always in His grace and to walk in His path from now on, becoming good role models and inspirations for everyone around us, that our lives be truly exemplary and be shining examples of our Christian faith at all times. May God bless us all and our every endeavours from now on. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a great day and occasion dedicated to one of the most important central tenets of our Christian faith, in our belief and firm conviction that God Himself has given us His own Precious Body and His own Precious Blood to be partaken.

We believe that in the celebration of the Holy Mass, or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest minister as the representation of Christ Himself, acting in persona Christi, unites the offerings of the bread and wine made at the Offertory with the offerings that Christ Himself had made to His heavenly Father as our one and true Eternal High Priest from the Altar of His Cross at Calvary.

The bread and wine themselves have been completely and fundamentally transformed into the essence and material of the Lord’s Body and Blood Himself, in what is known as the Transubstantiation. Therefore, while the bread and the wine themselves still appear to be the appearance and texture of bread and wine, but the moment they are consecrated by the priest they become completely and truly the matter and the essence of the Lord’s own Body and Blood.

There are those who doubted the veracity and truth behind this seemingly mysterious and otherworldly transformation, as by our eyes and senses, by the appearance and by the taste and texture, the bread and wine seemingly remain unchanged as they were. However, this is where our faith is essential and necessary, because we truly believe that each and every one of our priests, moulded and ordained in the same order of priesthood as Christ is, and representing Christ Himself, has truly been given the power and authority to turn the bread and wine into Our Lord’s Body and Blood.

The Lord Himself made it clear in one occasion as He taught the people about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread Who has come down from heaven to the midst of His people, to give them the true Bread by which all of those who partake in this Bread will never hunger again and will have a share in the eternal life promised to all those who have received this Bread worthily and with faith.

He was not just mentioning this Bread of Life randomly at that occasion without reason. In fact, He was referring to His very own Flesh and Body, His own Blood as He made that teaching to the people. The Lord speaks only the truth, and therefore, how can the Lord bluff or lie to the people about His own Body when He spoke of it then? He spoke of His own Body as real Food, to be partaken by His people, His faithful ones.

And in today’s Gospel passage, we heard yet another occasion in the Gospel, when the Lord miraculously provided for the need of His people, in feeding the five thousand men and countless other women and children when they were hungry and without food, giving them bread and fishes to eat, out of merely five loaves of bread and two fishes that were available. This occasion was in fact a prefigurement and premonition of what was to come in the Sacrifice of the Cross, though the people then did not know it as yet.

As the Lord offered the bread and the fishes and giving thanks to His heavenly Father, He was representing His own upcoming sacrifice, in which He offered Himself instead as the perfect offering for the oblation and atonement of all of our sins. In the olden days, lambs and other animals were used in sacrifices according to the Jewish laws and customs to be the sin offerings to atone temporarily for one’s sins.

And in the time of the Passover, if we remember, the people chose a young, unblemished lamb to be slaughtered and as a sign of God’s providence and salvation, with the blood of the lamb being smeared and placed on the doorposts of the houses of the people of Israel, as sign for God’s Angels to ‘pass over’ them as they scourged the whole land of Egypt for the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.

Therefore, at the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross, we mark our new Christian Passover, in which a new Covenant had been made by God to be binding between Him and all of us. He offered not the imperfect offerings of lambs and animals of this world, but His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, as He was ‘slaughtered’ on the Cross for the crimes that His enemies had charged on Him.

He laid down Himself and offered His Body and Blood as the perfect sacrifice and offering before God, on the Cross which is His Altar. He is our Paschal Lamb by Whose Blood we have been marked as those who are faithful and worthy to be saved from eternal damnation and destruction because of our sins. By His Most Precious Blood, if we refer to the Book of the Revelations of St. John, the holy martyrs have been washed and made clean in their own outpouring of their blood, and thus, we too are made clean by His Blood.

The Lord Himself has given His all for our sake, laying down His own life and giving His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for us all to partake, in that same Sacrifice at Calvary, to which each and every celebrations of our Holy Mass are united to, not as separate and different sacrifices as some would have misunderstood it, thinking that the Lord is being sacrificed and offered again and again, but in fact, the truth is every time the Eucharist is celebrated, it is the same Sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary again.

And this is what we truly believe, that God Himself has truly become present in our midst, in the form of His own Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and therefore, He is truly and really present in that Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist we receive and partake, a Holy Communion that each and every one of us members of the Church share with one another, and that is why we become the part of the Church, the Body of Christ.

If God Himself has come into our midst and entered into our bodies as we receive Him, then it is of the utmost importance that we understand what this means for us, and how we live our lives from now on, or else we scandalise our own faith and God by our unworthiness and by our own actions that are against His ways. What do I mean by this? I mean that if we believe that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist then we will do our very best to make sure that we are properly prepared and worthy to receive Him.

Of course this must be understood also in the context that the Lord also seeks to gather all those who have been lost to Him, in extending His mercy and forgiveness to those who have sinned, and the Eucharist is one way that this reconciliation has been made in full. Yet, if one is to receive the Eucharist, the Most Precious and Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord in a state of continuing sin, then it is also a scandal to our faith.

We have to be properly predisposed and be prepared to receive Him into ourselves. And we do not have to look far but see how in the liturgical celebrations, we do our very best in everything, to make use of the finest and greatest materials to contain the most Precious matter of God’s Body and Blood, using only precious and incorruptible materials such as gold and silver for the chalices and ciborium used to contain the Sacred Host and Blood of the Lord.

And the Tabernacle housing the Lord’s Presence in that same Eucharist is also made using the finest materials, in a way comparable to that of the Temple of God in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon, where everything that is finest and good were used to adorn the whole Temple, with the Ark of the Covenant being the most precious of all, made using gold and finest materials, and so holy that no one was allowed to touch it.

Then, we know of an even better Tabernacle, the one who had contained the Lord Himself for nine months in her womb, and she is none other than Mary, Our Lord’s own Mother, who had borne our Lord and Saviour in her, and for this very purpose, the Lord made her, as the finest Tabernacle, not crafted by human hands unlike our chalices, ciborium, Tabernacles or the Temple of God in Jerusalem, but the perfect and unblemished human being, not tainted by the corruption of original sin, Mary, conceived and born without sin.

God did so much to prepare His own Mother to bear His holy and most sacred Presence in her, to show that when God is truly present in our midst, there can be nothing less than doing our best just as He has done His best, to bear His Presence, for nothing evil and wicked can truly exist in His Presence and survive. In the same way therefore, do we realise that when we receive the Lord into ourselves through the Eucharist, we too have become the Tabernacles and Temples of God’s own Presence?

St. Paul spoke of this, how by receiving the Lord into ourselves we have made ourselves into Living Temples, the Temples of His Presence and the Temples of the Holy Spirit. And if we sully the sanctity of this Holy Temple, that is our body, heart, mind and soul with the corruption of sin, it is indeed a great sin and wickedness we have committed against God Himself. That is why, as Christians, we are called to be worthy and to be ready to welcome the Lord’s Holy Presence into ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where and when we are called to recommit ourselves in our faith, to live in accordance with our faith again if we have fallen away and went astray from the true faith. We are called to turn towards God, Who is ever loving and merciful towards us. We only need to ask, and He will forgive us our sins, and that is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is for, readily available through our priests.

Let us all from now on truly show it in our lives, in our every actions, in how we consciously and actively participate in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in how we reverently receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, to show everyone that truly, the bread and wine which we brought to Him in offering, has become nothing less than God’s own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, which He offers to us generously for the sake of our salvation.

May the Lord, Who is ever present in us, and Who is our Bread of Life continue to be with us, and guide us in our journey of life, so that each and every one of us who have worthily received Him into ourselves, may be transformed by His Presence into beings truly worthy to be called God’s own beloved people and God’s own beloved children. May God be with each and every one of us, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 June 2019 : Twelfth 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 and we heard of God’s providence and salvation, which He has fulfilled perfectly and completely through Christ, His own beloved Son, by which He saved the whole world through the suffering and through the sacrifice which He had done on the Cross.

In our first reading today we heard the passage from the Book of the prophet Zechariah which recounted to us the prophecy made about the coming of the day of salvation for the people of God, who had long suffered from their sundering from the love and grace of God, the moment when God would restore to them the glory and the kingdom of David, but not through rejoicing and merrymaking, instead through sorrow and weeping and tears.

This was a prophecy that foretold the coming of the Crucifixion of the Messiah, which was also foretold by the other prophets of God. The Messiah of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, would suffer and be pierced for us on the Cross, bearing our sins and wickedness, bearing and enduring the pains and the burdens of our disobedience and waywardness. He showed His enduring and great love for each and every one of us.

And in our second reading, in the Epistle that St. Paul wrote to the Galatians, we heard of this salvation which God has freely and generously offered to everyone, not withstanding whether they were Greek or Jews, as salvation was previously thought of being exclusive only for the Jewish people, and neither is salvation reserved for the free people only, as slaves will also have a share, and everyone truly will be free, no longer under any bonds or slavery in the Lord’s day.

God has been so generous with His love, which He reiterated and revealed yet again Himself to His disciples, telling them directly about how He would suffer as the prophet Zechariah and the many other prophets of the Old Testament had made the prophecies about His suffering and death, at the hands of those who rejected Him. And yet, it was through this same suffering and the pain of the Cross that salvation came into our midst.

I want us then now to focus on what the Lord Jesus Himself had said in the end of our Gospel passage today, about being His followers and disciples which requires us to deny ourselves and to carry our crosses with Him. What does this actually mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? What is the significance of what the Lord had said to our own lives in this world?

It means that for us as Christians, meaning as those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, in what He has done for us and acknowledging that He is truly our Lord and Saviour, all of us must be ready to suffer and to endure whatever things that Our Lord Himself had to suffer Himself for our sake at that time. If He has been ridiculed, rejected, oppressed and made to endure all sorts of humiliations, then we too must be ready to suffer the same.

Being Christians is not something that can be easily done without sacrifices and challenges. The Apostles and the disciples of the Lord themselves have experienced all those sufferings and challenges, when they were persecuted for their faith and for their works among the people, their courageous witnessing for the Lord. They have been rejected, cast aside, tortured, imprisoned and had to endure martyrdom for the sake of their faith.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now are all of us able to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles? Are we able to endure sufferings, persecutions and rejections for the sake of the Lord? We are all called to carry our crosses in life, and these crosses are the daily struggles that we may have to face as those who profess to have faith in God and trying to remain faithful to Him.

Let us all heed the Lord’s call then for us to follow Him wholeheartedly, living our lives righteously and with commitment, regardless of the trials and challenges that we may face along the way. Let us not be disheartened by those troubles and difficulties, knowing that God is always with us along the way. When He asked us to carry our crosses, He did not ask us to carry our crosses on our own. Instead, He is carrying His Cross together with us.

May the Lord continue to guide us and may He bless us all always, giving us the strength that we will need to persevere through the trials and challenges we may encounter in our lives. May He be with us always, and may He lead us all through these difficult moments that we may always remain faithful to Him till the end of days. Amen.

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Thursday, 20 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Most Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, also known as the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a great day and occasion dedicated to one of the most important central tenets of our Christian faith, in our belief and firm conviction that God Himself has given us His own Precious Body and His own Precious Blood to be partaken.

We believe that in the celebration of the Holy Mass, or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the priest minister as the representation of Christ Himself, acting in persona Christi, unites the offerings of the bread and wine made at the Offertory with the offerings that Christ Himself had made to His heavenly Father as our one and true Eternal High Priest from the Altar of His Cross at Calvary.

The bread and wine themselves have been completely and fundamentally transformed into the essence and material of the Lord’s Body and Blood Himself, in what is known as the Transubstantiation. Therefore, while the bread and the wine themselves still appear to be the appearance and texture of bread and wine, but the moment they are consecrated by the priest they become completely and truly the matter and the essence of the Lord’s own Body and Blood.

There are those who doubted the veracity and truth behind this seemingly mysterious and otherworldly transformation, as by our eyes and senses, by the appearance and by the taste and texture, the bread and wine seemingly remain unchanged as they were. However, this is where our faith is essential and necessary, because we truly believe that each and every one of our priests, moulded and ordained in the same order of priesthood as Christ is, and representing Christ Himself, has truly been given the power and authority to turn the bread and wine into Our Lord’s Body and Blood.

The Lord Himself made it clear in one occasion as He taught the people about Himself as the Bread of Life, the Living Bread Who has come down from heaven to the midst of His people, to give them the true Bread by which all of those who partake in this Bread will never hunger again and will have a share in the eternal life promised to all those who have received this Bread worthily and with faith.

He was not just mentioning this Bread of Life randomly at that occasion without reason. In fact, He was referring to His very own Flesh and Body, His own Blood as He made that teaching to the people. The Lord speaks only the truth, and therefore, how can the Lord bluff or lie to the people about His own Body when He spoke of it then? He spoke of His own Body as real Food, to be partaken by His people, His faithful ones.

And in today’s Gospel passage, we heard yet another occasion in the Gospel, when the Lord miraculously provided for the need of His people, in feeding the five thousand men and countless other women and children when they were hungry and without food, giving them bread and fishes to eat, out of merely five loaves of bread and two fishes that were available. This occasion was in fact a prefigurement and premonition of what was to come in the Sacrifice of the Cross, though the people then did not know it as yet.

As the Lord offered the bread and the fishes and giving thanks to His heavenly Father, He was representing His own upcoming sacrifice, in which He offered Himself instead as the perfect offering for the oblation and atonement of all of our sins. In the olden days, lambs and other animals were used in sacrifices according to the Jewish laws and customs to be the sin offerings to atone temporarily for one’s sins.

And in the time of the Passover, if we remember, the people chose a young, unblemished lamb to be slaughtered and as a sign of God’s providence and salvation, with the blood of the lamb being smeared and placed on the doorposts of the houses of the people of Israel, as sign for God’s Angels to ‘pass over’ them as they scourged the whole land of Egypt for the firstborn sons of the Egyptians.

Therefore, at the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord on the Cross, we mark our new Christian Passover, in which a new Covenant had been made by God to be binding between Him and all of us. He offered not the imperfect offerings of lambs and animals of this world, but His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, as He was ‘slaughtered’ on the Cross for the crimes that His enemies had charged on Him.

He laid down Himself and offered His Body and Blood as the perfect sacrifice and offering before God, on the Cross which is His Altar. He is our Paschal Lamb by Whose Blood we have been marked as those who are faithful and worthy to be saved from eternal damnation and destruction because of our sins. By His Most Precious Blood, if we refer to the Book of the Revelations of St. John, the holy martyrs have been washed and made clean in their own outpouring of their blood, and thus, we too are made clean by His Blood.

The Lord Himself has given His all for our sake, laying down His own life and giving His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for us all to partake, in that same Sacrifice at Calvary, to which each and every celebrations of our Holy Mass are united to, not as separate and different sacrifices as some would have misunderstood it, thinking that the Lord is being sacrificed and offered again and again, but in fact, the truth is every time the Eucharist is celebrated, it is the same Sacrifice of Our Lord at Calvary again.

And this is what we truly believe, that God Himself has truly become present in our midst, in the form of His own Most Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, and therefore, He is truly and really present in that Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist we receive and partake, a Holy Communion that each and every one of us members of the Church share with one another, and that is why we become the part of the Church, the Body of Christ.

If God Himself has come into our midst and entered into our bodies as we receive Him, then it is of the utmost importance that we understand what this means for us, and how we live our lives from now on, or else we scandalise our own faith and God by our unworthiness and by our own actions that are against His ways. What do I mean by this? I mean that if we believe that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist then we will do our very best to make sure that we are properly prepared and worthy to receive Him.

Of course this must be understood also in the context that the Lord also seeks to gather all those who have been lost to Him, in extending His mercy and forgiveness to those who have sinned, and the Eucharist is one way that this reconciliation has been made in full. Yet, if one is to receive the Eucharist, the Most Precious and Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord in a state of continuing sin, then it is also a scandal to our faith.

We have to be properly predisposed and be prepared to receive Him into ourselves. And we do not have to look far but see how in the liturgical celebrations, we do our very best in everything, to make use of the finest and greatest materials to contain the most Precious matter of God’s Body and Blood, using only precious and incorruptible materials such as gold and silver for the chalices and ciborium used to contain the Sacred Host and Blood of the Lord.

And the Tabernacle housing the Lord’s Presence in that same Eucharist is also made using the finest materials, in a way comparable to that of the Temple of God in Jerusalem at the time of Solomon, where everything that is finest and good were used to adorn the whole Temple, with the Ark of the Covenant being the most precious of all, made using gold and finest materials, and so holy that no one was allowed to touch it.

Then, we know of an even better Tabernacle, the one who had contained the Lord Himself for nine months in her womb, and she is none other than Mary, Our Lord’s own Mother, who had borne our Lord and Saviour in her, and for this very purpose, the Lord made her, as the finest Tabernacle, not crafted by human hands unlike our chalices, ciborium, Tabernacles or the Temple of God in Jerusalem, but the perfect and unblemished human being, not tainted by the corruption of original sin, Mary, conceived and born without sin.

God did so much to prepare His own Mother to bear His holy and most sacred Presence in her, to show that when God is truly present in our midst, there can be nothing less than doing our best just as He has done His best, to bear His Presence, for nothing evil and wicked can truly exist in His Presence and survive. In the same way therefore, do we realise that when we receive the Lord into ourselves through the Eucharist, we too have become the Tabernacles and Temples of God’s own Presence?

St. Paul spoke of this, how by receiving the Lord into ourselves we have made ourselves into Living Temples, the Temples of His Presence and the Temples of the Holy Spirit. And if we sully the sanctity of this Holy Temple, that is our body, heart, mind and soul with the corruption of sin, it is indeed a great sin and wickedness we have committed against God Himself. That is why, as Christians, we are called to be worthy and to be ready to welcome the Lord’s Holy Presence into ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is where and when we are called to recommit ourselves in our faith, to live in accordance with our faith again if we have fallen away and went astray from the true faith. We are called to turn towards God, Who is ever loving and merciful towards us. We only need to ask, and He will forgive us our sins, and that is what the Sacrament of Reconciliation is for, readily available through our priests.

Let us all from now on truly show it in our lives, in our every actions, in how we consciously and actively participate in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and in how we reverently receive Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, to show everyone that truly, the bread and wine which we brought to Him in offering, has become nothing less than God’s own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood, which He offers to us generously for the sake of our salvation.

May the Lord, Who is ever present in us, and Who is our Bread of Life continue to be with us, and guide us in our journey of life, so that each and every one of us who have worthily received Him into ourselves, may be transformed by His Presence into beings truly worthy to be called God’s own beloved people and God’s own beloved children. May God be with each and every one of us, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 16 June 2019 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Trinity Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday after the Solemnity of the Pentecost, the Universal Church again celebrates another great and very important Solemnity, one that is concerning the very centre tenet and distinctiveness of our Christian faith that is the belief in God Who exists in Three Divine Persons and yet, at the same time, is also One and Indivisible. And that is why on this Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

On this day, we focus our attention on Who we worship, God Who is ever loving, merciful and compassionate towards us, He Who is One, and only One, but existing in Three distinct Persons, namely the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The true nature of the Most Holy Trinity has eluded many people and many among us the faithful throughout time, but all of us must realise and know Who is Our Lord Whom we worship, so that we can better appreciate our faith in Him.

We do not believe in three different Gods, as the most common misconception about the Most Holy Trinity is often about. We believe that even though there is distinction between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, but they exist in perfect unity and harmony with each other, as the one and only True God. Three Divine Persons but One Unity in One Godhood. That is what the Most Holy Trinity is about.

Yet, throughout the history of the Church, particularly during the early days of Christianity, people constantly were conflicted on the nature of their God, and there had been many divisions, conflicts, disagreements and bitterness over the nature of the Most Holy Trinity, the relationship that the Father has the Son, and with the Holy Spirit, and the nature of the Son Himself, the relationship that He has with the Father, and also with the Holy Spirit.

And there were those who doubted and questioned the divinity of the Son in particular, those who doubted that Jesus Christ Our Lord is God as well as Man in the same person. And there were those, like the Arians, who considered Christ as being lesser than the Father. They regarded Him as a Being Who was created and therefore not equal with the Father, not co-eternal with Him. And therefore, they did not believe in the Most Holy Trinity in the way we believe today.

At that time, many people actually subscribed to the teachings and the faith of Arius, the one who propagated the Arian heresy. And there were bitter struggle for the belief of the faithful as those bishops and priests who remained true to the orthodox and genuine Christian teachings struggled with the many bishops and priests who embraced Arianism. And one of the most courageous and faithful defender of the true faith was St. Athanasius, the Patriarch of Alexandria, whose defence of the faith in the Most Holy Trinity and the equality between the Son and the Father is memorialised in the now famous Athanasian Creed.

The Athanasian Creed was an expansion of the usual Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed we have always used, in which the Athanasian Creed is a much more detailed and clearer version of the Creed where in particular, the nature of the Most Holy Trinity of God the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit is explained clearly and succinctly against the heresies of the time that tried to diminish the Holy Trinity or mislead the people with wrong ideas and thoughts about the Trinity.

In the first part of the Athanasian Creed, it is clearly mentioned that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three equal parts of the One Godhood of our one and only True God, avoiding the idea of worship of more than one god and at the same time, also stressing on the importance and distinctiveness of each of the three members of the Most Holy Trinity. The Father is not the same as the Son, and the Son is not the same as the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the same as the Father, and yet all three are united perfectly and indivisibly as one indissoluble union of perfect love.

And being equal, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not submitted to the Father or less equal from the Father in anything, neither created nor made. The Son of God, Our Lord Jesus Christ, has existed with the Father from the very beginning, from before the beginning of time, co-equal, co-eternal and equally omnipotent and Almighty. He is not created but rather begotten from the Father, remaining distinct and yet inseparable from the Father and the Holy Spirit. He assumed the appearance and flesh of man, uniting in Himself, the Divinity of the Son of God and the humanity of the Son of Man.

The Holy Spirit meanwhile is also co-equal, co-eternal and omnipotent as well as Almighty as the Father and the Son is. He is not created by the Father either, nor is subservient or created or begotten from the Father or from the Son. Rather in this case, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son, equal in all things, and is God’s Spirit that is in all things and performs His works in all things.

Many have tried to explain the concept of the Most Holy Trinity, with St. Patrick of Ireland being the most prominent one. St. Patrick made use of the three-leaf shamrock as a way for him to explain the Trinity of Christian God to the pagans then living in the land that is now called Ireland. He used the three-leaf shamrock, now closely associated with St. Patrick himself, as the representation of the Most Holy Trinity, as if any of the three leaves is taken out, the whole shamrock becomes incomplete.

Therefore, just as a person can clearly distinguish each of the three leaves of the three-leaf shamrock, we can distinguish between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit clearly. But at the same time, they are also perfectly united as One, just as the three-leaf shamrock is part of the one whole shamrock leaf, which if any of the parts are taken out, the whole shamrock becomes incomplete just as the Most Holy Trinity is not complete without any one of its members.

Another way for us to try to explain the concept of the Most Holy Trinity is that of a lighted candle. A lighted candle has three main important properties, that is the light produced by the candle, the heat produced by the candle and the flame produced by the candle burning. All these three cannot be separated from each other and yet they are also easily distinguishable from each other.

The candle cannot have light without the burning flame, and without the flame there can be no heat either. And neither can there be flame without heat to make the candle burn in the first place, and with heat energy comes light that is produced by the heat of the reactions of the burning of the candle wax. And lastly, without light, it does not make sense for a candle that is burning to have no light, as flame always produces light and heat.

We can see from this example alone, how flame, light and heat are easily distinguishable from each other, as the light is clearly different from the heat, and flame itself is distinct from the light. The flame has a limited shape but the light illuminates the entire room far beyond the physical reach of the burning flame, and the heat can be felt on our bodies when we stand nearby the burning candle. Yet, each one of them cannot be separated from the other, or else we would not have a burning candle.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, having listened to what the Most Holy Trinity is all about, and how we try to explain this concept both to ourselves and to others, now that we have probably greater understanding and grasp of this concept, we must then also be aware of the significance of the Most Holy Trinity of Our God to ourselves as Christians. We must first and foremost remember that as Christians we are called to model ourselves on God Whom we believe in.

If Our God exists in a perfect love and harmony in the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, then surely our Christian communities must also have this same love within us, that in the Church of God to which we belong to, we must be united in love and not being divided one against the other. And each and every one of us, just like the members of the Holy Trinity, are unique and have our own distinctiveness that we can bring in to enrich the good works and wonders of the Church of God.

Are we able to practice what we believe in the nature of our loving Triune God, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit in our own lives? Are we able to imitate the loving examples and unity of the Three Divine Persons in our own Christian communities united in love and harmony with each other? This is how we as Christians reflect God in our own lives, in showing the same love that He has within Himself, which He has shared with us and now, we share with one another.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all renew our faith, commitment and devotion to Our God, the Most Holy Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us all be witnesses of our faith in Him, in each and every moments we live, in our every actions so that all the people around us may see our faith and come to believe in God, the Most Holy Trinity as well, fulfilling what He has commanded us all to do, to make disciples of all people of all the nations and baptise them in the Name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let us glorify our God, the Most Holy Trinity once more, with the prayer “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

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Sunday, 14 April 2019 : Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Red

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, after going through five weeks and more of the season of Lent, a time of preparation and rediscovery of our faith, we finally come to the beginning of the Holy Week, when we celebrate the most important moments and mysteries of our faith, commemorating that very moment when salvation came into our midst, through none other than Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and Saviour of all.

Christ was the Saviour promised by God to all His people, the culmination of the grand plan He has revealed to man, ever since the beginning of time, when man first fell into sin and because of that, sundered from the fullness of God’s love and grace. And God fulfilled His promises perfectly and completely in Christ, the One He sent into this world, bringing the salvation and true hope into our midst, that we may all be saved.

And this Holy Week, we enter into the most crucial moment in all the history of the whole world and our whole existence, the moment when God completed His plan of salvation, by none other than the Passion, suffering and death of His own Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. And on this Palm Sunday, the day that marks the beginning of Holy Week, we enter and immerse ourselves into the very important events that mark that moment of our salvation through Christ.

On this day, we heard from the readings of the Scripture, two very opposing and contradictory accounts, of what happened on the actual day when the Lord Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem in glory, which we commemorate with the blessing of palms and procession on this day, with the account of the suffering and death, the crucifixion of the same Lord Jesus on the cross, which happened just merely a few days apart.

In the Gospel passage which related to us what happened when the Lord Jesus came to Jerusalem for the time of the Passover, we heard how the people gathered to welcome the Lord Jesus as if He was a glorious and conquering King, entering the city of His reign, with palms raised and garments spread along the way on which He would enter on a donkey, as prophesied by the prophets. This event reminded us all that indeed, Jesus Christ is our Lord and King, the One Who has been promised to us, as our one and true Master.

But His kingship is not like any other kingship. He Himself mentioned on a few occasions throughout the accounts of the Gospels on the events of the Holy Week. He mentioned before His disciples, when they wanted to defend Him as He was being betrayed by Judas Iscariot and was about to be arrested, that had His heavenly Father wished it, He could have sent legions of Angels to protect Him. And before Pilate, Jesus Himself said that His kingdom was not of this world.

And this is why, many of the people abandoned Him, betrayed Him and rejected Him. And do we all realise that it was the very same people who welcomed, praised, glorified and sung ‘Hosanna! Hosanna to the Son of David!’ that just a few days later cried out before Pilate, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’ and ‘We have no king but Caesar?’. This is because many among them did not have true faith in God, but were following their own selfish, wicked and sinful desires.

Some certainly followed the Lord to be famous, while others misunderstood and thought of Christ and His kingdom as one like of this world, and therefore, hoped to gain popularity, power, prestige, and all sorts of other worldly recognitions and pleasures, as what two of His own disciples showed us, when St. James and St. John, the sons of Zebedee came up to Him with their mother asking for special favours over that of the other disciples.

And the others had various other reasons, many of whom were motivated by the desire of self-advancement, self-praise, self-gratification and other forms of worldly desires, that indeed quickly turned from one of apparent faith and dedication, into one of betrayal, as Judas did, and into apathy and lack of conviction to defend their faith, as what many of the people did, easily following the popular sentiment, of what was first the popularity of Christ in acclaiming Him as King and then condemning Him when the tide of events turned against Him.

Even Christ’s own disciples fled in fear and abandoned Him. And in the accounts, we heard how this King of ours, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, turned from complete glory into utter humiliation, that He was not just stripped from His dignity as even a human person, but even treated in the worst manner possible, and made to suffer the worst of the worst of injustices and treated as the worst and lowliest of criminals for sins and mistakes He did not commit.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, before we continue further, we ought to spend some time now to reflect on our own lives, on our own actions, on our own faith in God, on our own way of following the Lord and how we have lived our faith life all these while, especially as Christians, as those who profess to have faith in God. And we ought to remember that we are truly perhaps, just as terrible as those same people whom we just talked about earlier, all those who betrayed, abandoned and left the Lord behind for our own selfish desires, gain and purposes.

Many of us seek the Lord only to feel good and high, and perhaps seeking that spiritual satisfaction and fulfilment, or any other means to satisfy ourselves and to make ourselves feel good. And we often only remember the Lord when we have a vested interest, a desire that we want Him to fulfil, in our wishes and prayers, that when all those things have been fulfilled, or in the case when they were not fulfilled, we left the Lord behind and abandoned Him.

Many of us live our Christian life in most un-Christian like manner. Many of us only thought of fulfilling the barest minimum of our obligations as Christians, in coming for and attending the celebrations of the Holy Mass every Sundays of the year, and not more than that. And in this case, many of us even struggled to fulfil this barest minimum of what the Lord has called us all to do. We only hoped and wished what was best for ourselves, and not wanting to make the sacrifices for the Lord.

And even though we call ourselves Christians, how many of us continue to do what is wicked, sinful and unbecoming of ourselves as Christians? How many of us continue to act in manner that is selfish, greedy, condescending towards others, and being ignorant of the sufferings and troubles that others experience, often because of our own actions? How many of us continue to succumb to the temptations of the flesh and acted immorally, causing scandal within our own families and communities?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is the sad and unfortunate reality of our world, and especially our Christian world today. Many of us profess to be faithful to God, and yet, our hearts and minds are not completely attuned and focused on Him. We are still so easily swayed by the many temptations of the world, of desire for power, glory, fame, renown, human praise and the pleasures of the body and mind, that we can easily abandon our faith or not having true faith in God, as how the Israelites and the people at the time of Jesus had done.

Yet, it is to all of us, these delinquents, rebels, stubborn and hardhearted people that Christ has come, to deliver us all from all these attachments to sin and our wickedness. He, Who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords, willingly emptied Himself of all glory and honour, taking up not just the humble appearance of a Man, like us, but even more so, to be humiliated, ridiculed, rejected and made to suffer, enduring the worst of punishments, so that by all of that sacrifice and selfless giving of Himself, He may free us all from our sins and bring us to the salvation He promised us.

Every wounds that had been inflicted on Christ’s body, as He endured all the unimaginably painful suffering throughout the moments of His Passion, are in fact all of our imperfections, mistakes, our sins and rebelliousness, all of our iniquities and faults, all of our refusal to obey the Lord’s will and our selfishness. Every time we sin, we are causing that wound in the Body of Christ to fester and be even more painful, even as He endured it all and bore the burden of our sins on His cross.

Christ, in truth, showed us all, what it truly means for us to be Christians. First of all, all of us must be filled with love, the love for God and the love for our fellow brothers and sisters. It was love for His Father and the love that He has for each and every one of us, even the greatest and most wicked of sinners, that allowed Christ to endure the bitter and terrible pain of His suffering and death on the cross. Without His enduring love and compassion for us, God would not have done everything all the way to suffer death just that all of us may live.

And as Christians, we must be humble, and the greater we are, the humbler we are to be before God and men alike. For Christ Himself said, that He came not to be served, but to serve, and He showed His disciples at the Last Supper, what they ought to be doing to one another, loving one another as brothers and sisters, and to care for each other with true and genuine love. The Lord did not allow pride and ego to be in the way, and just as He rejected Satan’s advances through the temptations he attempted on the Lord, we too should cast aside our own pride and ego.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we journey through the Holy Week, let us all delve deeper into our understanding of our faith and our own relationship with God. If all these while, we have been distant and have not been spending our time with God, because of the many distractions and temptations we faced in life, then now is the perfect opportunity for us all to reorientate ourselves and to rediscover our true purpose in life, not for our own self-glory, but rather, for the greater glory of God.

Let us all grow deeper in our faith and in our conviction and dedication to love the Lord and to serve Him through our actions and deeds in life, that are pleasing to Him. Let us all also follow the Lord wholeheartedly from now on, carrying our own crosses with Him. He has called us and we should respond to His call. Let us all turn to Him with all of our hearts and with all of our might, and embrace the great love He has for us, that He was willing to suffer and die, just that we may live and not perish.

May the Lord continue to bless us all and may He continue to guide us as we continue to progress through this holiest of all periods and times of this year. May He sow in us all the seeds of faith, hope and love, so that we may grow ever deeper in faith, ever more hopeful in our lives, and be ever more filled with love at all times of our lives. May God be with us all, now and always. Amen.

by

Sunday, 7 April 2019 : Fifth Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this fifth Sunday of the season of Lent, we are just one week away from the beginning of the Holy Week on Palm Sunday, the beginning of the most important week and time in our entire liturgical year. And traditionally this Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Lent is also known as the Passion Sunday, marking the beginning of the two weeks Passiontide period spanning the period from today to the Resurrection of Christ at Easter.

At this occasion therefore, the Lord wants each and every one of us to delve deeper into the mystery of His Passion, suffering and death on the cross, as we approach the time when we will commemorate the most important events in our history, the time when God Himself willingly gave His all and fulfilled the promises that He had made with our ancestors, the promise of salvation and liberation from sin, and the promise of freedom from the tyranny of Satan and sin, and to make with us a new and everlasting Covenant.

That is why today’s Scripture readings focus on the love and mercy of God being shown and made evident before us, from the promises that God made to His people through the prophet Isaiah in our first reading today, where He reminded them of the many wonderful things that He had performed and done before them, since the time of their ancestors, and how He has loved and blessed them ever since. God wanted to show His people that His love and mercy is ever trustworthy and ever good.

And then, the Lord showed it firsthand through what we have heard in our Gospel passage today, when the Lord Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who wanted to corner and trap Him in an impossible situation, by bringing into His presence a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery, and asking Him what should be done upon that woman. Their plotting and opposition were truly sinister and wicked, and we will go through the reason why.

First of all, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were hoping that Jesus would side with the woman who had been caught in adultery, based on how He has often spent His time in the company of sinners, people like tax collectors and prostitutes, with people who were sick with various diseases, those who were considered unclean in body and in spirit, all those who have been spurned and rejected by the society and looked down upon as sinners.

And if the Lord sided with the woman, by forgiving her outright and ignoring whatever the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had accused her for, then they could quickly seize on the opportunity and discredit the Lord Jesus, labelling Him as a friend of sinners and as a blasphemer, for allowing sin to continue to exist. This would have immediately brought a great problem for the Lord, Who would then lose His credibility, following and even trust by the people. And He could even be condemned by the authorities for such an action.

But then, if the Lord so chose that He would punish the woman in accordance with the Jewish customs and laws, then the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law would also seize upon the opportunity to enhance their own position and prestige, by pointing out that in the end, the Lord Jesus was no different from them, and probably was a usurper and a fake who is trying to seize the teaching authority from the Sanhedrin or the Jewish elite, and He would have also ended in trouble for this choice of action.

Clearly the Lord Jesus was trapped and cornered by the action of the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and all those who have opposed Him. But the Lord then made a move that His enemies did not anticipate at all. He asked that the one who was without sin cast the first stone at the woman, for the punishment for adultery according to the Jewish laws and customs was stoning to death. And the people gradually left the place, beginning from the oldest to the youngest.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, what we have just heard and witnessed from the story in our Gospel passage today is the sad reality of our human life and our actions towards one another. We like to point out the shortcomings and faults in others, and we want to see others fail and we find joy in causing hurt and suffering in others, just because we hate or dislike the other person, or think that we are better than them.

That was how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were capable of doing such a heinous and wicked act, in trying to frame and discredit the Lord Jesus, by trapping Him in what was to be an impossible situation. But the Lord knew all that were going on in their minds, all their plots and thoughts, and surely, He must have been very sad to see many of His people behaving in such a way, condemning sinners and being selfish in their attitudes towards others.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we see today, the great mercy of God as we saw how Jesus was merciful towards the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. When all the people who wanted to condemn her had left, and no one threw the stone at her, the Lord told her to go and change her life, no longer sin but obeying God’s will from then on. And just as none of the people condemned her in the end, He Himself said that neither did He condemn her.

This is a reminder to each and every one of us, that first of all, each and every one of us are sinners, and all of us are in need of God’s healing and help, for otherwise, sin will become our undoing. And no one can heal us from our sins, except for God. For it is He alone Who is able to forgive us from our sins and restore us to the state of grace in Him. Sin is indeed a very dangerous disease that is slowly destroying us and corrupting us from inside out, often without us realising it.

And that is why, today through the passages, we are reminded to come to seek God’s forgiveness and mercy. And then, as we are all sinners, none of us have any rights to condemn and be judgmental on others, just as what the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law had done, in wanting to condemn the woman to death, and having that sinister intention to discredit the Lord Jesus by using that opportunity.

That was why, the Lord Jesus said, ‘Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone’. This reminds us that before we accuse others and try to make others look bad or suffer, or punishing them for their faults, we must always try to contemplate deep in our hearts, and think whether we have sinned or done the same fault ourselves. When we point a finger to judge and demean others, do we realise that the other four fingers are pointing to ourselves?

We know of one parable of Jesus, where it was said that ‘Remove first the splinter from your own eye, before trying to remove the plank from your brother’s eye’. A lot of us have this hurt and angst within us, in our relationships towards each other, to our friends, to our family members, to the members of our community, and frequently, within our Church ministries and organisations, in our parishes and in our faith communities and groups.

And that is caused by the pride that we have within us, in refusing to admit that we ourselves are not perfect and we ourselves are in need of the same healing that the other person is needing. We often think that others need to change to suit what we want or what we expect of them, but how many of us actually stop to think that we ourselves are in need of a similar change in our own lives? When we allow ego and pride to take charge of our thoughts and actions, we will end up doing exactly what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had been doing.

Let us instead follow the example of Christ, Who forgave and healed the adulterous woman from her sins. He told her to go and sin no more, and that is what we should be doing as well. God is so merciful and loving towards us, even towards His enemies, that when He was on the cross, He forgave even all those who have condemned Him. He, the Perfect One, willingly took up our imperfections and sins, and be punished for them, all because of His love and tender mercy towards us.

Are we able to follow Christ’s loving examples in our own actions in life? Are we able to reach out to all those whom we have hurt and who have hurt us, and forgive each other? This is one important challenge that I think we should take up in this remaining time of Lent, as we prepare ourselves to enter into the mystery of the Passion, suffering and death of Our Lord. It is essentially all about God’s love and generous mercy towards us.

Let us all look towards the cross of Christ, on the Lord crucified. Let us all look at how wounded He is, and realise that each and every one of those innumerable wounds are our own sins, that God has willingly taken up on Himself, that each and every one of us may be healed. Let us all be ashamed at our sinfulness, but with the hope that Christ will heal us from our sins, and instead of being prideful and judgmental to each other, let us all help each other to overcome the temptations of sin, and be loving and forgiving at all times, as Christ Our Lord Himself has done.

May the Lord our God continue to love us, and may He continue to shower us with His love and mercy. May God guide us always in our journey of faith towards Him, each and every days of our life. And may all of us be prepared to enter meaningfully into the commemoration of Our Lord’s Passion, suffering, death and resurrection. Amen.