Sunday Mass sermon

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Sunday, 3 April 2022 : Fifth Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we gather together to celebrate this Fifth Sunday of Lent, we are all called yet again to embrace God’s ever wonderful and patient love and mercy, His enduring desire to be reconciled with us and to love us wholeheartedly. He has called us to abandon our sinful ways and our wicked deeds, and to come to Him with contrite hearts and the desire to love Him once again. We are all reminded of this call to repentance and holiness this Sunday, as we continue to progress ever closer to Holy Week and Easter.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we heard of the words of the Lord to His people reassuring them of His providence and love. He reminded them of everything that He had done in the past in rescuing them from their predicament. He spoke of the moment when He brought their ancestors out from Egypt, opening the sea before them and destroying their enemies, the armies and chariots of the Pharaoh before their own eyes. The Lord reminded them of everything that He had done for their sake, and not only that, He reassured them that He would do even more things in the future to come.

He will send to them the promised deliverance and salvation, by sending them His own beloved Son as the Saviour to all of them, a promise to be fulfilled by the coming of Christ, the Son of God into this world. He would gather all of mankind, all His beloved ones to Himself, and they shall enjoy forever the bounty and grace of eternal life and true happiness of being together with Him in the glory of Heaven. The Lord has always intended for us all to enjoy the true happiness and joy of this wonderful world that He had created, and He did create us out of love that He has for each one of us.

We were never intended to endure the bitterness of suffering in this world. However, our inability to resist the temptations to sin essentially ruined all of that. We fell into the temptations of our own desires and fell to the devil’s lies and temptations as he tempted our first ancestors to follow him and his advice instead of believing in God as they should have. By sin we have been separated and sundered from the presence of God, cast out of Eden as our just punishment and the consequence for our sins. Yet, that was not the end for us. God could have destroyed and crushed us for our sins and wickedness. But, His love for us surpassed even His disgust for our sins.

Nonetheless, the reality is that no sin can remain unaccounted for, and we have to answer for every one of these taints and corruptions on our very own souls and beings. As long as sin taints us, we will have to answer for every single one of them, and those who pass on from this world with sins still unforgiven and unaccounted for will be judged by those sins we have committed, as well as by those sins of omission we made when we ignored the opportunities when we could have done good things with our lives, be it for the benefit of our fellow brothers and sisters or for the greater community.

That is why in our Gospel passage today we are reminded through the well-known interaction between the Lord Jesus and the woman who had committed adultery and were caught in the midst of doing so, and also how the Lord interacted with the crowd assembled there, some of whom with the malicious intent of using the opportunity to try to put the Lord into a trap and to get Him into a corner and to find reasons to persecute and condemn Him. Why so? That is because the whole event was likely the effort of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in trying to discredit or even persecute the Lord, Who was well-known for His frequent interactions and works among those considered as sinners, such as the tax collectors, the prostitutes and people who were possessed, ill and had disabilities.

At that time, associating with those people were often abhorred and discouraged, and this went even to the extent that coming close into contact with them causing someone to be considered unclean and unworthy. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law in particular were very convinced of their own piety, their righteous and worthy way of life, through their strict interpretation, enforcement and living of the ways of the Law of God. However, they failed to realise one very important thing that, in the end, it is not they who determine whether they are worthy of God or not. Instead, God is the One Who will determine all of that.

Through the example of the Lord’s interaction with the convicted adulterous woman, the Lord made it very clear that what He wants is not the destruction of sinners like us. Instead, as I mentioned earlier, that His love for us is indeed so great that it surpasses even the wickedness of our sins. Of course it does not mean that He condones or accepts our sins and evil actions. Rather, He wants us to distance ourselves from those actions and sins, to turn away wholeheartedly from those evil deeds and ways, and embrace wholly His love and mercy, walking ever always in His righteous path.

That was why the Lord told the woman that He did not condemn her, just as no one gathered there did not dare to do so either. When the Lord told the assembled people who pressed Him to take action against the woman, and He said that the one who was without sin ought to cast the first stone at her, it reminds us all that each and every one of us are sinners, no matter how small or insignificant, how great or serious our sins may be. Sin is sin, and as long as we have sin in us, we are unworthy of God and cannot come close to Him. And yet, it was God Who first made the move to close up the distance between us.

He told the woman that He did not condemn her either, but wanting her to turn away from those sins she committed, sinning no more and embracing fully His forgiveness and mercy. It proves that God hates not the sinner but the sin. He does not despise us as a person, but rather our attachment to sin, our stubbornness in remaining attached and obsessed over those worldly desires and all the other temptations that we often fail to resist and even indulge ourselves in. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were so fixated on their own sense of pride and self-righteousness that they failed to realise that they themselves too, were sinners.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, should we allow our pride and ego, our desires and the many other distractions in life to prevent us from finding our way to God and His salvation? We must not let ourselves be dissuaded and distracted by all those things that may end up getting us further and further away from the Lord’s path. And that is why we must remind ourselves yet again to seek the Lord with renewed faith, genuine desire to be reconciled with Him and with a contrite heart full of regret for our many sins and wickedness, with the commitment to make amends and to get closer to Him, Our Lord and Saviour once again.

As St. Paul said in our second reading today, in his Epistle to the Philippians, all of us have to seek Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, find Him and do whatever we can to walk with Him together, and we have to seek Him as in Him is worth everything and more than whatever we can find and gather in this world. He has willingly reached out to us, with plenty of mercy and compassion, willing to forgive us our sins if we desire to have them forgiven, and as long as we sincerely show contrition and regret over those faults and mistakes that we had done. What better reward and prize we can get as compared to these?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we gather together this Sunday in the Lord’s presence, let us all remind ourselves of our sinfulness and how we all are in need of God’s healing and mercy. We are all in need of this forgiveness for God alone can forgive us our sins. Otherwise, we will have to answer for every sins we have with us that are still unaccounted for and unforgiven as I mentioned. And if we do not change our ways, remaining in our state and path of sin, we will be judged by those same sins we committed. God generously wants to forgive us our sins, but it is often we who reject Him and His love.

And are we going to be like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, who gloated over those whom they deemed to be less worthy and more wicked than they were? This is a reminder that this is not the attitude that we should adopt at any point of time, as this kind of attitude truly prevents us from humbling ourselves and realising that we are always in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. While the tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners are all fast going forward in the path towards God’s forgiveness and eternal life as they realised their sins and made the efforts to be forgiven by God, those who kept their pride and ego will perish because of that pride.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us remind ourselves and one another to be humble before God, and to make good use of the time and opportunities that have been given to us, such that we may benefit from the gift of Our Lord’s ever generous mercy and compassion. He has proven to us again and again of how faithful He has been to the Covenant that He had made and sealed with us and our ancestors, while we have proven yet again and again, how unfaithful we have been to Him, and how terrible we have been in living our lives so far, in not following God’s path and in walking down our own paths towards doom.

Can we do our best and strive to reject those temptations to sin, brothers and sisters in Christ? Can we reject the devil and all the wicked things that he has been persuading us to do, and all the lies and falsehoods that he has presented before us? Let us follow the Lord’s advice and call, for us to sin no more and turn wholeheartedly towards Him, knowing that in God alone there is true happiness and satisfaction. Let us remember that while God loves us and does not despise us, He still despises our sins and wickedness. Let us do our best in the remaining time of this Lenten season, to purify ourselves and to make a good habit of living virtuously in God’s path, so that from now on we may be ever better Christians, ever more committed disciples of Our Lord.

May the Lord be with all of us as we journey together with Him, as we walk down the path of reconciliation and forgiveness. May He grant us the courage and strength to follow Him with commitment and strong desire to love Him in each and every moments of our lives, and may we also be good examples, role models and inspirations for one another in how we live our lives so that many more people may also share in God’s salvation and eternal life with us. Amen.

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Sunday, 27 March 2022 : Fourth Sunday of Lent, Laetare Sunday (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Rose (Laetare Sunday) or Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday, the fourth one in the season of Lent, we celebrate what is known as Laetare Sunday, one of the only two occasions in the entire liturgical year when the colour rose is used. The other occasion is the Gaudete Sunday during the season of Advent. The word Laetare has the meaning of ‘rejoice’ just as Gaudete is, both having similar meanings. This word comes from the beginning of today’s Introit at the start of the Holy Mass, namely, ‘Laetare Jerusalem, et conventum facite omnes qui diligitis eam…’ which means ‘Rejoice, o Jerusalem, and gather round, all you who love her…’

Today, just as on Gaudete Sunday in Advent, we have a reprieve and more joyful celebration amidst the more sombre and penitential nature of this season. We have something like a break amidst the usually more toned down nature of our Lenten observances, as music and flowers are allowed to be used again, unlike how it is during the other parts of the Lenten season. Why is that so? That is because today we focus on the Joy that we are looking forward to and have been preparing ourselves for in these past few weeks of Lent. We look forward to the joy of the coming of Christ, and the salvation that He has given to all of us in Easter.

We remember the great love of God and how He patiently reached out to us, desiring to forgive us our sins and be reconciled with us. We must consider ourselves truly very fortunate to have such a loving God by our side. We are a people who have deserved destruction and annihilation, condemnation and eternal suffering because of our many sins, our disobedience against God, our waywardness and wickedness. Yet, because of God’s enduring love for each and every one of us, even to the greatest among sinners, He desires to be reconciled with us, so that we, having been forgiven from our sins through our repentance and genuine desire to change for the better, may enjoy once again the fullness of His love and grace.

In our first reading today, we heard the story of the joyful moment when the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua, Moses’ successor, finally entered the Promised Land after forty long years of wandering in the desert and wilderness after their Exodus out of Egypt. God led them to the land promised to their ancestors, and they would have reached it much earlier if not for the stubbornness of many of them who gave in to their fears and lacking trust in God, chose to rebel against God and did not trust Him to guide them safely into the land promised to them. And hence, they had to wander the desert and the wilderness for those forty long years.

That forty long years is symbolically marked by us as well every year when we observe the season of Lent, the time of purification and internal reorientation of our focus in life, for the forty days as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the great and most joyful occasion in the coming of Easter. And Our Lord Himself also spent the same forty days in the desert after He was baptised in the Jordan and before He began His ministry, fasting and praying to God at that moment, tempted and rejecting the temptations of the devil. In the end, the Lord triumphed against the devil and through that, we have hope of our salvation in Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

The Israelites rejoiced greatly at that moment when they finally entered the Promised Land after forty years long, and they celebrated there, and renewed their Covenant with God. The Lord also from then on did not provide them with manna any longer as He had done for the previous forty years, as they could already live off from the bounty of the land, the promised land overflowing with milk and honey that had been promised to them. And we all today share in their rejoicing, remembering the joy that they had felt, as we remind ourselves why we observe this season of Lent in the first place.

First and foremost, we celebrate this season of Lent because we desire to return to the Lord, to be reconciled with Him as mentioned just earlier. We have erred, made mistakes and disobeyed the Lord, and yet, the Lord Who is ever merciful has always extended His mercy to us, which we are free to accept and reject. For us to accept this mercy fully, we have to go through a thorough internal reorganisation and retrospection, changing our way of life and outlook, rejecting our past, sinful way of life and instead committing ourselves to a new way of life that is in accordance with God and His ways.

In our second reading today, we heard of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians reminding us that God has willingly reconciled us to Himself, through Christ, His Son, reminding us all that He has done so much for us, even to the extent of bearing the burdens of our sins, all the punishments due for our sins and took them all up onto His own shoulders. We can rejoice today because of everything He has done for us, in breaking His back and getting all the bruises and wounds, which were caused by our own infidelity and wickedness, all the sins we have committed. Those sins separated us from God, but God Who has always loved us sent us His Son to be the bridge connecting us back to Himself, through His Cross and His sacrifice on that Cross.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard the famous parable of the prodigal son, a reminder for us all yet again of who we are, sinners wandering in this world in great need of healing and reconciliation with God, our ever loving Father and Creator. We are the prodigal sons of God, Who had been swayed by sin and by the temptations to sin, to walk away from God and His path, like the prodigal son who asked for his inheritance from his father and then went off to a distant land to live his life with pleasure, until he had nothing left and was forced to beg to survive.

This is a reminder to us that no matter whatever riches and wonders we have in life, in our world today, none of these will last us and they will not avail us, and eventually they will even become our downfall if we depend on them as what happened to the prodigal son in the parable of the Lord. That prodigal son had to suffer and wander off in a foreign land because of his disobedience against his father and his downfall into sin. Yet, what is important and what each one of us must take note of is what he decided to do next. He could remain proud and refuse to return to his father, as it would have been shameful to do so, and therefore perish in that foreign land, but he did not do so.

Instead, the prodigal son decided to return to his father, swallowing his pride and ego, seeking his forgiveness and mercy. He chose to abandon his way of sin and coming back to the father full of regret and desire to be forgiven, and even humbling himself as such, abashing himself and ready to be treated like one of his father’s slaves. He himself reasoned that it was better for him to live as one of his father’s slaves rather than to die in pride and perish in a land where no one knew him or even would mourn his passing. All his so-called friends and benefactors must have left him behind once he had no more money or possessions with him.

Yet, when he returned, we all know how happy and joyful the father was when the prodigal son came back. The prodigal son had been worried that the father must have been angry. But in truth, whatever anger the father might have felt, his love far surpassed that anger, and seeing his son, as wayward as he might be, coming back to him and desiring to be reconciled with him, full of regret for his own past actions, it was more than enough for the father to welcome his child back to his embrace. The repentant prodigal son was welcomed back with great joy, and he was once again a beloved son of the father’s household.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, through the story of the parable of the prodigal son, all of us are again reminded of how fortunate we are to have God Who is always loving us and has always been kind to us, and desires to be reconciled with us. Even though we are sinners, He has always waited patiently for us to return to Him. But are we willing to return to Him and be reconciled with Him? Are we willing to return to our Lord and Father just as how the prodigal son decided to return to his father with contrite heart full of regrets and sorrow over his faults and mistakes?

We have to realise that it is often our pride and ego that often come before us and God’s salvation. Too often we are too proud to admit that we had been wrong and are in the need for healing and reconciliation with God. And unless we let go of our pride and be willing to embrace God with genuine faith and love once again, we are likely going to still be separated from God and His love. If we allow our attachments to worldly desires and other temptations to distract us from the path of righteousness, we will end up falling into the path towards damnation.

At the same time, we must also not behave like the elder son who was envious and jealous that the younger, prodigal son was welcomed with great fanfare while he, who had always remained at the side of his father, did not have such an opportunity. This is a reminder for all of us not to look down upon or discriminate against our less fortunate brothers and sisters, and more importantly, never be judgmental and be condescending in our attitude towards others, like what the Pharisees did, in looking down on others and thinking that we are better, holier and more worthy and deserving of God’s blessings and graces than others. We are all sinners after all, and in doing what the elder son did, we may forget this fact, and end up derailing our own path towards full reconciliation with God.

Instead, we have to help one another, and remind each other of the joy awaiting us at the end of our respective journeys of faith through life. In this world, we are all still wandering through the darkness and called towards the light, much as how the Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years. This season of Lent is a reminder for us of this reality, and especially the need for all of us for God’s forgiveness and healing, to be reconciled with Him, our most loving Father. We have to draw closer to Him and to humble ourselves, like that of the prodigal son, that we may overcome the obstacles of our pride, ego and all the other things preventing us from coming back to our heavenly Father.

Let us rejoice today with the hope of the true joy that we will enjoy forevermore with our Lord, an eternity of true happiness with God, as we continue living our lives with faith. Let our rejoicing today on Laetare Sunday be a preparation for us to enter worthily into the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter that are coming soon. Let us make good use of the opportunities and time given to us, especially during this time of Lent, to find our way towards the Lord, as prodigal children, wayward sons and daughters, all sinners in need of healing and reconciliation with our God. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 March 2022 : Third Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we are all reminded of the call that the Lord had made to all of us, His beloved ones, to follow Him and to dedicate ourselves to Him. All of us have been called to leave behind our past lives and our state of sin, and enter into a new existence with God through grace, and by His ever generous love, mercy and forgiveness. Each and every one of us are God’s chosen people, His beloved children, whom He had called from this world to be with Him. Our Scripture passages this Sunday remind us of this reality and truth, and we are reminded to turn towards the Lord with renewed love, zeal and vigour.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus the account of the calling of Moses at Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, during the time when Moses was in the land of the Midianites while in exile from Egypt. At that time, Moses, who had been raised by the Pharaoh’s sister as her own son after having been rescued from the River Nile, had been accused of misconduct and treason for having killed an Egyptian that persecuted an Israelite slave worker. Moses then fled away from Egypt to avoid being punished and killed although what he did was truly right and just.

In the land of the Midianites, Moses had become a shepherd and was eventually married to the daughter of his benefactor, Jethro the Midianite. And then, as we heard in our first reading today, Moses witnessed a great vision from God at Mount Horeb, as he saw a great burning bush, which an Angel of God set fire on and Moses went up the mountain to see the marvellous sight when God spoke to him, calling on him to go back to the land of Egypt and be the bearer of God’s words to the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, proclaiming the liberation of the Israelites who had long been enslaved by the former.

Through what we heard in our first reading today, we are all presented with the enduring love and compassion that God has for His people, as He told Moses of what He would do for His beloved people, as He has always remembered the Covenant He made with their forefathers, and He would bring them out from the place of their sufferings and agony, into the new place He would lead them towards, a land flowing with milk and honey, the Promised Land of Canaan that He has promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the forefathers of the Israelites.

In our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, we heard of the accounts of St. Paul reminding the faithful of all that God had done for the people of Israel during the time of their Exodus from Egypt. He reminded all of them how God had provided for the Israelites during the time of their long sojourn in the desert, as they journeyed from place to place, God always going before them and leading them to where they were brought to go to. And despite the rebelliousness and disobedience that they had shown at the time, that led them to endure forty years of suffering and atonement, God still cared for them all daily.

The Lord has always showed His love and mercy, which He has patiently and generously offered to His people despite their constant rebelliousness, their lack of faith in Him, the betrayal and all the other wicked deeds that they had committed. He could have annihilated us all the moment that our first ancestors fell into sin, and He could have destroyed us there and then. Yet, He gave us all a chance, because He believed in us and He loved us, which was why He created us all in the first place. He would not have created us if He did not love us. He showed us that while we may have frequently been unfaithful to Him, but He never ceased to be faithful to the promises that He had made to us since the very beginning.

In our Gospel passage today, we heard of the Lord speaking to the people regarding of what had then happened regarding a group of Galileans who were massacred by the Romans under the governor, Pontius Pilate and also of another accident involving a group of people in the town of Shiloh who had perished due to that accident. He told all those assembled that those who perished were sinners just as they who listened to the Lord were sinners too. However, He pointed out how unless they repented, then they would perish as well in the end.

What the Lord wanted to point out through this particular encounter was that we are all mortals and we will eventually reach the end of our worldly life and existence. All of us will face death sooner or later, and this is one certainty that will happen to us. Due to sin we have to face the consequences and that is we have to experience death. Yet, at the same time, the most uncertain thing in life for us is the exact time and moment of our death and passing from this world. No one knew, knows and will ever know the exact time and moment of their death, and yet, all will die and go through the gates of death.

However, the Lord has also provided us His mercy and compassionate love, and through His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, He has given us the sure path out of the darkness and the tyranny of sin. He took upon Himself the burden of our sins, and He did the most marvellous thing in reaching out to us with love and compassion, that through Him we may receive the assurance of eternal life and true happiness, by His most loving and selfless sacrifice on the Cross for our sake. We are reminded again and again that all of us are really very fortunate to have been beloved so much by the Lord, and we must not take it for granted that we have been given this grace and the many opportunities presented to us, as God has always been ever patient in calling on us to return to Him.

However, we must also remember that in the end, sin is a corruption of our mind, body, heart and soul, and no sin can remain in us unforgiven and not repented upon. For God Who is perfect and all good and great cannot have sin existent before Him, or else, those sins would have brought us down to our doom and annihilation. Essentially, while God has always ever been merciful and loving towards us, but there is a limit and boundary that we must always be aware of, and that is, as long as we still reject God’s mercy and forgiveness, freely and generously given to us, then our sins shall remain and we shall be judged and condemned by those same sins.

This Lent, all of us are called and reminded of God’s ever generous love and how each and every one of us have a share in this love and generous mercy. Unfortunately, it is very often that our pride and ego, our human desires and inability to resist the temptations of the world have led to us faltering again and again, delaying our return towards the Lord, hardening our hearts against Him and closing off the doors of His mercy when He has extended it so openly and freely towards us. It is often us who have spurned His advances of love and mercy, all the generous kindness that He has presented to us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we reflect on these words from the Sacred Scriptures this Sunday, already the Third one in the season of Lent, are we all still idling by in our lives and not heeding God’s calling, His constant invitations and pleas for us to return to Him with contrite and repentant hearts? Are we still going to allow our pride, ego, our sinfulness and our refusal to listen to the Lord’s words be serious obstacles in the way of our reconciliation with Him? Are we going to continue to rebel against the Lord just as how the people of Israel in the past have always often disobeyed Him, doubted and even betrayed Him for other gods and idols?

That is why we have to make good use of the opportunities we have been given most generously this Lent to reconnect ourselves with God, and to rediscover the unity which we once had with Him, but which had been ruined and broken due to our sins. That is why this Lent all of us are called to deepen our relationship with God, remove from our hearts and minds the temptation of pride and ego, and of all negativities and the various obstacles that have often prevented us from returning to God with faith. This Lent, all of us should do our best to reach out to one another, and to help each other in our journey back towards the Lord.

Let us all strive therefore to renew the relationship we have with God and endeavour to overcome the temptations and pressures of the world that are always pulling us away from God and His path. Let us put our focus on God and His love for each and every one of us, and remember to be grateful and thankful for everything that He had done for us. May He continue to watch over us and bless us in our Lenten journey and observances. May He remain with us always and strengthen us with faith, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 March 2022 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we celebrate the Second Sunday in the season of Lent, reminding us that it has been about ten days now since the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Today as we listened and remembered the words of the Sacred Scriptures, all of us are called and reminded by God to look upon what it is that each and every one of us are expected to do as Christians, as God’s followers and people. We are all the children of God and therefore our way of life ought to be a reflection of God’s ways and truth.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Genesis, of the moment when God made His Covenant with Abram, the one who would later be known as Abraham, the father of many nations, and progenitor of the Israelites. God had chosen Abram to be the one with whom He would make a new Covenant with His people, with mankind, as He had seen in Abram the true and genuine faith that is unparalleled and unmatched by anyone else, the desire to love God and to obey Him and His Law wholeheartedly.

Abram was then already a man of relatively advanced age, with a barren wife, Sarai and no son or any child at all. He had answered God’s call in following Him to the land that He had shown him, the land of Canaan, uprooting himself from the land of his forefathers and leaving his family behind to follow God. God then made this Covenant with Abram, promising him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on earth. At that moment, Abram was transformed into Abraham, the change in name signifying this new status as the progenitor of God’s chosen people. His wife, Sarai, also then changed her name to Sarah.

Abraham trusted in the Lord and followed Him wholeheartedly, devoting his life to God and followed wherever the Lord led him to go. He became the father of Isaac and Ishmael, and through them, became the father of innumerable nations to this day. Not only that, but because of the Covenant that God had made with him, his faith and righteousness, Abraham has also become our father in faith as well. He is our role model in faith and our inspiration, as the one whom we can look upon for inspiration for our own path in life.

In our second reading passage today, the Epistle of St. Paul to the Philippians relate to us that as Christians, all of us are called to be like Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, and remember that we are truly called to the glory of heaven, our ultimate destination in life. All of us are truly the citizens of Heaven, God’s beloved ones who have always been intended for greatness and eternity of happiness, perfection and glory with God, our most loving Father and Creator. And because of this, our attitudes and way of life have to reflect this nature, our true nature that is righteousness, justice and full of Christian virtues.

In the Gospel today that is why we heard the reading of the account of the Transfiguration of the Lord, in which we heard of how the Lord was glorified and revealed His true divine nature to His three disciples, Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor. The Lord revealed that He was indeed not just the Son of Man, but also the Son of God, the two natures of Divinity and Humanity distinct and yet inseparable in His one Person, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world and the Lord of all. And by Him sharing in our humanity, the Lord wants to show us that we too ought to share in this glory to come.

Essentially, through His Transfiguration, the Lord has shown us what our future state is going to be, when our bodies and existences are glorified much in the same way as the Lord has been glorified. It is reminiscent of what will happen when at the end times, our bodies will be reunited with our souls, to live perfectly with God forever in a blissful eternal existence, full of grace and happiness. This is what the Lord has always intended to us, for us to live happily ever after with Him, in His presence, and why He created us all in the first place.

Unfortunately, mankind succumbed to the temptations of the devil and their desires, and they allowed those desires and temptations to cloud their judgment, leading them to disobey God, His Law and commandments. And because of sin, we have been defiled and corrupted, and our glorified and perfect nature has been tarnished. When God created us mankind, He never intended for us to suffer in this world, and if we recall the Book of Genesis, all that God had created and made were all perfect and all good, including us mankind, made in image and likeness of God Himself, the most beloved of all His creations.

It was by our conscious rejection of God’s love and truth that we have ended up in this fallen state, losing our perfection and true nature due to sin. And through sin we have been separated from God and we have to endure these sufferings in the world because we have not yet fully reconciled ourselves with God. And yet, God gave us His only Son, to be our Saviour. Through Him, not only that He gave us hope through His Transfiguration, reminding us of who we truly and actually are, but He also took it upon Himself to offer on our behalf, during His Passion and death, the most worthy offering for our salvation.

We are reminded that our true nature is to reflect the light of Christ within us and to show forth the truth about that nature, to all the people. We are all called to overcome the temptations of sin, the corruptions of those wickedness and the allures of evil. We are all called to resist those temptations and rediscover the light within us, the light of Christ long hidden by the darkness of sin and evil. We are all called to uncover these truth about our nature, by our pious observance of Lent.

In our observance of this Lenten season, when we fast and abstain, from meat or from any other of our usual pleasures in life, we are all called to turn away from our desires and the darkness of our world, turning towards the light of God, following the examples of our forefather, Abraham in his faith and dedication to the Lord, as well as our many other holy predecessors who have gone before us, the glorious saints and martyrs, who even now enjoy the beatific vision and experience of Heaven, while waiting for the final Day of Judgment, the end of time. We are reminded through the Transfiguration of the Lord in our Gospel today, that we too will enjoy this one day, should we remain faithful and committed to the Lord, to the very end.

God has made a New and Eternal Covenant with us through Jesus Christ, His Son, Who gave His life, poured our His Most Precious Blood and broken His Most Precious Body on the Cross, to be the Mediator of this New and everlasting Covenant, as the One through Whom all of us can finally be reconciled fully with God. By His suffering and death, He has brought us to share in His humanity, freeing us from the tyranny of sin and death, as by His glorious Resurrection He has unlocked the gates of Heaven to us. Through Him we have been given the sure means of coming free from our fallen state and to be restored to our graceful existence as God had always intended.

Now, the question is, are we all willing to make the sacrifices for this to happen? Are we all willing to embrace the Lord wholeheartedly with faith from now on, and rejecting the temptations of the world and the corruption of sin? To be Christians we are never called to remain idle in life, but instead we have to always be ever active in each and every moments, to be ever closer to God, to reflect His light and truth, His ways and love in our lives, to be righteous and just, virtuous and good in all things just as He is all good and virtuous, perfect and full of love. And we can show this through our actions, by being more generous with our love and giving for others.

Let us all therefore seek the Lord with a renewed faith, with contrite heart full of desire to be forgiven from our many faults and sins. Let us draw ever closer to God and put our trust more in Him, be ever more generous in showing our tender care and love, especially to the less fortunate, to those who are unloved and with no one to care for them, those who are oppressed and ostracised. Let us do our best as Christians to reach out to them, just as Our Lord Himself has reached out to us first, we wretched sinners deserving not of God’s grace and love, and yet He has always loved us without fail. He reestablished and renewed the Covenant He had made with us, because He never ceased to love us, and neither should we cease to love Him.

May the Lord continue to awaken in us the love that each and every one of us ought to have for Him, strengthening our resolve and courage to walk down His path despite the challenges and trials that we may have to face as His disciples. May God bless all of our good works and our Lenten observances, that they may not be just spiritually beneficial to us, but also that they may become great inspirations for our fellow brothers and sisters, to follow us together in our journey towards God and His salvation. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 March 2022 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we celebrate the first Sunday in the season of Lent, as we enter more deeply into this time of reconciliation and call to repentance that is characteristic of this season of Lent. On this Sunday, we are all reminded that God is our refuge, our salvation, our hope and the light amidst the darkness that surround us in this world. In Him alone lies our true happiness and freedom, and it is for this purpose that we observe this blessed season of Lent. All of our fasting, abstinence, almsgiving and other actions during this Lent are meant to lead us ever closer to God.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of Deuteronomy, we heard of the words of Moses, the leader of the Israelites, who at that time in the later part of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, exhorted all the people of God to remember everything that God had done to them and to their ancestors. He reminded them all how God had loved and taken good care of their forefathers from the time of Abraham, his descendants and all who went to Egypt and where they prospered greatly as a nation, and where they were later persecuted and oppressed, enslaved and maltreated.

Yet the Lord showed His continued love for them, rescuing them all from their predicament and leading them out from the land of Egypt, as He led them by the might of His hands, crushing the Egyptians with ten great plagues and many other deeds, opening the sea itself to allow the people to walk through them without harm. These were all that the Lord had done for the sake of His people, and Moses was therefore reminding the people that they have to remain faithful to the Lord and renew their commitments to Him, rejecting the path of sin and evil.

The Psalm today echoed this sentiment as we heard its opening part, that those who come to rest in the shelter of the Lord, who entrusted themselves to Him shall always be provided for and will not be disappointed. For God has indeed shown us again and again His boundless love and compassion, and He has reassured us that no one who trusted in Him and placed their faith in Him would be lost to Him in the end. Sufferings and trials may come for the people of God, but they will triumph in the end with God.

Then in our second reading we heard the words of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Rome, through his Epistle to the Romans. In that passage we heard the affirmation of the salvation that has been given to us freely through Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. As long as we believe in Him, trust in Him, and focus our attention on Him, our true and living faith will bring us towards God, regardless of our background, our history and our differences. We are all God’s one flock and people, all called to return to Him and be reconciled with Him.

In our Gospel passage then we heard the famous encounter between the Lord Jesus and Satan, His great enemy, as the latter tried to prevent the Lord from doing His mission in this world. At that time, just right after the Lord was baptised by St. John the Baptist at the River Jordan, He fasted for forty days in the wilderness, and Satan came to Him in order to tempt Him. Satan had dominion over the world through sin, because sin has held onto the hearts and souls of the children of man, enslaving them and keeping them chained just as how the Israelites was once enslaved by the Egyptians.

We may be wondering if Satan actually knew what the Lord was about to do and what His mission was. As the evil spirits in the occasions when the Lord performed exorcisms on the possessed testified, that they recognised Him as the Holy One of God, it was unlikely that Satan did not know Who the Lord Jesus truly was. Although He was in the form of Man, the flesh of the descendants of Adam and Eve that he once tempted and corrupted, but the devil must have recognised the Lord’s true Divine nature that was concealed within His person.

But the devil clearly knew that whatever the Lord had intended to do for mankind, it would not be a good one for him, for the Lord loved all mankind, all of His children and people, and He would surely not let the devil and all of his fellow demons, the fallen angels and wicked spirits from having their way and dominion over His beloved ones any longer. Thus, Satan must have attempted to tempt the Lord through His human nature and flesh, to manipulate the usual human weaknesses and desires in the manner that he had done towards Eve and countless other sons and daughters of man.

In the first temptation, we heard the devil tempting the Lord with food to eat, as He has been fasting for forty days without food or any sustenance. He must have been really hungry, for He is truly Man just as He is Divine. Hunger is a part of our human existence, one of the things that we can feel whenever we have not consumed any food. The devil told the Lord that He could just turn the stones there into bread and food for Him to eat, testing Him by saying that if He was indeed the Son of God, He could have done so easily. However, the Lord refused to listen to the devil and pointed out that one’s true sustenance came from the Lord and His words, and obedience to those words.

In the second temptation, we heard how the devil brought the Lord to a very high mountain and showed Him all the glory and wonders of the world, and told Him that He could have everything if only He bowed down in worship, worshipping Satan, for all the glory and wealth of the world. This was immediately rebuked by the Lord, Who told Satan off and clearly spoke that the Lord alone is worthy of worship, nothing and no one else is worthy of that, clearly not Satan or any other beings. This was the temptation of desire and greed, for worldly wealth and material goods.

Then finally, the last temptation is often the most dangerous of all, as the devil brought the Lord to the peak of the Temple of God in Jerusalem, telling Him that if He were to fall down from that height, according to the Scriptures, the Lord would not let Him to be hurt, and He would send His Angels to save and protect His Son. But in doing so, one would then test the Lord, testing Him whether He would really say what He had said He would do, and also, most crucially, in doing so, that would have revealed His great wonders and majesty before the many people gathered there, and would have therefore suited someone’s ego and pride in doing so. He rebuked Satan, and the latter, knowing that he had been defeated, went away.

Essentially, the devil was trying to tempt the Lord to be selfish, to be filled with greed and ultimately to succumb to pride, all of which would lead anyone to sin against God, disobeying His will, His Law and commandments for one’s own personal ambitions, desires and ego. Satan knew it all too well, for he himself had fallen into that state because of his pride and ambition, as Lucifer, the most brilliant and mighty among God’s Angels, who fell into the sin of pride, in desiring to rule over the Angels of God and in desiring the Throne of God for himself. He was defeated and cast out from Heaven, and then he tried to bring down man, God’s most beloved creation.

Satan himself fell, the many other fallen angels followed Satan to his rebellion, and he also tempted Eve and through her, Adam, and many other people, all the sons and daughters of man, who had fallen into sin. But the Lord showed us all, that we must not let sin to have any more hold on us. Unfortunately, as long as we allow ourselves to be swayed by pride, by our desire and greed, by our attachments to the world, we will fall again and again into sin. And the Lord then showed us that we do not have to remain bound by those things, as He resisted and rejected Satan’s temptations one by one.

What is important, as the Lord had said and mentioned, is that we must put the Lord at the centre and as the clear focus of our lives. He must exist at the centre of our lives and be the reason and emphasis of our every actions, words and deeds. We have to put our trust in Him and strive to walk in the path that He has shown to us all. And in doing so, we have to be more humble, rejecting pride, and to temper our desires and ambitions, rejecting the temptations of greed and desires, and to train ourselves to resist those temptations, and this season of Lent, we are given the perfect opportunity to do so if we have not yet done that.

That is why, during this season of Lent, all of us are called to practice our Lenten observances and actions with great and genuine faith, with clear understanding of whatever it is that we are doing, so that in all the things we do, we will always do it for the sake of the Lord, and not for our own selfish ambitions, our pride, ego and desires. Through fasting and abstinence, done right and focused on the Lord, let us restrain our human and worldly desires, for glory, power, fame and other material wealth and goods, resisting the excesses of worldly attachments and pleasures, and instead, learn to grow more in our faith and trust, in our love for God.

Then, we are also called to be more generous in loving one another, as Lent is the time for us to show God’s love even more to others around us. We are encouraged to be more generous in almsgiving and in caring for the less fortunate, not necessarily just in material terms only, but also in caring for those who are unloved and uncared for, those who have been ostracised and rejected by others. Let us extend our caring hands and hearts to them, and let us show each other what God’s love for us truly means, through our own genuine Christian love.

Let us all make the best use of this time that we have been given in this season of Lent, so that each and every one of us can draw ever closer to the Lord, and that we may grow ever more in our faith and dedication to God. May He continue to watch over us and strengthen us all in faith, and may He empower each and every one of us so that we may remain ever more deeply attuned to Him, and be ever more courageous to say no to Satan and all of his temptations and all the falsehoods he presented to us. Let us help one another to walk ever more faithfully in God’s presence, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 27 February 2022 : Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we gather together and listen to the words of the Lord in the Sacred Scriptures, we are all reminded how all of us have to be true to our faith in God, to be righteous and good in all things just as He has commanded and taught us to do in our lives. We have to be active in living our faith and not just paying lip service to the Lord only. We cannot be idle and ignorant of what the Lord had told us to do, through all the guidance He has shown us through His Church.

In our first reading today, we heard from the book of the prophet Sirach in which the Lord spoke to His people regarding how a person can be seen and witnessed from his or her actions and deeds, from their words and all their interactions, just as a tree’s qualities can be seen from its fruits among other examples. It was also mentioned how a potter usually tests his wares and products by testing them with fire, and all the hidden flaws will be revealed that way. Nothing can be hidden away and all can and may be revealed.

What does this mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that we cannot fake our faith, or think that we can deceive others by our appearances if deep inside we do not truly have faith in the Lord. That was why, sadly, many people found it difficult to believe in God because many among us Christians do not even practice our faith and behave in the manner appropriate to our identity as those who believe in the Lord. That is exactly why many were scandalised by what they had seen in the attitudes of Christians, who behaved not according to what the Christian truth is all about.

This same sentiment is echoed by the Lord Himself as we heard it in our Gospel passage today, in which we heard the Lord speaking to His disciples regarding the matter how people should be truly faithful to God and be willing to reflect on their own attitudes first before they judge others or condemn others for being less faithful or worthy than they were, which was unfortunately a rather common situation among the people of Israel at the time, particularly among the members of the Pharisees and the elders and the chief priests.

They were the ones who always thought highly of themselves and conversely looked down on others, condemning others they deemed to be unworthy of God and His salvation like that of the tax collectors and prostitutes, or those who were possessed or were suffering from diseases and other afflictions. They thought of themselves as worthy and justified in their actions, in their exclusivity and refusal to engage in genuine dialogue with the Lord and His disciples, and instead preferring to hinder Him and putting obstacles in all the occasions and the places wherever He went to.

That was the example of what the Lord said as the blind leading the blind, and a man with a plank in his eye who chose to point out the speck in another’s eye, while ignoring the plank in his very own eye. Unfortunately, this was a common attitude not only just among the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, but also among us Christians as well. Many of us often think of ourselves as being better than others and are easily prejudiced and biased against those whom we perceived to be less than worthy of the Lord and His saving grace as well as love.

That is exactly how we fell to this same trap of self-righteousness, selfishness, self-aggrandisement and other traps that have often trapped many of us since the beginning of time. Ever since man first fell into sin, we have always struggled against the allures of worldly desires, of personal desires for pleasure and satisfaction, for self-fulfilment and happiness, often even at the cost of others around us. That was how mankind often brought about suffering to others around them, all because they thought first and foremost of themselves first, ignoring others and their needs.

And as long as our internal predisposition and orientation are not set right as we should have, then we will likely fall again and again into this path of sin, wickedness and evil, this path of selfishness and jealousy, of self-preservation and the desire for personal glory, satisfaction and attainment. This is why today, on this Sunday all of us are reminded by the words of the Lord Himself, that we have to begin making the efforts to nurture within us all, a true heart, mind and soul that are all attuned towards the Lord, filled with genuine faith and love for Him.

In our second reading today, we heard St. Paul in his Epistle and letter to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, speaking about the matter of sin and death. He spoke of how sin is the sting of death, for through sin brought about by their disobedience and by succumbing to their desires, man had brought upon themselves the suffering and punishment of death. Sin is the weeds that the devil has sowed in our hearts, as we heard in one of the parables of the Lord, when the enemy came to sow the seeds of weeds among the seeds of good wheat.

Then St. Paul also spoke of how the Lord has triumphed over sin and death, and through Him, He has shown us this path of victory against sin and evil, against death and all the tyranny and bondage that they had over us all these while. Yet, it is us mankind who have often fell back again and again into sin, because we do not have that strong and genuine faith in the Lord, and we still have too many and too strong attachments to sin, to the many temptations and desires found in this world, to all the things that often distracted us in our journey towards the Lord.

First of all, as mentioned earlier, it is important that as Christians we have to realise that we must always be vigilant against our ego and pride, our desires and all the temptations present all around us. We have to be humble and to rid of ourselves all the excesses of our pride and ego, which often were the sources of our downfall. If we allow those things to mislead us and distract us from the path of God, then very easily we will end up following the wrong path in life, and falling ever deeper into the traps of sin, and eventually to eternal death and suffering.

If we do not want this to happen, then first of all we have to reorientate our lives from one that is centred on ourselves, our ego and desires, into new lives that are centred on God, on His truth and love. This is what the Lord wants from us, and this is what this Sunday’s Scripture readings had been intended to, in order to wake us up from our slumber in this world, and so that we may stir and do our best to seek the Lord with a renewed conviction, zeal and passion in our respective lives.

We have to realise that we are weak and imperfect, and we often need help in our journey through life. We cannot just solely depend on ourselves and our power alone, but instead we have to cooperate and work with God, allowing Him to lead us down the right path. And in order to do that, often we have to be in touch with Him and ourselves, knowing how sinful and flawed we have been. Otherwise, if we allow pride and ego to fill our minds and hearts, then in our self-righteousness, we will end up shutting the Lord out, and consequently, we will only end up getting more and more distant from one another.

That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, instead of us comparing who amongst us are better, more worthy, more righteous, more pious or holy, let us all realise that we are all sinners in need of God’s healing and mercy. And the Lord is the only One Who can provide us our true happiness in life, and in Him we can put our full trust always. He has called us all to follow Him, and all that remains is for us to follow Him and trust Him wholeheartedly from now on. And as Christians, we should help and inspire one another in this journey of faith, supporting and strengthening one another instead of trying to outdo or compete with each other, nurturing in ourselves a heart filled with love for God and faith and trust in Him.

May the Lord, our most loving God, continue to bless us and guide us, and may He continue to watch over us, and help us to remain humble and committed to Him, that we may resist all the temptations of our ego and pride, our desires and the attachments we have to our worldly temptations and concerns. May God bless all of our good endeavours, works and efforts, in all things, now and always, forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 20 February 2022 : Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we listened to the words of the Lord speaking to us clearly through the passages of the Sacred Scriptures, regarding the need for all of us to show love in our lives, to be full of love and to be loving in all things, for the essence of being Christians is truly that of love. We cannot be Christians and we cannot call ourselves as such unless we truly have love in us, and show that same love in our actions and interactions, in all situations and to everyone, without exception. To be genuine Christians and to be filled with true Christian love is not something that is easily done.

That is why today we are reminded by the Scriptures to be loving to one another without exception, to be genuine in loving and caring for others, even to our enemies and those who hate us. That is what is so different about genuine, Christian way of love, the love that transcends even hatred and animosities. To be Christians means that we have to learn to love how the Lord Himself has loved us and how He had taught His disciples how to love, and model ourselves based on His servants, such as the example of King David mentioned in our first reading today, in him still loving and forgiving King Saul despite all the efforts by the latter to harm and kill him.

In our first reading from the Book of the prophet Samuel, we heard of the time when David was pursued by Saul and his men, as the former was a fugitive fleeing the court of the king after Saul tried to have David killed. Contextually, David had been chosen by God to be Saul’s successor as King over all of Israel. The prophet Samuel himself, who anointed Saul as King of Israel, had anointed David in the same way to be King of Israel. Then, David had also defeated the champion of the Philistines, Goliath, and was hailed by the people in an even greater salutation than Saul had received.

Therefore, Saul had likely been overcome by jealousy, by fear and insecurity, as he feared losing the kingdom, the wealth, prestige and power that he had gained as king. Thus, he also allowed the devil to enter into his heart and tempt him, and as he brooded in fear, he ended up contemplating to kill David, so that he could get rid once and for all the threat to his rule and kingship. Saul’s son Jonathan, who was David’s close friend warned him, and David managed to escape, and he and his band of men became a band of adventurers roaming around the land while evading Saul and his men.

Therefore, as we heard in our first reading today, when David finally encountered a very vulnerable Saul in the desert of Ziph, his men led by Abishai, one of his closest advisors and confidants wanted David to seize the initiative, kill the king and seize the throne for himself. After all, David had been chosen by God to be the rightful king of Israel to replace Saul. David had every right to kill Saul, especially after all that he had done to harm him and to persecute him, forcing him to live as an outcast away from the people of Israel.

Yet, as we heard, David would have none of it. He rebuked his fellow men and told them that they could not touch Saul or his men, and particularly Saul because although he might have fallen from grace and sinned against God, but he was anointed by God through the prophet Samuel, and it was not right and just to kill God’s anointed one regardless of the circumstances. Instead, David spared Saul with great magnanimity, and when later on he showed Saul just how close he was to kill him and seized his throne there and then, and yet sparing him, David showed not just Saul but all of us as well what being a follower of God should be like.

In our Gospel passage today, the Lord Jesus spoke of this to His disciples as well, as He highlighted how His way and that of His followers must truly be unlike anything that the world had ever known before, as others would have told that we must love those who love us and give us happiness, and hate those who have made our lives difficult, persecuted us and made us humiliated and to suffer many things in life. Many would have said that we have no need to spare our enemies and we should hate them and get our revenge against them.

But the Lord Jesus revealed His message and truth, His teachings and way that was so revolutionary and different that all who had heard Him then must have been stunned, surprised, amazed and taken aback by what they had heard from the Lord. The Lord told them not only to love those whom they love and those who have benefitted them, but He told them to love even their enemies, all those who have hurt and persecuted them. He told them not to bear grudges or seeking revenge, and instead, they should even pray for them and continue to love them regardless. This is in essence, what true Christian love is all about.

And the Lord Himself has shown us the best example, when He forgave all those who persecuted Him and cried out for His death, namely many of the members of the Sanhedrin or the Jewish High Council, the chief priests and many among the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the Sadducees. The Lord forgave all of them from His Cross, as He was hung between the Heaven and the earth, praying and asking His heavenly Father not to hold their sins against them because of their ignorance and as they did not know fully what they had done and why they were doing so. To the very end, the Lord wanted us to know that His love for us is truly great, pure and unconditional.

Not to forget that He has forgiven all of us, we all who are sinners, regardless whether our sins be great or small, many or few. All of us have bountifully received from God Himself the assurance of salvation and eternal life through Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. The Lord has forgiven us despite our many sins and shortcomings, our constant refusal and stubbornness to listen to Him and the difficulties to get us to obey Him and His Law and commandments. He still patiently loved us and tried to help us in every possible opportunities, from generation to generation, again and again, loving us even when many of us rejected Him.

As St. Paul in his Epistle to the Corinthians, in our second reading today, Christ has become the New Adam, as compared to the old, first Adam, the progenitor of the entire human race. The disobedience and sins that the old, first Adam had brought into this world had been overcome by Christ, the New Adam, Whose coming into this world brought forth the long promised salvation that God had intended ever since the time when mankind first fell into sin, and yes, that was during the time of the old Adam. Through Christ, all of us have been brought into a new existence in God, a life of sanctity and purity, filled with love for God and for one another.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, the question is, are we willing and able to follow the Lord and His examples, the examples of His many servants and disciples, such as what was shown by King David of Israel when he spared King Saul, his predecessor, and acted with great honour and virtue then, as well as in various other occasions? All of us have received the love of God, and we have witnessed the love of God made manifest, and now we are all reminded that we have the obligation to show that same love in our daily living, in all of our words, actions and deeds, in our every works and interactions.

Let us all make good use of the time, the opportunities, the many blessings and wonders that God had granted to us, all that He has provided for us so that we may find our way to Him, by leading a most faithful and dedicated, loving Christian life in our respective communities, in our families, among our relatives and friends, and even among strangers and even, as the Lord mentioned, amidst all those who despised us and in the plain sight of all those who have hated us and made our lives difficult. We are all challenged to be ever better Christians, first of all in loving God and then in loving our fellow men, even our enemies, genuinely from our hearts.

May the Lord, our most loving, compassionate and forgiving God show us the way to be ever more loving, more filled with genuine and warm love, so that we no longer be selfish and be self-indulgent, in only caring for ourselves, but also be filled with strong love for our fellow men, especially for those who have been unloved. May all of us be great witnesses and bearers of the love of God in our communities, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 February 2022 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Scripture, we are all called to have faith in the Lord, to trust in Him and to walk ever more faithfully in His path. As Christians, all of us have to follow the Lord and His Law, His commandments, all of His precepts and ways, or otherwise we are no better than hypocrites and unbelievers. As Christians we are called to be exemplary in our way of life, in our actions, words and deeds so that we may inspire others to follow in our footsteps and be faithful to God as well.

In our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, we heard the Lord speaking to His people regarding those who refused to believe in Him and instead depending on human power and might, in worldly things rather than believing in the providence of the Almighty. The Lord also encouraged all those who have kept their faith in Him, that they would be blessed and God would always remain with them no matter what, and they had no need to be afraid because in the end, they will triumph with God and receive true joy and glory with Him.

Contextually, we have to understand that the prophet Jeremiah brought God’s words and message to the people in the kingdom of Judah, which was then on its last days, but they still refused to believe in God despite everything that God had done for them and despite all the messengers and prophets He had sent to them to remind them of His love and of what would happen if they continued walking down the path of sin. Instead of believing in God, many of them believed in the falsehoods of the false prophets, some of whom contested against Jeremiah in as written in another part of the record of the prophet’s life, and deluded the king and the people of Judah to trust in them instead of God’s words.

To that extent, the king and the people of Judah chose to depend on their more powerful neighbours, entrusting themselves to the protection of Egypt, which was one of the major powers alongside the then rising Neo-Babylonian Empire under King Nebuchadnezzar. Jeremiah was one of the few who spoke against doing such a foolish act, depending on one power against another, and he was the only one who dared to speak up against the king and those false prophets, which led to him being persecuted for his faith and dedication to his work. He was almost killed if not for the help from some of his few remaining friends and allies.

The Lord therefore wanted to reassure those remaining few faithful ones who still kept their faith in God, that they had no need to be worried or afraid of their fate. Whatever things that would happen to them, as long as they were faithful, God would take care of them, protect them and guide them. As proven later on, with the downfall of Jerusalem and the kingdom of Judah, and even though many of the people were carried off into exile in Babylon and other lands, but God always remembered them.

And even though they had to endure hardships and humiliation, but in the end, they and their descendants would rejoice with great happiness when He led them back to return to their own land as it happened under the reign of King Cyrus the Great of Persia. The King of Persia would allow the people of God to return to their homeland in triumph, to rebuild their cities and to restore their lost glory and rebuild the Temple and House of God in their midst, supported by the King of Persia and his kingdom.

In our second reading today, then we heard from St. Paul the Apostle in his Epistle and letter to the Church and the faithful in the city of Corinth, as he spoke of regarding the matter of Christ’s resurrection from the dead to the Christians in Corinth. St. Paul reminded all of them that their faith was all about believing in the Risen Lord, their Lord and Master Who had risen from the dead and was triumphant. And because of this, all of them could be assured of the ultimate victory and joy, the true happiness that will come from God because of His victory over death through the Cross.

For the Lord has sent His Son, Our Lord and Saviour, into this world, appearing in the flesh, and through Him, God has made clear His promises and reassured all of us that our faith in Him are well placed and we will never be disappointed. The Lord reassured His people that if they had suffered and endured challenges and trials in this world all these while especially because of their faith in Him, they shall not be disappointed because the Lord would remember them and give them their due in its time, in the time that God Himself deems appropriate.

The Lord will provide for His faithful ones just as He had provided for their ancestors during the time of the prophet Jeremiah and beyond. He has given His own Son as the proof of all that, and through Him all of us have received the sure hope of eternal life, because by His Cross, bearing the multitudes of our sins and the punishments due to those sins, we have shared in His suffering and death, as He bore all of our faults upon His own shoulders, and through that, He shared with us His own glorious Resurrection, triumphant over death and sin. He showed us all that sin and death no longer have the final say over us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we listened to the Scripture passages and recall these words of the Lord, let us all therefore seek to trust more in the Lord and believe in Him and His love. Let us all no longer doubt Him and strive to resist all the temptations in this world, all trying to mislead us down the path of sin and evil. Let us do our best to persevere through the challenges and trials that we may encounter in life, and try to be inspiration to one another in how we remain faithful to the Lord despite all the difficulties and obstacles we may have to face in the midst of our journey towards the Lord.

All of us are called to be witnesses of His truth and love, to be the bearers of His compassionate mercy and the Good News, to reveal Him, Our Risen Lord and Saviour, to all the people of all the nations just as He had commended this mission to the Apostles. All of us are part of this effort and work, which He has entrusted to His Church. The Lord gave us the gifts, talents and abilities to do what we can in giving ourselves and our time, our opportunities and efforts to spread the truth of His salvation and Good News to more people, to the far ends of the earth.

That is our calling as Christians, brothers and sisters in Christ. And we cannot truly commit ourselves to the cause of the Lord unless we have truly embraced the Lord and His ways, resisting the temptations to sin, striving to be faithful in all things, in our every actions and deeds. All of us are called to do God’s will, to practice our faith sincerely and with conviction, at all times. We are all given the many opportunities to touch the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters around us, in these opportunities afforded to us.

Now, are we going to remain idle? Are we going to ignore the Lord’s call and keep our own gifts and abilities hidden, or to misuse them for our own selfish purposes? We are all given the freedom to choose our path, and we have to make a clear choice whether we want to follow the Lord wholeheartedly or to allow our path to be swayed by the many worldly temptations that lead us down the path of sin and destruction. Let us recall the love that God has shown us, His reassurance and encouragement to us. Let us not be discouraged if we meet hardships and hurdles, and instead help one another to endure them together as one united people by faith, in the Church of God.

May the Lord continue to be with us and guide us in our respective journey of faith through life, that we may always grow ever stronger in faith in Him, and do our best to be good role models for our fellow brothers and sisters whenever we can, bringing hope and encouragement to a world shrouded in darkness, and bearing God’s light and love with us as we carry on living our lives in this world. May God bless our actions and every endeavours, all for the greater glory of His Name. Amen.

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Sunday, 6 February 2022 : Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are called to realise our calling and mission in life as Christians, as those whom God has called and chosen, to be the ones to carry out His will and to be the witnesses of His truth and love to all the people. As we heard from today’s Scripture readings, we are all called to follow in the footsteps of our courageous and faithful predecessors, those who have dedicated themselves and their lives to serve the Lord, to follow Him and to do their best for the greater glory of God.

In our first reading today, we heard the calling of the prophet Isaiah in a vision which he received, and in that vision he saw the Lord Himself seated on His Throne in Heaven, attended by the great Angels of God, the Seraphim who served the Lord at His presence. He saw all the great glory and majesty of God and was terrified at what he had seen. He was struck with great fear because not only that one ought not to look at the great glory of God, and as a sinner, Isaiah feared God’s wrath and retribution. He humbled himself and abased himself before the Lord.

But God reassured Isaiah and sent His Seraphim to bring the hot coal from the Altar of the heavenly Temple and touched that coal onto Isaiah’s mouth, his lips and tongue. Through that symbolic act, God sanctified and purified Isaiah, considering him worthy of seeing His glory and being there, and through that, God also reassured him and sent him to be the one that He had chosen to be the bearer of His truth and message, His Good News to the people of Israel. Isaiah answered firmly with faith, and henceforth, he did the works of the Lord wonderfully among His people.

In our Gospel passage today, we kind of see a similar story in which the Lord Jesus came to the Lake of Galilee and encountered the fishermen there who were busy with their works and among them were the brothers Simon and Andrew, as well as the two sons of Zebedee, James and John. It was this moment, which is also mentioned in the other Gospels, that the Lord called His first disciples, and those four would become four of His closest confidants, the Twelve Apostles. At that time, they were just simple fishermen at the Lake of Galilee.

Having gathered little or no fish despite a great effort over the night, they would not have hoped to gain much and they must have been disappointed. But the Lord Who was then teaching the people told them all to go again and gather the fishes, this time to put their nets just as He told them to. Simon was hesitant at first saying how their efforts all night long had borne little results, but he obeyed nonetheless, going forth into the deeper waters just as the Lord had told him to, and true enough, immediately they caught so many fishes that it almost sank the two boats they were on.

We heard how Simon and the other fishermen all bowed down before the Lord and especially Simon uttered how unworthy he was before the Lord, and how he was a sinner that was unworthy and not deserving of the Lord’s presence. But this did not stop the Lord from calling them to be His disciples, and in fact to be the closest ones to Him. He called them all to become the fishers of men, as those whom the Lord had chosen to be the ones to gather all the people to Himself. Through them, God would establish His Church and build the many Christian communities all around the world.

We can see the parallel in these two stories, and also in our second reading today taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. In that occasion, St. Paul mentioned to the faithful in Corinth how he himself had received the faith, as he received it through the Holy Spirit that he had been given, and through the hands of the Apostles, those same Apostles that God had called, and from them, St. Paul, who as Saul was once the greatest enemy of all Christians, gained great insight of the faith and of what he had been called to do, as fellow disciples of the Lord.

Therefore, today’s Scripture readings serve as very important reminders for each and every one of us that all of us have been called to follow the Lord and to be His disciples. All of us as Christians who have received and shared in the baptism, and having been initiated in the faith, all of us have a share in the mission that the Lord Himself has entrusted to His Church, to all of His Apostles and disciples. And yes, the same mission that God has given to His Church, we too have a part to play in that as well.

And what is this mission, brothers and sisters in Christ? If we recall in the Gospels, we will remember the Lord’s Great Commission to all the whole Church. He entrusted it to all of us to make disciples of all the nations and to baptise all in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is the mission that God has given and entrusted to us, and we should embrace this mission wholeheartedly and be inspired by the examples set by our holy predecessors, those whom God had called and chosen, and whom He had made worthy for that purpose.

It means that we should not be hesitant or worried that we are not qualified, capable or worthy of doing what the Lord had called us to do. We have to remember first and foremost that it is not us who decide whether we are worthy of God’s calling and works or not. It is God Himself Who will decide that, and He had frequently chosen His disciples and servants from among those whom many of us may consider or deem to be less than worthy. The four fishermen, Simon, Andrew, James and John for example, they were likely poor, illiterate and uneducated, and yet, God called them to do His great works.

Through many occasions in the history of the Church and the world, God had chosen those who were considered to be unworthy. He made them worthy and sent them forth, reassuring them of His guidance and strength, much as how He had sent out Isaiah to His people Israel. The same went for the Apostles themselves as mentioned, as well as for St. Paul mentioned in our second reading today, who was a great persecutor of Christians, as someone most unlikely to become a follower of Christ, and yet, in the end, became among the Lord’s greatest champion.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today we are all called to ponder carefully on our lives, and discern what we are going to do with our lives to come. God has called on us to follow Him and to do His will, to be part of the efforts and works of His Church in proclaiming His Good News and salvation, His truth and love to more and more people all around the world. This is what we have been called to do, and we really should ask ourselves if we are willing and able to do what we can to serve the Lord to the best of our abilities.

We do not need to be afraid or to worry whether we are worthy of such a task. The Apostles themselves as I mentioned were simple, ordinary people, who were most likely even less educated and less worthy than us in the eyes of the world. And yet, we all know of the great deeds that they had done, of the great courage and faith that they had shown, in doing their best to serve the Lord, even to the point of laying down their lives for the Lord, in the midst of their ministry. Many of them suffered greatly for the Lord, but they took all those sufferings with fullness of faith and love for the Lord.

Let us all therefore be inspired by their examples, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we too may walk in their footsteps and doing whatever we can to glorify the Lord by our lives. Let our every actions, words and deeds be guided by our love for the Lord and let our every breath proclaim the glory of God from now on. May the Lord be with us all, and may all of us walk in His path with ever greater zeal and commitment, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 30 January 2022 : Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we listened to the words of the Sacred Scriptures we are called to reflect on our calling as Christians, to be the followers and disciples of Our Lord, to do what God has taught us to do in following His commandments and His own examples. As Christians, all of us share in the same mission that God has entrusted to us, to His Church from its very foundation and beginning. This is what we have been called to do, to show our genuine love both for God and for our fellow men, our brothers and sisters.

In our first reading today, taken from the beginning of the Book of the prophet Jeremiah, we heard of the Lord and His calling to the prophet Jeremiah, as He called him to become His servant and mouthpiece, to become the one chosen by God before he even knew it, to speak of God’s will and truth before the people of God. At that time, the prophet Jeremiah lived during the last years of the southern kingdom of Judah, at the time when the remaining people of God were beset by troubles and the threat of the destruction of their kingdom were looming large at them.

All of that were caused by their own disobedience against God, their refusal to listen to Him and in hardening their hearts and closing them from His love and mercy. They would rather remain in the state of sin and living in darkness than to follow the Lord, their God. Yet, God still patiently reached out to them and sent them His prophets, including that of Jeremiah to His people reminding them of His love and urging them to repent and turn away from their sins. He never gave up on them and still cared for them, because we are truly precious and beloved to Him.

That is the exact same sentiment shown in our Gospel passage today when we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus was in Nazareth, in His own hometown and how He was rejected by the people whom He had known from earlier in His life, from His childhood. At that time, the Lord returned to Nazareth after beginning His ministry and gathering some of His disciples, and He proclaimed the Word of God in the local synagogue, only for the people to doubt Him and slander Him just because they knew St. Joseph, His foster father and thought that it was impossible for a Man of such stature to gain such wisdom and power.

The Lord told all of them that it was because of this that in the past God had sent His servants like the prophet Elijah to minister to the people neighbouring the Israelites, who had more faith in the Lord than the people of Israel themselves. He used the example of the widow of Zarephath who welcomed Elijah during the years of the great famine and how she took care of him even though she herself and her son were themselves in great distress. God showed His providence and cared for them, and they showed us what it truly means to be those who believe in God. The same goes with the example of Naaman the Syrian as well, who humbled himself before the Lord and was healed by his faith, even though he initially had his reservations and doubts.

Through what we have heard from these examples we can clearly see that there are many opportunities for us to respond to God’s love, to all that God had given to us, His attention and care, His compassion and kindness, all that He had done to us even though we have often disobeyed Him, disregarded and even betrayed Him. So pure is God’s love for each one of us that even though He despises our sins, He did not despise us sinners, but wants us to be freed from the bonds of those sins and then be reconciled with Him.

That is why He has sent us His Son, Jesus Christ, the One rejected by His own townspeople and neighbours, to be our Saviour, to be the source of our renewed Hope and as the Light to lead us out from the darkness of sin. In Christ, we have seen the perfect manifestation of God’s ultimate and enduring love in the flesh, Love that never ends and Love that persists to the end of time. From the very beginning when He created us all out love, His love has endured, and through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, we have seen how God wants to share this love with us.

St. Paul reminds us in our second reading today, taken from the Epistle that he wrote to the Church and the faithful in Corinth of what love and true Christian love means. Love is patient, kind and without envy. It is not boastful or arrogant. St. Paul revealed to us that this is what true Christian love is all about, love that first and foremost God Himself has shown us unconditionally, as He patiently loved us from the beginning even though He had to constantly endure our betrayals and ignorance, and the pain of seeing so many of the sons and daughters of mankind falling into eternal damnation, eternally separated from Him.

St. Paul also mentioned that no matter whatever power, gifts, talents, abilities, blessings and all that we have received and are endowed with, but if we have no love in us, then all these are meaningless and useless. Without love, then whatever we do are only for ourselves and have no merit whatsoever. As Christians, this is not what we have been taught to do. Instead, as Christians, love must be our second nature, and not only just loving ourselves, but more importantly, to love God and our fellow brothers and sisters just as much if not more than we have loved ourselves.

That is essentially we have been called to do, to remember how fortunate we are to have been beloved by God despite our past mistakes and transgressions. God has patiently guided us through our journey of life all these while, and He has always reached out to us whenever we are in need. He has never abandoned us even though we have often abandoned and ignored Him. For all that love, often we respond to His love with disobedience and sins, with immorality and lack of faith.

That is why this Sunday, brothers and sisters in Christ, all of us are reminded of the obligation for us all to love, as something that as Christians we have to do in our lives. Just as God Himself has shown us His pure and perfect love, thus we should also love Him in the same way, giving an unconditional love and one that is genuine from our hearts. Many of us loved God conditionally, loving Him and seeking Him only when we need Him, but the moment we have no need for Him, we easily and quickly forgot about Him.

Then, in the same way, we must also love our fellow brothers and sisters, by caring for everyone we encounter in life regardless who they are. Yes, certainly we will love some people more than others, especially those who are precious and known to us, those in our families and among our close circle of friends. However, we must still also love even those who are strangers to us, those whom we encounter daily, and this includes even those who hate us and persecute us.

Remember what the Lord told His disciples in another occasion in the Gospels? He said that we must love our enemies and forgive them, and we have to pray for them, just as He Himself has prayed for them. Not least, Our Lord has forgiven and prayed for those who persecuted Him and condemned Him to death right from the Cross upon which He was hung during the time of His Passion and death. That is the proof of God’s ever present love for us, and just how unconditional and beautiful His love for us is. And if God has loved us in such a manner, should we not then love Him in the same way too?

Let us all realise that we have been given many opportunities to express our love for God and for one another, and we have to practice that love in our lives, as genuine Christians that are filled with God’s love and grace. Let us all love the Lord with all of our hearts and show the same love to our brethren especially those who are most in need of them, during these difficult and challenging times when what some people need are just more care and attention, and some consolation for their sufferings and troubles. Let us all share God’s love with one another, following in the examples that Our Lord Himself has shown us. Amen.