Sunday Mass sermon

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Sunday, 8 March 2020 : Second Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the second one in the season of Lent, we are all called to listen to God’s will and heed His calling. Indeed, today’s Scripture readings are focused on one important aspect of our faith and our lives, and that is to respond and answer God’s call in our lives. God has called all of us His people to follow Him just as He has called many of our predecessors in the past, and for those who followed Him and walked in His path, God would bless them and guide them to righteousness.

In our first reading today, we heard of the Lord’s calling of a man named Abram from the land of Ur in southern part of Mesopotamia in what is today southern Iraq. This man seemed to appear from nowhere, suddenly making its appearance in the Scripture in the Book of Genesis. But this was the man whom God had called and chosen, for God Who knows the heart and mind can see that Abram had faith in Him and was a righteous and obedient person.

And God called Abram to follow Him with the promises that He swore before him, that He would make Abram to be a great nation, blessed and presented by the grace of God. God promised that the name of Abram would be blessed and great, and He would bless all those who bless him and curse all those who curse him. Such were the promises that God had given to Abram, and Abram believed in God fully and completely, leaving his ancestral family and lands behind, and walked with God to the land of Canaan.

God called Abram to an unknown wilderness and an uncertainty. Abram had a lot of property, amazing connections and things he definitely enjoyed in his ancestral homeland in Ur. But Abram chose trust in God and left his past behind him, and walked with Him to the land which God promised that He would give to him and his descendants. Abram trusted and had faith in God, committed himself and his descendants to a Covenant which God would make and seal with him.

The Covenant that God made with Abram, who was then known as Abraham, had been renewed again and again, and Abraham became the father of many nations as God has promised. Through his sons Isaac and Ishmael, many nations including the Israelites called Abraham as their father and ancestor, and ultimately, by the last renewal of the Covenant by none other than Christ Himself, all of us who believe in Christ, also call Abraham our father, as our father in faith. For like us who answer God’s call, Abraham was the first to respond to that call, and we follow in his footsteps.

In our second reading today, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul to St. Timothy who reminded us as Christians again about what our Christian calling is all about. God has called on all of us through Christ to serve Him and to be witnesses of His truth and His Gospels. We are all called to holiness to serve the Lord through obedience to His Law and to His will and commandments, and to listen to what He has called and taught us to do, as we heard in our Gospel passage today on the account of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.

Through the occasion of the Transfiguration at Mount Tabor mentioned in our Gospel passage today, as the Lord Jesus was glorified and appeared before three of His disciples, St. Peter, St. James and St. John in His fullness of glory and divinity, together with Moses and Elijah, essentially God has revealed through them to us, that by sending Jesus Christ, God’s own beloved Son into this world, He has called us all yet once again, to follow Him and to forge that new and everlasting Covenant with us.

It was revealed at the moment of the Transfiguration that Christ was not just merely a Man, but also the Son of God. In the person of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the world or the Messiah, was two distinct yet inseparable natures of Man and Divine, through which Christ would then seal and make a new Covenant with all of us that will last forever. This refers to the Covenant that He made through His Passion, His suffering and death on the Cross. By this Covenant, all of us are made to be sons and daughters of God, and we are made sharers of God’s inheritance and glory.

What then happened at the Transfiguration and what is its significance for us, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is where then we need to pay attention to how the Transfiguration of the Lord revealed to us what we ought to do as Christians, in how we ought to be living our lives and our faith from now on. In that occasion, we heard how St. Peter suggested to the Lord Jesus that they ought to build three tents for Him, for Moses and Elijah, reason being that it was so wonderful and glorious to be up there in the mountain in the sight and presence of God’s glory.

Certainly, the Lord was tempted by that offer, for He clearly knew what He was about to do in order to establish the New Covenant with all of us. He clearly knew that He had to suffer terribly, bear the burdens of our sins on His Cross, to be rejected and treated terribly and humiliated by His enemies, and finally to suffer and eventually die a most painful death as a condemned and humiliated criminal on the Cross for everyone to see. Who would not have wanted to avoid such a fate?

But the Lord resisted that temptation, just as He had resisted the three temptations of Satan mentioned in our Gospel passage from last Sunday’s readings. And God then came over all the three disciples, reminding them to listen to the One He had sent into this world to be its Saviour. Essentially, through this, God has called on His people again to trust in Him and to follow Him in the path that He has shown us and which He Himself had walked.

I refer to the fact that the Lord Jesus chose willingly to descend from Mount Tabor and leave behind His glorious moments there, and walking down, heading eventually towards Jerusalem where He was to suffer and die. We can see here a clear parallel between Abraham and Jesus, in how both chose to follow the path that God has presented to them, with Abraham following God and obeying Him as he journeyed and dwelled in the Promised Land, while the Lord Jesus obeyed His heavenly Father’s will, and fulfil the mission which He has been entrusted with, through the Cross.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, now as I mentioned earlier, all of us have also been called to follow God and to obey His will. And looking from the examples I mentioned earlier, when we are called by God to follow Him, often the outlook and the path forward may seem to be uncertain and unknown to us, as compared to what we are now having in life. And the devil is always ready to strike at us, persuading and tempting us to stay put and not to follow the Lord, but instead to remain in our comfort zone.

During this season of Lent in particular, we are all called to reexamine our lives, how we have lived them thus far and think and discern of how we are going to proceed forward in life. Are we able to discern carefully what we are going to do with our lives from now on, brothers and sisters in Christ? God has called us to follow Him, but are we willing to put in the effort to follow Him and to put our trust in Him, in whichever directions that He is going to lead us to?

Let us all therefore make good use of this season of Lent, to detach ourselves from the excessive attachments we have to the many comforts in life, and to restrain ourselves from succumbing to our many desires, lusts, greed, ambition among other things that prevented us from truly living our lives as righteous and faithful Christians. Let us all spend more time with God, through prayer and through fasting and abstinence, that we may turn our attention and focus back towards Him and away from the temptations of this world.

Let us also be more generous and loving in our interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters, especially to all those who are marginalised, rejected by others, weak and poor, sick and dying. Let us all be more charitable and loving, following the examples that Our Lord Himself has shown and taught us. In doing so, we are doing what St. Paul had told us in his Epistle of our second reading today, to live our lives with holiness and to respond to God’s call with faith. For it is by showing love to one another that everyone may know that we are God’s beloved people.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, are we willing to follow God more closely this season of Lent going forward? Are we able to make the commitment to change our way of life that from now on we will become more faithful, more trusting in God, more obedient to His will and more loving in all of our actions in life, first of all towards God and then towards our fellow brothers and sisters, particularly those who are in need of our help and love, our care and attention?

May the Lord, our loving Father and Creator, Who has shown us His eternal and infinite love through His gift of His Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, always be with us through the trials and difficult moments of our lives that we may always remain faithful in Him throughout our journey of faith, and that we may grow ever more faithful and loving towards Him with each and every passing moments in our lives. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 1 March 2020 : First Sunday of Lent (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today is the First Sunday of Lent, and as we begin the first in the series of five Sundays in this season of Lent, we are brought to focus our attention on the nature of this season of Lent as a time of renewal, rejuvenation of our faith, reconciliation with God and as a time for the forgiveness of our sins, through our repentance and forgiveness by God. The name of Lent itself came from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Lencten’ which means ‘Spring’ referring to the coming of the season of Spring after that of Winter.

That is why Lent is symbolically very important as a time of renewal and rediscovery of oneself, after the bitterness and darkness of our spiritual ‘Winter’ due to our sins and shortcomings, as a chance for us to reconnect with God, to be reconciled with Him and to find our place once again in God’s grace and loving embrace. It is a time for us to turn away from the excesses of worldly desires and greed, from the many temptations we find in the world, and focus our attention instead on God.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today on this First Sunday of Lent as we remember again what we have just heard from our Scripture passages today, we focus on the theme of sin and temptation to sin, and then the freedom from those sins. We heard first of all the account from the Book of Genesis which showed us the moment of mankind’s fall into sin, when our first ancestors fell to the temptation of the devil, and then up to the Gospel, when we heard yet another temptation story, this time the devil tried to tempt the Lord Jesus as He went for forty days right after His baptism to the desert to prepare Himself for His ministry.

In the beginning of time, God created everything all good and perfect, and He made the first man, Adam and his companion, Eve, to live in the wonderful Garden of Eden. This means that mankind, all of us were actually meant to live with God in the fullness of God’s grace and love, to enjoy the wonders of God’s providence and blessings forever. However, this was not to be because we fell into sin as we were unable to resist the temptations to sin, which the devil, disguised as a snake, brought upon Adam and Eve.

What did the devil tempt them with? As Satan first approached Eve, he tempted her with the temptation of desire, the desire for the forbidden knowledge that God has expressly forbidden for man to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And Satan reasoned very cunningly that the fruit of the tree did not seem to be harmful, and how eating from the tree would bestow great knowledge upon man and made them to be like God. Through this temptation, Satan planted the seeds of pride and greed in mankind’s hearts.

Thus, according to the Book of Genesis, that was when mankind fell into sin, and therefore consequently were banished from the Garden of Eden to wander on this earth and suffer the consequences of our disobedience, which led to sin. Sin came forth because we did not obey God and in our failure to do so, we fell short of what was expected of us, and sin came forth. In the Greek language, the word sin is known as hamartía, which means failure to reach or grasp a target, or in summary, meaning of falling short of what one is expected to do.

God has blessed us and meant for us to enjoy forever the fullness of His grace and love, and He has set precepts and rules for us to follow. Yet, tempted by the devil, we succumbed to the temptations, and not just Adam and Eve, but all mankind ever since then, have fallen into all these temptations in various forms, and came short of our expectations in life to live a virtuous and good life as God’s beloved people, and thus we sinned. Sin has been with us since that moment when Adam and Eve fell, and it has corrupted innumerable sons and daughters of man since.

And the consequences of sin are dire, brothers and sisters in Christ, as sin is a defilement, imperfection and tarnish upon our humanity, and since God is all good and perfect, no impurity, imperfection and defilement can be present before Him. Our sins and shortcomings will end up destroying us if we dare to come before God with them in us, corrupting us and making us unworthy of God. Our shame and regret of having sinned before God would literally destroy us and prevent us from true reconciliation with our loving Creator.

This has been Satan’s plan all along, for he, once known as Lucifer, was once the greatest, brightest and most brilliant among all the Angels of God. Yet, in his brilliance and excellence, which should have been the showcase of God’s wonderful Light by his name of the ‘lightbringer’, he became proud of his own marvels and brilliance, and instead of shining with God’s light, he rebelled against God as he desired to overthrow his own Creator and rule over all instead. From his pride came greed and all other sins that we now know of, and he gathered many other Angels who supported him. But they were defeated and cast out of heaven.

Satan was unable to accomplish what he wanted, for he knew that he was no match for God, and he knew of his eventual ultimate defeat at God’s hands. But the least then he could do was to drag as many of God’s beloved ones, mankind, His pinnacle of creation into damnation and destruction with him. And that is why he brought to us the same defilements and sins he had with him, beginning with pride, and from there all the other forms of deadly sins we are familiar with, such as greed, lust, sloth among others.

And it seemed that Satan had achieved what he wanted, causing men to be sundered and separated from God. It seemed that mankind would perish altogether in hellfire with Satan, for they have sinned, and as the snares of sin were powerful, they would not have been able to be free of their bondage and therefore, would eventually fall into eternal damnation and endure the eternity of suffering with Satan and his fellow fallen angels.

But this is where we must not lose hope, for God ultimately loves us more than even the might of our sinfulness and wickedness, and all the efforts of Satan. His love for us has opened the path to redemption and salvation, by His sending of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and God into this world to be our Saviour. Through Christ, all of us sons and daughters of man have received the full promise of pardon, forgiveness and reconciliation from God.

Satan knew this very well, and that is why he tried to tempt Jesus as well, which we have heard in our Gospel passage today. He tried to stop Him from achieving and fulfilling the mission which God the Father has entrusted to Him to save mankind. And Satan used the same old tricks and temptations to tempt Jesus as well, which we heard being elaborately put into place throughout the Gospel today. When Jesus went to the desert for forty days to prepare Himself to begin His ministry proper, Satan came to tempt Him right there and then.

He began with tempting Jesus with food asking Him to turn the stones into bread, knowing that He was hungry after many days having not eaten any food at all as He fasted for the forty days He was in the desert. But the Lord resisted and told Satan off, saying that ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every words that come from the mouth of God’. This is a common temptation that we all usually face, the temptation of gluttony and greed, desire and want in our hearts, the weakness of our body and flesh to worldly desires that often made us to fall into sin.

The Lord Jesus obeyed His Father’s will and resisted the temptations of Satan, and He showed us that there are indeed things more important than worldly desires and the desire to satisfy our physical bodies and flesh, and that is to listen to the word of God and to follow Him wholeheartedly. It does not mean that food is not necessary or important for us, as we do need to eat and drink to sustain ourselves, but we must not be indulgent and obsessive over them. It is the attachment and excessive desire that we have for worldly things and pleasures that led us to sin.

Then Satan tried to tempt Jesus with his ace card, that is the sin of pride. He brought Jesus to the top of the Temple, using Scriptural quotations to tempt Jesus to show Himself off by jumping down from the Temple, and God would send His Angels as He Himself said to prevent Jesus from falling down and injuring Himself. This temptation was truly very cunning effort by the devil, who played on our pride, ego, ambition and desire, the desire for acknowledgement, praise and affirmation by others.

Again, the Lord Jesus resisted and said that we must not test the Lord by doing such things, by purposefully trying to test if God would fulfil His words, as this is tantamount of doubting God and His providence, and not having faith in Him. Satan was trying to use this as a leverage to gain control by playing into exactly that strong desire in us for recognition, power and glory, twisting into the pride and ego within our hearts and minds.

And last of all, we heard how Satan tried one last time by showing all the glories, wonders and riches of the world by offering them to the Lord Jesus if only that He would bend the knee to him and worship him. Jesus rebuked Satan sternly and commanded him to go away, saying that only God alone is worthy of worship. He resisted this last temptation, which again is a difficult temptation to be overcome, as it pulls upon the same desires within us that crave for worldly goods and pleasures, for worldly glory, power and wealth.

In what we have seen from our Scripture readings, which is also summarised nicely by St. Paul in our second reading today in his Epistle to the Romans, we can see the clear contrast between what happened to Adam and Eve, when mankind first fell into sin, and Christ, Who resisted all the efforts of Satan to tempt Him and sway Him to prevent Him from fulfilling His mission. Christ is indeed the New Adam according to St. Paul, as He showed us that it is not necessary that sin has the power over us. He showed us that it is indeed possible for us to overcome sin and the temptations to sin, as He Himself has showed us by resisting the three temptations of the devil.

But many of us continued to sin, and to fall into sin because first of all, we do not have enough faith in God, and the devil knows this very well. You can already see from today’s readings alone just how adept he can be in using even Scriptural quotes to twist our minds and perceptions to lead us further down into the path of sin and focusing on ourselves and our desires more rather than on God. And many of us are even unaware of our sins and faults, as for various reasons we refuse to acknowledge them.

We often fear sin because we may think that sin made us to be despised by God and God would condemn us into hell because of our sins. However, the truth is actually such that it is precisely by our refusal to repent from our sins or to seek God’s forgiveness that our sins cause us to fall into damnation. Brothers and sisters in Christ, God alone can forgive us our sins and unless we allow God to enter into our lives and forgive us our sins, how can we then be saved?

There is a saying by St. Augustine of Hippo that goes like this, ‘there is no saint without a past and there is no sinner without a future’. This is a reminder for us that even saints were once sinners, and some of them were even great sinners, like St. Augustine himself. But what is important is the fact that they all turned away from their past, sinful ways and allowed God to work through them, forgiving them their sins and making them to be great instruments of His will. God despised not us as the sinners but the sins which we have committed all these while.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we progress through this season of Lent, the forty days of preparation time before the celebrations of Holy Week and Easter, let us all reflect on the preparation that Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself undertook, in the forty days He spent in the desert, and the other ‘forty’ which is the forty long years the Israelites spent in the desert to atone for their rebelliousness before they could enter into the Promised Land. All of these show a time of purification and a time of struggle and challenge-filled journey that we ourselves are facing now.

We should not see the season of Lent as something that is dreadful and gloomy but rather as a time of renewal and rejuvenation as I mentioned earlier. Let it be the ‘springtime’ of our lives and our faith. The season of Lent is a God-given wonderful opportunity for us to renew ourselves and to be reconciled with God. God has always offered His mercy and forgiveness freely to us, but it is often us who ignored and rejected Him all these while.

That is why we should model ourselves on Christ, the New Adam, and break free from the chains of our sins through Him. Like Christ, we should be humble and obedient to God, shunning all forms of pride and ambition. He is the King of Kings and Lord of all lords, and yet, He rejected the glories of the world, resisted the efforts from the people and from His own disciples to make Him their King, and He humbled and emptied Himself to die a most humiliating death on the Cross for our sake.

And Christ did not allow pride to prevent Him from humbling Himself before God, to open Himself up as we all know how He agonised during the night at the Garden of Gethsemane, as He awaited the moment of His suffering and crucifixion. He prayed and prayed very deeply in communication with His Father, and this is a reminder for us that, we too, need God’s help, and the best way for that is through a deepening of our spiritual life through prayer.

Let us all make our Lenten season meaningful and fruitful, brothers and sisters in Christ, by spending more of our time in meaningful prayer, opening our hearts and minds to God, and allowing Him to speak to us that we may truly know what His will is for us. And let us also learn to be more humble and to get rid from our lives the vestiges of ego and greed, pride and ambition, and instead imitate the humility of Christ and His obedience in everything we do in our own respective lives.

May the Lord guide us through this season of Lent, that we may grow ever stronger in our Christian faith and that we may resolve to live in a more Christian like manner with each and every passing moments. May the Lord be with us always and may He grant us the courage and strength to resist the devil and all of his lies and falsehoods. May God bless us all and may He bless all of our Lenten observances and endeavours. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 February 2020 : Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday as we are preparing for the coming of the penitential season Lent which will begin this Wednesday with the commemoration of Ash Wednesday, all of us are reminded in good time through our Scripture passages today, of the need for us as Christians to be faithful to God in the manner which He Himself had revealed to us and taught us through His Church, passed down through generations from the time of the Apostles.

The essence of our faith and how we ought to live our lives according to that same faith are at the centre of our Scripture reflection today, as we heard of the reminders from God for His people in the Book of Leviticus to be holy and good, loving and caring towards one another, and then followed by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Church and the faithful people of God in Corinth exhorting them to be loving and good, and to maintain the sanctity of their Temple of the Holy Spirit, and followed finally by the same reminder by the Lord Himself in our Gospel passage, to do exactly the same in our lives.

All of the readings spoke of the need of us mankind and people of God to show love for one another just as God has loved us, that each and every one of us may love our fellow brothers and sisters without making distinction or prejudices, and to show this love, care and concern in every moments of our lives. Beginning with the words we heard from our first reading today, taken from the Book of Leviticus, was an injunction and commandment from God to His people, telling them to be holy just as He is holy.

And the path to this holiness come from love, that the people ought to love and not hate, to be compassionate and not be filled with anger and jealousy, to show care and concern for others instead of being selfish and greedy. This is something that the Lord has given to His people in order to guide them in His ways, and to break free from their constant attachments and obsessions over selfish desires and worldly temptations of power, wealth, glory and fame among others.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians all of us are called by the Lord to show love in everything we say and do, and in our Gospel today, the Lord Himself said that we should love even our enemies and show that love to those who hate us and persecute us. That is the measure of our Christian love, which is to love unconditionally and without prejudice, the same love which Our Lord Himself has shown to us in many occasions.

The Lord showed us all His love and mercy, and blessed all of us regardless of who we are, and He mentioned how God blessed all and let the sun shine and the rain to fall on everyone, be it that they were righteous or wicked. In the same way, we must remember how the Lord Jesus Himself loved every single one of us without any exception. It is easy for us to remember how He loved the sinners rejected by the society, like the tax collectors and the prostitutes, but it is difficult for us to remember how He has also loved even those people who persecuted Him and condemned Him to suffering and death.

Do you remember how Jesus forgave those who condemned Him to die even as He hung from the Cross? He prayed to His Father in heaven, saying, ‘Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing’ and He did not want to hold them accountable for what they have done out of their ignorance for the truth. In the end, Christ suffered and died on the Cross for everyone, including those chief priests, elders, Pharisees and all His enemies who had worked to condemn Him to such humiliation and death.

Indeed, it is not easy for us to love one another, less still to love even those who have hated us and persecuted us. But we must all realise how God created every single one of us out of love, and He loves each one of us regardless of our sins and our different natures and backgrounds. He recognises in all of us that there is good in each one of us because ultimately as all creation are, all of us have been created good and wonderful by God as described in the Book of Genesis, although tainted by sin.

Take for example, the Apostle St. Paul, a classic example of sinner turned saint. As Saul, in the early years of his life, Saul was not just a sinner but a great enemy of the Church and the faith, who caused countless and untold sufferings for many of the early Christian communities. As described in the Acts of the Apostles, in his blind obedience to the Law as a Pharisee and in misplaced and misguided zeal, he persecuted many Christians and brought many to prison and misery.

Yet, God called the same Saul to be His servant and to follow Him. Saul had a great change of heart and from a great and zealous enemy of the faithful, he became one of the greatest and most courageous defenders of the Christian faith and the champion of Christ, enduring many years of suffering, challenges, persecutions and trials himself. Here we can see the great power of God’s wonderful providence, how He showed us that even the worst of our enemies and the most despicable of men can even become a great saint.

This is no different for all of us, brothers and sisters in Christ. Each and every one of us are sinners, in our various ways of sins and disobedience against God. We are all delinquents, rebels and people who have been tainted by sin throughout our lives. And yet, many of us often like to compare with each other, be biased and prejudiced against one another, even thinking that we are better or more worthy than some others just because they seem to be more sinful and more wicked than we are.

This is where then divisions and conflicts came from, that we end up despising and hating one another, and from there, most un-Christian behaviours came from, even among us Christians. Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we have just discussed, God has called us to be loving and be filled with love for everyone, and yet, let us think, how many times have we, in our own lives, caused hurt to others just because we gossip about people, because we backstab people behind their back, betraying friends and relatives alike, and by doing things that cause suffering and pain for others just because it can satisfy us our desires and wants?

All of these are caused by the selfishness, greed and desire in us, and that is why, when we love others, it is often that we love because we have ulterior motives in our hearts. This is the most common kind of love that we see around us in the world today. We love because we desire something from the other person, and when we do not get what we wanted, that is when we end up bickering and disagreeing, and often times, disagreements are also caused by the times when our desires and wants, our pride and ego clashed with each other.

This is not the kind of Christian love that we are called to be witnesses of, brothers and sisters in Christ. Yet, this is what we have often done daily, as it is indeed much easier for us to indulge in ourselves and to satisfy our selfish desires, as well as to get what we want rather than to give our love and to be generous, even when we have nothing in return. That is exactly what the Lord has done, that He loves each and every one of us so much that even when we are still sinners and rebels, rejecting His love and kindness, He loves us all nonetheless.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, how do we then respond to the Lord’s call for us to be more Christian-like in our way of life? It is by opening ourselves to God and His love, and allow God to transform our lives as we conduct our way of life in a manner that is more Christ-like, that when we were once filled with prejudice and bias against other people, let us realise that all of us are equal before God and that there is good in everyone. And while we were once filled with selfish desires and the temptations to satisfy ourselves, let us all learn to restrain ourselves and purge from ourselves unhealthy attachments and obsessions, that we may overcome this selfishness of ours, and learn to be more selfless like Christ.

And while we were once filled with selfish love, love that demands from other people, love that seek satisfaction of oneself and thinking of what we can gain from that love which we give, let us all now have a change of mindset and outlook, that when we love, instead of wondering of what we can gain and receive from the love and relationship, we think instead of what we can give into that relationship and love. For true, selfless and purest love is love that gives and still gives even without expecting any returns, as what Our Lord, Jesus Christ Himself had done.

Are we able to love one another in this way, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is the challenge that God has given us today that as we carry on living our lives from now on as Christians, we should be first of all, seek to be holy just as the Lord is holy, for we are His children and His people, and it is just right that we live in holiness as sons and daughters of God. But in order for us to be truly holy and good, then we need to embrace this pure Christian way of living and also Christian love, as we live our lives focusing not on our own personal desires and ambitions, but rather on glorifying God through our love for Him and also our love for our fellow men.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us reflect on this matter and consider how we can, in each of our own distinctive and unique way of life, fulfil this calling of Our Lord in loving one another more sincerely and tenderly, showing true love from our hearts towards others, including even those who have hurt us, persecuted us and made our lives miserable, forgiving our enemies and seeing that even they are our brothers and sisters, whom God also loves just like us, and that there is indeed good in every man.

May the Lord be with us always, His blessed and holy people, that we may aspire and achieve this sanctity in life, through our following of the examples which Christ has set before us, the love that is selfless, pure and true. May God bless us all and our many good works, bless His Church and may He bless even those who hate us and are still opposed to us, that they too may have a change of heart and mind, and may experience God’s love through us. Amen.

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Sunday, 16 February 2020 : Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are reminded through the words of God in the Scriptures on the need for us to have true and genuine faith in God and to live righteously each and every moments of our lives in accordance with God’s laws and commandments. As Christians we are called to be role models in our faith and in our lives, to show by our actions and deeds, how we can be faithful to God.

From our first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Sirach, we heard of the commandments and laws that God has given us mankind, and how we have to follow and obey these laws and commandments as are our obligations as those who believe in God to walk in His path and to live our lives as how He has taught and instructed us all to live them. Otherwise, our faith is empty, meaningless and dead, and we are no better than hypocrites who believe in one thing but act in a completely different, even contradictory manner.

And that is the essence of what we have just heard in our quite lengthy Gospel passage today, in which we heard the Lord Jesus going through with the people on the importance of having genuine faith in God and not being hypocrites as He used several examples to explain to them and to make them understand that their faith was truly more than just merely a formality or as something that was to be just taken lightly.

He used the examples comparing the actions of the Pharisees as at that time, the Pharisees who were then the intellectuals and the elites within the community, were those who often looked highly upon themselves and praised themselves for their piety and adherence to the laws and customs of Moses, while looking down on others whom they deemed to be inferior, unworthy and dirty, like the tax collectors, prostitutes, people with diseases and those possessed by demons, and the Gentiles or the non-Jewish people.

But they failed to realise that in their attitude and way of living their faith, they have placed way too much emphasis on the rituals and their details right to the most minute of details. Historically, the Pharisees placed a lot of attention and focus on how the laws of Moses were practiced and emphasised the details and the way the rites were to be practiced, for example, when cleansing the hands, the Pharisees would emphasise how the cleansing ought to be done a few times and right up through the whole arms up to the elbows, otherwise the cleansing and purification were not up to standard or valid.

And the Pharisees liked to trumpet their piety and observance of the laws and customs before others, doing their prayers publicly and wanting to be praised and seen by everyone. However, the Lord pointed out that many of them did not truly have genuine faith and love for God. For they loved their laws and customs in their rituals and details much more than the Lord Himself. The Law that God gave to us mankind was meant to lead us to Him and not to end up becoming a distraction.

That was why then the Lord went to explain using some other examples of how we, God’s people must truly have faith in God and not just look at the letter of the Law. To understand the Law just by its letters alone is not enough, as it is indeed possible for someone to carry on the words of the Law and the required actions, even without love and faith for God. But do those actions then justify us or benefit us in any way? Certainly not! For such actions, done by those who do not believe in what they have acted are indeed no different from the actions of hypocrites who do not act in the way they believe in.

Therefore the Lord presented to us a different path, showing us that we must indeed seek to love God with all of our hearts, with all of our strength, and with all of our efforts and intentions, just as the very first commandment of God in the Ten Commandments have been revealed to us. If we truly love God, with all of our heart and strength, then naturally we will try our best to keep ourselves pure and away from sin, and do our best to live in accordance with the Law of God.

When the Lord mentioned how in the law, those who murdered and killed committed a great sin against God, and how in truth, if we even have the intention to murder or are angry at someone, we have actually already committed a great sin, the Lord was actually revealing to us that sin begins with a desire in our hearts, through which we are tempted, and should we give in to that temptation, we will easily fall down that slippery slope of sin, into graver and even graver form of sin.

That is why He similarly brought out the sin of adultery and infidelity against one’s own spouse, in which that when someone already has a desire for someone else in his or her hearts and minds, and indulge in that desire, the sin has already trapped that person since that moment. Similarly, if we indulge in that desire and allow ourselves to be tempted, we will end up falling deeper and deeper into sin, more and more serious with time.

Those who placed a lot of emphasis on the letter of the law will fail to realise that as the Lord Himself said, that as long as we are unable to comprehend the spirit and meaning of the Law as He revealed and taught to the people, we will continue to fall into the trap of sin, and will have difficulty to love the Lord with genuine faith and obedience. The Pharisees focused so much on the details of the Law and the regulations that they became rigid and fail to appreciate what the Lord truly wants to do with us through His Law.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, God has revealed to us through Christ, His Son, that He has given us His Law and commandments because of His infinite and ever-present love for each and every one of us. And it was because of this same love that we have been so blessed for having these laws and commandments that God has given us to guide us in our path so that we may find our way to Him and be saved. God gave us His laws to show us His love and guide us to Him, and not to burden us unnecessarily, unlike what the Pharisees and some others thought.

We are truly blessed to have received this wisdom and revelation, which as St. Paul mentioned in his Epistle to the Church in Corinth, our second reading today, is part of God’s divine plan to bring us to His salvation. He has revealed to us the truth of His love through Christ, giving us this faith that we now have. Unfortunately, many of us as mentioned, did not appreciate this faith which we have, and we focus on the wrong things in life, that we end up focusing on the trivialities of rules and regulations and treating our faith as a formality rather than truly having a genuine faith and relationship with God.

It is time for us now to break free from this, brothers and sisters in Christ. It is time for us to turn once again to the Lord, Our God, with our every strength and capabilities, with our every attention and focus, that we truly live our lives from now on with a renewed spirit of faith. We are called to deepen our relationship with God and to embrace His love with all sincerity, knowing that He has loved us first so greatly that He gave us His Son, to suffer and die on the Cross for our sake, that we may live and not perish.

Let us all from now on no longer treat our Christian faith as a mere obligation or formality, and learn to live our lives with sincere desire to become ever closer to God, by our every words, actions and deeds that show that we truly belong to God, our Lord and Master. Let us all bring forth this as a witness of our faith, to spread the wonders of God’s love and truth in our respective communities and places, that many more people will be saved together with us.

May the Lord continue to bless us and guide us in our journey of faith in life, and may He strengthen us with courage and the zeal to carry on living our lives daily with faith despite all the challenges and temptations to do otherwise, that we may resist the temptation of vanity, pride and desire, so that we may truly have a genuine and living faith in us. May God bless us and our many good works, for His greater glory, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 9 February 2020 : Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us heard the message from the Sacred Scripture, in which the core message is that of each and every one of us as disciples and followers of the Lord must be ready to do what He has taught and commanded us to do. If we call ourselves as Christians and yet we are incapable, unwilling or fail to do what we have been called to do, how can we be Christians then? Are we not like the hypocrites who believe in one thing and yet act in a different manner?

In our Gospel passage today we heard from the Lord Jesus His famous parable of the salt of the earth and the light of the world. He was using them as a tool of comparison with all of those whom He had called and taught, reminding them of all the blessings and talents that God has given to each and every one of them, and thus all of us too. All of us have been blessed with wonderful talents and abilities unique to our own, but many of us have not realised this and many of us are not using those talents and abilities for the right purpose or simply misused them.

Today, let us all first look into the two things which the Lord used to represent His teachings and thoughts. The first one is salt, an essential flavouring agent and also a preservative used from many millennia ago in many cultures and civilisations around the world. And the second one is light, something that is naturally available to us through the sun and the distant stars and its reflections from the moon. And we also have artificial forms of light source, historically using candle flames and then later on electricity-powered lighting.

In our world today we may not fully understand the significance of these two very important commodities and why the Lord chose them to represent what He wanted to deliver to the people listening to Him. And that is because we live in a world where salt and light, as well as many other things that used to be very difficult to be gained or maintained, are now abundant and plenty. Salt and light are so plenty all around us that we often do not appreciate their significance to our lives.

Salt was very important as mentioned earlier, as a flavouring for food that would otherwise be bland and tasteless. And even more importantly, salt is usually the most common form of preservation of food, by using it to kill the microorganisms present in the food and also to slow down the growth of any other microorganism by dehydrating the food due to its properties. Salt are readily available from the seas and oceans, as there are plenty of saltwater in our world, making up the vast majority of the water we have.

However, because salt is so important and necessary for many uses in life, its production, which is time and labour consuming using the traditional method of evaporating seawater, salt has always been prized and treasured by many people, especially by those who live far away from the shores of the sea. As transportation systems in the past were not as advanced as it is now, it may be difficult for many people to have a steady and sufficient access to salt.

If salt no longer has its saltiness and presumably, its useful properties, then it really becomes useless as the Lord Himself said. Without its properties, salt is useless and meaningless, and has no value at all other than to be discarded, ignored and thrown away. And by using this, God wants His people to understand that our talents and abilities that He has given us are just like the saltiness and the preservative properties of salt.

And then, on the matter of light, light is also a very important commodity for us all, as we all know that without light, we cannot see any objects around us. Our vision of the objects and our surroundings can happen because light is reflected on the object’s surface and gets into our eyes. Without light, there will then be darkness, for darkness is indeed the absence of light. With light, darkness disappears and everything become bright and visible again.

Similar with salt, we live in a world where light is so abundant and available at any time of the day that we may no longer appreciate its significance. But in the ages past, especially before the discovery of electricity and the use of electricity in providing light sources for us, people feared the dark very much as they could not see, and harm could easily occur to those who were exposed in the open, such as wild beasts and predators, and other harms like obstacles and dangers lurking all around not visible to man because of the lack of light.

During the period when light was absent such as during nighttime, candles were used, and they were so precious that if we notice, traditional candlesticks where the candles were usually placed have a flared surface that was meant to capture all the melted wax during the burn. While not all the substance of the candle can be reclaimed this way, but with that, as much melted wax as possible could be reclaimed and then reused again for either lighting or other purposes.

And we all also know that light also produces heat, and in a world where nighttime can be cold and dark, especially during winter times, light was indeed very, very important as not just a source of hope but also a source of comfort and protection. And this is why the Lord make use of light as His example, and mentioned how useless and illogical it would be for anyone to hide a light source underneath a cover that the light could not be used to enlighten the darkened places.

Such an attitude would not make sense at all considering just how precious light as a resource was, especially at the time when Jesus conducted His ministry two millennia ago, way long before electricity and any forms of readily accessible lighting were available to us mankind. In the same way as how salt was described therefore, light was used as an important comparison of how God has given us talents, abilities and gifts, and blessed us with the opportunities to be used, and we should make use of them for the greater glory of God.

But more often than not, we do not or fail to recognise these gifts and blessings from God. Or we misuse them for our own selfish desires and benefits rather than using them as how God had intended for them to be used. We seek personal happiness and pleasure, and we want to satisfy our various inner desires. This is where we are all reminded that if we do all these, essentially we are doing what the Lord had said about being senseless, by hiding the light that God has placed within us and by losing that saltiness of ours as the salt of the earth.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are all the light of the world and the salt of the earth because we have in us the light of God, Who is the True Light of the world. We reflect His light and glory and become beacons of His light in our darkened world today. He has also given us the gifts to bless others with our distinct personalities and talents, like salt that gives flavour to the food that we eat. And if we act in ways contrary to what the Lord had taught and shown us, we are hiding this light and not making use of what God has bestowed on us.

How do we then live our lives so that we may truly reflect God’s light and become bright beacons of His light and be true and meaningful salt of the earth? It is by heeding what we have heard in our first reading today taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah. The prophet mentioned how we all should share our joy, happiness and blessings with others, to live humbly and without excess that we may spare our joy with others who need help. We ought to reach out to the needy, those who are homeless and have none to care for them.

Essentially, we are all called to be selfless and to be willing to love one another sincerely, and we are called to live a genuine and virtuous Christian life each, so that by our lives and actions, the light of Christ will shine forth through us as the prophet Isaiah said, and be the guiding light for others who are still in the darkness of the world. Are we able to make the commitment to live our lives in an utmost Christian manner from now on?

It will not be easy for us to do so, as temptations are always aplenty trying to make us to live our lives for ourselves instead, causing harm and even hurt to others when we seek to satisfy our own selfish desires and demands. And if we do this, we are hiding the light of Christ and making ourselves useless as the salt of the earth. Our challenge is how do we keep our courage and strength to walk down the path that God has shown us, to bear witness to His truth and to share our joy in Christ with all those whom we encounter in life.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let our lives be examples and demonstration of God’s love, and let our every words, actions and deeds speak of the glory of God, putting Him first and foremost above our own petty desires. Let us all reach out to our fellow brethren and show God’s love, and do our best within our own capacity, utilising our own talents and capabilities to touch others through our sincere and genuine show of love, care and concern, that we may bring light to illuminate the path of others who are still enshrouded by the darkness of uncertainty and sin, and bring happiness and joy to the life of others.

Let us all truly be light of the world and salt of the earth as our Lord Himself has called us to be, and let us dedicate ourselves, our time, energy and effort to serve Him ever more faithfully from now on. May the Lord bless us all and may He strengthen each and every one of us that we may always be faithful to carry out the missions which He has entrusted to us. May God bless us all and our many good works and endeavours, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 February 2020 : Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, World Day for Consecrated Life (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we celebrate a special occasion as it falls on the second day in the month of February, that is the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord celebrating the moment when Our Lord Jesus Christ was brought to the Temple of God in Jerusalem to be offered and presenter to God in accordance to the laws of God revealed through Moses. In that Law, all the firstborn sons of the Israelites are to be dedicated to God, and thus, Jesus as the firstborn Son of Mary and His legal foster-father St. Joseph, was presented to the Lord.

This day is also commemorated in the Traditional Roman Calendar and in the Extraordinary Form as the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, according to the tradition of the Jewish law in which a mother who have just given birth has to abstain herself from coming to the House of God as the blood discharge from the birth process was an impurity that needed to be purified first, and on the fortieth day after the birth of the child, the mother was to be brought to the Temple to be purified. And today marks the fortieth day since Christmas, the time when Mary had her ritual purification and also when the Child Jesus was presented before the Lord at His Temple.

Traditionally therefore, mirroring the celebration of Easter that lasts for fifty days, today, the second day of February marks the final ending of the Christmas season, as from here on henceforth, the liturgical readings and celebrations focus on the ministry and works of the Lord rather than His childhood and early years. And today we also know this celebration as the Candlemas, because by our Church traditions, candles are presented in this Holy Mass and blessed, symbolic of what we celebrate today.

This is because on this day, we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Who was offered and presented before God, His heavenly Father, and also being revealed to the people of Israel. If the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord a few weeks ago focused on the revelation of the Messiah to the Gentiles and the pagan nations, then it is at this Feast of the Presentation of the Lord that Christ was revealed to the Jewish people, through the actions of Simeon the elder, who proclaimed that the Child he was holding, is the Holy One of God long awaited by the people.

The blessing of candles to be used for the year in today’s Holy Mass and also the tradition of procession of candles today came about from the words of Simeon himself as we heard in our Gospel passage today, that Christ is the ‘Light for the revelation to the people of many nations or the Gentiles’, emphasising His role as the Saviour of not just the Israelites, but also of the whole world. And therefore, the blessed candles represents Jesus Christ Himself, Our Lord, that later on we will bring into our homes, signifying the arrival of Christ, the Light of the nations and Saviour, into our homes and families.

The prophetess Anna who were there with Simeon also reemphasised what Simeon had said, both filled with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit. They proclaimed the coming of God’s salvation to His people and how they should wait no longer for the Lord has come to save them, through that seemingly innocent and frail Child brought to be offered to the Lord at the Temple that day. It was also a fulfilment of what the Lord had spoken through His prophet Malachi as we heard in our first reading today, speaking of the coming of His Saviour preceded by His messengers of truth.

Simeon and Anna were the ones who proclaimed this truth to all those gathered on that day, revealing the truth of the Messiah, the One Who would save the Lord’s people. And then, we are also brought to an even deeper appreciation of the significance of this moment of Presentation of the Lord, because according to the Jewish traditions and the Law of Moses, one cannot be considered lawfully as the member of the people of Israel unless the precepts and commandments were obeyed, and Jesus as the firstborn Son being presented to the Lord was among these.

And in both the first reading today as well as in our second reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews, we heard the emphasis of the Lord Jesus as the High Priest Who was to offer the sacrificial offerings favourable and delightful to God, for the salvation of the whole world and all of us mankind. As we heard from the author of the Epistle of the Hebrews, in order to become the High Priest to save all of us, He has to be like us in all things, and to obey the precepts of the Law so that through His proper presentation as what we celebrate today, He was inducted to this High Priesthood before God.

In the ancient times, since the Jewish priesthood was introduced through the laws of Moses, those who were to be made and ordained as priests of the Lord were to be offered and consecrated to God. And it was the same process that Christ went through in His presentation. Simeon and Anna proclaimed this revelation of truth, that Jesus was to be the High Priest of all, to be the one to absolve and redeem all mankind from their sins just as the priests of the Lord offered the animal sacrifices for the temporary remission and forgiveness of the people’s sins.

This prefigured what the Lord was about to do in order to save us all, by offering a worthy sacrifice for our sake. And unlike the past offerings of lambs and animals that could only bring a small and temporary relief from sin, this sacrifice and offering that Christ was to offer, was in a single moment and time, to absolve all the combined weight of all the sins of all the people of the world, past, present and future, by the shedding of His Precious Blood and by the offering of His own Precious Body on the Altar of the Cross.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we celebrate the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord today, we are called to remember Christ, our Eternal High Priest, Lord and God and His ultimate sacrifice of love, made in the supreme act of worthy sacrifice and total obedience to the will of God, His heavenly Father. By the obedience of Christ, Who gave it His all for the sake of our salvation, all of us have received pardon from our sins and the salvation from God.

That is why today we truly give thanks to God for having given us all such a great and wonderful Saviour Who manifested God’s boundless love for us in such an amazing way. As we bring home our blessed candles today, we remember to bring Christ, the Light of the world, into our families and homes, that through sharing in His light we may be brought out of the darkness that encompass us and darkened our lives all these while.

And today, in addition, we also celebrate the World Day for Consecrated Life, remembering all those who have given themselves to a life consecrated to God, namely all those who are in religious congregations, all the religious brothers and sisters who committed themselves to a life of purity and service, prayer and commitment to God. They have offered and presented themselves to the Lord imitating the example of Christ Himself, dedicating themselves solely to the purpose of glorifying God and obeying His will.

Today therefore we pray for all of them and ask that God will continue to guide them and be with all of them that each and every one of them will remain strong in persevering in their faith and dedication to God. We pray that each and every one of those in consecrated life will be our good inspiration and example of how we can live our lives virtuously in accordance with God’s will, and serve God with all of our hearts.

There are plenty of challenges facing those who live in consecrated life in our world today, especially in a world filled with so much materialism and emphasis on pleasure and worldly form of enjoyment and happiness, a world filled with ego and ambition, pride and immorality among other things. The number of people who gave themselves to consecrated life to God has dwindled tremendously in the past decades, and many of those whom God had called are facing plenty of distractions and temptations, as are those who are already in the consecrated life.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we rejoice today in the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and also the Purification of Mary, the Blessed Mother of God, let us first of all bring Christ into our families and homes that He may sanctify our homes and families, and bring us all closer to God, and from there on, seeds of good vocations will rise, be it for the building of good families for those who have been called to holy, married life, or for the vocations of holy priesthood, and of course as mentioned, those who are called to the consecrated life as religious brothers and sisters.

Let us all help one another to be more faithful to God and inspire each other to live according to God’s will and obeying His laws and commandments as revealed to us through His Church. Let us all put God at the centre of our lives from now on and let Christ’s light shine in our lives that we may be bright and beautiful beacons of His light in our world today, calling many more people among the nations to be the disciples of the Lord by our faith and obedience to God. May God bless us always, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 January 2020 : Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, Sunday of the Word of God (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, the third Sunday in Ordinary Time beginning from this year onwards, our Holy Father and Vicar of Christ Pope Francis has declared the institution of the Sunday of the Word of God, to be celebrated on the third Sunday of Ordinary Time every year. The purpose of this celebration of the Sunday of the Word of God is a very important reminder to all of us as Christians that the Scriptures are very important and integral in the development of our faith.

The Scriptures are none other than the Word of God, as God spoke to us through them, and those who had contributed and written the books in the Scripture were divinely inspired by God and the Holy Spirit to pass down the message of God’s truth to us. The Church has also authoritatively decided the books that are to be kept as part of the official canon of the Scripture, and from then on, we have the Bible as what we now have today.

And this emphasis on the Word of God today on this Sunday is very important to all of us the faithful people of God as the Word of God is our daily sustenance and the source of our strength and faith. When the Lord Jesus was tempted by the devil in the desert, the devil wanted to tempt the Lord Who was hungry that He should turn the stones into bread for Him to eat. The Lord rebuked Satan sternly saying that ‘man does not live on bread alone, but on every words that come from the mouth of God’.

But the Word of God in this case does not just refer to the Scriptures, as the Word of God as we know it, also refers to the Christ Himself, because Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour is also known as the Divine Word Incarnate, the Son of God Who assumed the flesh and nature of Man for our salvation. While the Father is the Creator in the Holy Trinity and the Holy Spirit passes through all creation, the Son is the Word by which God created the world.

And this same Word of God has become incarnate, appearing in the flesh, as Jesus our Lord and Saviour. This makes the Scriptures even more significant, as the Scriptures become the manifestation of the truth of God, as we all know that the Bible consist of two main parts namely the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, the Word of God was revealed through the elders and the prophets who passed on parts of the revelation of God’s truth. And then in the New Testament, all that had been revealed and spoken in the Old Testament were confirmed in the truth of Christ.

In the New Testament, we heard the word of God from the Son Himself, the authentic and true Word revealing the truth of God’s will and plan for us. And those who wrote the Holy Gospels and the letters of the Apostles were divinely inspired through the Holy Spirit and by the experiences they encountered, to bring to us this sustenance in the Word of God, the sustenance of our soul, our mind, our heart and indeed of our whole being. Without this sustenance, our spiritual life will be empty and dead, and it will be easy for us to lose our faith.

That is why it is absolutely necessary for us to appreciate this great gift and blessing we have received in the Word of God, through the Sacred Scriptures easily and readily accessible and available for us. In the Second Vatican Council, through the Apostolic Constitution Dei Verbum, which means ‘Word of God’, the importance of the Sacred Scriptures was once again highlighted with the emphasis placed on the propagation of the Word of God among the people and the regular reading and exposure to the Scriptures by all segments of the Universal Church.

But in the same Apostolic Constitution Dei Verbum, the importance of Sacred Tradition as an inseparable part of the Church teachings and Christian truth together with the Sacred Scriptures is also highlighted and emphasised. This means that the Sacred Scriptures, the Word of God cannot be studied, read or used independently of the Sacred Traditions and the magisterium authority of the Church. This is a firm rejection of the ‘Sola Scriptura’ position of those who argued that the Bible alone is the foundation of our faith.

Rather, the Bible and the words of the Lord in it must be appreciated and understood in the context of Church teachings and the Sacred Traditions of our predecessors, passed down and preserved for us from the time of the Lord and His Apostles themselves. It is this treasure of the faith that we have been blessed with and which is now highlighted in importance by our Holy Father Pope Francis as a way to stop the rapidly declining quality of our faith and relationship with God as what we can clearly see in our Church today.

If we do not expose ourselves to the truth of God in His words, how can we know more about Him? And if we are ignorant of His truth and the meaning of His words, how can we then understand and appreciate His love? As long as we do not know Him, are ignorant of His love and blind to His truth, we cannot be truly God’s disciples and our hearts and minds will always be far away from Him. In time this will lead us further and further down the path of sin and darkness.

That is why today, on this Sunday of the Word of God, we are challenged first of all to be more active in making use of the Word of God, the Sacred Scriptures which we have received from the bounties of the Church, and be regular in our reading, study and appreciation of God’s words contained within the pages of the Scriptures. We should spend more time trying to deepen our knowledge of our faith, reading from the wisdom of the Lord contained within both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

And as we do this, we also have to keep the reference to the official teachings of the Church as contained within the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the official Church documents and proclamations, all the guidelines and officially approved teachings of the faith as maintained by the magisterium of the Church and the deposit of the faith. By deepening our faith through closer interaction with the Word of God contained within the Scriptures and by keeping ourselves within the bounds of our Sacred Tradition, we will grow closer to God and be more faithful with each passing moments.

And among the best way to do that, is by paying close attention during the homily of the Holy Mass, when the priests explain the meaning and context of the proclaimed Word of God to us. Our priests have been prepared for many years in the seminaries and even many more years of experience during their priesthood to explain the truth in the Word of God according to the teachings of the Church. And this is why we also need to pray for all of them too, that they may remain faithful and true to their ministry.

It is important that we pay attention during the homily because if we do not understand, appreciate and adhere closely to the teachings of the Church, we will end up being like what happened in the early Church, divisions and struggles that appeared between the segments of the Christian faithful which threatened to tear the Church apart. It was so bad that St. Paul had to intervene through his letter, rebuking all those who put their own self interests first before serving the interest and purposes of God.

That was why we heard of the conflicts between those who declared themselves the followers of Paul and others who claimed that they followed Apollos. Both Paul and Apollos were great leaders of the early Church and they performed many good works for the evangelisation of more people. However, as their followers began to grow rapidly, those followers ended up beginning to seek their own individual agenda and interpret the Scriptures for their own benefits and selfish desires. And that was how, unfortunately, so many so-called denominations of Christianity exist because each person is free to interpret the Word of God as he or she wishes it.

That is why today, the second important thing that we need to take note of is besides deepening our understanding and knowledge of the Word of God, we must also continue to put our trust and faith in God through His Church, the one and only Church He has established in this world. As what He Himself said that if we are separated from Him, the True Vine, we who are His branches will perish because we have no life from Him and through Him if we separate ourselves from this unity with Him that exists in the Church.

And then, lastly, we are also called today to live and embody the Word of God in our daily living and in our faith. God has called us just as how He has called His disciples to follow Him as described in our Gospel passage today. We are all the successors to the works of the Apostles in continuing the mission which God has entrusted to them, that is the evangelisation of the whole world. But in order to do so, we have to first of all, be attuned to the Word of God, be faithful to the teachings of the Church and be willing to venture forth and be good witnesses of our faith to others.

And how do we become good witnesses of Our Lord? How do we proclaim the Word of God in a good way? It is not by preaching in public places or quoting phrases and words from the Scripture, but first of all, we must first live out what we truly believe in. This means that our every actions and deeds, our words, every words that come out from our mouths and our thoughts must be aligned with God’s truth as contained within His words in the Scriptures.

If we do not live in the manner compatible with what we speak, how can people believe in us? We are nothing better than hypocrites who say one thing but do and act in a different or even contradictory manner. That is why, our challenge today is for us to truly allow God’s words to enter into our lives and that we do not just read His words at a surface level or just through our brains. Instead, we must go deeper, in allowing those words to penetrate the depths of our hearts and souls.

And then, are we willing to allow God to change and transform us by the power of His words and truth? If we are willing, then surely we will, in time, be good examples of our faith and others who see us, hear us and witness our every actions will believe in God because of us. That is how we become the true disciples and followers of Christ, by being the beacons of Christ’s light in this world filled with the darkness of sin.

Let us all today renew our conviction and desire to love and serve the Lord, by deepening our relationship with Him through deeper and better understanding of the Word of God in the Scriptures, that we may proclaim God’s truth by our lives and actions, and bring more and more people to God’s saving grace. May God, the Divine Word Incarnate, continue to strengthen us in faith by His encouragement and love. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 January 2020 : Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Second Sunday of Ordinary Time all of us have heard from the readings of the Scripture today on the matter of the mission of the Church in proclaiming the word of God and our part in this mission as we are all members of this same Church. From what we have heard through today’s Scripture passages we are reminded of how God has called us all to follow Christ, the Lamb of God and Saviour of the world.

As we begin this season of the Ordinary Time between Christmas and Lent, we are reminded of the need for us not to make this season something that is merely ‘ordinary’. For in fact, the real meaning and significance of this ‘Ordinary Time’ is such that in between our focus and observations of the very important events in our faith like that of the birth of Christ in Christmas, the preparation time for Easter in Lent, the resurrection of Jesus in Easter itself, there are many things that we can do in the time between all these events and seasons.

It means that we are called to come and do our best to make good use of this time to do the ‘ordinary’ work of God, carrying out whatever it is that He has called on each one of us to do, from being faithful and good Christians, behaving in ways that conform to our faith and through all those, becoming true witnesses of our faith in our everyday life. We must not think that our works and contributions are insignificant in any way, for it is indeed by whatever little things we do, that are done in faith, that we become good witnesses for Christ.

In our first reading today, we heard of the Lord Who spoke through His prophet Isaiah of the coming of the One Who would bring forth the salvation of the world, gathering all of His people scattered all around the world and bringing them back once again to His presence. He spoke of how that Servant He sent into the world would become the Light of the world and the salvation for the nations, which was fulfilled finally at the coming of Jesus Christ into this world.

It was this same Messiah promised by God which St. John the Baptist proclaimed before his own disciples at the River Jordan just after He was baptised by him. He proclaimed the Lord Jesus as the Lamb of God, as the One Who would take away the sins of the world and save it. And some of the disciples of St. John the Baptist went on to follow Him such as St. Andrew the Apostle, the first of the Twelve Apostles to be called.

What St. John the Baptist had done essentially was what the Lord has also wanted us all to do, in proclaiming the salvation in the One and only Messiah of God, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God by Whose sacrifice on the Cross, saved us mankind from the tyranny of sin and reconciled us with God the Father. Through His loving sacrifice, Christ made us all to be reunited with God, that sin which once prevented us from returning to Him is no longer an obstacle that cannot be overcome.

And through His Baptism at the Jordan, which we have just commemorated last Sunday and marked the beginning of the current Ordinary Time, all of us also share in the common baptism that unites all of us to Christ, as the members of the one Church He has established in this world to be a symbolic and concrete sign of the coming of God’s kingdom into this world. All of us through our baptism have been made parts of the Body of Christ, the Church and made to be God’s own adopted sons and daughters.

This is what the Apostle St. Paul spoke about at the beginning of his Epistle to the Church and the faithful in Corinth in our second reading today, when he spoke of how all of us as Christians have been called to follow God and have been sanctified and blessed to be God’s people, reunited and brought together from the world, to be one people and with one purpose and intention, that is to glorify God and to do His will. All of us share the same mission which God has entrusted to His Church.

What is this mission, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is for us to be true and living witnesses of our faith in God, to proclaim His salvation among the nations and the peoples of the earth. We have been entrusted with the Great Commission of God, Who called all of us His disciples to go forth and baptise all peoples of all the nations in the Name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, making all of the children of mankind to be God’s children through His Church and through baptism.

But how are we going to do that? It is not by forcing people to believe in God by the use of intimidation, coercion or force, and neither should we use any forms of tricks or false persuasions. All these methods do not usually lead to true faith and love for God, and in fact they may cause people to be antagonised against God and the Christian faith instead. Rather, we should do our best in living our lives with faith each and every moments of our life.

How can other people believe in God if we ourselves do not truly believe in Him? If we do not act and do things according to what we believe in, does that not make us hypocrites then, who believe in one thing and yet do things in a different way? If our actions and way of life do not match what we profess to believe in, how can we then expect people to believe in us or in the Lord by our lack of genuine faith? Instead of bringing others closer to God, we will only end up making others to be disillusioned and pushing them further away from God.

That is why we are all challenged as we proceed through our lives that we should do our best to live our lives as how the Lord has taught us to live them. He has showed us what it means to be Christians, that is to put our trust in the Lord and to put Him as the centre of our lives and existence that our every actions no longer seek to glorify ourselves and satisfy our desires, but instead, we seek only to glorify God through whatever little actions we take in life.

This means that we should first of all show love and care, compassion and concern to our fellow brethren in our actions just as the Lord has loved us generously. We should be more selfless and forgiving in how we interact with one another, putting the needs of others before ourselves, and putting aside our pride, ego and desires in our daily living. We should reach out especially to the poor and the marginalised, showing God’s love and grace to them, that we, as the extensions of God’s love may truly touch them not just in material and physical terms, but also mentally and spiritually.

If all of us are able to be Christ-like in how we live our lives, in serving others and in showing genuine love and care, then in no time people who see us will also be able to see God and His presence through us. And eventually some if not many more people will also then come to believe in Him and want to become His disciples through us and our good examples of life in faith. That is how we should carry out our mission in evangelisation and in witnessing for the truth of God.

We do not need to worry that we cannot do great many things, for the truth is that, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, our every little acts do count towards the greater cumulative efforts of the Church. When all of us are in one mind and one spirit in trying our best to serve God through our lives, all of our actions and deeds combined together will truly become an immense effort in fulfilling the mission that God has entrusted to us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today therefore as we continue to live our lives let us all strive to be faithful to God even in the smallest things we do, that with every actions we take and with every moments, we always adhere to His ways and obey His will, resisting the temptation to sin and to do what is wicked and evil in God’s presence. Let us all be inspiration for one another and help each other in living our lives with faith from now on.

May God continue to guide us and bless us in our journey of faith. May He empower us all to be able to live courageously in His presence from now on, filled with faith and devotion. May God be with us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 12 January 2020 : Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday after the Solemnity of the Epiphany we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord which marks the end of the liturgical season of Christmas. Therefore officially the celebration of Christmas is over by the end of today and from tomorrow we will begin with the first part of the Ordinary Time of this current liturgical year cycle, that is until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday.

On this day, the Baptism of the Lord at the Jordan River by St. John the Baptist is a symbolic reminder of the end of the Christmas festivities, as the Lord began His ministry in this world at the moment when He was baptised. He was no longer hidden from the world as it was when He was still a Child and during His early growing up years. After His Baptism, He began His ministry, through the forty days of temptation later on by the devil and then began gathering His disciples and started His works.

When the Lord was baptised, there were many things that happened which we should take note of, and how these are all significant for our understanding of both our faith and what we ourselves need to do as Christians, as those who believe that Jesus Christ, the One baptised by St. John that day, is truly the Lord and Saviour of the whole world. His Baptism proclaimed the truth of the coming of the long awaited Messiah, and fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet Isaiah in our first reading today.

In that prophecy, God showed how His Servant would come into this world, proclaiming His love and mercy, delivering His truth and liberating the people from the darkness and destruction caused by their sins. When Jesus was baptised, immediately the heavens opened and a Dove descended on Him, as the Holy Spirit descended on the Lord Jesus, and the voice of the Father could be heard, proclaiming that Jesus was truly the Son of God, the Beloved and Chosen One, sent into this world out of His love for us all.

In that very moment, we have actually witnessed through the Gospel passage, the manifestation of God’s plan for our salvation, as the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit came into that occasion in one place, showing how God would redeem His people by the giving of His Son to this world. And it was also very important that Jesus insisted to be baptised by St. John although the latter really wanted to be baptised by Jesus instead.

That is because through baptism, the Lord showed that by our common baptism, which we shared with Him, we have shared in His death with water being often associated with both death and life. And He also made the same connection as our baptism is, to the moment when the Lord led His people Israel through the Red Sea, passing through the water of the sea from their slavery in Egypt into the freedom towards the Land promised to them.

Thus, through His humanity, the Human nature He possessed in Him, Christ made His Baptism to be united to our own Sacrament of Baptism, when through the power and authority He bestowed on His Church and the Apostles, He made us all, who are baptised to be members of the Church, be it as an infant or as an adult through conversion, God’s own adopted children. That is because if Christ is the Son of God, and the Father called Him as His Son, we who have been baptised are also made the children of the Father, God’s beloved ones.

And brothers and sisters in Christ, that is not the end of it all. Instead, it is merely just the beginning, as I have mentioned earlier how Christ began His ministry after His Baptism, we too have also begun our new life in Christ and embarked on a new journey of faith from the moment we were baptised. Through baptism we have been marked as God’s own beloved children, and because of that, we have also been entrusted with the mission of the Church, to go forth and evangelise the truth which Christ has brought into this world.

Baptism is not the end of our faith journey, contrary to what some have been thinking. It does not mean that after we have been baptised that we are already saved by God and therefore had no more need to follow God’s will and do what He has told us to do. Rather, through baptism, we have been fundamentally changed in our being, as we have been made the spiritual children of God, and God has become our Father.

And if we are God’s children and He is our Father, is it not then just right and proper that we follow what our Father taught us to do? How can we call ourselves as God’s children if our lives are contrary to His will and if we do what is wicked and evil in His eyes? And if God is our Father, is it not right that we act in ways that conform with His ways and bring glory to His Name? This is our journey of faith that we began at our baptism.

Therefore today, as we mark the end of the Christmas season with this Feast of the Baptism of the Lord let us all focus on the moment of the Lord’s baptism at the Jordan, and unite it with our own baptism, if we can remember it well. For those of us who have been baptised as adults, try to remember that moment when the holy water of baptism touched us, either by immersion or at our foreheads. And for those of us who have been baptised as infants, ask our parents and/or godparents for that moment.

Let us all remember our baptism, its date and time, and more importantly, our promise at baptism which we renew at Easter every year. We profess faith in God as expressed in the Creed, in all its fullness and we profess that we will reject Satan and all of his lies, his advances and all the falsehoods he presents before us. And today, therefore, we are reminded by this moment of Christ’s baptism that we have our respective journeys ahead of us, and we need to do what we can to fulfil what God has called us to do through baptism.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all from now on be exemplary in our lives and dedicate ourselves to God anew, with the desire to follow Him, our Lord and Father because we are His beloved children. Let us all sin no more and try our best to obey the will of our Father and love Him more, just as He has loved us all so much that He has given us Christ, His Son to redeem us and to bring us a new hope. By our baptism, we have been made as partakers of this same hope and promise of eternal life.

May the Lord, our Father continue to watch over us and guide us in our journey of faith, and may He grant us the strength and courage to live our lives faithfully from now on so that we may become inspirations for one another in being good and faithful Christians. May all of us bear witness to Christ’s truth by our lives and do our best to serve Him at all times, devoting our time, attention and effort always as we journey together in faith as the members of God’s one Church. Amen.

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Sunday, 5 January 2020 : Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we celebrate the great Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, one of the great celebrations during the season of Christmas, commemorating the moment when three great men, known as either the Three Magi or Three Kings or Three Wise Men came to visit and pay homage to the newborn Christ in Bethlehem, the place of His birth, bringing the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

This great celebration is known as the Epiphany of the Lord from the original Greek word ‘Epiphaneia’ which means the unveiling or revelation, linking to the occasion of the visit of the Magi who came from the faraway lands as the revelation of the Messiah to the people in distant lands, as representative of the many nations that will come to worship the Lord and praise Him. Through the three gifts of the Magi, the truth of the Messiah was also unveiled to us, though it might not have been known right at that moment of time Who He was.

First of all, the gift of gold represents Christ’s kingship and power, as He has come as King, the King of Israel and the King of the whole world, the One Who was prophesied to be sitting on the throne of David, His ancestor. Gold has always been valued by many cultures and civilisations for a very long time, and it has always been associated as a symbol of wealth and power, and therefore, they are often possessed by the rich and the powerful, especially the lords and kings of the nations.

Therefore, the Three Magi came to honour the King Who has come into this world as He has promised. But it is also important for us to note how Christ chose to be born into this world. He did not come in great wealth and power, unlike the lords and kings of this world. He was born into poverty and suffering, and not in a large and sumptuous palace, but in a small, dirty stable that was not suitable at all for the dwelling of any man.

But that was how Our Lord and King chose to come into this world, not into wealth and privilege, not into glory or fame, but into obscurity and in the most humiliating condition possible to highlight that His Kingship is unlike any of the kingship and any ruling in this world. His Kingship is not bound and neither can it be described by any worldly parameters, for His Kingship and authority come from Himself and not from worldly wealth, power, fame or any of the sorts.

And then, He is not just like any other kings of the earth because He is also at the same time, God and the Divine Word Incarnate, as represented by the gift of frankincense. Incense are fragrances from aromatic sources like hardened tree sap and liquids that are often used from the earliest history of mankind for the purpose of worship of the spirits and the divine. Frankincense are the finest type of incense reserved only for the most solemn occurrences, and therefore the gift of frankincense by the Magi showed us that He is the Lord, Our God.

Jesus Christ, Our Lord and King is also the Son of God, fully Man and fully God, having human nature and divine nature united in His one person, and this is the truth about Himself, born of a woman and yet also the eternal God from before the beginning of time, the mystery of our faith revealed to us today. And the gift of frankincense was truly an acknowledgement that this Child born the Messiah, was God Incarnate and ought to be worshipped.

This is where the irony can be seen more plainly, as we know how things would turn out as the Lord later embarked on His ministry. King Herod the Great wanted Him dead, and the Pharisees and many of the elders and teachers of the Law refused to believe in Him, those leaders of the people to whom God had sent His own Son. Yet, it was from the Magi, from the faraway, non-Jewish lands that the acknowledgement of the Lord Jesus as not only King but also God, were given.

Now, as we then look at the third and the last of the gifts of the Three Magi, we will then fully understand the significance of not just these gifts but also what it means for us to have God Himself dwelling in our midst and why we even celebrate Christmas in the first place. The third and last of the gifts is myrrh, an expensive and rare fragrance and spice used typically for embalming of the dead bodies.

Such a gift would have been unthinkable and weird to be given to a newborn Child. Why would someone give a perfume used for the preparation of dead bodies as a gift for a Child? But this is exactly symbolic of what the Lord’s ministry in this world, as a revelation of what He would do to fulfil that mission. I refer to how Christ suffered, took the burden of His Cross and endured all the bitterness, and died for us. That myrrh symbolised this death that Christ suffered through for us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we can see, the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh are representative of the truth about the Messiah Whom the Magi paid homage to at Bethlehem, the King Whose coming was promised, Who is also Divine, Word of God, the Son of the Father Who assumed our human existence and flesh, all so that He could fulfil the completion of God’s plan to save us, by His suffering, Passion and death on the Cross.

Thus, through the events surrounding the Epiphany today, all of us see how God revealed Himself to the nations, represented by the Three Magi who had endured great trials and distances to pay a visit and worship the One Whose coming they have seen in the great Star of Bethlehem. And what is remarkable is how those Magi, who were very wise and knowledgeable, were willing to bear the difficulties and challenges of distant travel at a time when travelling was hazardous and difficult.

They followed the Star which guided them to the One they had been looking for, and today’s events were the culmination of what was probably many months of travel from the homeland of the Magi to Bethlehem, finally seeing the Holy One of God. We saw the faith of the Magi in entrusting themselves to this small, little Child, Whom they recognised as the One Who would save the entire world as prophesied.

Once again, this is completely contrary to the attitude of those to whom God had actually sent His Son to first, that is the Israelites. They have all known the prophecies and the promises of God, and yet many among them failed to believe or even refused to believe in Him. Some would even want to destroy Him and His works because they saw in the Lord Jesus a bitter rival for influence among the people of God. God has revealed His truth to them in many occasions and through many signs, but because they hardened their hearts, they did not have the faith.

Today on this Solemnity of the Epiphany therefore, all of us are called to reflect on the faith that all of us have in the Lord, on whether we truly have faith in the Lord, believing in everything that He has revealed to us as we celebrate it in this Epiphany of the Lord. Through the Epiphany with the Wise Men or Magi, all of us are shown the wonderful manifestation of God’s love through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, He Who is King as honoured by gold, Who is also God as worshipped by the frankincense, and Who will bear the Cross and die for our sake as anointed with the myrrh.

God has revealed the fullness of love to us through Christ, His Son, and we have heard how the Magi went on the arduous and long journey to seek Him. Such a dedication can only happen when one has faith and love for God, that the person is able to do what he or she can do to follow the Lord and to seek Him out even through the trials and challenges present in our life. Are we able to have this same faith in us, brothers and sisters in Christ?

This Solemnity of the Epiphany is a timely reminder for us all to rediscover our faith and love for God, knowing first of all how He has loved us so dearly before everything else, that He gave us all the most wonderful gift of all, King, Lord and Saviour all in one. By His death and resurrection, Christ has saved us all from our certain destruction because of our sins and faults. He has given us everything so that we will not perish and have eternal life through Him. So, are we then able to dedicate ourselves to Him?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all spend time to think about how we can grow further in faith and dedicate our time and attention to love the Lord with greater fidelity from now on. Let us all grow in faith and learn to trust the Lord in all things, spending the time and effort to build a stronger and better relationship with God in each and every moments of our lives.

And as God has revealed Himself to us, let us all be witnesses to His truth and reveal Him to the nations and to all those who have not yet known Him. Let us all do this by our role model and good example, doing our best to live our lives according to our faith from now on. Those who see us will know of our faith, and through that, they will come to know God. Hopefully like the Magi coming to see the Lord, many more people too will come to worship the Lord. May God be with us all and His Church, always. Amen.