Sunday Mass sermon

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Sunday, 30 September 2018 : Twenty-Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the word of God in the Scriptures speaking to us first about the calling which the Lord made to the seventy elders of Israel chosen from among the people during the time of the Exodus, in which He put in them their Holy Spirit, and they began to be inspired by the Spirit. But there were then two others who were also given the Spirit in the camp of the Israelites and were not among the seventy-two.

Joshua, the one who would eventually succeed Moses as the leader of Israel saw what happened to the two other people receiving the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and he wanted to stop them. But Moses forbid him from doing so, and in fact he was pleased at the fact that God sent His Holy Spirit to even more people, and wished that He would send the Holy Spirit to all of His people, and not just the elders chosen from among them.

In the Gospel passage today, we also listened to something that is almost the same in occurrence, when the disciples of the Lord Jesus wanted to stop some others who were not with their group, and yet spoke about the Lord Jesus as the Messiah, and preached in His Name, using His Name to heal people and perform miracles. The disciples did not like this and wanted to stop the work of these people, only to be rebuked by the Lord, just as Moses rebuked Joshua.

Why did the disciples of the Lord did what they have done, and why did Joshua want to stop the two people from receiving God’s Holy Spirit? That was likely because of their inner pride and the desires within their hearts. Even though the disciples had followed the Lord and even though Joshua was likely quite a righteous man, considering that only he and another one of God’s follower survived the forty years of Exodus, but ultimately, all of them were still mortal human beings.

And that means, all of them are still subject to the same frailties and weaknesses that we encounter through our humanity. This is what the Lord said when He told His disciples who were sleeping when they were supposed to accompany Him and keep watch during His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, ‘While the spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak.’ Temptations and allures of worldly pleasures are always by our side.

This is what St. James also wrote about in the second reading passage we have today, taken from his Epistle. He wrote about all those who have lived in riches and pleasures of life, and cheated others from their money, treated others badly and showing no regards for the needs of the hungry, the poor, the weak and the oppressed. This is truly mankind’s wicked side, which all of us unfortunately have. For even the poor and the hungry can oppress those who are even less fortunate from them, and not just the rich and the well-endowed.

In the Gospel passage today, the Lord also mentioned something that seemed to be quite radical. He mentioned that should a part of our body cause us to sin, for example, our hands, which caused us to steal things and therefore made us to sin, then we must chop whichever part that is off. He even mentioned how we should pluck our eyes off whenever we have our eyes to blame in causing us to sin, when we look upon someone and lusts over that person.

But is that what the Lord truly meant and is that what the Lord wants us to do with our own lives? This is where we cannot take the Scripture passage literally and at the surface level, but we must understand the key message, purpose and intention of the Lord, the context in which He made such a strong-worded remark and comment on the behaviour of the people. The key message is that, each and every one of us mankind must turn away from sin, and we must know the urgency for such an action, for otherwise, what awaits us, is nothing else but eternal suffering in hell.

We know just how much God loves us all, that He gave us none other than the perfect gift of His own Beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have received a new hope of salvation and liberation from our sins, and from all the things and obstacles that have prevented us from truly being able to find our way towards the Lord. And this is where we need to listen to Him with an open mind and with an attentive heart.

What the Lord meant with what He said, is that we need to firmly reject sin, in all of its forms, and even the desire and intention to sin, before we commit it in the first place. In another occasion, the Lord also said to His disciples, that even when someone is angry with his or her brother or sister, before he or she took any action to hurt or to strike at the brother or sister, he or she has already committed sin in the heart.

Likewise, should someone look upon another person with lust and desire, then the person had committed adultery and therefore sin in his or her heart, even before that person actually committing any form of real or bodily adulterous action with the person mentioned. Sin is indeed so dangerous that even its allures and temptations can bring us down to damnation, and unless we actively reject sin, before we even commit something sinful, we are in great danger of falling into deeper and deeper sin.

Yet at the same time, we also have to realise that while we are all sinners, but God has also given us the means and the ability to break free from those sins that have plagued and troubled us all these while. God does not actually ask us to do what He said to the people, cutting off our hands, legs, or plucking out our eyes, tongues and all that. The hands, the eyes, the tongue and all these by themselves are without blame.

For the hands, the eyes, the tongue, the legs, all of our limbs and organs cannot function by itself without the working of the brain, that is our mind, and the mind in truth cannot function without the command and the will that comes from the heart and the soul. But how can we take out our heart and soul and still live? Surely we cannot do so, for our heart and soul are integral parts of our life. Sin corrupts these very depths of our inner being, and that is why, when sin entered us, it corrupted us from the inside out.

The Lord spoke of this, when He criticised the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law for their obsession with the maintenance of a clean and pure exterior, and yet, failed to look and discern at the state of our interior cleanliness and purity. That is why, it is important that we understand what the Lord intended when He spoke of cutting off the hands, the eyes, the legs and all sorts of extreme and graphic language He was using. What He truly wanted to say is that, we must immediately and urgently cut off our ties to sin, starting from the depths of our hearts, minds and souls.

How do we do this, brothers and sisters in Christ? This is where the Lord has given us many opportunities and avenues to help ourselves in our journey towards His salvation and grace. First of all, we should repent from our sinful ways and recognise just how weak we are in our battle against sin, and we should make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation available for us, by the means of frequent and genuine confessions, made regularly with the desire for us to change our lives.

And then, we should also deepen our spirituality and prayer life, by spending more quality time with Our God. Many of us did not spend good, quality time with God, and when we do so, we are often tempted and distracted by the many things and concerns we have in life. That shows clearly in our attitudes in the Mass, when many of us cannot wait but to end the Mass quickly and go back to our daily businesses and works.

That is why many of us have not spent time to be with God and to open ourselves to Him, heart to heart, that we may come to know what His will is truly for each and every one of us. Instead, we were so busy with ourselves, that we ended up getting more and more distant from Him, and we ended up falling deeper and deeper into the traps and temptations that the devil has placed before us.

Then lastly, our hands, our feet, our eyes, our tongue, and all of our limbs and organs have their particular purpose and uses. They can indeed be used for something vile and wicked, but at the same time, they can also be used for good things and for the good works of God. Now, we need to ask ourselves, if we have made good use of our body, our talents and gifts for the good of our fellow men, showing true Christian love and charity in all of our words, deeds and actions?

If we have not done all these or any of these, then perhaps it is now time for us to take action before it is too late for us. Remember, brothers and sisters in Christ, that all of us are mortal, and our existence and time in this world is truly limited. If we do not make good use of the time and opportunity given to us in this world, and instead continue to live in sin, then I am afraid that when the time comes for us to give an account before God, we will not be ready to defend ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore, let us from now on turn towards the Lord with a renewed zeal and spirit, committing ourselves ever more to a life filled with prayer and devotion, with genuine love for God and with compassion towards our brothers and sisters, our neighbours and all those who are in need of our help. There are still many things that we can do in life, and let us all strive to make use of the gifts and blessings given to us, for the greater glory of God. Amen.

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Sunday, 23 September 2018 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday all of us are presented with the sad reality of our world today, and especially within our Church itself. It was the sad reality of the conflict, infighting and divisions that often plague our human communities, the clashes between our human pride and ambitions, our desires for worldly glory, wealth, power, fame, influence, and all sorts of things that end up becoming stumbling blocks in our communities, including even within the Church itself.

In the Gospel passage today, we heard from the event during the Lord’s ministry, when even in that early stage of God’s work of salvation, there has been divisions and rivalries among the disciples, especially those who were the closest to the Lord. They were bickering, arguing and quarrelling among themselves, about who among them was the most preeminent, greatest and preferred by the Lord. Each of them wanted to be that special disciple whom the Lord treasured and praised to be His best.

This is also linked to what two of the disciples, St. James and St. John did together with their mother, in another occasion, when they came up to the Lord and asking for His personal and exceptional favour. They wanted Him to grant them the favour of being able to sit at the right and the left hand side of the Lord in His triumphant and kingly glory. At that time, as is often still today, to be able to sit beside a lord or a king is considered as a tremendous honour and privilege.

In what St. James himself mentioned in his own Epistle which is our second reading today, all of these reveal to us the ugly nature of human ambition, pride, desire and greed, for worldly power, for wealth, for privileges, for fame and glory, which end up in causing divisions and hatred, anger and jealousy, because of the clashes and frictions between each person’s different desires and ambitions.

This is the way of the world, the way of those who followed the desires and the paths of Satan and his evil allies. This is the way of those who succumbed to the temptations of their greed and their pride, which had indeed led many to fall into sin and disobedience against God. And it is the source of much pain, suffering and sorrow in the Church, and as well as in the human society in general.

There had been many occasions in this world, of how mankind have been greatly scandalised by the actions of some, who in the pursuit of worldly glory, power, wealth, recognition and fame, ended up causing others to suffer in order to satisfy their own selfish desires and greed. This is what happened when men tried to prop up their own ego and pride, and refused to look beyond their selfishness.

Many wars, conflicts and persecutions have occurred because of the desire which some of those in power had, for more power, for more honour, for more glory, for more riches, for more resources, for a place of honour in history, for glorification and worship and praise by the people, and many more. And millions and more had died in the process, and many more suffered and endured hunger, pain and loss, because of the actions of those who thought only of themselves and their own wants and desires.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of Wisdom, we also heard another example from long ago in Biblical history, of the time when the people of God persecuted the prophets and messengers that were sent to them, in order to remind them to be faithful and to turn away from their sins. Instead, the people hardened their hearts and kept doing what were sinful in the sight of God. They plotted to silence the prophets and made them suffer for having rebuked them for their wicked ways.

Again, this is another example of how we mankind are often tempted by our own desires for worldly things and glory, and how easily we can slip into this wickedness if we are not careful or if we are not actively restraining the pull of temptation on us. And still, it is, as I mentioned earlier, very sad to see how all these things happened even within our Church, and how it had caused even people to lose their faith in God, and leave the Church.

How many of us have experienced being treated badly or unequally within our Church ministries, or when people gossiped behind our back or played for power and influence within the ministries and within the parishes? How many of us have seen people being discarded and rejected, from within Church groups and ministries just because they were deemed to be rivals and threats in the battle of influence within the groups and ministries?

All of these things are too real for us to ignore or to pretend that everything is good within the Church today. The Church has experienced many of these unfortunate occurrences throughout its history, when even the leaders and elders of the Church vied for power, glory, political and worldly influence, even for wealth and all other things that we think should not have happened to the Church, but they did.

There had been many occasions when the faithful, even within the priesthood, who were wounded, disheartened and even scandalised by what they have seen and experienced, the kind of treatment that they have received, and often when they were speaking the truth and the right thing. There had been many occasions when this led to unfortunate divisions and sufferings within the Church, and caused many to lose their faith in God and His Church.

But if we look carefully into this matter, and reflect again on the Scripture readings we have read today, we will see just how all these have been foretold to us, as I have mentioned on what was written in the Book of Wisdom. All of these bitterness and unbecoming attitudes of Christians ultimately came from our own frail humanity, where we have been often tempted and pressured to turn towards these ways of sin and disobedience against God.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to realise that while the Church is indeed a divine institution established by none other than the Lord Himself, but it is also made up of human elements, all of the people that are part of the Church including each and every one of us as Christians. And as humans, it is part of our imperfect nature for us to be tempted and to be corrupted by these sinful ways.

However, it does not mean that we should allow these temptations of pride, of greed and of human and worldly desires to run rampant without control. We must instead do our best to get rid of all these wicked and sinful temptations, by turning ourselves wholeheartedly towards God, and by truly living our Christian faith with genuine dedication and devotion to God. The Lord Himself has shown us how we should do this.

He mentioned in the Gospel today, that if someone wants to be the first, he must be the last and the servant of all. And then, He also took a child and put the child in their midst, saying that, if they welcome the child, they are welcoming Him, and the One Who sent Him into the world. What does this mean? The Lord wants each and every one of His disciples to be true in their faith and in their dedication, like that of a child, pure and humble, innocent and genuine in all things they think and do.

Are we able to follow that teaching which the Lord had taught and shown us? He Himself showed the example, by how humble and dedicated He was to the mission entrusted to Him by His Father. He did not allow pride or greed to overcome Him, when Satan tempted Him with all sorts of worldly pleasures and glories. When the people wanted to make Him as their king, He walked away and secluded Himself in a secret, quiet place.

Are we able to follow Our Lord’s examples? And indeed, are we willing to do so? It will require our effort, willpower and the commitment which we need to give, if we decide to follow the Lord wholeheartedly. And we must realise that all the troubles and wicked things that happen around us will not disappear, but unless we begin from ourselves, and be role models for our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith, how can we encourage all Christians to abandon their sinful attitudes in life?

Let us all renew our efforts to live our lives with faith, and that is, with genuine faith and dedication. We must be filled with sincere and strong passion in our lives, to be ever more faithful and to be ever more humble, no matter what we have achieved in life, for in everything we do and say, we are in fact glorifying God, and for all of our successes and blessings, we owe it to God, the One Who made it all possible for us.

May the Lord continue to guide us on our way and in this journey of life. May He continue to provide for us and may He remain by our side as we continue to walk down this path of life, each and every one of us, that as members of the Church, we may overcome the sin of pride, the sin of greed and all sorts of wickedness that remain with us. May God bless us all and bless His Church, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 16 September 2018 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday as we listen to the readings taken from the Scriptures, surely we will realise that being Christians does not seem as easy as it seems to be. Being Christians require us to be committed and to be ready to face challenges, difficulties and even persecutions for what we believe in, and often times, we will encounter these challenges from even those who are close and dear to us.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah, we listened to the prophecy which Isaiah spoke on the suffering of the Servant of God, which would later on be interpreted as the prophecy which he made on the coming and the future works of the Messiah, the One Whom the Lord sent into the world in order to bring the long promised salvation to His people.

The Messiah of God would suffer greatly, suffering rejection and even physical blows and being spat on, being humiliated to such a degree that not even His humanity was preserved. This is what the prophet Isaiah prophesied regarding what the Lord Jesus would face during His ministry, all the pain and rejection He would receive from His people. The Lord was rejected by His own hometown neighbours in Nazareth, hounded on by the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law throughout His journeys.

And in the Gospel passage today, we listened to the Lord Jesus speaking about His own impending suffering and tribulation at the hands of His enemies. It is essentially an affirmation of what the prophet Isaiah had mentioned in his Book. The Lord would suffer persecution, and then death at the hands of all of His enemies, those who rejected Him and wanted Him to be killed. That was the stark reality which the Lord Jesus presented before His disciples, in fact, not just once, but a few times.

But then we heard of how the Apostle, St. Peter pulled the Lord aside and rebuked Him for saying such ominous and bad things. The Lord rebuked St. Peter and said, “Get behind Me, Satan!”, implying that it was under the influence of Satan and his temptations that St. Peter had made such a remark. The Lord also mentioned that he was thinking not as God does, but as man does. This is representing us the nature of human and worldly temptations that often get in the way of our true devotion and dedication to God.

The same temptations had been presented before the Lord by Satan himself, just after the Lord was baptised by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan. In the desert, Satan came to Jesus and tempted Him three things, firstly with the temptation of hunger and food, and then with the temptation of pride and worldly glory, when he asked Jesus to jump from the top of the Temple of Jerusalem, and lastly, the temptation of desire and greed, when he presented the whole world’s wealth and glory, if only Jesus would worship Satan.

In all of these temptations, Satan was speaking through himself and through some others, including that of the Apostles, as recorded in today’s passage, and in another, when during the Transfiguration, St. Peter asked the Lord that they remained on the Mount Tabor and not to go down away from the Lord’s Transfigured glory. But the Lord again spoke to His disciples, by means of a voice from the Father, “This is My Son, My Beloved. Listen to Him.”

And Jesus therefore mentioned it again and again to His disciples, that He needed to suffer, to endure pain and trials, to be rejected and to be humiliated, to be crushed with the burden of our sins, and gathering them all on the Cross which He was about to bear. Of course that burden of the Cross was so great, and so unbearable, that in His humanity, the Lord Jesus endured a final temptation at the hour of His agony, when He was in the garden of Gethsemane, praying to His Father, even asking Him to take away the cup of suffering away from Him.

But in the end, the Lord Jesus was perfectly and completely obedient to the will of His Father. He was tempted through the flesh of His humanity, the vulnerabilities of His human existence and nature, but He did not sin because He completely trusted His Father’s will, and He surrendered everything to Him. That was why the Lord Jesus took up His Cross willingly, bearing it all the way to Calvary, being nailed on it and died on it.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all reflect on what Christ has done, His actions and commitment to the will of His Father. And let us all remember what St. James mentioned in His Epistle, which is our second reading today. Faith, according to St. James, without works, is dead. Faith without the evidence of good works, done according to that faith, is meaningless and empty, and is useless for us.

What does this mean? It means that we may have faith in God, but we will not be saved and will not be worthy in God, unless our faith is truly real and genuine. There are those who have wrongly thought that we mankind are saved by faith alone, that our works have no part to play in our salvation, but they are wrong. For the Church has taught that, by the teachings of the Apostles, including that of St. James, good works must accompany our faith.

The Lord Himself showed us by the perfect example of His crucifixion and death. He has such great and deep love for us, such devotion and dedication to the will of His Father, that He willingly took up His Cross and did all that was necessary, in order to save us from the impending destruction caused by our sins, through His own death on the cross. He showed us that His love for us is not just empty and meaningless words, but also real and true.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is also what the Lord meant, when He said that for all those who want to follow Him, they must take up their crosses and follow Him. If we truly are faithful to God, then we must substantiate that faith through our actions, deeds and words, in everything we say and do. How can we say that we are faithful to God and yet, our actions show otherwise?

If we have done so, then we have in fact scandalised our faith and scandalised God Himself. And that is a great sin which we have committed against God. Is this what we want to be with our life? Have we been truly faithful or are we still ensnared by the many temptations of this life, that we have failed to show our true obedience to God? This is when we need to make the firm stand and put the effort, for each and every one of us to be true Christians from now on.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, let us therefore from now on, have a new resolve in ourselves, that we want to bear our crosses in life, by doing what we can in living up to our faith, its expectation and obligations. Let us all turn towards the Lord with renewed zeal and courage, to live our lives daily with conviction, to show love and Christian way of compassion to all those who have need of them.

May the Lord continue to guide us in our journey of life, and may He empower each and every one of us to live faithfully, that we may become true disciples of His, and be worthy of the eternal life and glory He promised to all of those who are faithful to Him. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 9 September 2018 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the word of God being spoken to us through the Scriptures, about the hope and encouragement that God has given to all of us, His beloved people, in how He has blessed us and given us a new hope, by healing us from our afflictions, our sicknesses and shortcomings. God has promised and fulfilled the promise He has made, to made whole again the people He had created out of love.

First of all, our first reading today taken from the Book of the prophet Isaiah spoke about the coming of God’s healing to His people, as the signs He would show when He sent His Saviour into the world. The prophet Isaiah was sent to the people of Israel at the time when many in Israel have abandoned the Lord and His ways, and they have consequently suffered at the hands of their enemies, scattered and exiled away from their homeland.

The prophet spoke of a new hope for the people of Israel, who were surely downtrodden and despairing, remembering the time of their suffering in Egypt, when they were enslaved by the Pharaoh and the Egyptians for hundreds of years. They longed for the coming of the Deliverer, Whom the Lord has promised for many years through His prophets and messengers, that deliverance would come for them.

The prophet spoke of the signs of what would happen when the Messiah of God came into the world. He would make the blind people see again, the deaf people to be able to hear again, the mute people to be able to speak again, the lame and the paralytic to be able to walk and to be active again. And all of these would happen as signs of the coming of the One Whom God has promised.

And in the Gospel passage today, we heard of the moment when the Lord Jesus healed a man who was both deaf and mute. He touched his ears and mouth, and by His words, “Ephphata!” meaning, “Be opened!”, the Lord healed the deaf and mute man, who could immediately hear and speak once again. The man praised the Lord and the whole people who witnessed the great miracle also were astonished and glorified God.

It was the fulfilment of what God Himself has promised to His people, that through His Saviour, He would restore His people, from all their afflictions and disabilities, from all of their shortcomings, pains and sufferings. It was through the Lord Jesus, God’s own begotten Son, that the plan of Salvation was completed to its perfect fulfilment. But it was not all the physical healing of the people that were the focus of Christ’s objective in this world, but rather, the healing of our true sickness that has made us all to be sick.

What am I referring to, brothers and sisters in Christ? I am referring to the sickness caused by our sins. Sin is caused by our disobedience and refusal to obey God, which have afflicted each and every one of us mankind, ever since Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, were tempted and failed to resist the temptations of Satan, to disobey God’s will and commands.

Ever since then, we have been afflicted by sin, which is truly a disease and corruption upon our entire being. Sin is the disease that affects first the soul, and then from the soul, to the heart and mind, and eventually our physical self and the whole body will be affected as well. We may be physically healthy and unafflicted by any physical diseases or sicknesses, but in truth, deep inside us, we are sick and dying because of this sickness of our sins.

And unlike all other physical diseases and sicknesses, which can be cured or halted to a certain extent by medicines and treatments, there is no cure for sin, save for that of the Lord’s mercy and grace alone. None but the Lord is capable of forgiving our sins, and no one but the Lord is able to free us from the bondage to our sins and therefore, to our fated destruction and death.

What is the significance of all these to us, brothers and sisters in Christ? Every single one of us as Christians, who have been baptised in the Name of the Lord, have gone through the rite of the Sacrament of Baptism, in which one part was the symbolic Ephphata Rite, recalling the precise moment mentioned in the Gospel passage today, when the Lord Jesus opened the ears and loosened the tongue of the deaf and mute man.

And more still, that through the holy water of baptism, all of us have been made to be sharers and partakers of God’s New and Everlasting Covenant, which He has made with all of us through the action of His Son, Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour. By that water of baptism, we have been cleansed of our past sins and our original sins, and we were purified from our wickedness and unworthiness.

Therefore, as all of us have received the inheritance from God, of faith, hope and love, by sharing in the death of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross, dying to our past sins, and now, having shared in the hope of the glorious resurrection from the dead that He has shown us, each and every one of us as Christians have been called to be active in our faith, to be the ones to bear the Lord’s truth to all the peoples of all the nations.

For you see, brothers and sisters, our Christian faith is one that requires us to be active, to be missionary and to reach out to others about the faith which we have in God. We cannot be complacent or inactive and passive in the practice of our faith. We have been freed from the tyranny of sin and death, and the veil of sin has been lifted up from us. We have experienced God Himself being present in us, so what is stopping us from truly proclaiming the Lord in our lives?

Very often, it is because of our own lack of faith and our own lukewarm attitude towards what we believe in the Lord. But do we realise that there are still many out there who are still living in the darkness and ignorance of the Lord’s truth and salvation? If we ignore them and do nothing to help them, then they may fall into eternal damnation in hell, a fate which we ourselves will share because the Lord will hold us accountable for our failure to act.

We have received this faith and the promise of eternal life from God, and it is only natural that we should share this hope and faith with all those who have not yet received them. And the way for us to do so, is by being true Christians in our respective lives, meaning that we must practice what we believe in our own life, through our actions and deeds, and not just through words.

Unfortunately, many of us Christians have shown otherwise, as we act in manner that causes divisions and scandals, by our refusal to obey the will of God and continuing to fall into temptations, of pride, of worldly wealth and power, of influence and fame, that even within the Church and in our various ministries, we have seen so many actions that were inconsistent and unbecoming of our faith, in how we jockey for influence and power, and in how we treat each other, not in the manner of our true Christian fellowship.

How can we expect others to believe in God and to receive our Christian faith, if we ourselves are not exemplary in how we live our lives in faith? Instead of bringing the people closer to God, we will instead end up causing more and more people to be turned away from salvation. Thus, it is important that we realise the gravity of our actions in our lives, and how they can be crucial in our role as disciples and bearers of God’s truth.

Let us therefore strive to be true disciples of Christ from now on, by truly living up to our calling as those whom the Lord has chosen out of the world, having been given the truth and the promise of eternal life. Let us go forth and preach this truth to many more people, through our words, our deeds and actions, that in everything we say and do, we will always proclaim the glory of God and call many more to come to the Lord and be saved.

May the Lord continue to guide us and bless us in all of our endeavours, and may He continue to watch over us as we continue to carry on living this life with all the zeal and courage to be true Christians in every moment of our lives. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 September 2018 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we listened to the Scripture passages with regards to the Law and the commandments which God has given to us all, His beloved people, beginning from the time of the Old Testament, when God first revealed His laws and His truth to the people of Israel, descendants of Abraham, whom He had chosen to be the first people He called as His own.

In the first reading today, we heard from the passage taken from the Book of Deuteronomy about the exhortation which Moses, the leader of Israel, gave to the entire people with regards to the Law which God had revealed before the people, and which He had expected the people to follow and obey. It was then also that, it was mentioned how the people must follow the Law without adding or taking away anything from it, but just obey the Law in its complete fullness.

And this is related to what the Lord Himself presented before His people, in the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark. In that Gospel passage, we heard of the frustration and the anger which the Lord felt towards the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who He decried as hypocrites with a shallow and superficial faith in God. This means that they did not keep a true and genuine faith.

He took great issue out of this particularly because those people were the ones entrusted to safeguard and preserve the Law, as well as teaching them to the people that they may keep them from generation to generation. They were the ones who were supposed to safeguard the Law from corruption and perversion of falsehood, and yet, they were the very ones who had corrupted and subverted the Law to their own selfish purposes.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law followed their own interpretation of the Law and the commandments, insisting that the people must follow their version of the Law and the commandments. And their version of the Law demands that everyone must follow all the rigid and unreasonable demands of their interpretation of the Law. They demanded many external observances of the Jewish customs, right to the smallest details.

For example, in today’s Gospel, the Pharisees took great issue and were offended that the disciples of the Lord did not follow the strict requirement of ritual cleansing and washing of oneself before a meal, which in fact involves a great detail of washing sequences, of the whole hands and arms right to the elbow. To the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, because the disciples did not obey the Law in the manner they prescribed, the disciples were considered unclean and unworthy.

That was the same sentiment they likely shared about the Lord Jesus, with Whom they had many issues and clashes throughout the occasions of His ministry. They thought of Him as someone Who is against the Law, even to the point of accusing Him of committing blasphemy against God, and of spreading His supposedly unorthodox teachings and ways among the people.

Yet, what the Lord Jesus taught was the truth, and it was the pure Law of God revealed to the people without the corruption of the Pharisees, the teachers of the Law and the past generations of the people of God. He revealed to everyone the true meaning of what God has given to His people in His Law, the Law of Love, that is the set of ordinances and rules meant to bring the people of God to understand the fullness of His love.

Yes, brothers and sisters in Christ, unlike the laws and rules practiced and propagated by the Pharisees, which were exclusive and punitive in nature, in how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law excluded and were prejudiced against those who did not follow their version of the Law, the true Law of God is inclusive and loving, and was meant to show the people how to love God and to love one another.

The Lord Himself revealed that the entire Law could be summarised into two key commandments, first of which is to love the Lord, Our God with all of our hearts, with all of our minds, with all of our strength. He is the first and foremost One for us to focus our love and attention on, and He must exist at the very core and centre of our lives. This is the key principle of the Law.

And because we love God, Who is so full of love, then naturally we must imitate His love for us mankind, and show the same love towards our fellow men, the second of the two key commandments of the Law. This means that for us to be able to obey the Law in its entirety and in its true intention, we must then internalise the Law and understand what it means for us to be followers of God.

First of all, the Law is a gift from God and is about bringing us closer to God and to help us to know more about Him and to get closer to Him. It is not for the glorification of ourselves just as how the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done. Those people abused and misused the Law to suit their own desires and to satisfy their human pride. Instead of using the Law to bring the people of God closer to Him, they chased people away from God by their exclusivism and self-righteous attitude.

As the Lord Jesus rightly pointed out in another occasion in the Gospels, the Pharisees, teachers of the Law and others did not observe the Law because they truly understood the Law and its purpose, but rather because they wanted to feel and gain the glory and praise from man, to feel the euphoria and pride of being at the centre of attention and human applauses, when they were praised for their supposed piety and obedience to the Law.

Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, how about we ourselves? Have we acted in this manner in our own lives? It is a sad reality for the Church, seeing how many of the faithful coming for Mass or any other Church activities, not because they loved God or were filled with the desire to love Him, but because they wanted to be seen by others, vying with each other for prestige, fame and glory. That is also how bickering and rivalry end up creating bitterness and pain in the Church, in many Church ministries and activities.

And when these things happen, we end up causing scandal for our faith, because instead of showing true examples of Christian discipleship and faith, we end up turning people away from the Lord, causing many to be disillusioned with the Church and the faith by our actions. That was exactly what the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law had done as well, turning the people of God seeking His mercy and forgiveness away and misguiding many others from the true path towards God.

Many of us unfortunately do not truly appreciate and understand the importance of obeying the Law of God in our own respective lives. That is why many of us eventually lose our faith and become indifferent. Many of us do not know why we have to come for the Holy Mass on Sundays of the Lord, and we did these just because it is merely an obligation to do so, or for some of us, we were afraid that if we did not obey, we would end up falling into hell.

That is why, it is important, brothers and sisters in Christ, to understand and appreciate both the letter and the spirit of the Law. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, as well as many of us only focus on the letter of the Law, but do not understand the spirit of the Law. What is this spirit of the Law? It is the true understanding of what God’s Law means for us, that is to bring us closer to God, to be more like God, to be loving just as the Lord, Our God is full of love.

Therefore, today, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all deeply reflect in our hearts and minds, and be thankful to God for what He has done for us. He has loved us so much, that despite our wretched state, our unworthiness and our disobedience against Him, all the sins we have committed against Him, He was still so full of love and mercy for us, that He gave us all His Law and Commandments. And He gave us His own Beloved Son, through Whom we receive the fullness of truth of the Law, and the perfect proof of His love.

For He gave everything to us, even to the point of suffering and dying for us on the cross, so that by His selfless love, He may bring us all into a new life and existence, no longer burdened by sin, but each and every one of us may be worthy of God and His love, and to receive forever, the fullness of His inheritance and love. May the Lord be with us always, and may He continue to love us and guide us in our journey of life, that we may reach Him through the guiding hands of the Law He has given us. May God bless us all. Amen.

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Sunday, 26 August 2018 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, all of us are brought to attention to mankind’s frequent disobedience against God’s will and our stubbornness in refusing to listen to Him and to believe in Him wholeheartedly. From the Scripture passages we read, we listened again and again to our ancestors’ tendency to turn away from God and to abandon Him for other, more appealing things for them.

In the first reading today, taken from the Book of Joshua, the leader of Israel after Moses, it was told that many years after the Lord had led His people to settle in the Promised Land of Canaan, and after He had driven away the pagans who used to live in those lands. But, what likely happened was that, the people of Israel started to wander off from the path which God had set before them.

It was likely that they began to embrace the pagan idols and the pagan worship as practiced by their neighbours. It was also possible that some of the Israelites intermarried with the local Canaanites, who then persuaded them to worship the gods of their ancestors. At the time that this article was referring to, Joshua was already very old, and at the end of his earthly life.

He called the whole people of Israel to gather and place before them the choice, that is either to be with God and to be obedient to all of their commandments, or to walk away from Him to be with the pagan idols and rejecting all the promises and graces God has given them. And Joshua made it very clear also that being faithful to God requires a commitment, and he committed himself and his whole family to God. And the Israelites seemingly did the same as well.

Unfortunately, if we read on the next part of the Bible in the Book of Judges, it was apparent that the Israelites did not keep their words and neither did they keep their end of the agreement and commitment, as they fell into pagan worship and rejection of God’s laws and commandments. Generations after generations, God raised up Judges to help and guide His people to return to Him, but again and again they fell into temptation.

This happened throughout the time of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as well. God sent His prophets to remind the people of their obligation to serve Him and to obey His laws and commandments, but many of them hardened their hearts and minds, refusing to believe in God and even persecuted the prophets and messengers sent into their midst.

Then in the second reading today, we heard St. Paul speaking to the Church and the faithful in the city of Ephesus through his Epistle to them. He spoke regarding the matter of husband and wife who have been united through the sacred bond of matrimony, and how it is important that both parties devote themselves towards each other. He mentioned that wives ought to be obedient and loving towards their husband, while the husbands ought to show care and love for their wives.

And in that same Epistle, St. Paul was making a lot of connections between the relationship of husbands and wives, and the relationship that Christ has with His Church. This is a reminder that in our marriage and in our families, there is a need for commitment and dedication by either side of the party. Marriage and family are not just something that we can take lightly.

Unfortunately, as shown throughout the Old and New Testament, as well as throughout the history of mankind and even among us Christians, there were indeed many obstacles to the building of good familial relationships and matrimonial unions. There were many obstacles and challenges facing those who build up families, that caused break-ups and destruction of those families, with many children entangled in the midst of those unfortunate tragedies.

And many of us are tempted by our eyes and by our flesh’s desires for sexual impropriety and immoral acts, especially in our ever increasingly hostile environment, where love and relationships become more and more commercialised, trivialised and all sorts of immoral and inappropriate relationships are promoted by the world around us. Many among us fell into these traps laid down in our path by the devil.

And lastly, the Gospel passage today showed us just how the Lord’s truth fell on deaf ears and stubborn hearts. When He told them that He is the Bread of Life Who came down from heaven, and that all those who eat of His Body and drink His Blood will have eternal life, many among the people who followed Jesus left Him, because they could not find in themselves the courage, the faith and the open-mindedness to accept the truth of God.

They could not accept the truth because they were still thinking mostly in worldly terms, and think that they knew it better than the truth presented by the Lord. They left Him behind because they could not dedicate themselves with the faith and commitment required of them. Even the Apostles and some of the disciples were also taken aback by what the Lord presented before them, but they remained faithful to Him and continued to follow Him, putting their trust in Him.

Brothers and sisters, all of these ought to remind us that as Christians, each and every one of us will inevitably face challenges, difficulties, oppositions and even persecutions from those who we encounter in life. And it is in fact often that those who are closest to us, will also cause us trouble and to be divided in ourselves. I am sure many of us have experienced before, the feeling of being torn between our obedience to God and our desire to be accepted by others, by our community and by the world.

This is where we need to stand up for our faith, although indeed as Christians evidently we also need to approach the issue with charity and grace. We cannot be easily swayed by the demands and the desires of the world, that we end up having no anchor of faith in God, or ending up being swallowed by those desires and by our ego and greed. This is what Satan intended to do with us, brothers and sisters! He wants to drag us down with him into eternal damnation.

The best way to confront this issue, is of course not through open confrontation or conflict. Rather, we should focus ourselves on God and reorientate ourselves to live our lives in accordance with His laws and commandments. We should strive to be righteous and just in each and every one of our actions, and to be exemplary in faith. Through all of these, we will draw closer to God and be beacons of faith for others to follow.

Let us therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, be examples and guides for one another, that each and every one of us may be able to find our way to God and to His saving grace. Let us all seek Him with all of our hearts and with all of our strength, and resist all the temptations that threaten to prevent us from finding our way to God. Let us therefore pray, that God will continue to strengthen us in faith, and to persevere in the midst of those challenges.

Should we falter and fall, let us take it as an opportunity for us to rebound back, and to repent wholeheartedly from our shortcomings and mistakes, turning back to God with a contrite and loving heart, rather than doubling down our sins. May the Lord be our strength and be our inspiration, that in each and every challenges we face in life, in each and every opposition we may encounter, we will always find joy knowing that despite what we may suffer from, we always walk in God’s presence and faithfully in His ways. Amen.

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Sunday, 19 August 2018 : Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, we continue for the third week, the discourse of the Body and Blood of Christ, which in the Gospel passage today, was mentioned by the Lord Jesus Himself, as the food and drink which He would give His people. The Jews, especially the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were both skeptical and even furious at such a revelation. To them, a Man such as Jesus could not have given Himself for them to eat and drink.

Why is that so? First of all, we have to understand clearly that the Jews understood what they heard from the Lord, from a completely worldly and materialistic perspective. They thought that it was completely disgusting that the Lord Jesus, as someone Who they thought as a Prophet and Holy Man of God, could have said something so unimaginable, as to say that He would give them His own flesh and blood.

But little did they realise that the Lord Jesus was not mincing His words, saying the very truth of what He would do. And this is also the very core and centre of our Christian faith, as we believe in God Who has willingly offered Himself, sacrificed Himself and allowed Himself to be lifted up high on the Cross at Calvary, so that by that offering of Himself, a perfect offering, He may become the worthy absolution for all of our sins.

In the first reading today, taken from the book of Proverbs, we heard about the gift of Wisdom to those who have none, and how Wisdom, personified as a woman, called upon the senseless and all those without wisdom and understanding to share and partake in the food and drink she has prepared. This is a premonition of what the Lord would ultimately reveal, that is the gift of His own true Wisdom, by the giving and sharing of Himself, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord.

In the first place, all of us do not have true wisdom in us, unless it came to us from the Lord. God alone knows everything, and He alone has all knowledge, of what is to come for us. He revealed to us all that for all that we have achieved in this world, all the glory and power we have gathered and attained, all of these are nothing without God. For we have to remember, first and foremost, that our lives came from God, and this life we owe it to the Lord alone.

Unfortunately, because of our disobedience, which led us to sin, have sundered us from this source of life. That is why, although once we have been intended to enjoy forever the wonders of the world in perfect bliss and joy, but due to sin, we have been cast out of Eden, and ended up suffering in this world. And we are made to suffer this mortal existence, having to meet with death at the end of our lives.

Because of our sins, we have been made unworthy of God’s grace and love, and we have been made unworthy of God’s holy Presence, as due to our sins, we have been defiled and corrupted. Nothing wicked and evil can stand before God and do not perish, and therefore, death and damnation are our just punishment and consequence for our failure to obey His will. But as we can see, God does not intend this to be our fate.

Instead, God loves each and every one of us so much that He Who has created us out of nothing, wants all of us to be reconciled and reunited with Him. God knows that without Him, all of us will eventually wither and perish, and separated from Him, we will suffer eternal anguish, pain and despair. That is what hell is, brothers and sisters in Christ, the state of existence, where those who have willingly and consciously rejected God, and therefore suffer for eternity the effects of their decision.

Although we mankind have been disobedient and rebellious in our actions, from time to time, day after day, but God is always patient, and He always remembers His love, the same love He has for us ever since the beginning of time. So great is His love, that He has given us the perfect means through which we may gain this reconciliation and reunion with God, and that is through Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour.

It is by the perfect and selfless giving of Himself, the perfect offering of His own Body and Blood, on the Altar of the Cross at Calvary, that He has given us the one and only means to be saved from our fated destruction and damnation in hell. He revealed this for the first time to the people in the beginning of His ministry, by what He told them in our Gospel passage today, of Him being the Bread of Life, the Source of our salvation.

But the people and the disciples would not come understand the true meaning of these words until after the Lord has already brought everything to its full and perfect completion. It was only later on that they would realise, through the Holy Spirit, that the Lord has truly done everything He could to save us mankind, even to the point of laying down His life on the cross, and giving us the best gift of all, the Most Holy Eucharist, the proof of His perfect love for us.

And the Eucharist is the centre and heart of all of our faith and belief in God. Why is that so? That is because we believe that, in the Eucharist, which is celebrated at every occasions of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is the Real Presence of the Lord, truly present in His Most Precious Body and Blood. He is truly present in the flesh, both fully Man and fully Divine as He is.

The bread and the wine offered at the Mass has been transformed completely into the substance, essence and reality of the Lord, Master and God of all. That means, although what we see is still the bread and the wine in appearance, but truthfully and we truly believe, as the core tenet of our Christian faith, that we have received nothing less than Our Lord Himself, present in Body and Blood.

Yet, there are many among us Christians who through our actions or through the way we live our faith, we have not shown appreciation, understanding and the urge as well as desire for the Lord truly present in His Body and Blood in the Eucharist. We have not shown the proper respect or reverence in welcoming Him into our lives. Remember, brothers and sisters, that God Himself has given His own Flesh for us to eat, and His own Blood for us to drink, that by partaking them, we may come to share in both His humanity and divinity.

That means, all of us are dwellings of the Lord, and our bodies, minds, hearts and souls are the Temples of God’s Holy Presence. Yet, many of us treat our body, mind, heart and soul as if without care, corrupting them with sins and wickedness through our actions. How can we then be worthy of God, Who comes to us directly and dwelling in us through His Most Precious Body and Blood?

Let us all reflect on this, and think of how we can correct our attitude and actions, that we may come to be truly faithful to God, and show sincerely, our faith and belief in God, Who is truly present in Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist. Let us turn to Him wholeheartedly, He Who has given us Himself that by sharing in His death, we may die to our sins, and share in His glorious resurrection as well.

The Lord has revealed this wonderful truth to us, showing us His great and boundless love. Are we able to love Him in the same manner, giving Him all of our attention, focus and our love? Let us all adore Him in the Most Holy Eucharist, His Real Presence among us on earth, and appreciate the fact that He has chosen to come into us, unworthy sinners, that we may be transformed by His Presence, and through the Holy Spirit He has sent us, we may all find true Wisdom, and turn therefore away from the false temptations of the world, and find our true treasure, that is God, and God alone.

May God bless us all, and may He empower each and every one of us, through the most wonderful spiritual sustenance we have received, the Bread of Life, that while once we were sinners doomed to die and perish, we now have the sure hope and assurance of eternal life with our loving God. Amen.

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Sunday, 12 August 2018 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we continue the discourse we had from the previous Sunday, on the Lord’s words to the people of Him being the Bread of Life, giving His own Flesh and Body to all of them to share and eat. But we heard how the people refused to believe in Him and even uttered disgustingly at such a suggestion, saying, how can such a Man give them something to eat from His own Body?

That is because they did not have faith in them, and they did not believe that Jesus is more than just a mere Man like them, even when they have seen all the miracles that He had performed in their midst and despite all that He had taught them, just as the prophets had written that the Saviour would have done. They have hardened their hearts and minds and refused to believe in the Lord’s truth.

In today’s first reading, taken from the Book of Kings, we heard about the prophet Elijah who at that time was fleeing the harsh persecutions he had endured for quite a long time under the wicked kings of Israel and their idol-worshipping followers. The prophet Elijah was at the end of his wits and was in great despair, wanting the Lord to end his suffering there and then right away. It is quite understandable considering the kind of treatment that Elijah had received at the hands of his enemies.

But the Lord sent His Angel to provide food for Elijah to eat, and He commanded the prophet to eat through the Angel, for the upcoming journey He had to take would be a perilous one. Elijah was likely still hesitant, but in the end, he obeyed the Lord’s commands, and ate the bread and food given to Him. The food gave him sustenance and strength to go on a long journey of forty days and nights towards the mountain of God, Mount Horeb, where Moses once received God’s laws.

It was there that God met Elijah, and spoke to him, and strengthened his faith. And ever since then, Elijah continued his ministry, braving through persecutions and trials, carrying out what God wanted him to do, faithfully and with great zeal. This is also a reminder of God’s sustenance and care for His entire people, when He gave them manna, bread from heaven to eat for the entire period of forty years of their journey to the Promised Land of Canaan.

But as the Lord Jesus said in the Gospel passage highlighted the fact that those bread that God gave, while they gave sustenance to the physical body and made them all satisfied and filled, with strength to carry on the long journey, to the Promised Land for the Israelites and to Mount Horeb for the prophet Elijah, but eventually those bread are food that sustains only our physical flesh and body, and ultimately, they are nothing compared to the True Bread and Food from heaven that God would come to give His people, that is His own Flesh and Blood.

And brothers and sisters in Christ, speaking about going in a journey, are we all aware that each and every one of us are also currently in a journey? Our lives are journeys for each one of us, and we embark on this journey of life, with the ultimate destination of being reconciled with God and being in full union with Him, at the end of our lives, when we may be reunited with Him in full grace and love.

We have to make this journey in life because of our sins, the original sin of Adam and Eve, our forefathers, and all of our own mortal and venial sins that have caused us to be separated and sundered from God’s love and grace. Our life on earth, in this world, and all of the sufferings we encounter is this journey of life that we are taking, and we are all on our way towards God.

But on the way, many of us will be distracted and fall off the path, going to the wrong way and direction, and there are many other offerings out there that may seem to be more attractive to us than our original intended destination. That is the devil at work, together with all of his forces and allies, bound on making us to fall into temptation and therefore fall into the eternal damnation in hellfire.

That is why, just as all those who are going on a journey need food to sustain themselves, and not just any type of food, but good, nourishing and hygienic food, not rotten or useless for us in terms of nutrition. Let us imagine if one were to bring perishable food to places like a desert, where there is no way for us to preserve those food. In that case, the food will spoil and if we eat this food, we will be in trouble.

And what is the right food for this kind of journey? It is none other than the Holy Eucharist, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself, the Bread of Life, Who has promised all of us who share in His Body, of everlasting life and union with God. We may see that it is just a mere bread and mere wine, as others in the world would also have seen them, but what is different for us, is that we have faith.

The most important part of our faith is our belief that the priest in the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass, by the power and authority given to him, has turned and transformed the bread and the wine into the very essence and material of the Lord Himself, His Real Presence in the Eucharist. It was not bread or wine that we receive during the Holy Communion, and neither have we received just a mere symbol of His Body and Blood.

Though by appearance it may seem to remain as bread and wine, but in reality, the Eucharist is the Lord Himself, fully present in our midst and within us, as the physical Body and Blood of Our Lord that has dwelled within us. The Eucharist is the sustenance which the Lord Himself has given us, to share in His Body and Blood, that we may share in His death and resurrection, dying to our past sins and rising to our new life in Him.

The Lord sustains us through the Eucharist, which is eternally linked to the same sacrifice which Our Lord had performed at Calvary, and this sustenance give us the strength and the power to go on in our faith and in how we lived our lives. But have we often taken our reception of the Eucharist for granted? Many of us have, in our attitude towards the Eucharist and in our understanding of its significance.

We still received the Eucharist when we are in a state of sin, and have not repented from our sins and confessed them, and we did not show proper deference and respect for the Lord, even though in our faith, we know that it is Him truly present in our midst. This is the attitude which we must avoid, and discard immediately should we have it with us at the moment.

Therefore, let us be sincere in our faith in the Lord’s ultimate gift in His own Body and Blood, in the Eucharist that He has bestowed upon us through the Church and the holy priests He has appointed to be our shepherds. Let us all love Him with all of our hearts, with all of our minds, and with all of our strength. Let us all turn back towards Him, with a heart that is filled with love for Him, and the desire to be reconciled and reunited with Him.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all therefore realise what it is that we need to do in order to reach out to the Lord from the way that He has shown us all. It is by receiving the sustenance of the Eucharist, Most Precious and Holy Body of Christ, worthily and with faith in Him. Let us grow ever stronger in our commitment to love God and to follow His path, despite the challenges and difficulties we may encounter. May the Lord bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 5 August 2018 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday of the Lord, we listened from the Scriptures, through which we heard about the Lord Who fed His people with food, to sustain them through life, beginning from the time of the Exodus from Egypt, when the Israelites traversed the desert for forty years in order to reach the Promised Land. They took so long on the journey because they disobeyed the Lord and refused to believe in Him. They made complaints after complaints, that the Lord punished them for their disobedience.

But God never intended for them to be destroyed, and He never wanted to punish them unless it was necessary for Him to do so. When He punished them, He was like a father who disciplines his children, wanting them to be developing well and not be spoilt by their own lack of discipline and understanding of what it means to grow up into a good and obedient child. God was doing what was necessary to ensure that His children would not end up falling further into sin.

The Israelites were swayed by the ways of their neighbours and those they have encountered during their journey, including that of their Egyptian former slave-masters. Although their ancestors and they themselves worshipped the one and only True God Who has brought them out of slavery, but the love of gold and worldly pleasures tempted them into sin, as they could not resist the temptation of gold and the wealth of the world, when they carried off many golden vessels and items given to them by the Egyptians.

They ended up making the golden image of a calf, likely modelled after the pagan gods of the Egyptians, and claimed it to be their god. They would rather worship an empty, human-made idol made by human hands rather than the One Who created all of them and the entire universe, the One Who had also shown His might and power before them, by His ten plagues and the many miracles which He had performed in their midst.

And that is the story behind what happened to the people of Israel, and why they constantly sinned against God, grumbling and complaining, because they sought worldly pleasures and they wanted to satisfy their body’s desires. They felt the urge of their bodies to satisfy themselves with food and sustenance of this world, and when they could not get what they wanted, they rebelled against God Who has loved them so much.

But against these people, these unfaithful and ever ungrateful children, God was ever patient and loving, and He provided them with food, food from heaven itself, the bread called the manna, as well as large flock of birds that flew into the encampment of the people of Israel. They had enough food to eat, for not just a short moment of time, but for the entire forty years period of their journey. They were well taken care of, and when they were thirsty in the middle of the desert, God gave them crystal clear water to drink.

Last Sunday, we also heard about God Who fed His people, especially the Lord Jesus Who fed the multitudes of the five thousand men and countless more women and children. He blessed and broke the bread that miraculously were able to feed all of them, despite there was being only five loaves present, and with twelve baskets of leftovers. God loved His people, and He knew of their hunger, and that was why He fed them with food, to make sure that they did not suffer from the hunger.

However, today, it is reminded to each and every one of us, that we have received an infinitely greater gift of sustenance from God, one that does not merely satisfy just the hunger of our physical bodies. On the contrary, this perfect gift from God satisfies all of our needs, fulfilling our hearts, minds, souls and indeed, our entire being. This gift is none other than His own Most Precious Body and Blood, the Most Holy Eucharist.

Today, all of us are reminded that Christ Our Lord is the Bread of Life, as He Himself mentioned in the Gospel passage we have today. And this life is not just the earthly life and existence which we have now, but true life, that is everlasting, our eternal existence with God. Just as we need to eat food in order to sustain ourselves bodily and physically, and how those who lack food will eventually die, without the Bread of Life, we will perish eternally and suffer an eternity of true death.

Now, brothers and sisters, do we all realise just how beloved and fortunate each and every one of us have been? We are truly very fortunate and blessed to have God, Our loving Father, Who devoted Himself to our care and to our whole well-being. Just as He had taken care of the people of Israel every single day for forty years in the desert, He has also taken care of every single one of us.

First of all, He gave us life, so that we can live in this world. He gave us opportunities, one after another, to find our way and path to Him. And then, He gave us the promise of eternal life through His Passion, suffering and death on the cross. He gave us nothing less than His own life, so that we can live. And not just any life, but life of eternity, and an eternity of loving existence with God, through the sharing in His Body and Blood.

The Holy Mass is as we know it, the sacrifice of the Lord on Calvary which is happening at every moment the priest offers up the bread and the wine, and relating what happened at the Last Supper, when the Lord Jesus said, “Take this all of you and eat of it, for this is My Body…” and also “Take this all of you and drink of it, for this is the chalice of My Blood…” It is the same sacrifice of Our Lord that we participate in, and the same Body and Blood which He has given to His disciples at the Last Supper.

It is the essence and reality of bread and wine that has been completely transformed by the priest, in persona Christi, by His power and through the Holy Spirit, into the Lord’s own Body and Blood, which we receive as the sign of our reception of the Lord into ourselves and our Communion with the whole body of the Universal Church. The Lord Himself has come into us, in flesh and blood, and we took Him into our own body, which has then become God’s Holy Temple.

Unfortunately, there are still quite a few of us who do not realise this truth, or that they chose to ignore this fact. Many of us do not show the proper reverence to the Lord’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, treating it nothing more than receiving and consuming a piece of bread. And many of us treat the Eucharist lightly and even with contempt, by the way that we receive the Lord.

What do I mean by that, brothers and sisters in Christ? We all know that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist, but yet, some of us come to receive Him when we are not in a proper state to receive Him, meaning that we are not in a state of grace. We committed all sorts of mortal and serious sins, and yet, we come to receive the Lord with our sins without repentance and without regret for them.

Now, this is a serious sin against God and a scandal for our Church and our faith. St. Paul reminded us all through his Epistle to the Corinthians that each and every one of us is a Temple of the Holy Spirit, the dwelling place of God Himself. And it is therefore right and just for us to make sure that we keep this Temple holy and clean from defilement. Yet, many of us have defiled God’s holy Temple by our own sins and by our own refusal to repent.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, therefore let us all reflect on our own lives. Let us all look again at all the things we have done in life thus far, both good and evil, and think of whether we have done what we should have done as the followers of Christ, or whether we have wandered off far away from God’s path. Let us all seek to rediscover the true purpose of our lives, that is to serve God and to glorify Him.

Let us all distance ourselves from the many idols and distractions present in our lives, so that we will no longer fall into the same predicament as that of the Israelites. Let us all distance ourselves from all these distractions and temptations, and do our very best to love the Lord from now on. God has loved each and every one of us so much that we could not have existed and lived without Him. We must repent from our sins and truly regret all the wicked things we have done in His presence.

Are we thankful to God Who has loved us and given us what we need in life? Have we taken His love for granted, and even betrayed Him or else abandoned Him for something we deemed to be better than Him, when He has done everything He could to provide for us and to give us His love, that He gave us nothing less than His life, bearing His cross and die for us? Should we not love Him with the same generosity and conviction in love?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today all of us are called to turn to the Lord, Our God, with a renewed sense of purpose and with a new commitment, to love Him with all of our hearts, with all of our minds and with all of our might. He, the Bread of Life, has given us so much, for our sake, that now, we have to also love Him in the same way, devoting ourselves to Him, from now onwards.

May the Lord, Who gave us life and Who loves us dearly, continue to bless us and to be with us, every single day of our lives, that we may continue to draw ever closer to Him, and to love Him with ever greater passion, through our every actions, words and deeds. Let us all have the Lord as the centre and focus of our lives, that we may no longer be separated with Him, but growing ever more intimate in our relationship with Him, day after day.

O Lord, Bread of Life, be with us always, and dwell within our hearts that we may be sanctified by Your presence. May all of us be holy just as You are holy, in our every words, in our every dealings with others, and in how we show the same love You have shown us from the beginning of time, to one another, our fellow brothers and sisters in You, Our loving Father. Amen.

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Sunday, 29 July 2018 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday, we listened to the word of God in the Scriptures, from the Old and New Testament, and from the Gospel passage, all forming a common theme of God feeding His people through wondrous deeds, by which He, through the prophets and His own Son, gave them food to eat, and then, how this sharing of meal and food are very symbolic to all of us as Christians.

In the first reading today, we heard from the Book of Kings of the moment when a man brought a food offering to the man of God, Elisha, the prophet God had appointed over His people. Elisha told the man to give the bread to the people, of which there were more than a hundred of them gathered. Evidently, there were not enough bread for the man immediately said that he could not have given the bread to all the people gathered there.

But the prophet Elisha told the man to trust in the word of God, and follow what He had asked him to do through the prophet. For God would indeed provide for His people, and true enough, all of the people had enough to eat from the few pieces of bread, and sharing the bread, they had even leftovers to be gathered. This miraculous event would happen again during the time of Jesus, the famous feeding of the five thousand men mentioned in our Gospel passage today.

At that time, there were five thousand men and many more uncounted women and children who were gathered at the plain where the Lord was teaching and preaching the truth of God. They had been following Him for several days, coming from nearby and even farther away towns and cities, not carrying much if any provisions or food with them. Naturally, they would also go hungry and the Lord had pity on them.

Thus, the Lord called for food to be distributed among the people, but there were only five loaves of bread and two fishes were present, brought by a young boy. The disciples doubted, and St. Andrew asked, just as the man in the story of the prophet Elisha, if there was enough bread and food to feed the huge multitudes of the people. But the Lord reassured them, and told them to do as He said. He made them all to sit down to be ready to feed from the bread and the fishes given from His hands.

The Lord blessed the bread and the fishes, and took the bread, and broke them, and giving them to His disciples, to be distributed to the people. From there, all of the people ate until they were all fully satisfied, and yet, still twelve full baskets of bread could be gathered in the end. This was indeed another seemingly impossible feat, similar to what the prophet Elisha had performed. But God’s grace was truly with His people, and God Himself, through His Son, Jesus, performed that before the people.

Then, if we read on to our second reading today, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Church and the faithful in the city of Ephesus, what we have heard from the story of the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the food that was blessed by God, all of us can see a new significance and importance to what we have just heard. In fact, this is part of the central tenet of our faith and what it means for us to be Christians, as members of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

In that Epistle, St. Paul wrote about the faithful being part of one Body and having faith in one God. This is what it means for all of us Christians to belong to the Church of God, as St. Paul further elaborated in his Epistle to the Corinthians, mentioning that ‘you are Christ’s Body, and you are individually members of this Body.’ He was referring to the Church, the united body of the faithful, which together forms the Body of Christ, with Christ Himself as the Head.

All of us are united in this same Body, the Church of God, having received the same Spirit, and united by our common identity, that is the sharing of the Most Precious and Holy Body, and Blood of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in the Eucharist. The word Holy Communion itself refers to this sharing of the same Body and Blood of Christ, which we receive at the celebration of the Holy Mass. Only those who have been baptised as faithful and devout members of the Church can receive Holy Communion.

This is not a statement of exclusivity, but rather a reiteration of the fact that all of us who have received Holy Communion and are in the good standing of faith and in a state of grace, worthy of continuing to receive the Eucharist, are united with each other, as members of God’s Holy Church, sharing in the broken Body of Christ. And in order to fully appreciate the significance of this fact, we must link what we have heard from our first reading and Gospel passages today, with the institution of the Eucharist itself.

At the Last Supper, the Lord broke the bread and shared the bread with His disciples, and did the same with the wine, which He passed to His disciples to drink. And He said that the bread is His Body, and the wine is His Blood. At that time, the disciples have yet to understand the full meaning of these words that Christ said to them. But after the events that transpired the next day, which we celebrate every year on Good Friday, the crucifixion itself, the whole truth of the Eucharist has been made available to all of us.

For the Lord crucified on Calvary, on His cross, is the fulfilment of the breaking of the bread and the institution of the Eucharist which He had done at the Last Supper. By laying down His life and being lifted up on the cross, He offered Himself, in His Body and Blood, the bread and wine offered, both at the Last Supper and at every celebration of the Holy Mass, to God the Father, Who accepted the perfect offering of His Son, and all of us who receive this same Body and Blood of Our Lord, now becomes one Body in Him.

By partaking the Body and Blood of Our Lord, we take the Lord into ourselves, and we become united in body and spirit with Him. And it is through this union that we have united ourselves as one Church through Christ, with all of our fellow brothers and sisters in faith. And now, if we have not taken this union, that is this Holy Communion we have as good and righteous members of the Church seriously, perhaps, this is the time that we begin to do so.

What does this mean? It means that whenever we commit a grave sin, we have sundered ourselves from this union with God, and hence the Church has ruled that based on Scriptural truth and tradition of the Apostles and the Church fathers, we have to go to confession before we are to receive the Eucharist, or else, we commit an even greater sin, of ignorance of the true nature of the Eucharist, that is Our Lord Himself, present in Body and Blood.

And if the Lord Himself has come to us and is willing to enter into our lives, then should we not take our faith much more seriously from now on? Shall we not turn ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord, Who has loved us so much, that He feeds us with not just bread as He had done with the people of Elisha’s time and the people of the time of Jesus? But with the Bread of Life Himself, the Lord Who nourishes us by His own sacrifice on the cross?

Shall we turn to Him with regret for our sins and wickedness in life, if we have done Him injustice and wrong, disobeyed His laws and precepts, and committed sins that were grave enough to separate us from this Communion which we have with our fellow brethren in the one Church of God? Shall we from now on, truly believe in all of our hearts, minds and in all of our whole beings, that we shall have complete and absolute faith in God and in His Real Presence in the Eucharist?

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all seek to preserve this unity, this sanctity present in the Church. And how do we do so? It is by living our faith with genuine dedication and commitment, every single days of our life. If we see any of our brethren falling away from the way of faith, let us all help and pray for them, that they may return to the true faith, and we ourselves have to be exemplary in our lives, or else, how can we convince others to be faithful to God?

Let us all renew our commitment to God, and let us all live our lives with greater realisation of our existence as members of God’s holy Church, united with Him and with one another, fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. May the Lord be our strength, and may He continue to guide us and empower us, daily, that despite the challenges and the temptations to sin, we will always strive to be ever worthy of God, and of this holiness we are called to be as members of God’s one Body, one Church. Amen.