Sunday Mass

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Sunday, 2 September 2018 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

James 1 : 17-18, 21b-22, 27

Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of Light, in Whom there is no change, or shadow of a change. By His own will, He gave us life, through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of offering to Him, among His creatures.

And welcome the word that has been planted in you, and has the power to save you. Be doers of the word, and not just hearers, lest you deceive yourselves. In the sight of God, our Father, pure and blameless religion lies in helping the orphans, and widows in their need, and keeping oneself from the world’s corruption.

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Sunday, 2 September 2018 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 14 : 2-3ab, 3cd-4ab, 5

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right, who speak truth from their heart and control their words.

Those who do no harm to their neighbours and cast no discredit on their companions, who look down on evildoers but highly esteem God’s servants.

Those who do not lend money at interest and refuse a bribe against the innocent. Do this, and you will soon be shaken.

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Sunday, 2 September 2018 : Twenty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Deuteronomy 4 : 1-2, 6b-8

And now, Israel, listen to the norms and laws which I teach that you may put them into practice. And you will live and enter and take possession of the land which YHVH, the God of your fathers, gives you. Do not add anything to what I command you nor take anything away from it. But keep the commandments of YHVH, your God, as I command you.

When they come to know of all these laws, they will say, “There is no people as wise and as intelligent as this great nation.” For in truth, is there a nation as great as ours, whose gods are as near to it as YHVH, our God, is to us whenever we call upon Him? And is there a nation as great as ours whose norms and laws are as just as this Law which I give you today.

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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, 26 August 2018 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

John 6 : 60-69

At that time, after the Jews heard Jesus, many of His followers said, “This language is very hard! Who can accept it?”

Jesus was aware that His disciples were murmuring about this, and so He said to them, “Does this offend you? Then how will you react when you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? It is the Spirit that gives life, not the flesh. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and they are life. But among you there are some who do not believe.”

From the beginning, Jesus knew who would betray Him. So He added, “As I have told you, no one can come to Me unless it is granted by the Father.” After this many disciples withdrew and no longer followed Him. Jesus asked the Twelve, “Will you also go away?

Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We now believe and know that You are the Holy One of God.”

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Sunday, 26 August 2018 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 5 : 21-32

Let all kinds of submission to one another become obedience to Christ. So wives to their husbands : as to the Lord. The husband is the head of his wife, as Christ is the Head of the Church, His Body, of Whom He is also the Saviour. And as the Church submits to Christ, so let a wife submit in everything to her husband.

As for you, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. He washed her and made her holy by baptism in the Word. As He wanted a radiant Church without stain or wrinkle or any blemish, but holy and blameless, He Himself had to prepare and present her to Himself.

In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. And no one has ever hated his body; he feeds and takes care of it. This is just what Christ does for the Church, because we are members of His Body.

Scripture says : Because of this a man shall leave his father and mother to be united with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a very great mystery, and I refer to Christ and the Church.

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Sunday, 26 August 2018 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 33 : 2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21, 22-23

I will praise YHVH all my days; His praise will be ever on my lips. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the lowly hear and rejoice.

The eyes of YHVH are fixed on the righteous; His ears are inclined to their cries. But His face is set against the wicked, to destroy their memory from the earth.

YHVH hears the cry of the righteous and rescues them from all their troubles. YHVH is close to the brokenhearted and saves the distraught.

Many are the troubles of the just, but YHVH delivers them from all. He keeps all their bones intact, and none of them will be broken.

Evil will slay the wicked; the enemies of the just will be doomed. But YHVH will redeem the life of His servants; none of those who trust in Him will be doomed.

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Sunday, 26 August 2018 : Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Joshua 24 : 1-2a, 15-17, 18b

Joshua summoned all the tribes of Israel in Shechem, and assembled the elders, judges and secretaries. And together they presented themselves before God.

Addressing the people, Joshua said to them : “If you do not want to serve YHVH, make known this very day whom you shall serve – whether they be the gods your ancestors served in Mesopotamia or the gods of the Amorites who formerly occupied the land in which you now live. As for me, I and my household will serve YHVH.”

The people answered : “May God not permit that we ever abandon YHVH to serve other gods! For it was He Who brought us and our ancestors out of Egypt, the house of slavery. It was He Who did those great wonders that we have seen; He protected us on the way and through all the land where we passed. So we shall also serve YHVH : He is our God!”

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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, 19 August 2018 : Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

John 6 : 51-58

Jesus said to His disciples and to the people, “I am the Living Bread from heaven; whoever eats of this Bread will live forever. The Bread I shall give is My Flesh, and I will give it for the life of the world.”

The Jews were arguing among themselves, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” So Jesus replied, “Truly, I say to you, if you do not eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you. The one who eats My Flesh and drinks My Blood lives eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

“My Flesh is really food, and My Blood is truly drink. Those who eat My Flesh and drink My Blood, live in Me, and I in them. Just as the Father, Who is Life, sent Me, and I have life from the Father, so whoever eats Me will have life from Me. This is the Bread from heaven; not like that of your ancestors, who ate and later died. Those who eat this Bread will live forever.”