Sunday Mass

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Sunday, 11 August 2024 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 33 : 2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9

I will bless the Lord 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.

Oh, let us magnify the Lord, together let us glorify His Name! I sought the Lord, and He answered me; from all my fears He delivered me.

They who look to Him are radiant with joy, their faces never clouded with shame. When the poor cry out, the Lord hears and saves them from distress.

The Lord’s Angel encamps and patrols to keep safe those who fear Him. Oh, see and taste the goodness of the Lord! Blessed is the one who finds shelter in Him!

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Sunday, 11 August 2024 : Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

1 Kings 19 : 4-8

Elijah himself disappeared into the desert going on a day’s journey. Then he sat down under a broom tree and prayed to die, “That is enough, YHVH, take away my life for I am dying.”

He lay down and went to sleep under the broom tree. Then an Angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” Elijah looked and saw, at his head, a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and went back to sleep. The Angel of YHVH came a second time to him, saying, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too long for you.”

He got up, ate and drank, and on the strength of that food, he travelled for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.

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Sunday, 4 August 2024 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday all of us are reminded on one very important aspects of our Christian faith, the very core tenet of our beliefs, namely that of the belief in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Most Holy Eucharist which we partake at every celebrations of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We are all reminded that as God’s people we are all cared by Him, and He has always loved us most generously and tenderly without any exception. Each and every one of us are beloved of the Lord, so much so that He has provided for us physically and spiritually in all things most wholesomely just as how He had shown it in the past through what we have heard in our Scripture passages this Sunday. And ultimately, He gave to us all the ultimate and best gift of all, namely that of His only begotten Son, Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

In our first reading this Sunday, we heard from the Book of Exodus in which the Lord provided His people, the Israelites, with food and provisions during the time of their Exodus and journey from the land of Egypt to the Promised Land of Canaan through the desert. At that time, the Israelites after having travelled through the desert for some time began complaining about their state of life, as they compared their status to when they were still enslaved back in the land of Egypt. They were saying that it would have been better for them to remain in Egypt as slaves and enjoying whatever bounties and food that they had in Egypt rather than to be free and to wander off in the desert on their way to this land promised to them by God.

This showed that the people of Israel did not have faith and trust in the Lord, and showing just how little confidence they had in God Who up to that time had showed them repeatedly His love and kindness, His compassion and mercy. God has not abandoned His people even when they disobeyed Him and refused to listen to Him. He provided for them and helped them, just as He had done earlier on in Egypt. He showed them His power when He led the people out of Egypt, striking upon the Egyptians with ten great plagues that humbled the Egyptians and their Pharaoh, forcing them to admit that the Lord is truly the one and only God, the Master of all, and that He is the Lord over all the Israelites, whom He brought out of the land of Egypt with great power, even opening the sea itself before them. He kept on doing these even when His people doubted Him and did not fully put their faith and trust in Him.

As we heard in that passage from the Book of Exodus, the Lord sent to the Israelites bread from Heaven itself, the manna, which gave them sustenance and provision for their entire time and journey in the desert, over the whole entire forty years period of that journey. He also gave them flocks of birds in the evening just as the manna came in the morning to make them all have their fill, and despite the desert being mostly inhospitable for life and without any food, but God made His people miraculously not just surviving in their forty years sojourn in the desert, but also thrived during that whole period. He also gave them crystal clear and good water to drink throughout their journey, giving them everything they needed even amidst all their rebellious attitudes and actions.

In our second reading, taken from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in Ephesus, we heard of the words of the Apostle speaking to the people of the need for all of them to reject and abandon their past lives of sin, their disobedience against God and their wickedness, all of which should be exchanged for a new life filled with God’s grace and light, His truth and love. As Christians, St. Paul reminded all of us that we should no longer allow ourselves to be easily swayed by worldly temptations and all sorts of desires, ambitions, pursuits for fame and glory which many of us often indulged in, all of which can lead us astray from the Lord and His path as many of our predecessors had experienced. Instead, we should embrace the path that the Lord has shown us wholeheartedly, allowing Him to transform our lives to embody what we believe in Him.

Then, in our Gospel passage this Sunday, from the Gospel of St. John, we heard of the discourse of the Bread of Life from the Lord to His disciples and to all those who have come seeking Him. At that time, which was just after the Lord performed the wondrous miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and fishes, feeding many thousands of people, many among the people were astonished at what they had experienced, in receiving the miraculous feeding with bread, that they came seeking for the Lord when He went away with His disciples. They were seeking Him as the Lord Himself mentioned because they were satisfied after being fed with all the food and they were seeking satisfaction and pleasures of the world, but they did not truly have strong and genuine faith in the Lord yet.

That was why when the people mentioned how their ancestors were fed by the heavenly bread, the manna, the Lord told them all that it was indeed God Who had provided and given them the bread to eat, to sustain and nourish them throughout the journey, a feat which the Lord Himself also replicated and repeated again before their own eyes, as they saw and witnessed how the Lord gave them multitudes of food from merely five loaves of bread and two fishes. Through this act and event, God showed them all His loving Presence being manifested through His Son in this world, showing them how He had been truly present in their midst, loving them and caring for them as He has always done. And not only that, but He was giving them even more than just merely physical bread, as He gave Himself to be the Living Bread, broken and shared for them, something that far surpasses even the manna.

For through His loving sacrifice made and offered on the Cross, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has given us all His own Most Precious Body and Most Precious Blood to share and partake, so that all of us may truly gain the perfect fulfilment and satisfaction, giving us the ultimate gift and nourishment that no physical sustenance can provide us. Through the Most Holy Eucharist, Our Lord’s own Presence in the flesh, in His Body and Blood, all of us have become the Temple of God’s Holy Presence, as He dwells within us, and the Holy Spirit He has imparted upon us blessing and sanctifying us all with His grace. But even more importantly, we must realise just how fortunate we are for us having been loved in such a way by our loving God and Creator, and we are therefore called to do our part in the Covenant that He has established with us.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, each and every one of us as part of His one united Body, through this sharing of the Most Holy and Sacred Communion, of all the believers in Christ, we are all called to sanctify our lives and existence by doing our very best in each and every circumstances in our respective lives that our whole lives, our every actions and deeds may be truly filled with God’s light and truth, His grace and love. We should be thankful for everything that God has given us, and make best use of the many opportunities and the talents and abilities which He has blessed us with, so that in everything we say and do, in our every interactions with one another, we will continue to be good examples and role models, inspirations and strength for one another to continue living our lives as genuine Christians at all times.

May the Lord continue to guide us in our journey, and may He continue to strengthen and nourish us all with His Bread of Life, the Holy Eucharist that we continue to partake in. Let us all continue to focus and put the emphasis of our lives upon the Lord in all the things that we say and do, in all of our every moments in life. May we all as Christians also continue to live ever more worthily in all circumstances, doing our best so that we may continue to grow ever stronger in our love and faith in the Lord, and that our lives may continue to bring glory to the Lord, now and forevermore. Amen.

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Sunday, 4 August 2024 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

John 6 : 24-35

At that time, when the people saw that neither Jesus nor His disciples were there, they got into the boats and went to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found Him on the other side of the lake, they asked Him, “Master, when did You come here?”

Jesus answered, “Truly, I say to you, you look for Me, not because of the signs which you have seen, but because you ate bread and were satisfied. Work then, not for perishable food, but for the lasting food which gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give it to you, for He is the One on Whom the Father has put His mark.”

Then the Jews asked Him, “What shall we do? What are the works that God wants us to do?” And Jesus answered them, “The work God wants is this : that you believe in the One Whom God has sent.” They then said, “Show us miraculous signs, that we may see and believe You. What sign do You perform? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert; as Scripture says : They were given bread from heaven to eat.”

Jesus then said to them, “Truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven. My Father gives you the True Bread from heaven. The Bread God gives is the One Who comes from heaven and gives life to the world.” And they said to Him, “Give us this Bread always.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the Bread of Life; whoever comes to Me shall never be hungry, and whoever believes in Me shall never be thirsty.”

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Sunday, 4 August 2024 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 4 : 17, 20-24

I say to you, then, and with insistence I advise you, in the Lord : do not imitate the pagans, who live an aimless kind of life. But it is not for this, that you have followed Christ. For, I suppose, that you have heard of Him, and received His teaching, which is seen in Jesus Himself. You must give up your former way of living, the old self, whose deceitful desires bring self-destruction.

Renew yourselves, spiritually, from inside, and put on the new self, or self, according to God, that is created in true righteousness and holiness.

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Sunday, 4 August 2024 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 77 : 3 and 4bc, 23-24, 25 and 54

Mysteries which we have heard and known, which our ancestors have told us. We will announce them to the coming generation : the glorious deeds of the Lord, His might and the wonders He has done.

Yet, He commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven; He rained down manna upon them, and fed them with the heavenly grain.

They ate and had more than their fill of the bread of Angels. He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had won.

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Sunday, 4 August 2024 : Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Exodus 16 : 2-4, 12-15

In the desert the whole community of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron and said to them, “If only we had died by the hand of YHVH in Egypt when we sat down to caldrons of meat and ate all the bread we wanted, whereas you have brought us to this desert to let the whole assembly die of starvation!”

YHVH then said to Moses, “Now I am going to rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to gather what is needed for that day. In this way I will test them to see if they will follow My teaching or not.”

“I have heard the complaints of Israel. Speak to them and say : Between the two evenings you will eat meat, and in the morning you will have bread to your heart’s content; then you shall know that I am YHVH, your God!”

In the evening quails came up and covered the camp. And in the morning, dew had fallen around the camp. When the dew lifted, there was on the surface of the desert a thin crust like hoarfrost. The people of Israel upon seeing it said to one another, “What is it?” for they did not know what it was. Moses told them, “It is the bread that YHVH has given you to eat.”

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Sunday, 28 July 2024 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday as we all listened to the words of the Lord in the Scriptures, we are all reminded that each and every one of us are the ones whom God had loved and shown His favour to, and all of us need to realise just how fortunate we all to have been beloved by the Lord in such a way. All of us has received from the Lord Himself the generous love and kindness, forgiveness and mercy for all of our wrongdoings and evil deeds, as long as we are willing to seek Him for forgiveness and mercy. Therefore each one of us as His disciples and followers, as Christians, are all called to do our best in our lives in each and every moments so that our lives may truly be a reflection of God’s love and truth, and that we may truly be His worthy disciples and followers.

In our first reading today, taken from the Second Book of Kings of Israel and Judah, we heard of the account of the miracle that happened during the time of the prophet Elisha and his ministry among the people of the northern kingdom of Israel. At that time, as we heard, there were a hundred men assembled in that place where Elisha was. Then while they were there, a man brought the products of the first harvest to Elisha, a total of twenty loaves of bread. If we assume that each of the hundred men eat one loaf of bread each, there were not nearly enough for a quarter of their number to eat, less still for all of them. In addition, there was also a famine raging at the timeline of this event in the land of Israel. As such, if we understand the context of these events, we can see just how significant this miracle from God truly was.

As we have also heard in our Gospel passage of a similar miracle by the Lord Jesus, the prophet Elisha miraculously made the loaves of bread to be sufficient for all the hundred men to share and eat, with leftovers, just as the Lord had said it. This was the proof of God’s love for His people, that He did not just care for them spiritually, but even also physically, and ensuring that they had enough for themselves in whatever they need in the physical sustenance and requirements in their lives. He did not abandon them all and still loved them all even though many of them at that time had disobeyed Him, disregarded His Law and commandments, persecuted His prophets and messengers, among the many other evil and wicked deeds which they had done. He has always loved them and His love for them endured through all that, and He wanted them all to repent from those sins and return to Him.

As mentioned, related to what we have just heard from the first reading passage, the Gospel passage this Sunday also spoke of a similar miracle that had happened, where in the Gospel of St. John we heard of the account of how the Lord Jesus performed the great miracle of the multiplication of the loaves of bread and the fishes, which the Lord made it such that all the five thousand men and many thousands more of women and children assembled there could have their fill and still there were so many bread leftover that twelve whole baskets of them were gathered in the end. Through this account of the Gospel, which is related to the first reading’s account of the miracle of the prophet Elisha, we are all shown how God would provide for all of His beloved and faithful people. He would not abandon those whom He loved and all of them would be shown kindness and providence in God’s own mysterious ways.

God did not spare us any effort to reach out to us and to gather us all back to Himself, calling on all of us to return to Him with a lot of patience and love. He sent them His prophets like Elisha and many others to remind them of this love and of all the kindness which He has generously given to them. And He promised to all of them the One Who would save them all, the Saviour, in the Person of none other than His own Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of God manifested in the flesh, that the same Christ is the One Who gave that miraculous feeding to all the thousands assembled there to listen to Him. He fed them with the bread and fishes until they were full, with leftovers like at the time of the prophet Elisha, and He also provided them spiritually through His teachings and words.

From our second reading passage taken from the Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Church and the faithful in the city and region of Ephesus, the Apostle spoke about the calling and mission of all Christians, of God’s holy and beloved people to be truly faithful and worthy of the Lord in all the things that they do and carry out in their lives. He reminded all of us through this Epistle that all of us ought to always strive to do what God had taught us to do, to be righteous and faithful in all things, being committed to God and His ways, and to be loving and compassionate to one another, showing our generous love and kindness to everyone around us. As Christians, each and every one of us must always exude the love and grace of God in all of our lives, in each of our actions and at every moments.

Therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ, as we all have heard from the Scripture passages we received this Sunday, we are all reminded yet again as we have constantly been reminded, of God’s ever present and enduring love for us. We should no longer take God’s love and generosity for granted, and we should also share this same love in our own lives, by being generous and kind, what we give out of generosity from our hearts, we shall be blessed manyfold more by the Lord, just as we have seen how God multiplied the loaves of bread. It is also a lesson to remind us all not to worry about our lives and not to lose our trust and faith in God. We must always remember that in the Lord and with Him, all of us will eventually be triumphant with Him, and it is in Him alone that we can find true happiness and joy in life, and not in all the pleasures of the world, all of which are fleeting and illusory in nature.

May the Lord, our most loving and compassionate God, Who has always watched over us and remembered us even when we have sinned against Him, continue to love us ever more generously, and may He continue to shine His love, kindness and mercy on us, especially when we come to Him seeking for His mercy and forgiveness. Let us all continue to do our part in our respective lives so that by our renewed dedication and commitment to God, we may grow ever stronger in our relationship with Him, and we may continue to bear witness to His love and kindness at all times. May He bless us in all of our works and efforts, all of our deeds, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 28 July 2024 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

John 6 : 1-15

At that time, Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, near Tiberias, and large crowds followed Him, because of the miraculous signs they saw, when He healed the sick. So He went up into the hills and sat down there with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.

Then lifting up His eyes, Jesus saw the crowds that were coming to Him, and said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread so that these people may eat?” He said this to test Philip, for He Himself knew what He was going to do. Philip answered Him, “Two hundred silver coins would not buy enough bread for each of them to have a piece.”

Then one of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what good are these for so many?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass there, so the people, about five thousand men, sat down. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed them to those who were seated. He did the same with the fish, and gave them as much as they wanted.

And when they had eaten enough, He told His disciples, “Gather up the pieces left over, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with bread, that is, with pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

When the people saw the miracle which Jesus had performed, they said, “This is really the Prophet, the One Who is to come into the world.” Jesus realised that they would come and take Him by force to make Him King; so He fled to the hills by Himself.

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Sunday, 28 July 2024 : Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ephesians 4 : 1-6

Therefore, I, the prisoner of Christ, invite you, to live the vocation you have received. Be humble, kind, patient and bear with one another in love. Make every effort to keep among you, the unity of spirit, through bonds of peace. Let there be one body, and one Spirit, just as one hope is the goal of your calling by God. One Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God, the Father of all, Who is above all, and works through all, and is in all.