Sunday Mass

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Sunday, 16 June 2024 : Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 91 : 2-3, 13-14, 15-16

It is good to give thanks to YHVH, to sing praise to Your Name, o Most High, to proclaim Your grace in the morning, to declare Your faithfulness at night.

The virtuous will flourish, like palm trees, they will thrive, like the cedars of Lebanon. Planted in the house of YHVH, they will prosper, in the courts of our God.

In old age, they will still bear fruit; they will stay fresh and green, to proclaim that YHVH is upright, “He is my Rock,” they say, “He never fails.”

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Sunday, 16 June 2024 : Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Ezekiel 17 : 22-24

Thus says YHVH : “At the top of the cedar, I will take one of its uppermost branches, a tender twig, and plant it. On a lofty, massive mountain, on a high mountain of Israel I will plant it. It will produce branches and bear fruit and become a magnificent cedar. Birds of all kinds will nest in it and find shelter in its branches.”

“And all the trees of the field shall know that I am YHVH : I, Who bring down the lofty tree and make the lowly tree tall. I will make the tree that is full of sap, wither, and the dry tree, bloom. I, YHVH, have spoken and this will I do.”

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Sunday, 9 June 2024 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday we are all reminded of our human nature and the sins which we have committed because of our inability to resist the temptations of worldly glory and desire, the temptations and coercions which the evil one and his forces have placed in our paths in life. All of us are reminded that we are all God’s people and we should always strive to do what is good, right and just, all in accordance to everything that God has shown and taught us, to be truly and holy, worthy and appropriate in our lives for Him at all times. Otherwise, how can we truly call ourselves as Christians, as God’s holy and beloved people?

In our first reading today, we heard from the beginning of the Book of Genesis in which the story of the moment of mankind’s fall into sin was told to us. It was the moment right after Adam and Eve, our first ancestors, ate of the fruits of the forbidden Tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree that the Lord specifically told Adam and Eve not to eat from because if they were to eat of the fruits, then they would die. Indeed, that would come true, because when Adam and Eve, tempted by the falsehoods and lies of Satan chose to disobey God and ate the fruits of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, they had to suffer the trials and hardships of the world, suffering in this world and eventually like all of us, we have to endure death.

It was never God’s intention to make us suffer and endure death, but it was by our own conscious choice, choosing the falsehoods of the evil one that had deceived and deluded us with temptations of worldly glory, power, knowledge and all the things that we ourselves often desired for in this world. God created us all good and perfect, all in His own image, and we have indeed been intended to a life of pure bliss and perfect harmony with Him forever, but because of our wickedness and sins, we have fallen into this state, and by our own choice we have fallen into this path of wickedness and evil, and we should have been crushed and destroyed for this rebellion.

And yet, God Who loved each and every one of us desired that all of us should be reconciled and reunited with Him. Despite our imperfections and evils, He wanted that each and every one of us may overcome our challenges and imperfections, all the temptations and evils present around us so that we may truly discover the true purpose in life, that is to be in perfect love and harmony in God, to be once again blessed and full of God’s grace just has how it was at the very beginning of time. That is why He has repeatedly sent us again and again His help, reaching out to us through His servants and messengers, His prophets, and ultimately, His own Beloved Son.

In our second reading this Sunday, we heard from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle spoke to all the faithful including all of us reminding us that through Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, God had revealed the fullness of His love and the intention to be reconciled with us. Each and every one of us are meant to overcome the limitations of our worldly and earthly selves. Our human existence and our sufferings in this world are part of this journey, of repentance and reconciliation with God. And the Lord has sent us His only begotten Son, to be the One to bridge the gap between us and Himself, and to show us all the truth of His salvation and love.

Through Christ we have received the assurance of eternal life, and the new life in the Lord, through the Holy Spirit that He has sent down to be upon us in His Church, to dwell within us and among all of us. And He also gave us all His own Most Previous Body and Blood to partake, that by partaking in Him, the Bread of Life, we may have life in us, a new life that is truly blessed and filled with God’s grace. And by accepting Him as Our Lord and Saviour, becoming part of this One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, we have all been called to return to the Lord, to our loving Father and Creator, Who has always loved us all these while, and Who wants to be reconciled with us.

But at the same time, as we all heard in our Gospel passage today, we must also be careful of the continuing and constant efforts by the evil one and all of his allies in sowing seeds of doubt and divisions in our midst, as Satan is always ever busy with his fellow forces of evil to lead us astray and to bring us all into our downfall as he has always done since the very beginning. We heard in the Gospel of St. Mark of how the Lord was confronted by a group of the Pharisees who accused Him of healing and casting out demons from a possessed man because He had been colluding and working with evil spirits, especially the prince of demons, Beelzebul.

The Lord rebuked those Pharisees and told them that what He had done, all had come from the Lord, and it was ironic that the devil and all of his forces, including that of Beelzebul, would not have fought among them and with each other. In fact, they were no less united in their efforts to attack and to destroy us all through their works in sowing doubts and confusion, just as they did at the time. The Pharisees themselves had in fact allowed these evil and wicked forces to tempt and mislead them down the wrong path, by persuading them to oppose the Lord and all of His works out of their jealousy, arrogance and desires. And by doing all that, they were in fact helping the devil with his works against us.

The Lord reminded all of us through all of these that we must always strive to oppose the temptations of sin, the allures of wicked desires and evils all around us, and we must strive to obey the Lord and His reminders to us, that we must always do His will, and do what He has commanded and taught us to do in our every moments throughout life. We must always remind ourselves not to allow the evil one to tempt and to drag us into our downfall, but instead we must continue to remain firmly faithful to the Lord and put our complete faith and trust in Him at all times.

Let us all hence continue to live our lives worthily in the Lord, doing whatever we can so that by all of our words, actions and deeds, we will continue to walk in this path of grace towards the Lord, and that we may grow ever stronger in our faith in Him. Let us all continue to persevere in faith, in our every day moments and lives so that we may not be discouraged by all the challenges and the hardships we may have to encounter in our journey. May the Lord, our loving and compassionate God continue to guide and strengthen us in each and every moments of our lives, and in our every works and endeavours. Amen.

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Sunday, 9 June 2024 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Mark 3 : 20-35

At that time, Jesus and His disciples went home. The crowd began to gather again and they could not even have a meal. Knowing what was happening, His relatives came to take charge of Him, “He is out of His mind,” they said.

Meanwhile, the teachers of the Law, who had come from Jerusalem, said, “He is in the power of Beelzebul : the chief of the demons helps Him to drive out demons.”

Jesus called them to Him, and began teaching them by means of stories, or parables, “How can Satan drive out Satan? If a nation is divided by civil war, that nation cannot stand. If a family divides itself into groups, that family will not survive. In the same way, if Satan has risen against himself and is divided, he will not stand; he is finished.”

“No one can break into the house of a strong man in order to plunder his goods, unless he first ties up the strong man. Then indeed, he can plunder his house. Truly, I say to you, every sin will be forgiven humankind, even insults to God, however numerous. But whoever slanders the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He carries the guilt of his sin forever.”

This was their sin when they said, “He has an unclean spirit in Him.”

Then the mother and brothers of Jesus came. As they stood outside, they sent someone to call Him. The crowd sitting around Jesus told Him, “Your mother and Your brothers are outside asking for You.” He replied, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”

And looking around at those who sat there, He said, “Here are My mother and My brothers. Whoever does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to Me.”

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Sunday, 9 June 2024 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

2 Corinthians 4 : 13 – 2 Corinthians 5 : 1

We have received the same spirit of faith referred to in Scripture, that says : I believed and so I spoke. We know that He, Who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us, with Jesus, and bring us, with you, into His presence. Finally, everything is for your good, so that grace will come more abundantly upon you, and great will be the thanksgiving for the glory of God.

Therefore, we are not discouraged. On the contrary, while our outer being wastes away, the inner self is renewed, from day to day. The slight affliction, that quickly passes away, prepares us for an eternal wealth of glory, so great, and beyond all comparison. So, we no longer pay attention to the things that are seen, but to those that are unseen, for the things that we see last for a moment, but that which cannot be seen is eternal.

We know that, when our earthly dwelling, or, rather, our tent, is destroyed, we may count on a building from God, a heavenly dwelling, not built by human hands, that lasts forever.

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Sunday, 9 June 2024 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 129 : 1-2, 3-4, 5-7a, 7bc-8

Out of the depths I cry to You, o Lord, o Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears pay attention to the voice of my supplication.

If You should mark our evil, o Lord, who could stand? But with You is forgiveness.

For that You are revered. I waited for the Lord, my soul waits, and I put my hope in His word. My soul expects the Lord more than watchmen the dawn.

O Israel, hope in the Lord, for with Him is unfailing love and with Him full deliverance. He will deliver Israel from all its sins.

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Sunday, 9 June 2024 : Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Genesis 3 : 9-15

YHVH God called the man saying to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree I ordered you not to eat?”

The man answered, “The woman You put with me gave me fruit from the tree and I ate it.” God said to the woman, “What have you done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

YHVH God said to the serpent, “Since you have done that, be cursed among all the cattle and wild beasts! You will crawl on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. I will make you enemies, you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : White

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we celebrate the great occasion of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, also known as Corpus Christi, marking just like last Sunday’s Trinity Sunday, a very important and core tenet of our Christian faith and beliefs. All of us as Christians believe that the Holy Eucharist, which we celebrate at the Holy Mass or more appropriately, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, is none other than the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Our Lord Himself. This is the belief in the Doctrine of the Transubstantiation, one of the core tenets of the Christian faith, that God has given us all His own Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood for our salvation, through the New and Eternal Covenant He had established with us.

In our first reading today, we heard from the Book of Exodus of the words of Moses, the leader of the Israelites during the time of their Exodus from Egypt and their journey towards the Promised Land of Canaan, who spoke to the Israelites regarding the great and most wonderful love which God has shown to His people in all that He had done for them, and this culminated with the Covenant which He established anew with all of His people at the holy mountain of God, Mount Sinai, where the people of Israel had journeyed towards. There at the holy mountain, through Moses, the Covenant between God and His people was sealed and established, by the sacrifice and the outpouring of the blood of a sacrificial lamb upon the altar.

This was in fact a prefigurement of what would happen much later on, mentioned in our second reading today from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews often linked the Lord Jesus to the role of the High Priest for indeed, Christ is the one and only True, Eternal High Priest for all mankind. Why is this so? This is because by His Passion, His sufferings and His trials, His crucifixion and ultimately His death on the Cross, our Lord has willingly offered the perfect and only worthy offering to the Lord for our salvation and redemption. In the past, the sacrifice and the outpouring of the blood of the animals like lambs were used to represent the redemption and forgiveness of God for the sins of His people.

However, the blood of the lambs alone would not have been enough to redeem all of mankind for all their innumerable sins and faults, and that was why the sacrificial and sin offerings were repeatedly done again and again by the priests and the high priests who offered them for the sake of the people of God. But God had promised His salvation to all of His people, telling and reassuring them all that one day He would send His Saviour, Who would deliver them all from their sins, much as how He has once delivered them and freed them from the hands of the Pharaoh and the Egyptians, leading them to freedom and bringing them to the Promised Land where He settled them and made them to dwell in peace.

Again all of those were prefigurement of the salvation that is to come for all of us, the whole people, all the children of mankind. For through His Beloved Son, His only Begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Eternal High Priest, He showed us all the sure path to eternal life and salvation, because by His offering of the perfect and most worthy offering, which is worth all of the immense and unimaginably great extent of our many sins and wickedness, of all mankind that has, is and will ever exist, from the beginning to the end of time, He has redeemed all of us, once and for all through this supreme act of sacrifice and offering. And what is this perfect and most worthy offering, brothers and sisters in Christ? It is none other than His own Most Precious Body and Blood, the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, broken and outpoured upon us from the Altar of the Cross. Through His Precious Body and Blood, Christ has made with us all, a New and Eternal Covenant between us and God.

In our Gospel passage today, we then heard of the account from the Gospel of St. Mark of the Institution of the Holy Eucharist during the Last Supper, which happened just before the Lord was to begin His Passion, His suffering and death. He gave His disciples the bread that He has blessed, prayed over and broken up, sharing with them His own Most Holy and Precious Body, with the words, ‘Take this. It is My Body.’ And afterwards, He also shared the chalice or cup filled with the wine He has also blessed, and told them that that wine is His Blood, the Blood of the New Covenant.’ When the Lord said this to His disciples, He truly meant it as He said that the bread is His Body and the wine is His Blood.

He never meant for the bread and wine to be merely symbolic or memorial representation of His Body and Blood and His Sacrifice on the Cross. He literally and truly meant that the disciples, and all of His Church, are truly consuming, partaking and having His own Precious Body and Blood, the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God, the Bread of Life, Who would soon suffer and endure the most bitter and painful sufferings for their sake, for all of us, so that by His willing sacrifice, He might provide for us the sure path to salvation and eternal life, breaking forever the chains of sin and death that had dominated over us from the beginning of time. This is also what He meant when earlier on during the discourse on the Bread of Life, the Lord also said that His Body is truly food and His Blood is truly drink, and all those who partake of the Bread of Life, of His Body and Blood, will never perish but have eternal life.

This is why from the very earliest beginnings and history of the Church, the Church fathers from the Apostles and their successors, throughout time and history and right down to this present moment have all preserved this core belief and tenet in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Holy Eucharist, that in each and every celebration of the Holy Mass, the bread and wine have indeed been turned by the power of God through the Holy Spirit, through the hands and prayers of His priests, to be the very essence and reality of His own Most Precious Body and His Most Precious Blood, although in appearance, they may still appear as bread and wine to our senses. Through our faith in Him, we believe that what we partake is none other than the Lord Himself.

But it is also important that we understand that each and every celebrations of the Holy Mass, unlike what some people outside and even within the Church had misunderstood and misrepresented, are not the repetitions of the sacrifice of the Lord at Calvary. Instead, every time the Holy Mass is celebrated, it is exactly the same Sacrifice that the Lord has offered and given to us at Calvary, at the moment of His Passion, His suffering and death on His Cross. What the Church fathers and the early Christians, and all of our predecessors in faith throughout time had partaken in the Holy Eucharist, is the same Precious Body and Precious Blood of the Lord just as what we have partaken and received, and all of us share in this Holy Communion, uniting all of us in this One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Body of Christ and Kingdom of God on earth.

The Lord has instituted the Holy Eucharist and also the Ministerial Priesthood at the Last Supper, to perpetuate this celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, so that by the power that He had granted to those whom He had chosen, and to their successors, the bishops and priests throughout time and history, right up to this day, at every celebration of the Holy Mass, the bread and wine have indeed been consecrated and transformed into the essence and reality of His own Body and Blood, which we believe as the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. When the Lord asked His disciples to ‘do this in the memory of Me’, some misunderstood that the celebration of the Eucharist is a mere symbol or memory, but the reality is that, each celebration is indeed meant to bring unto us the Sacrifice of the Lord at Calvary, and we all truly partake His Body and Blood, not merely having a symbol of His loving sacrifice.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today as we commemorate this great Solemnity of the Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood of Christ or Corpus Christi, let us all reflect on how much we truly believe in the Real Presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. The sad and unfortunate reality in our Church today is that, many even within the Church had no longer believed in the Real Presence, and the belief in the doctrine of Transubstantiation and the Real Presence have been steadily slipping to an all-time low. Many of us treated the Lord and His Real Presence with indifference and lack of reverence and faith. We often treat the Eucharist as nothing more than bread and wine, and we lack the proper reverence and respect, honour and worship of the Lord’s Real Presence.

That partly explain why increasingly there are more and more lapses from among us in the Church, as we steadily and continuously losing people to the world, to the many temptations present around us, and many others do not believe in the Real Presence in the Lord either, especially those who have not believed in God, whenever they see us treating the Eucharist with indifference and lack of respect and proper adoration. That is why, brothers and sisters in Christ, today, let us all renew our commitment to the Lord, remembering the New and Eternal Covenant that He Himself has made and sealed with us all by the breaking of His own Holy and Precious Body and the outpouring of His own Holy and Precious Blood, through His perfect and loving sacrifice on the Cross.

Let us all renew our devotion to the Lord, particularly in the way we treat the Holy Eucharist, Our Lord’s very own Most Precious Body and Blood, in how we honour and respect Him, and in ensuring that each and every one of us keep ourselves truly worthy to be the Temple of His Holy Presence, as we all partake His Holy and Precious Body and Blood into ourselves, into our very beings. Let us all strive to be truly holy and worthy to receive the Lord, our most loving God, Who has shared with us this most perfect and loving gift of His Body and Blood, so that as He had said, that we who partake in Him, will receive the assurance of eternal life and glory with Him, and will be raised with Him on the last day.

May the Lord, our God and Saviour, Who has given us all His Most Holy and Precious Body and Blood in the Eucharist, continue to bless us all and guide us in our journey of faith throughout our lives. May He empower and strengthen each and every one of us so that in all the things that we do, so that by our worthy lives and by our proper respect and belief in the Real Presence of the Lord, more and more people may come to the Lord and be healed by Him, and seek Him as their Lord and Saviour, now and always. Amen.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Mark 14 : 12-16, 22-26

At that time, on the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the day when the Passover Lamb was killed, the disciples asked Him, “Where would You have us go to prepare the Passover meal for You?”

So Jesus sent two of His disciples with these instructions, “Go into the city, and there, a man will come to you carrying a jar of water. Follow him to the house he enters and say to the owner, ‘The Master says, Where is the room where I may eat the Passover meal with My disciples?’ Then he will show you a large room upstairs, already arranged and furnished. There, you will prepare for us.”

The disciples went off. When they reached the city, they found everything just as Jesus had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them. And He said, “Take this. It is My Body.” Then He took a cup; and after He had given thanks, He passed it to them and they all drank from it.

And He said, “This is My Blood, the Blood of the Covenant, poured out for many. Truly, I say to you, I will not taste the fruit of the vine again, until that day when I drink the new wine in the kingdom of God.”

After singing psalms of praise, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

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Sunday, 2 June 2024 : Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : White

Hebrews 9 : 11-15

But, now, Christ has appeared, as the High Priest, with regard to the good things of these new times. He passed through a Sanctuary more noble and perfect, not made by hands, that is not created. He did not take with Himself the blood of goats and bulls, but His own Blood, when He entered, once, and for all, into this Sanctuary, after obtaining definitive redemption.

If the sprinkling of people, defiled by sin, with the blood of goats and bulls, or with the ashes of a heifer, provides them with exterior cleanness and holiness, how much more will it be, with the Blood of Christ? He, moved by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself, as an unblemished Victim, to God, and His Blood cleanses us from dead works, so that we may serve the living God.

So, Christ is the Mediator of a new Covenant, or testament. His death made atonement for the sins committed under the old testament, and the promise is handed over, to all who are called to the everlasting inheritance.