Sunday Mass

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Sunday, 20 September 2020 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 20 : 1-16a

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “This story throws light on the kingdom of heaven : A landowner went out early in the morning, to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay each worker the usual daily wage, and sent them to his vineyard.”

“He went out again, at about nine in the morning, and, seeing others idle in the town square, he said to them, ‘You also, go to my vineyard, and I will pay you what is just.’ So they went. The owner went out at midday, and, again, at three in the afternoon, and he made the same offer.”

“Again he went out, at the last working hour – the eleventh – and he saw others standing around. So he said to them, ‘Why do you stand idle the whole day?’ They answered, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ The master said, ‘Go, and work in my vineyard.'”

“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wage, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ Those who had gone to work at the eleventh hour came up, and were each given a silver coin. When it was the turn of the first, they thought they would receive more. But they, too, received one silver coin. On receiving it, they began to grumble against the landowner.”

“They said, ‘These last, hardly worked an hour; yet, you have treated them the same as us, who have endured the heavy work of the day and the heat.’ The owner said to one of them, ‘Friend, I have not been unjust to you. Did we not agree on one silver coin per day? So take what is yours and go. I want to give to the last the same as I give to you. Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Why are you envious when I am kind?'”

“So will it be : the last will be first.”

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Sunday, 20 September 2020 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Philippians 1 : 20c-24, 27a

Christ will be exalted through my person, whether I live or die. For to me, living is for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I am to go on living, I shall be able to enjoy fruitful labour. Which shall I choose?

So I feel torn between the two. I desire greatly to leave this life and to be with Christ, which will be better by far, but it is necessary for you that I remain in this life. Try, then, to adjust your lives according to the Gospel of Christ.

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Sunday, 20 September 2020 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 144 : 2-3, 8-9, 17-18

I will praise You, day after day; and exalt Your Name forever. Great is YHVH, most worthy of praise; and His deeds are beyond measure.

Compassionate and gracious is YHVH, slow to anger and abounding in love. YHVH is good to everyone; His mercy embraces all His creation.

Righteous is YHVH in all His ways, His mercy shows in all His deeds. He is near those who call on Him, who call trustfully upon His Name.

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Sunday, 20 September 2020 : Twenty-Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Isaiah 55 : 6-9

Seek YHVH while He may be found; call to Him while He is near. Let the wicked abandon his way, let him forsake his thoughts, let him turn to YHVH for He will have mercy, for our God is generous in forgiving.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways, says YHVH. For as the heavens are above the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts above your thoughts.

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday’s Scripture readings all spoke very strongly and firmly on one topic, that is forgiveness. As Christians, forgiveness is a very important aspect of our faith, and we are all called to forgive one another generously, to let go of the anger and hatred in our hearts, to be forgiving just as the Lord, our God is rich in mercy and forgives generously.

The Lord Jesus in our Gospel passage today spoke very firmly on this matter when St. Peter asked Him, ‘Lord, how many times must I forgive the faults of my brother or sister?’ And the Lord answered to his suggestion of seven times, with an even greater number, of seventy-seven times, or in another, seventy times seven times. The use of the number seven here is symbolic and does not literally mean that we must forgive exactly seven, seventy-seven, or seventy times seven times.

In fact, the number seven is a frequently used number throughout the Scriptures, as the symbolic number of ‘perfection’, and many things associated with God number in seven, such as the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven Sacraments of the Church, the seven Holy Archangels ministering in the presence of God, the seven Spirits of God in the visions, among others. That is why the use of seventy-seven or seventy times seven, represent the ‘perfection’ of forgiveness.

What does it mean, brothers and sisters in Christ? It means that we must learn how to forgive without end, forgive unconditionally, forgive without being transactional and to forgive with all of our hearts, with all of our whole being. Forgiveness is something that is very difficult and it is something that many people find very difficult to do, but it is what each and every one of us as Christians are called to do.

Why is that so? That is because to forgive means that we learn to let go of our ego and pride, of our hatred and perhaps jealousy, among other things. Many of us cannot forgive because we cannot find it in ourselves to do all these, and more often than not, it is our ego and pride that are the greatest barriers in preventing us from forgiving others. And we must know, brothers and sisters in Christ, by remembering again today’s Scripture readings, particularly the Gospel parable, that unless we forgive others, how can we expect to be forgiven ourselves?

In that parable, the Lord used the example of a great lord and master who had many servants, some of whom were indebted to him. And in that occasion, a servant who owed the master a very large sum could not pay his due, and therefore was to be punished and to suffer until he could return all that he had owed his master. He begged his master to give him more time to pay off his debt, for mercy and compassion.

The master who saw his pleas for mercy was moved and decided to forgive that servant’s entire debt, a sum of ten thousand pieces of gold, a very considerable sum. It was truly very generous act by the master, and the servant was free to go, free from all of his debts. And then, almost immediately we heard how that very same servant threatened another servant who owed him some money, a much, much smaller sum of a hundred pieces of silver.

The symbolic comparison between the cases could not have been clearer, with the other servant’s debt being represented with a far smaller sum and also in silver, a far less worthy and valuable, although still precious, metal and commodity at that time as it is today. The contrast was also made between the master’s great generosity and willingness to forgive, even the huge amount of debt, and the ungrateful servant’s insistence to persecute his fellow servant for a far smaller debt.

Through all of that, the Lord gave us all in fact, a very stern reminder that we must not be like that ungrateful servant, who had been forgiven his massive debt only then to persecute and refusing to forgive his own fellow servants who owed him a far smaller sum. Using this parable, the Lord showed the comparison between the mercy of the master, representing the Lord Himself, and the lack of mercy and compassion showed by the ungrateful servant, representing us mankind.

God forgave us our sins, even though they were numerous, terrible and wicked, and He wanted to forgive us all those faults and shortcomings, extending His most generous mercy and compassion to all of us, at all times. However, He has not showed us this mercy only for us to take revenge and to persecute our brethren because of their debts and faults against us. And we must also not forget that each and every one of us ourselves also had faults and mistakes against each other.

That is why, before we become angry against others, before we judge others and persecute others, thinking that we have the right to do so, or that we are better and superior against them, we must reflect on these readings we have heard today. We must wake up, brothers and sisters! Wake up and realise just how fortunate we are to have such a merciful and loving God. For every single one of our innumerable and terrible sins, we could have been cast to eternal suffering and destruction, if not for God’s enduring love and mercy for us.

And yet, we are not appreciative of this, we do not thank God as we should have done, and we failed to do what He has asked to do, that is to be merciful and loving as He Himself had done. We are being judgmental and biased to our fellow brothers and sisters, exacting revenge and held contempt and hatred for one another, and we refuse to forgive when we can do so, preferring to hold on to that anger and desire in our hearts and in our minds to satisfy our own ego and our own personal agenda.

Let us then do not forget that by whatever standards we have judged others, be angry on others, be unforgiving on others, then we will also be judged by those same standards. And it is not just that others will judge us in the same way, for as I said earlier, all of us have faults and mistakes, shortcomings and failures, and none of us are perfect, and if we are to hold others accountable for theirs, we shall be held accountable for ours too. We must then not forget just how even much more shortcomings that we owe the Lord.

This has been very clearly shown and summarised by the master in the parable told by Jesus, and how he has forgiven the immense debt of the ungrateful servant, only for that servant to hold a double standard and attack his own poor fellow brother, and thus, in the end, he was held accountable for his original debts, not being forgiven anymore for he himself did not show mercy when he should have.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, as Christians, we all truly have great challenges ahead of us, considering how we have been called to live, that is to love when we ourselves have not been loved, to forgive others especially those who hurt us and made our lives difficult, even when they themselves have not forgiven us. The challenge for us is to dare to be different from the world, that when the world champions individualism and the ego of the self, we dare to break free from that, and seek instead to love and show genuine care for others, even to those who have hurt us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the question is, are we willing and able to humble ourselves to forgive generously and sincerely? As I said earlier, ego and pride are the greatest obstacles in the path to sincere forgiveness, and no true forgiveness will come forth unless we remove these burdens and obstacles from our hearts and minds alike. God Himself has forgiven us so generously, showing us His love despite the multitudes of times we have betrayed and abandoned Him. Can we forgive others just as how God has forgiven us?

The prophet Sirach echoed this again in our first reading passage today, that grudge and wrath are the things that are abominations in our lives, and these lead us deeper and deeper into sin, for grudge and wrath ultimately stemmed from our pride and ego, and our refusal to let go of these, that when we feel hurt, we hold grudge and are angry against our fellow men. Unless we get rid from ourselves all these, we cannot truly be God’s holy and devout people.

And lastly, a very good reminder from St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, in our second reading today is perhaps a very important reminder and also suggestion on how we can lead a holier existence in God from now on. He elaborated that no one lives in this world for himself or herself, but rather one lives for God. And as long as we remember this fact, and also remember God’s love and mercy for us, then we will be able to resist the temptations to be angry against others, and to be willing to forgive one another.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all reflect carefully on what we have heard in the Scriptures today, and let us all discern what we can do from now on to live faithfully in accordance with the Lord’s path, to be inspiration and good example for one another, in being loving and forgiving just as the Lord, our loving Master and Father had done for us. Let us remember His love and mercy each and every moments of our lives, and trust in Him with great faith, now and always.

O most loving and merciful God, our loving Father and Creator, the Divine Mercy, have mercy on us sinners and forgive us our sins, and help us all to be able to forgive each other our mistakes and sins to each other too. Help us to be charitable and to be compassionate, to be generous with love and mercy whenever we are able to. Have mercy on us and on the whole world, forgive us and bring us into Your everlasting glory. Amen.

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Gospel Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Matthew 18 : 21-35

At that time, Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, how many times must I forgive the offences of my brother or sister? Seven times?” Jesus answered, “No, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

“This story throws light on the kingdom of Heaven : A king decided to settle accounts with his servants. Among the first of them was one who owed him ten thousand pieces of gold. As the man could not repay the debt, the king commanded that he be sold as a slave with his wife, his children and all his goods, as repayment.”

“The servant threw himself at the feet of the king and said, ‘Give me time, and I will pay you back everything.’ The king took pity on him, and not only set him free, but even cancelled his debt. When this servant left the king’s presence, he met one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred pieces of silver. He grabbed him by the throat and almost choked him, shouting, ‘Pay me what you owe!'”

“His fellow servant threw himself at his feet and begged him, ‘Give me time, and I will pay everything.’ But the other did not agree, and sent him to prison until he has paid all his debt. Now the servants of the king saw what had happened. They were extremely upset, and so they went and reported everything to their lord.”

“Then the lord summoned his servant and said, ‘Wicked servant, I forgave you all that you owed me when you begged me to do so. Were you not bound to have pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you?’ The lord was now angry. He handed the wicked servant over to be punished, until he had paid the whole debt.”

Jesus added, “So will My heavenly Father do with you, unless you sincerely forgive your brothers and sisters.”

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Second Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Romans 14 : 7-9

In fact, none of us lives for himself, nor dies for himself. If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Either in life or in death, we belong to the Lord; It was for this purpose that Christ both died and came to life again, to be Lord, both of the living and of the dead.

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Psalm)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Psalm 102 : 1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12

Praise YHVH, my soul; all my being, praise His holy Name! Praise YHVH, my soul, and do not forget all His kindness.

He forgives all your sins and heals all your sickness; He redeems your life from destruction and crowns you with love and compassion.

He will not always scold nor will He be angry forever. He does not treat us according to our sins, nor does He punish us as we deserve.

As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His love for those fearing Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove from us our sins.

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Sunday, 13 September 2020 : Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time (First Reading)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Sirach 27 : 30 – Sirach 28 : 7

Grudge and wrath, these also are abominations in which sinful people excel. He who demands revenge will suffer the vengeance of the Lord Who keeps a strict account of his sins. Forgive the mistakes of your neighbour and you may ask that your sins be forgiven.

If a man bears resentment against another, how can he ask God for healing? If he has no compassion on others, how can he pray for forgiveness for his sins? As long as he, mere flesh, is resentful, who will obtain his pardon? Remember your end and give up hatred; keep in mind your final corruption in the grave and keep the commandments.

Remember the commandments and do not bear grudges against your neighbour. Remember the Covenant with the Most High and overlook the offence.

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Sunday, 6 September 2020 : Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Homily and Scripture Reflections)

Liturgical Colour : Green

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we heard a very important message from the Scriptures, which lay at the very centre and heart of our Christian faith, that is love, compassion, forgiveness and kindness. On this day we remember God’s such great love for us that He is willing to forgive us all our sins, even as great and many as our sins are, provided that we are willing to repent and turn away from those sins.

God has remembered His people, even when they have betrayed Him, abandoned Him and left Him behind for other, false gods and idols. As shown in our first reading today, taken from the prophet Ezekiel, was a remark of just how God loved His people so much even when they have sinned and fallen. At the time of the prophet Ezekiel, the nation and kingdom of Israel and Judah have both fallen, and its people humiliated and brought into exile in far-off lands, all because of their constant refusal to obey God or listen to Him.

But through His prophet Ezekiel, God expressed great sorrow at this, showed metaphorically with how He would darken the sun, the moon and the star, and veil everything in darkness. All of these attribute to mourning attitude, and God rightfully did so, because a people whom He loved, had been lost to Him and suffered as a consequence of their own disobedience and delinquency. Had God not loved or cared about His people, we would never have heard such sorrowful expression from Him.

That is why He wants all of us to be reconciled to Him, as rebellious and delinquent children to be reconciled to their father, so God is our loving Father Who desires above all else, our redemption and liberation from the tyranny of sin. We have been enslaved by sin, and through sin we have been brought low and we ought to have been crushed and destroyed. Yet, this is not what the Lord wanted to happen to us.

For we all must remember that God created us all with a reason, and that reason is love. God creates us all because He wants to share His love with us, and it was because of that love which allowed Him to forgive us when we come humbly before Him, honestly and genuinely seeking His mercy and forgiveness. The Lord reaches out to us as a loving Father, Who wants us to recognised our errors and the mistakes of our ways.

It was this great love God has showered us with, from the very beginning which gave us that ‘gift’ of love which we spurned through sin. And thus because of our sins, we became indebted to God, the debts of our sins, all the evil and wicked things we have done to God Who loved us so much. St. Paul spoke of this in his Epistle to the Romans, our second reading today, when he exhorted us not to be in debt to anything, but to the debt of love. Essentially, he exhorted all of us the faithful to abandon our sinful ways and to avoid evil and wickedness.

And he also reminded all of us of the Law and Commandments of God, which are essentially about love, and to live righteously and justly, free from the shackles of sin. But in this world, there are indeed plenty of temptations that can lead us astray and prevent us from finding our way to God. And to this extent, God did all He could to give us chance after chance, opportunity one after another, calling us through His messengers and servants, to turn us into His righteous path once more.

He has also laid it out clearly in our Gospel passage today, as He mentioned how the Church and the community of the faithful had very important role to play in all of these. The Lord Himself said that all of us the faithful has the responsibility and obligation to help, seek and assist our brethren who have erred and fallen into the wrong path in life. He said that if our brother or sister in faith erred and walked down the wrong path, then we ought to persuade him or her, to abandon the path of sin and return to the faith in God.

But as mentioned, although the Lord has generously extended His love, mercy and compassion to sinners and all those who have abandoned Him, but it all depends on our acceptance and willingness to cooperate and receive that offer of mercy. If we are stubborn in refusing God’s mercy and forgiveness, and are unwilling to abandon our path of sin, our attachments to the wickedness of this world and to the temptations of Satan, then it is by our own conscious choice that we reject God and His salvation.

The Lord gave great authority to His Church, in the hands of St. Peter, His Vicar as the first Pope and his successors, and together with his brother bishops, the authority to bind or loosen the bonds between mankind and the kingdom of Heaven. Through this authority, and by the conferral of the Sacrament of Baptism and other Sacraments of Initiation such as the Confirmation and Eucharist, the Church has called many to the Lord, and many had indeed responded to the call, received the faith and be united in the Church, as we are.

And to those who constantly and persistently refused to repent and be converted to the truth, the Church has also been given the power to loosen, which is most evident in the practice of ‘excommunication’ that had unfortunately been imposed on some of those who persistently refused to turn to the faith. But all these were done, by casting them out from the Communion of the Church, with the intention that this is temporary, and as a ‘wake-up call’ to encourage and persuade the offender to return to the Lord, repent and change his or her ways.

Thus it is also a constant reminder that we must not take God’s love for granted, His patience and compassion for us. Many of us Christians tend to take our faith lightly and even lived in ways contrary to our faith, and doing so means that we choose to disobey God and sin against Him despite of our faith. What is faith if we are not faithful? And many of us yet still live our faith in a very lukewarm manner, treating it as merely a formality and even as a chore. And that is the sad reality of the state of our Christian faith these days.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this Sunday therefore, through the readings of the Scriptures we have just heard today, all of us are called to do a deep self-introspection in our lives, looking at how each and every one of us can turn away from sin and from our wicked past and embrace instead the path of God’s love. And this is not easy, as following God’s path often requires us to make self-sacrifices, sacrifices of time and energy, and a lot of effort that often can be thankless and difficult.

Yet, as members of the Church, as Christians, this is what we are expected to do, to be bearers of the true faith, and to show love in all and every one of our actions in life. This is why we are called to show the ‘debt’ of love instead of having the ‘debt’ of sin. Let us all love each other, forgive one another our trespasses and faults, just as we ask the Lord to forgive us our sins, as we often say it in the Lord’s Prayer or Pater Noster we pray.

Let us be thankful to God, our loving Father for His constant love and providence, for His enduring compassion and His persistent mercy showed towards us. Let us all, in these difficult moments and times, show the love of God, our loving Father, through our actions and interactions with one another, that more and more people may come to know of the love of God, be touched by His love, and grow to have faith in Him just as we have believed in Him.

Let us bring forth the light of God’s hope and providence to this darkened world, giving hope and strength to our brethren who are suffering amidst all the effects of the continued global pandemic, economic instability and the collapse of many sectors of our world economy, the loss of many jobs and the loss of many sources of income for countless people all around the world. Let us share one another’s burden and bring some consolation, hope and love to each other, that through everything we do, we become true disciples and witnesses of Christ’s love in our world today.

May the Lord be with us always, and may He strengthen us all to be His faithful disciples, to love with all of our hearts and strength, loving Him and loving our fellow brothers and sisters, all brethren in the same Lord, helping and reminding each other to be faithful at all times by our actions and deeds. Let us never take God’s love for granted anymore and appreciate the love that He grant us each and every moments of our lives. May God bless us always, in our every endeavours, now and forevermore. Amen.